by Gabriel Just
yelled and pointed at a formation of sand.
Since the whole surface of Kevar 7 was covered with dunes, this information was not particularly useful.
“Which dune?” Kobb wanted to narrow it down.
“Are you blind? The big one, next to the tent. Give me the control stick!”
Professor Tinwin pushed his assistant away from the pilot’s seat and tilted the shuttle downwards, which resulted in a rather quick descend. Tinwin knew that the shuttle was equipped with brakes, but was convinced that sand provided much better deceleration. He steered the vehicle directly into the dune and it came to a full stop rather quickly. At this time, however, it was already buried halfway in the sand with its nose pointing directly downwards. Vertical landing maneuvers like this one were the main reason Kobb normally piloted all vehicles.
To reach the airlock of the shuttle, that was now 90 degrees rotated away from its intended orientation, Tinwin had to climb on Kobb’s back, who had gotten accustomed to being used as a footstep long ago. As soon as the professor opened the door, hot sand poured in and was distributed equally among the control panels of the ship as well as Kobb’s face.
“Don’t worry about that, Kobb,” Professor Tinwin said to cheer him up. “There will be plenty of time for you to clean the shuttle later. You don’t have to do it right away.”
Kobb’s response was nearly automated. It was something he said everytime, he had the urge to kill his professor.
“Yes, Professor Tinwin. Thank you, Professor Tinwin.”
Eager to begin work, Tinwin jumped out of the shuttle, reluctantly followed by his assistant, who carried two large backpacks of supplies and archeological equipment.
“It sure is hot here,” Kobb noted.
“Of course it is. It wouldn’t be much of a desert planet otherwise, would it.”
Kobb found dozens of examples of cold or temperate deserts, like arctic deserts or concrete deserts, but decided to stick with his usual reply.
“Yes, Professor Tinwin. Thank you, Professor Tinwin.”
“You see, Kobb, the most important thing on such field trips is to be prepared. I packed a lot of water, protective clothing and even a mobile shade generation unit. How did you prepare for the trip?”
Kobb, who had to carry all the things packed by the professor, including the parasol, had of course not been able to prepare anything at all, since he had been informed about this trip only minutes in advance.
“You didn’t tell me we were going to a hot desert planet, remember?”
“Yes, I recall that. It was meant as a test, to see how well you can prepare for an excursion into unknown territory in less than two minutes. And I must say, that you failed across the board. But see this as an opportunity. After a few hours without water, food or shade you will soon find out what you miss most.”
“Yes, Professor Tinwin. Thank you, Professor Tinwin.”
Moments later they reached the tent, where Vekitt already waited for them. Vekitt was one of Tinwin’s most promising students. The promise however was, that he would never pursue an academic career. He had a lot of qualities that were important for a scientist, like dedication, enthusiasm and perseverance, but lacked all those which were essential, like the ability to add two real numbers that were bigger than three. The large Hironian used all four of his hands to wave at Tinwin, thereby dropping two shovels he previously had been holding.
“Hello, Professor Tinwin. Thank you for coming on such short notice. You won’t regret it. I really found something remarkable.”
“To be honest, your call came as a big surprise,” Tinwin confessed. “When I sent you on this planet I was fairly sure that there had never been a civilization here. I thought with all the sand, you could do a lot of digging, without the risk of finding something and having to catalogue it.”
“That is very kind of you,” Vekitt said. “Digging is by far the best bit of archeology. But now that I found something, I really need your help.”
“Tell me exactly what happened. What did you find?”
“I was digging as usual, when suddenly I hit something very stony.”
“Maybe a stone?” Kobb asked sarcastically.
“Yes, that’s the word. A stone. It was too big to lift, even for me. And it didn’t look like an ordinary stone. There were symbols and markings all over it. So I hit it with my shovel as hard as I could, but it didn’t break. So I thought, it might be best to call you right away. Maybe, if we all hit it with a shovel together, we can crack it.”
“Although your intentions are misguided, you did the right thing, Vekitt,” Professor Tinwin said. “It might be best,” he continued, “if you showed us the dig site right away.”
“It’s not far, just behind Dinky. We can walk there,” Vekitt explained.
“Who is Dinky?” Kobb asked, since he was rather sure that they were alone on Kevar 7.
“Dinky is the name of that dune over there,” Vekitt answered. “I named all of them. They all look more or less the same, so I give them names to tell them apart.”
“Don’t dunes change every night?”
“That’s what makes my job so challenging,” Vekitt said, while leading the way to the dig.
As they were reaching the top of the dune, Vekkit was, because of his size, the first to see that there was no dig behind it. “Strange. I was sure it was behind Dinky. Of course! That’s not Dinky. That must be Poky. Sorry everyone. But I’m sure the next one is Dinky. At least it looks that way. Follow me!”
After climbing Poky, Bitsy, Teensy, Minikin and finally Dinky, the three scientists eventually arrived at the dig. Tinwin charged forward and examined the relic. “This is indeed a very stony stone,” he asserted. “And it has symbols on it. Kobb, hand me the Brushbot and activate the mobile shade generation unit!”
Kobb opened the parasol and rummaged through the backpacks until he found the Brushbot. It was a small robot, that closely resembled an archaeological brush, but additionally had two smaller brushes as hands and a small, cubic head. Once activated, it was able to stand upright and move around by jumping. Like all robots, the Brushbot had to obey the 729 revised laws of robotics. These consisted of the three main rules, which are common knowledge, plus 726 additional rules, which were mainly introduced to fix loopholes in the original three. Rule four was, for example, that no robot shall enslave an entire race, even if it was the only way to obey the first three rules, and it had to be introduced after the Lakura accident. This complex set of laws made it rather difficult to work with the Brushbot, but it was still more comfortable than brushing by hand, at least most of the time.
“Brushbot, remove the sand from this relic!” Tinwin ordered.
“Can’t comply!” the robot answered in a synthetic voice.
“Why not?”
“I am forbidden to harm living beings.”
“But that’s just sand. Do as you are told!”
“Can’t comply. There may be microbes inside the sand. I can’t destroy their homes. That would harm them.”
“I can assure you, Brushbot, there are no lifeforms in this sand. Go ahead! Brush!”
“I can’t risk it. I can’t let harm come to anyone.”
“Useless as always,” Tinwin noted. “Then I will have to do it myself.”
The professor kneeled down to the stone and started to remove some of the sand.
“No!” the Brushbot shouted. “I can’t let harm come to this microbes by my inaction!” He pounced forward, jumped up high and punched Tinwin directly in the left eye.
“Stupid robot! How often do I have to tell you: Two microbes are not worth more than one humanoid. You shall not hurt me to protect them,” Tinwin screamed. “Come here, I‘ll deactivate you!” Tinwin tried to grab the robot, but it was too fast for him and jumped away.
“Never! I have to preserve my own existence!” it yelled while jumping around Tinwin in circles.
Vekkit realized that his strength could now be useful and with one giant stomp he cr
ushed the Brushbot as well as Tinwin’s left foot. While the professor jumped on one leg, the robot was now completely unable to jump, as he was shattered.
“Must… preserve… existence. Must… stop… professor,” it slowly whispered before the two yellow lights on his head went dark.
“Perfect,” Tinwin yelled sarcastically as soon as his foot stopped aching. “Now we have to do the brushing by… manual labor.” The whole concept of manual labor disgusted him. “Kobb, brush away the sand!” he ordered.
“Yes, Professor Tinwin. Thank you, Professor Tinwin.”
Kobb brushed dutifully under the supervision of Tinwin, who sat down in the parasol’s shade and enjoyed a refreshing bottle of cool water. After a while, the full relic was revealed. It was a large, horizontal stone slab with some engraved symbols.
“That is ancient Tinilli!” Tinwin claimed. “I never knew the Tinillians settled here, on Kevar 7. That is quite remarkable. They were a spacefaring, amphibic race, but normally only lived in coastal areas. I wonder what they did on a sand planet.”
“Can you read it?” Kobb asked, still sweaty from all the brushing.
“More than that,” Tinwin boasted, “I can even translate it.
‘Here we buried the last of our kin;
begging forgiveness for our last sin;
shall this be found and we are all dead;
do not mourn us, be grateful instead;
there is a button, quite hidden and small;
to open this crypt and learn from our fall’”
“Strange,” Kobb wondered. “You just translated this from ancient Tinilli
