The Fifth Element

20

“Sir, we’re finally getting something!”

First Class! What’s not to like?

Particularly with the new FTL (Faster than Light) Warp-Hop-FoId&Jump drive, which uses the elasticity of stretched superstrings to pull both Space and Time into conveniently traversed, commercially viable trade and travel routes.

Certainly, Leeloo and Korben were enjoying their trip.

In Korben’s first-class cabinette they slept soundly. Leeloo’s little hand was cuddled comfortably in Korben’s big one, just as the two of them were cuddled in the warm, safe passenger area of the quarter-mile-long intragalactic shuttle.

Across the galaxy, however, a malevolent force was waiting:

The Dark Planet.

The Ultimate Evil.

Lights flashed across its surface, like random electric storms.

Nearby (relatively) in the admiral’s starship, a technician turned away from her view screen.

Across the galaxy in the other direction, the President was slumped at his desk.

A giant of a man, President Lindberg had, like Lincoln (an ancient leader of one of the constituent political entities of the United Federation), poor posture.

“It’s sending out radio signals!” said one of the President’s scientists, who was standing with the other scientists behind the line of generals.

The President groaned. “What the hell does it [want with radio waves?”

“Maybe,” the scientist said, “it wants to make a call”

The President and all the generals turned and looked at him in astonishment.

Zorg sat in his office at his teak desk.

He loved his desk.

The last teak tree on the planet had been cut down and sawed up to make his desk That made it

Picasso sat (or slumped, or squatted, or whatever it is that whatever it was does) on the desk, purring contentedly.

(Or whatever.)

BBBRRRIIINNNNGf The phone rang.

Picasso growled. (Or whatever.)

Zorg activated the intercom.

“I told you, I don’t want to be disturbed!”

“Mister Shadow on the line,” said the receptionist, enunciating slowly.

Zorg got to his feet. Picasso tumbled (or what

ever) to the floor.

Zorg picked up the phone with trembling

hands.

“Zorg here.”

The voice that came through was dim, weak, feeble, as if it came from the remotest reaches of Time and Space.

But it was no less impressive for all that.

“AM I DISTURBING YOU?”

“No! No! Not at all. Where are you?”

“NOT FAR NOW.”

“Gr-great!” stammered Zorg.

“HOW’S OUR DEAL COMING ALONG?”

“F-fine,” Zorg stammered. “Just fine. I’ll have the four stones you asked for anytime now. But it wasn’t easy.”

Silence on the line,

A black, slimy liquid began to ooze from the top of Zorg’s head.

“MONEY IS OF NO IMPORTANCE,” said the voice on Zorg’s line. “I WANT THE STONES.”

“The stones will be here,” Zorg said in terror. The black liquid was oozing from his skull, over his brow, down his narrow sunken cheeks. “I’ll see to it personally!”

“I CAN’T WAIT TO BE AMONG YOU.”

The line clicked.

Dead.

Instead of hanging up, Zorg stood motionless in the center of his palatial office.

The black liquid was slowly fading from his face.

Only his trembling hands showed his total terror.

Across the galaxy, the Dark Planet was suddenly lifeless.

Dead.

“We lost it,” said the tech on the bridge of the Admiral’s starship.

“We lost the signal,” said the general who stood by his side, speaking by direct FTL link to the United Federation headquarters in Manhattan, New York, Earth.

“Shit!” said the President.

“Aaaarrrggghhh!” screamed (or whatever) Picasso as Zorg sat on him absentmindedly.

“Sorry.”

Zorg hung up the phone. His hand was still shaking,

“We got something!” said General Munro, rushing excitedly into the President’s office.

He was almost fully recovered from his sojourn in Korben’s freezer. Only a few black frostbitten fingertips remained to be amputated.

“What do you have?”

“A location,” said Munro. “The signal came here. The contact was on Earth. Somewhere in the northern hemisphere.”

President Lindberg raised his huge eyebrows. The gesture was as impressive as the opening of a hangar door. “This—thing—knows someone on Earth? General, warn your man. He could have trouble. Tell him to keep his eyes open.”

General Munro saluted, then rushed out.

Peace prevailed in First Class Cabinette #318 of the intragalactic shuttle starship, Pride of Brooklyn. Korben was snoring gently.

Leeloo lay awake in his arms, watching him sleep. A flicker of what might have been love shone in her deep green eyes.

A kilometer ahead, in the cockpit, the captain clicked the last of a row of switches.

klikklikklikklik!

“Leaving light speed.”

The starship shuddered only slightly.

More like a snuggle, really—back into the familiar, comforting arms of Newtonian space.

Light filled the cabinette.

Korben stirred but didn’t wake.

Leeloo, was awake but not stirring.

What was more beautiful—the face she turned on Korben? Or the turquoise, cloud-flecked planet seen through the window, toward which the shuttle was swiftly descending?

“Ladies and gentlemen,” came the Head-Stewardess’s voice. “We have begun our final descent toward Fhloston Paradise. The local time is 3:28 P.M. The outside temperature is a constant 82 degrees Fahrenheit. We hope you enjoyed your flight today, and we hope to see you again soon.”

In the corridor, stewardesses were pressing the wakeup buttons on the cabinettes, one by one.

In one cabinette, Loc Rhod and the stewardess awoke with a start and began straightening their clothes.

The stewardess was embarrassed, but only lightly. The man who had ravished her was, after all, one of the most famous supercelebrities in the

“I wanted to tell you…” she began.

Loc Rhod silenced her with a finger to her lips. Dropping his sunglasses over his eyes, he left the cabinette—and left the stewardess to her sighs.

Clouds whipped by the wings like half-acknowledged thoughts as the shuttle drifted down toward a turquoise sea.

Hovering a dozen yards above the water was the Fhloston Paradise, a great floating hotel, modeled after the cruise ships of the past.

The shuttle suddenly appeared tiny as it drew near the great resort liner—like a sardine approaching a whale.

The stewardess hit the button on top of Korben’s cabinette, and he awoke.

He looked around.

Where was Leeloo?

He panicked.

The captain slid the shuttle into the receiving dock on the Phloston Paradise.

Airlocks equalized, and the two-story-high door opened.

The most eager of the shuttle’s passengers were already gathered at the door, waiting. When the door opened, they flooded off into the broad decks of the most luxurious liner in the known universe, decorated and appointed to resemble the fabulous Normandie of twentieth-century Earth.

Near the front of the crowd was Leeloo.

“Excuse me.”

At the back of the crowd was Korben Dallas. “Pardon me!” Korben jostled, hustled, fumbled, wedged and squeezed his way through the crowd of eager vacationers, trying to get to the front of the line.

“Hey, dude! You can’t just…”

“I’m trying to find my wife,” Korben muttered. He pushed the complainer against the wall. “Sorry!” At the end of the passageway, just inside the reception deck of the Fhloston Paradise, a phalanx of cops in full riot gear waited.

For what?

Leeloo saw them and stopped; she squeezed her-self against the wall and let the crowd go by. Meanwhile Korben had almost caught up with her. A gorgeous topless hostess in a grass skirt dropped a lei around his neck.

“Welcome to Paradise,” she said—and planted a kiss on his lips.

Korben’s eyes rolled wildly as he tried to break away. Where was Leeloo?

Then he saw her.

A fat man in a sarong—also topless—was dropping a lei around Leeloo’s neck.

He smiled and planted a wet kiss on her lips—

“A mistake,” Korben whispered, as he saw the fat man straighten up suddenly.

He was still smiling, but his nose was spurting | blood as he sank slowly to the floor.

“Never without permission,” muttered Korben. He pushed on through the crowd toward Leeloo, wiping the lipstick from his face.

But she was gone.

After decking the dude, Leeloo ducked around a comer and saw a door marked Personnel Only.

She stopped and punched random numbers into the code lock.

Nothing happened.

Looking over her shoulder, she twisted the knob. Crack!

She opened the door.

Oops.

Three cops sat on three toilets, reading mail-order catalogs.

They looked up at her.

Leeloo smiled and dosed the door behind her.

Where was Leeloo?

Always pushing toward the front, Korben followed the crowd through a high arched door, into the reception deck of the Fhloston Paradise.

Suddenly behind him he heard a shriek, followed by a chorus of oohs and aaaahsl It was Loc Rhod—and he was heading straight for Korben.

The crowd parted around him like the sea around the prow of a speedboat.

A talking speedboat.

“My main man!!” Loc Rhod said, grabbing Korben’s arm. “Please don’t leave me here alone!! My head is killing me and my adoring fans are going to tear me apart!! Get me outta here!!” Korben pulled back—then took pity on the DJ. “I’ll take you to the bar,” he said. “After that, you’re on your own. Okay?”

“Oh, green!” said Loc Rhod, clutching Korben’s arm as if it were a life preserver. “Do that!! You treat me right, man!! I need more friends like you!! So tell me all about yourself: your roots, your personal life, your childhood dreams!!” “I don’t think this is a good time,” said Korben distractedly. He was still scanning the crowd for Leeloo.

“You got brothers and sisters??” asked Loc Rhod. “What about your daddy?? Tell me about your daddy!! What was he like?? Physically, I mean!! Big, I suppose??”

“Yeah, very big…” said Korben, standing on his tiptoes, still trying to see into every corner of the crowded deck.

No luck.

No Leeloo.

He dragged Loc Rhod toward the bar, and cleared a space for the two of them.

Loc Rhod was still babbling.

“I never had a dad!! Never saw him!! Never even heard him!! Fifty billion people hear me every day, and he doesn’t hear me…”

“I understand,” said Korben, placing his hand on Loc Rhod’s shoulder. “You’re at the bar. Ciao!” Loc Rhod turned to thank Korben, who was already gone.

“How can he leave me like this!!”

A voice at his elbow interrupted the DJ’s self-pitying reverie.

“Mr. Rhod! I’m the manager of the hotel. Welcome to Paradise! The Princess Aachen of Minas Japhet would like to share a drink with you.”

Loc Rhod looked at the manager, uncomprehendingly. Then he looked down the bar to where the manager’s finger was pointing.

He raised his sunglasses and saw a young woman in an impossibly brief dress with an improbably welcoming smile.

Loc Rhod’s smile widened to match hers.

“Green…”

“Shit!” he said. “Parasites again!”

The copilot looked at the light, pressed a button for a location readout, and shook his head uncomprehendingly.

It wasn’t the wheel well.

He got out of his barca and walked to the rear of the cockpit. He reached up and unscrewed an overhead electronics access panel.

The door swung open and Father Cornelius fell out, dangling from a tangle of wires.

“Have we arrived yet?” the priest asked.