“BAD, BAD, BAD, BAD, BAD FERRET.”

Exflibberaguil gasped for air, and continued. “Bad, bad, bad…”

“It’s not his fault,” Nick interjected, gasping as well, “that he…he…made those people chase us.”

“Yes, it is,” Exflibberaguil replied crossly, “He knows perfectly well I can’t run well. He should know to be more careful and not to be spotted. Can you stop sweating so much? It’s irritating.”

“What?” Nick replied loudly, bending over and panting some more. She was wearing the same black shirt she had on the first day. In their hurry to leave, Nick had not grabbed extra clothes from the ship. The black shirt she wore now was already soaked in sweat. She’d need a change of clothes very soon. “I can’t stop sweating. It’s unhealthy for us…us Odriews. We need some way to cool off.”

“The plural of Odriew is Sodriew, by the way,” Exflibberaguil corrected with the air of a superior, “And I sweat too, you know. But I can control it. On such a cool day, sweating will do no good. It would only make you colder.”

“I’m sorry. Maybe I’m too primitive to control the amount I sweat,” Nick mimicked in a snotty voice.

“As a matter of fact, you are,” Exflibberaguil answered, annoyingly oblivious of Nick’s glare. He was digging deep into his backpack, spilling all sort of odd gadgets everywhere. “Ah-ha!” he exclaimed, extracting an elegantly carved wooden bottle.

“What?”

“Would you like one?” he offered, holding out another, much plainer bottle to Nick.

“What is it?”

“Bubbles!”

“What?”

“Oh, stop repeating in the same thing,” Exflibberaguil snapped. “You’re sounding like Countdown. What, what, what, what. Is that all you say?”

“No!”

“Good. Then do you want it or not?” He stuck his arm out further, shaking the bottle in front of Nick’s nose.

Nick snatched the bottle. “But what is it?”

“I already told you! Bubbles! Don’t tell me your planet doesn’t have bubbles?”

“Of course we have bubbles! But why are you giving it to me?”

“Oh, for Zrillion’s sake!” Exflibberaguil groaned, “it’s one of the best parts about your planet! It’s against the Galactic Yelling Papers for minors to blow bubbles, but since your planet is excused from the rules, I can finally blow bubbles! It’s been, what, two time warps ago that I last entered the atmosphere of another primitive planet and tasted bubbles last. I’ve been saving this particular bubble solution until now!” He twisted the cap off the bottle, and a slender bubble wand appeared, connected to the cap.

The wand had more than a dozen different sized and shaped holes, twisted together like a complicated puzzle. In fact, one hole actually looked like a puzzle. Nick cautiously untwisted her bottle, and was dismayed to find one two holes: a large round one and a small square one. “What? I don’t get some fancy-pants wand?”

“Hey! Do you know how much those things cost?”

“I can just buy one at some convenience store.”

“Really?” Exflibberaguil breathed in wonder, “You must be wealthy.”

“Whatever. Let’s just go get that trailer.”

Nick had already searched her phone for an available trailer they could get. Even the closest dealer was at least a couple hour’s walk away. As a punishment for the ferret’s misbehavior, Exflibberaguil had strapped Box to the ferret’s back, along with the backpack it originally wore. Exflibberaguil was beginning to wear down now, from the heavy backpack and the lack of exercise he had on his ship. Nick wouldn’t have been surprised if the journey took twenty-four hours.

The group began walking along the sidewalk, joining the crowds as much as possible. The last thing they needed was have some crazy drug-addict sabotage them and rob them of the little money Nick had.

Exflibberaguil dipped his bubble wand in the little container. A thick, blue film now stretched between the holes. Bringing the wand to his face, Exflibberaguil blew hard. The bubbles expanded, but, to Nick’s surprised, not one of them popped. And some of them weren’t spherical at all. They kept the shape of the holes, only expanded.

“What?” Nick exclaimed.

“I’m getting awfully tired of hearing that word.”

“But…but that doesn’t make sense! Bubbles are supposed to be spherical because…because…” Nick stammered, “because that maximizes air storage or whatever! Bubbles don’t keep their shape!”

“These do,” Exflibberaguil replied simply.

Nick blew a bubble through her wand eagerly, and wasn’t disappointed. There were cubical bubbles! She dipped her bubble wand in the solution again, and blew as many bubbles as she could.

“Be careful!” Exflibberaguil warned, “don’t get addicted to bubbles. Bubbles can be very addictive! Almost as addictive as nickel teens if it isn’t handled correctly!”

“Nicotine?”

“Yes, that.”

Nick looked at her bubble wand doubtfully. “But what are the health risks of bubble blowing? So what if I get addicted?” Nick dipped the wand again.

“Of course there’s health risks! Eternal lip-pursing, constant dizziness, bubble sneezing…” Exflibberaguil ticked them off on his fingers, “There was this one Globbigrinckle who blew bubbles every few seconds. He claimed he’d have a heart attack if a bubble wand was not in his hand. Anyway, he began sniffing the bubble solution directly, and sneezing the bubbles out. Then he began drinking it, so he’d always have bubbles coming out of his mouth. He must have gone through twenty packs of Super Superb Solution a day. You have no idea what happened next.”

“What?”

“He died. I mean, did you ever expect him to life after drinking bubble solution?”

Nick frowned. “That was anticlimactic.”

“As are most stories.” Exflibberaguil dipped the wand in again, and blew through the puzzle-shaped hole. As they walked, Exflibberaguil began piecing the puzzle together again. Whenever a correct connection was made, the bubbles merged. Nick watched in wonder.

“Your home planet must have been nice before it was destroyed,” Nick remarked wistfully.

“I suppose. I don’t remember.”

“Why did you erase your own memories?”

Exflibberaguil connected another piece. “Oh, some things aren’t good to dwell upon. There’s no good in it.”

“But you would rather forget your troubles than learning from them?”

“I can learn nothing from them,” Exflibberaguil replied. “They only drag me down. I’m better off without troubling memories. That way I can move on.” Exflibberaguil paused. “You know, I’m quite certain that I’m not the only one who escaped from my planet alive. We Mustela are intelligent enough to have at least a thousand survivors. But I doubt many made it far without committing suicide.”

Exflibberaguil sighed. “I just don’t want to end in that same fate. Can you blame me for wanting to do something more with the rest of my life?”

Nick had nothing to say.