by Tom Hoffman
Sophia stepped over to the main console. “The wreckage is certainly old enough to be the MV Montrosian. There’s a thick layer of dirt and dust on everything.” She flicked her wrist and a large brush blinked into her paw. “This should help.”
Sophia brushed away the debris from the main console, stopping when she reached the center of the massive curved panel.
“Here’s our answer. Look at this.” Orville and Proto hurried over.
Sophia pointed to a gleaming gold plaque.
“The MV Montrosian. You were right, Proto.”
Sophia frowned. “Now I’m really confused. If this is the MV Montrosian then what was the wreckage the captain of the MV Bermitar was looking at? We saw him looking back at the spectral door when he was falling, and he seemed certain his ship had made it safely through. If the wreckage wasn’t from the Bermitar or the Montrosian, what was he looking at and what were the blue stones from?”
Proto thought for a moment. “We know the bridge of the MV Bermitar was hit. It is possible the captain was looking at wreckage from the bridge of the MV Bermitar but not the entire ship. There is only one way to find out. We must locate the Great Arch and visit the crash site.”
Orville had wandered off to the other side of the bridge and was peering into a row of storage compartments, their metal doors twisted and mangled from the crash.
“Look at all this stuff. Here’s one of those big battle suits the captain used to escape from the ship. Proto, what are these things? There’s six of them.” Orville dragged out a surprisingly light four foot long black cylinder with a small circle of round silver tabs on one end.
Proto’s eyes lit up. “You have found something which may save us a great deal of time and effort, if they are still functional.” Proto grabbed two of the cylinders and carried them toward the gash in the side of the ship. “We’ll need one more.”
Orville and Sophia carried the third cylinder outside and lay it down next to the other two. “What are they?”
Proto grinned. “They were a creation of the Elders, but found their way to many different worlds and were in use for centuries. They were very popular and most commonly referred to as floaters.”
“What do they do? Are they some kind of boat or something?”
Proto motioned for Sophia and Orville to step away from the black cylinders. He picked one up and flipped it over. “They’re powered by MicroCDETS so there’s a good chance they’re still functional.” He tapped a round button and a violet light blinked on. “We have power.” He pressed the three remaining tabs simultaneously and stepped back. There was a soft whirring noise and the cylinder began decreasing in height while simultaneously increasing in width. Moments later it had spread out to form a perfect five foot wide circular disk. There was an odd crackling noise and the black disk hardened.
“What’s it doing?”
Proto planted one foot on a six inch wide gold circle in the center of the floater and a silver shaft whirred up from inside the disk. A pair of cylindrical black handgrips flipped open at the top of the shaft.
Orville tilted his head, still baffled. “What is it?”
Proto placed one hand on each grip. “Their nickname rather succinctly describes their function. They’re called floaters because they float.” He twisted the left grip and with a low hum the black disk rose three feet above the ground. He twisted the right grip and the floater darted forward.
Sophia gave a shriek. “Now that looks like fun! Hey, Orville, I think a floater race is just what we need to decide who’s the big purple monkey butt and who isn’t, although I already know the answer to that question.”
Five minutes later the three adventurers were streaking along across the rocky terrain at over thirty miles an hour.
“Whoo hoo!” Sophia twisted the left grip of her floater and shot past Orville, soaring forty feet up into the air.
“Don’t go so high! It’s too dangerous!”
“Sorry, grandmum, did I scare you? Am I going too fast? Maybe you should stop and have a nice warm cup of tea, grandmum Orville!”
“You’re the grandmum, not me!” Orville twisted the left grip forward and blasted ahead at over fifty miles an hour. Even at that speed the floater felt as stable as solid ground. He leaned to the left and twisted the right grip, streaking up into the air next to Sophia, who shrieked with laughter.
“Nice try, but no one outflies the nefarious Captain Sophia!” She leaned sharply to the right and twisted the left grip back, flashing down toward the ground, streaking across the landscape.
“And no one escapes the dread pirate Orville!” Ten seconds later Orville was racing alongside Sophia at seventy miles an hour. “Why so slow, big purple monkey–” Orville never finished his sentence. He had caught sight of something shimmering in the distance. “Look!”
Sophia saw it immediately and slowed her floater down until it was hovering silently. “The Great Arch!” She looked behind her and spotted Proto approaching rapidly.
Proto pointed to the arch and waved them forward. “That’s it, that’s where the captain of the MV Bermitar landed.” The three floaters raced off toward the tall rocky landmark.
Orville was scooting along at thirty miles an hour, the wind whistling in his ears when he heard the noise. It was a barely audible clinking sound, like two small glasses bumping together. “Do you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“That clinking sound?” Orville eyed his floater for any malfunction, then the other two, but they all seemed to be working perfectly.
Sophia glanced behind them and gave a shout. “Look what’s following you!”
Orville turned. “Creekers!” There was an eight inch sparkling blue translucent sphere racing along the ground behind him. “It’s the blue marble Papa gave me! Look how big it is!”
“It must have found more blue stones and now it’s heading toward the crash site!”
“Follow it! It will lead us to the stones.”
The three floaters let the blue marble pass them, then matched its speed.
Orville was wearing a huge grin. “I found Papa’s marble!”
“Or maybe the marble found you.”
Chapter 21
Some Reassembly Required
The blue marble raced across the rocky plains, leaping over rocks and veering wildly around the larger obstacles. Orville was stunned by the marble’s new behavior. “It’s jumping over things! How is that possible?”
“Your papa’s marble is a far more complex object than I had originally thought. It’s possible it contains a primitive form of engineered intelligence. I wish I knew precisely where your papa had found it.”
The marble continued on toward the arch, its speed increasing. “It’s going faster! We must be getting closer to the blue stones.” The floaters were skimming across the rocky terrain at forty miles an hour now, the blue marble leaping over any obstacle in its path.
“It’s turning!” The marble veered sharply to the right. The three adventurers kept pace with it for another five minutes until Orville cried out, “Wreckage ahead! This must be the captain’s landing site!”
“The marble is slowing down!”
Orville reduced the speed of his floater, traveling alongside the blue marble. The glass sphere veered sharply to the left, darting behind a twisted pile of metallic debris. Orville zipped up over the gleaming wreckage. “It found a blue stone!”
Sophia and Proto flashed up behind Orville, watching as a blue stone the size of an orange liquified and was absorbed into the sparkling marble. The marble darted off, larger than before. The three adventurers trailed behind it, watching it leap over a two foot tall rock, bounding across the rocky terrain. “More blue stones! Look at them all!”
The marble skidded to a halt in the middle of an open area strewn with several dozen of the translucent stones. The thin white lines inside the marble glowed brightly. All the blue stones liquified simultaneously, streaming across the rocky surface into the glow
ing marble.
Orville gaped at the size of the glass sphere. “Look how big it’s getting! It’s at least a foot across now.”
Sophia called out, “You two keep an eye on the marble. I’m going to look for the captain’s landing spot and try to identify this wreckage. It has to be from something. There’s not enough for an entire ship, so Proto might be right, it could be the bridge of the MV Bermitar.”
She shot across the rock strewn landscape, quickly reaching the base of the arch. “Amazing!” Sophia twisted the left handgrip and shot four hundred feet straight up to the top of the massive curved formation. “This is perfect, the top is flat enough and wide enough for me to land.” She set the floater down on the arch, making certain it was stable.
“This should do nicely.” Sophia slung off her pack and rummaged through it, pulling out her Mintarian tracking goggles and the flying goggles given to her by Mirus Mouse. She strapped the tracking goggles on and gazed across the debris field. Three bright orange lights showed up. “That must be Orville, Proto, and the marble. Curious that the marble would leave a residual energy trail similar to Proto’s.”
As she scanned the area below the arch she noticed dozens of dim orange lights. “What in the world are those?” Even when she used her magnified flight goggles she couldn’t make out the nature of the small orange lights. “Only one way to find out. There’s a group of them next to that big flat boulder. I’ll fly down.”
Sophia rode the floater down to the area containing the dim orange lights. She slowed to a hover and studied the ground. “Blue stones. That makes sense, the big blue marble is absorbing them so they must be made of the same–” Sophia froze, a sudden brilliant insight popping into her mind.
“It’s reassembling! Whatever this thing is, it was in the ship the Anarkkians blasted with a heavy beam pulsar weapon and was shattered into a thousand pieces. Now it’s rolling around and gathering up all the pieces, reassembling into its original form. But what in the world is it?”
Sophia was about to lift off when Orville’s mysterious blue marble bounded over a rock and landed in the center of the blue stones. Orville and Proto appeared seconds later, hovering thirty feet in the air.
Sophia cried out, “I know what’s happening!” She soared up next to Orville and Proto. “The blue marble was shattered by the Anarkkians, and now it’s running around and collecting all the pieces!”
Proto said, “It’s reassembling itself! Why didn’t I think of that? Brilliant!”
Orville looked dubious. “How is that possible? How would it know to do that?”
Proto replied, “I completely misjudged the nature of its engineered intelligence. It does not have primitive engineered intelligence, it has extremely advanced EI, more advanced than anything I’ve ever seen. This is most astonishing. I believe the marble your papa gave you contained the neuronic core of the creature’s programming. More succinctly, the marble was the creature’s brain. It must have had consciousness but no means to communicate. It did have the ability to roll, and when it sensed the presence of the shattered pieces of its former body it rolled toward them and reabsorbed them. It is capable of self-healing, of restoring itself to its original form.”
“That doesn’t seem possible.”
Sophia gave a sigh. “Of course it’s possible. What happens when you accidentally cut your paw? Your body heals itself. It stops the bleeding and repairs the damage. Why couldn’t this creature do the same thing?”
“I guess that kind of makes sense. It’s just that it was blasted into a million pieces.”
“It’s brain wasn’t damaged though. That’s the part that’s doing the healing.”
“Look! The blue stones are turning to liquid!”
The three adventurers watched a dozen shattered blue fragments liquify and flow across the ground, quickly being absorbed by the blue marble.
“It’s getting bigger!” Orville was about to guess the current size of the marble when he stopped, his eyes focused on the bottom half of the blue marble. “What is that? What’s it doing?” The marble’s shape was changing, two protrusions emerging from the lower hemisphere.
Sophia’s eyebrows jumped up. “Are those legs? Is it growing legs?”
The blue marble was now perched atop what appeared to be spindly legs. As it balanced precariously on the new appendages, a foot formed at the end of each leg. The creature performed a curious hopping dance, as though testing its balance and the strength of its new legs. Before Sophia had time to fully understand the creature’s behavior it took off running, disappearing behind a large boulder.
Orville gaped at Sophia. “Did you see that? It’s running! It has legs and feet!”
“We have to follow it! This is what we were sent here to find! I’m certain it’s turning into something that will help us prevent time from stopping! Hurry, we can’t lose it!” Sophia twisted the left grip on her floater and shot fifty feet into the air. She spotted the blue creature darting between rocks, heading away from the arch. “He’s traveling east!”
Orville and Proto flashed up next to her. “Use your tracking goggles. He must be after more blue fragments.”
“Good idea.” Sophia slipped on her Mintarian goggles and scanned the landscape. “Found it! About a half mile to the east there’s a broad field of orange light. There must be a thousand blue stones, maybe more. Let’s go!” Sophia’s floater shot forward, Orville and Proto following in her wake.
Chapter 22
Abacus
“There it is!” Orville pointed to a massive sloping plain ahead of them. “He’s on the right side of that big round rock.”
Sophia leaned sharply to the right and sent her floater behind the massive boulder, out of the creature’s line of sight. Orville and Proto darted up next to her, all three floaters now hovering silently. “I don’t want to scare it. I think it’s almost finished reassembling and it might be able to escape from us once it’s reassembled.”
Orville nodded, inching his floater around the boulder until he spotted the creature. His voice was hushed and low. “I can see it. You were right, there are hundreds and hundreds of blue shards. The stones are glowing when he gets close to them, then turn to liquid and he absorbs them. Umm... I think it might be growing arms.”
“What?”
“Growing arms, I think it’s growing arms. And a head.”
Sophia eased her floater up until she could see over the rock. Orville was right, the creature now had two new protuberances which bore a resemblance to arms. It’s once spherical torso had extended vertically, a bulbous addition forming above a narrow neck. “It’s absorbed all the shards! I think it’s close to–.” Sophia gave a loud yelp. The creature had emitted a blindingly brilliant flash of light. “It’s gone! The creature is gone!”
“We have to find it!” Orville flashed around the boulder out onto the broad rocky plain. “It was right here. Where could it have gone? Do you think it knows how to blink?”
Sophia floated down next to Orville. “Proto, have you ever heard of automatons who can blink?”
“An excellent question, but difficult to answer. Certainly there are a great number of technologically advanced modes of transportation involving the conversion of solid matter into–”
“Look! Over there, right where he was standing!”
“I don’t see anything.”
“There’s something shimmering, like when heat makes the air ripple.”
“I see it now. It’s taking form. What is that?”
“It has to be the creature, but it’s so tall.”
“And thin, really thin.”
The three adventurers watched in wonder as the creature transformed into solid physical matter before their startled eyes.
Orville was speechless. The spindly blue being was over seven feet tall with slender arms and legs. Perched atop an elongated neck was an oval head with glowing white eyes. Its body was the same translucent blue as the original marble, except for the ends of its fin
gers, which were oddly bulbous and glowing with a brilliant pink light. Orville could see the same thin irregular white lines running through the creature’s form.
Orville, Sophia, and Proto stood silently, waiting to see what the strange creature would do. Much to Orville’s dismay it turned and looked directly at him.
“Why is it looking at me? What does it want?”
“Hush. It’s not going to hurt us. Just wait.”
The ends of the creature’s fingers pulsed brightly, its white eyes focused directly on Orville. It began walking toward him.
“It’s not going to hurt me? You’re sure?”
“Quiet.”
Orville’s knees were shaking. The creature was standing directly in front of him. It reached out and grasped Orville’s paw with its long slender hands. Orville could scarcely breathe. The creature released Orville’s paw, then cupped its hands together.
“What’s it doing?”
“I think it wants you to give it something.”
“What could it want? I don’t have anything.”
An image popped into Sophia’s mind. “The marble you found in the last mechanic’s shop! That’s what it wants!”
“That must be it! That’s why your inner voice sent us off on that wild spider chase.” Orville slung his pack to the ground and rummaged through it until he found the marble. He dropped it into the creature’s waiting hands.
The creature bowed its head, then stepped away from the three adventurers. Its brilliant white eyes closed as it clasped the marble, an array of small lights flashing wildly throughout its body. Before Orville realized what was happening, the creature had popped the marble into its mouth and swallowed it. The marble traveled down through the blue translucent torso until it reached the center of the creature’s body.
Sophia jumped when the creature let loose with a great warbling cry. Thousands of tiny lights flashed and whirled about inside its body. It grew rigid, the lights multiplying beyond measure. Orville gave an involuntary squeak of fright when the stars and planets and galaxies appeared around them. They surrounded the creature, surrounded the three adventurers, extending in all directions as far as they could see. A trillion stars, a trillion galaxies, endless nebulae, gas clouds, and exploding suns rippling in strange dark energy waves of unknown substance and form. Orville was losing his balance in the midst of the swirling universe. It vanished in an instant, sucked back into the creature, the stars and galaxies and planets now inside its sparkling blue form. The creature wrapped its long slender arms around itself and sang a low rippling note that echoed off the surrounding rocks.
