Akiko on the Planet Smoo by Mark Crilley Page A

and this time Mr. Beeba translated it for us right away.
    â€œPoog says they’re taking us to some sort of giant Sky Cove,” Mr. Beeba said, his voice suddenly filled with dread.
    â€œThe Sky Cove?” Spuckler cried, apparently thinking that this was a stroke of good luck. “Aw, this is gonna be great! When I was a kid I used to
dream
about goin’ to the Sky Cove!”
    â€œIs it a nice place?” I asked.
    â€œNo, it’s a really
scary
place, Akiko,” Spuckler explained with a grin. “There ain’t nothin’ there but thieves and robbers and all kinds of monsters and stuff. But I’ve still always wanted to go there, just to see what it’s like.”
    Before long the Sky Cove came into view. It was made up of hundreds of buildings, like a huge dark city floating out in the middle of the sky. The whole place was black and shadowy, with streams of smoke pouring out of crooked chimneys that stretched high up above the rooftops. I could tell just by looking at the place that it was every bit as scary as Spuckler had said it would be.
    Spuckler was still excited, though.
    â€œHey, look! They got a sports arena!” he cried, sounding like a little boy in a toy store. “I wonder what kind of games they play.”

    Meanwhile Mr. Beeba and I were getting more and more nervous as the ship slowly moved in closer and closer. Soon we could actually see some of the people who lived in the Sky Cove. They were just as scary-looking as the Sky Pirates. Some of them were even scarier. There were people of all shapes and sizes, all of them dressed in dark ragged clothes and many of them carrying swords and knives. A few of them had their hair tied up and pasted into weird spidery shapes, and others had dark tattoos all over their faces and arms. One or two that I saw even had things growing out of their heads that looked like horns! As our enormous ship came floating into the city, they looked up one by one, then went back to talking to one another.
    â€œSpuckler,” I asked, “what do all these people
do
?”
    â€œSteal stuff, mostly,” he replied, as if it were a respectable profession. “They hardly ever kill people, ’less they really
have
to.”
    It occurred to me that the reason Spuckler wasn’t scared of the Sky Pirates was because he actually
liked
them for some reason. Who knows? Maybe he’d always wanted to be a pirate when he was a kid. As for me, I was hoping we’d be able to get away from these people as soon as possible. They gave me the creeps, every last one of them.

Finally the whole ship was pulled up to a dock and secured there by ropes tied to posts. It was just like being in a harbor, except there wasn’t any water: I don’t know
what
was holding everything up. But I’d already given up trying to figure it out. All the stuff I’d learned about gravity in my science classes just didn’t seem to apply here. None of it made much sense, and I’d go crazy if I thought about it too much.
    By then I was really hoping they’d come and untie us. The ropes were starting to hurt, and Poog looked like he was getting awfully uncomfortable. Mr. Beeba looked thoroughly exhausted, and Gax had spun around so many times I think he was starting to get a little dizzy. But the Sky Pirates weren’t done with us yet.
    A couple of men wearing nice clean suits and enormous top hats came aboard the ship and began discussing something with the Sky Pirates. They pointed up at us one by one and hissed at each another in their weird whispery language. The Sky Pirates crossed their arms and spoke in very short sentences. The two men made elaborate gestures and wagged their fingers in front of their faces. The whole thing looked like a routine they had gone through many times before.
    â€œWell, Spuckler,” Mr. Beeba finally asked, “what do you make of all this?”
    â€œI’ve seen this sort of thing