Chapter 13: The Map That Fell From the Sky

Suneo had been showing off the tablet for fifteen minutes and nobody had asked to see it yet.

This was a problem.

He held it at arm's length, tilting it slightly so the light from Nobita's bedroom window caught the surface. It was metal — not aluminum, not steel, something heavier and darker, like the color of the sky just before a storm. Strange marks covered one side. They looked like letters, except no alphabet Suneo had ever seen.

"My father bought it at a private auction," Suneo said. "In Geneva. Where they have the really important auctions. Not the regular ones."

Nobita was lying on his bed eating a piece of daifuku. Giant was sitting on the floor with his arms around his knees. Shizuka was reading a book. None of them looked at the tablet.

Suneo lifted it higher.

"It cost more than your houses. Combined."

Nobita stopped chewing. "Both houses?"

"Both houses," Suneo confirmed. "And the yard."

Giant looked up. "What does it do?"

"It's an artifact. From space. You don't ask what it does. You appreciate that it exists."

Doraemon had been sitting quietly in the corner, and now he stood up and walked over. He was shorter than the tablet. He reached up with both paws and tilted it toward himself, and his eyes went a bit wider than usual.

"Where did you say your father got this?"

"Private auction. In—"

"Geneva, yes." Doraemon turned the tablet over. Then back. Then sideways. He made a small sound. "Suneo. This is Andromedan script."

"Of course it is," Suneo said. "My father only buys authentic—"

"Do you know what Andromedan script is?"

"Obviously."

"It's the writing system of a galaxy two million light-years from Earth." Doraemon looked up at him. "This is a treasure map."

The room was very quiet.

Nobita sat up. The daifuku fell on the floor.

"A treasure map," Suneo said slowly.

"From the Andromeda galaxy," Doraemon said. "Specifically—" he squinted at the markings, reading from right to left the way you have to with Andromedan "—it describes something called the Treasure of Mirrors. It says the treasure is hidden across four planets. Each planet has a clue. The treasure is at the end." He paused. "And it grants the finder their deepest wish."

The room exploded.

Suneo did not join the noise. He stood very still, holding the tablet, and in his mind he saw mountains of gold. Not ordinary gold — alien gold, the kind that would be worth even more than regular gold because it was from space and nobody else had any. He saw rare jewels, enormous ones, with colors that didn't exist yet on Earth. He saw his classmates standing in a long line outside his house, waiting to see what he had brought back.

He saw everyone looking at him. Not just looking. Staring. Admiring.

"I want to go," he said.

Everyone was already looking at Doraemon.

"Space Suit Sets," Doraemon said, reaching into his pocket. He produced four silver suits, folded flat, each about the size of a handkerchief. When you shook them out, they expanded to full size. "Climate-controlled, atmosphere-filtered, self-sealing. Good for any planetary environment in the known universe, including moderate volcanic zones."

"Moderate," Nobita said.

"Don't go near volcanoes."

Doraemon opened the Anywhere Door. The destination was simple: the first coordinates on the map, which he'd photographed with his phone before Suneo could protest about people touching his property. He set the coordinates. The door swung open.

On the other side was a sky the color of plums.

They went through.

---

The first planet had three suns.

They hung in the sky at different heights, casting shadows in three directions at once. Suneo kept trying to figure out which shadow was his and getting confused. Giant gave up on shadows immediately. Shizuka looked at all three suns for exactly the time it took to confirm none of them were going to kill her, then returned to looking at the plants.

The plants were enormous.

Everything was enormous. Trees the size of apartment buildings, with roots that curved up out of the ground like the spines of buried animals. Flowers as big as swimming pools, petals that moved without wind. Grass that came up to Suneo's waist. Every leaf was some shade of green or gold or deep red, and the light from three suns fell on all of them differently.

Nobita said "wow" seven times in the first two minutes.

The map coordinates led them down a path — or what had been a path once, long ago, when something had walked along it regularly enough to keep the grass flat. Now it had mostly grown back. They pushed through, in single file, with Giant in front because Giant was the widest and made the easiest channel.

The path ended at a gate.

It was carved from dark stone, the same material as the tablet. Two pillars, a crossbeam, no door — just an opening with a screen of something shimmering in it, like a curtain made of very slow water. On the pillar to the right, more Andromedan script.

Doraemon translated.

"To enter, answer: What do you look at most but understand least?"

They all looked at the gate. The gate shimmered.

"That's easy," Giant said. "Homework."

The gate did nothing.

"Girls," Nobita said.

The gate did nothing.

"The future," Shizuka said. "We look at it all the time but we don't really understand it."

The gate did nothing.

They looked at each other. They looked at the gate. Suneo was staring at the script on the pillar, his forehead slightly creased.

"Yourself," he said.

The shimmer dissolved. The gate opened.

They walked through before anyone could say anything, but Suneo could feel the others looking at the back of his head. He kept walking.

"That was a very good answer," Shizuka said, from behind him.

"I read it in a book," Suneo said. "It was obvious."

He walked faster.

---

Beyond the gate, the path continued through a smaller section of forest where the trees were closer together and the triple shadows deepened into something almost night. Then it opened onto a clearing with a single rock at the center. The rock was pale crystal, about the size of a watermelon, and something was carved into it.

Doraemon photographed the carving. "Next coordinates," he said. "Second planet."

"That's it?" Giant said.

"The map is a sequence. Each planet leads to the next. The treasure is on the last one."

"How many planets?"

"Four."

Nobita looked at the crystal thoughtfully. "Are any of them dangerous?"

"Probably," Doraemon said.

"How probable?"

"Very."

Nobita absorbed this. "Okay," he said, and looked at the sky with the expression he wore when he had decided not to think about something.

Suneo was still looking at the gate behind them. He thought about the riddle again. What do you look at most but understand least? He had answered without thinking. It had just come out. And the gate had opened, which meant the gate agreed with him, which meant—

Something moved in the treeline.

He turned. There was nothing there. Tall plants, three-shadowed, the enormous trees beyond.

"Did you see something?" he said.

"Wind," Giant said.

Suneo looked for another moment. There was no wind. The plants at the edge of the clearing were completely still.

He turned back to the group.

Doraemon was already setting the Anywhere Door for the second planet. The door swung open onto a landscape of silver-white light.

Suneo looked at the treeline one more time.

A pair of eyes looked back. They were green, and they were amused, and they blinked once before disappearing entirely.

Suneo's throat went dry.

He stepped through the door.