My Pebble

Nathaniel, Haticat, Fred, and Doctor Bill explore the surface of an airless, rocky world in bright sunlight. Here and there are pools of molten selenium oozing from below. The rocks come in a variety of shades and textures. Finally, Nathaniel picks up one small pebble with an odd shape. He holds it up in the sun. It is almost a cube. The faces are a little rough and the corners rounded, but it looks almost like a die. “This is the one I want.”

For years, Captain Nathaniel had been keeping a rock collection. He had one small stone from every planet he had visited. Once a day, he would pull open the drawer next to his bed and look at them, reminded of all his adventures at once. His body could only be in one place at one time, but his memories stretched across the galaxy.

The rock collection was also part of a science experiment. Rocks taken from different time periods had the potential to be causally connected in ways other than their direct interaction in his drawer. Most often, their connection was nothing more than their weak gravitational interaction across light years, but this was enough. Nathaniel expected the multiple, interrelated interactions to manifest as an increase in inertial mass without corresponding increase in gravitational mass.

He now had seventy-seven pebbles and this should be enough to generate enough additional mass for his sensitive instruments to measure. Back on his ship now, he gently places the cubic pebble onto the scale/accelerometer with the others and waits for the results.

Haticat enters his bedroom gazebo and looks around. “We’re ready to take off when you are.”
“I’m just waiting for a reading,” Nathaniel says.

Soon, the screen lights up and displays two numbers. “Well, I was right. There’s a discrepancy between the two masses. Although…it is considerable bigger than I predicted. I wonder why…”

“Sounds like a job for new physics,” Haticat says.

“Yes,” Nathaniel replies.

A few minutes later, the ship launches off the planet and speeds away. Nathaniel visits the dining gazebo for some olive loaf on wheat and chocolate milk. He watches the stars drift slowly by on the domed ceiling of the ship. Where to next? There were so many stars with planets to explore. He might never run out.

Then, something in the corner of his eye catches his attention. The light in his bedroom is flickering. “Hmm.”

He finishes his sandwich and walks to his bedroom. For just a moment, he almost stumbles, as if he suddenly becomes lighter. He hopes the artificial gravity isn’t malfunctioning, too.

He removes the glass shade and adjusts the bulb, making sure it is tight. It shines steadily for a few seconds, only to start flickering once he reaches for the shade. He retrieves a new bulb from storage and replaces the old one. Then the new bulb starts to flicker. Getting frustrated, he decides it is better to keep the light off than to endure the annoying flickering. He hits the switch and the light goes out. Then it starts to flicker again. “What?” Nathaniel unscrews the bulb and tosses it on the bed. It still continues to flicker.

“Doctor Bill, I need you to run some tests on this bulb. It won’t stop flickering,” Nathaniel says, now in the control gazebo.

“Interesting,” Doctor Bill comments. “I’ll check it out.”

For the next thirteen minutes, Nathaniel monitors their progress through space, dodging asteroids and comets, and planning where to visit next. “What about that red dwarf star? It might have planets,” Haticat suggests.

“Let me see,” Nathaniel says. “The infrared signature implies the existence of a dust ring. That might be worth investigating.”

“Dust is boring,” Fred complains.

“Not always,” Haticat says.

Doctor Bill returns from his tests. “I can’t find anything unusual, and the bulb has stopped flickering.”

“Well, we have a mystery on our hands,” Nathaniel says, taking the bulb from him. “Set a course for the red dwarf.”

Nathaniel walks to the bedroom and sets the bulb on a shelf. Turning to leave, he sees the glass shade where he has left it on his bed, now broken into pieces. “Doctor, come quick and bring a scanner!”

Doctor Bill runs to Nathaniel’s bedroom and scans the glass. “It seems like ordinary glass. Are you sure you didn’t break it when you set it down?”

“On a soft bed with Ninosan ultracomfort technology?” Nathaniel questions.

“It does seem unlikely,” Doctor Bill admits.

“How could this happen?” Nathaniel asks.

“I don’t know, quantum tunneling?” Doctor Bill suggests. Nathaniel gives him a look. “Right, even more unlikely.”

On the way to the next star, Nathaniel cleans up the glass and takes a nap. He wakes to the sound of sirens. There is trouble in the ship. He runs to the control station. Every monitor is blank. The reboot button does nothing. “What’s happening?” Haticat asks, now animated by Nathaniel’s play-energy.

“Nothing’s happening. That’s the problem. We need to rewire the main computer interface. The access post is outside.” Nathaniel quickly climbs over the railing and around the outside of the gazebo. Just above the water level is a metal plate he slides to the side. He crouches on the narrow rim of the station while holding on to the corner of the post with one hand. “Hey, give me one of those…uh…round and around things.”

“A screwdriver?” Haticat asks.

“Yeah.” Nathaniel loosens the screws attaching the wires, transfers them to the parallel server, and screws them in. Then he climbs back inside.

Nathaniel and Haticat reboot each computer submodule until the control station is fully online. Every other system seems fine. Fred and Doctor Bill ask what the problem is.

Very seriously, Nathaniel answers. “We have an…” He pauses. “Ugh! What do you call a person who breaks into your home?”

“That depends on his name,” Haticat says.

“No,” Nathaniel says. “The problems we’ve been having move around. Damage is done in one spot, but whatever caused it is no longer there when we scan for it. We must have picked up some sort of invisible or microscopic aliens from the last planet.”

“So, we have an intruder,” Doctor Bill concludes.

“Intruder! That’s the word I wanted!” Nathaniel exclaims.

The following four hours are filled with tests and scans attempting to locate the intruder or intruders. Three more light bulbs flicker during this time. The engines shut down and it takes ten minutes to get them started again. The ship then changes course to return to the rocky planet. It takes twenty minutes to get control of the ship again. “They’ll bring us back into the arms of their comrades and murder us!” Fred declares.

“Look!” Haticat shouts.

All heads turn to see a bulge in the water level, soon becoming a perfect sphere of liquid a meter across, hovering four meters above the fuel level. Nathaniel fires a laser into it. Nothing happens. Fred fires. Still nothing happens. Then the ball collapses in a great splash.

“We can’t stop them if we can’t find them,” Haticat says.

“Yes,” Nathaniel says. “But…”

“But what?” Haticat asks.

Nathaniel does not answer. He jogs to the control station and begins searching system sensor records. Haticat sees that he looks at the timestamps and power usage, but cannot tell what he is looking for. Slipping into superspeed, his fingers flying across the keyboards. “Everyone grab onto something!”

Not knowing what else to do, Haticat, Fred, and Doctor Bill hold tightly to the railings nearest them. Nathaniel turns off the gravity and sets the ship spinning. Water climbs up the walls until it forms a liquid belt all around them. Above and below are dry. With centrifugal force less near the center of the ship, the crew are able to crawl around and awkwardly use the controls. Nathaniel then shuts off the engines and fires the downward-pointing proton cannon instead. The acceleration is small, but the velocity is cumulative.

“Is this supposed to rid us of the intruder?” Haticat asks.

“I shut down its energy source,” Nathaniel says. “Each intermittent attack came only after a certain amount of gravitational energy had been removed from the artificial gravity generators, and the energy expended equaled the amount removed. The loss of gravity explains why my time flow experiment came out unexpectedly. The intruder must store potential energy in abstract space. It has no body, no physicality. With the gravity and engines off, we’ll starve it out.”

“Start unplugging the artificial gravity generators before the alien tries to turn one back on,” Nathaniel orders.

Haticat, Fred, and Doctor Bill climb around the spinning structure, disabling the machines one at a time. Suddenly, Doctor Bill goes flying and lands in the water. Nathaniel climbs down to help him out. “I was thrown! It’s as if something grabbed me,” he says as he climbs up the railings and wrings himself out.

“Let’s hope it used up the last of its energy,” Nathaniel says.

The crew finishes the job. The hours pass without incident as they continue on to the next star. Nathaniel attempts to make a PBJ on the wall and ends up making a mess.

“Look!” Haticat yells. The projector has turned itself on. Across the ceiling are stretched the letters: HELP

Nathaniel climbs to where the others stand so he can get a better look. “What does it want?” Doctor Bill asks.

“I don’t care; I want it to go away,” Fred says.

“Now it knows to take us seriously. I want to negotiate. Reattach the generators to one section only and set it to minimum strength. I want it to have enough energy to communicate,” Nathaniel orders.

It is soon done, and Nathaniel stands on that section of walkway and speaks. “This is Captain Nathaniel. I’m in charge of this spacecraft. I place my body in a gravity field so you can sense the motion of my lips and so you will have enough energy to communicate. If you try anything else, I will shut it off and let you die.”

Nearly a minute later, the projected word changes: THIEF

“Who is a thief? Are you? Do you hope to steal this ship? This is my ship,” Nathaniel responds.

Haticat joins Nathaniel on the platform. “I can’t believe it would try to steal our ship while we are still in it.”

Eventually, the projected word changes again: MY PEBBLE

“Pebble? The cubic pebble? I didn’t know you wanted it. Is it yours? Is it part of your rock collection?” Nathaniel asks.

“There was no name on it,” Fred says, also stepping onto the platform.

“I know. It was just sitting among other rocks,” Haticat adds.

“I think maybe the alien considers the entire planet its collection. It must be the planet guardian,” Nathaniel says.

Eventually, the projected word changes again: BRING BACK

“How can we trust you?” Fred shouts.

“There might be other such beings back on the planet with an entire planet’s worth of gravity to draw on,” Haticat warns.

“Maybe, but we must take the risk. I don’t want to be the bad guy,” Nathaniel says.

“The alien broke your lampshade. That makes it the bad guy,” Haticat says.

Nathaniel thinks for a moment. “We will bring the pebble back to the planet, but we will teleport it to the ground from orbit. In the meantime, we are going to turn off the gravity.”

Doctor Bill then steps onto the platform. “I have a suggestion…”

Bam! All four of them hit the floor hard as the gravity increases a hundredfold. “Ow! Unplug the generator,” Nathaniel sputters. His mouth hurts to move.

“I can’t even move,” Doctor Bill says.

“Me neither,” Fred says.

Nathaniel is pretty sure he has cracked his jaw and sprained his wrist. He will heal, but not if the alien kills him first. He tries as hard as he can to crawl, but he is fixed to the spot. It is hard to breathe.

After building up strength from the one working generator, the alien reattaches the other generators one at a time. Nathaniel can hear them click into place. Then the spinning stops and the water returns to the floor. Then the engines reverse course and return to the planet. An hour later, they land. The door opens. The pebble goes flying outside. Then the gravity returns to normal.

Nathaniel rubs the circulation back into his legs. He is not ready to stand. “That was mean,” Haticat declares.

“It could have killed us or left us here,” Nathaniel says.

“But why did it take over the ship? You were giving it what it wanted,” Haticat says.

“I guess it didn’t trust us any more than we trusted it,” Nathaniel says.

“Let’s get off this planet,” Fred says.

“Agreed. Set a course for anywhere. I don’t care,” Nathaniel says.

SUPPORT