51 Planets to See Before the Universe Collapses

demursh (deh-mersh)

Scort Muggins, Human Year 3253:

Meiti was all the way on the other side of the universe, so Pleeft, Luskem, and I decided on a handful of pit stops along the way. After dropping off Bemvie back on Wimber… and enjoying another cup of fun juice, we set off for the first stop. 

We had to proceed with caution when traveling to Demursh. It was the largest planet that we visited and had a gravity similar to the human sun, which meant that I was dealing with about 74 G’s of Mars gravity. That meant that without my anti-gravity suit, I weighed about 2,721.5 kilograms. I’m embarrassed to say that that meant I was a bloated 37.6 kilograms on Mars… I should’ve planned for this drastic change in gravity and lost some weight. Unfortunately, my anti-gravity suit could only handle about 60 G’s, so I was still carrying around over 521.6 kilograms while on the planet. 

When I entered the Demursh atmosphere, I immediately sunk into my chair. It was impossible to hold up my arms to steer, so I turned on autopilot with a voice command. [Note: For the record, this was the first time I used autopilot because I’m an incredible pilot and can fly through anything.] I mustered the strength to turn my head to Luskem in the passenger seat. They were struggling underneath the gravity just as much as I was. 

My muscles weren’t what they used to be after my travels, and I quickly fell to the floor of my ship after I got out of my seat. I was able to drag myself along the spaceship floor and saw Pleeft hanging over her pot, unable to keep standing. Luskem didn’t even try to get out of the passenger seat. I pressed the button to exit the ship… only after several unsuccessful attempts to lift my ungodly heavy arm to reach the button. I rolled myself onto the dusty surface of Demursh, but I knew I wouldn’t make it far. It would be difficult to experience much on this planet, and now I’d have to figure out how to make it back into my seat. 

As I laid motionless on the Demursh surface, it gradually began to move. I found myself being carried away from my ship, moving with the ground. Of course, this wasn’t the actual ground of Demursh. I was on top of a pod of Demurgians. Each individual being had a hard, circular shell of about two meters in diameter and stood only a quarter meter tall on top of hundreds of legs working in tandem and dividing up the immense pressure from the planet’s gravity. They were the same tan color as the gravel-covered surface and blended in incredibly. (See Figure 26.1)

My chest was heavy and breathing was difficult, so I had to choose my words wisely when I spoke to the Demurgians. While I rode on their backs, they did most of the talking. Their structures on the planet were never any taller than half a meter - taller structures would’ve been difficult to support under the pressure. Their four suns were all red dwarfs, and actually revolved around Demursh instead of the other way around. There were no animals that could fly, and the plants were never able to grow taller than a meter at most. 

The Demurgians traveled as a pod to graze on the nearby flora. I tried some, but it definitely wasn’t worth the effort of putting it into my mouth. 

They didn’t spend much time looking up - nothing could fly on the planet so their curiosity about the sky and what laid beyond was minimal. Instead, they explored the ground beneath them, but even that was short lived because it was impossible to drill. Demursh was far too dense to penetrate much of the planet’s crust. The species quickly gave up trying. When I told them about the universe and the Human Galactic, they were thrilled and said that they would immediately begin work on a space project. As they brought me back to my ship, I wished them good luck, but I knew it would be a very long time until they figured out how to harness the energy required to get off of such a massive planet. Resources they probably didn’t have. I didn’t tell them that though. That’d be mean. 

Thankfully, they helped hoist me up into my seat in my spaceship. Luskem was able to get a glimpse of the Demurgians and gave a quick hello followed by an immediate goodbye. I prepped the ship for departure and passed out instantly after it took off. My body couldn’t withstand the G’s we experienced while leaving the atmosphere. 

I knew that being on a planet with such incredible gravity would have made time travel much more slowly. Sixteen human years had passed while I was on Demursh. I got several video messages from my editor who lost faith in the blog, regained enthusiasm for the blog, lost faith again, and regained enthusiasm once more. I even got some video messages from my mother. She had gotten off the pills and went to rehab. Then she relapsed. Went to rehab three more times, then relapsed again. I couldn’t tell if she would remember sending the latest message - I’m sure she wasn’t sober. But I was able to make out some things…

“...No longer under investigation… everyone lost interest… your father…”

I pieced together that she was safe and people either didn’t believe that my mom and I were involved in my father’s disappearance anymore or... my father had finally reappeared. I prepared to watch an emotional video message from my aging, regretful father. Maybe explaining where he disappeared to. Maybe confronting his past demons. Maybe apologizing for leaving me. 

I received nothing.

RATINGS

Hospitality — 4/10
Food — 2/10
Sights — 2/10
Activities — 1/10
Family Friendly — 3/10
Rapidly Gaining Weight — 1/10