by Gabriel Just
though. Where does this wormhole end? Where does the stellar matter we suck away end up?” Melira wondered.
“I have no idea,” Tinwin said. “Somewhere else I guess. Hopefully somewhere where a few tons of very hot hydrogen do no harm. The important question is: What happens at our end? Did it work? Measure the temperature now!”
Melira did a few scans but the results were inconclusive. “The temperature of the star remains constant within the error of my measurements. Which does not say much, to be honest.”
“Guys!” Kobb stumbled, slightly worried. “I don’t think we need a machine to measure that it is becoming hotter in here. Can’t you feel it? The nose of our shuttle is glowing. That can’t be a good sign.”
“That is impossible,” Tinwin said while shaking his head. “The sink was built to make the sun cooler, not hotter. I am sure we didn’t make any mistakes. There must be another reason why we feel slightly hotter.” Tinwin searched the instruments of the ship for an explanation other than that his experiment failed. “There! I found it,” he shouted triumphantly. “The shuttle does not get hotter because the sun is getting hotter, but because we are coming closer and closer. Rest assured, the Tinwin sink works perfectly. We are just plummeting towards an active star.”
“That is even worse!” Kobb shouted.
“Maybe for us,” Tinwin corrected his assistant. “For science it is still a victory.”
“The mass inverter got stuck,” Melira explained. “It does that sometimes. After an hour or so it might work again. But I don’t think we have so much time. We have to abandon ship. There is a hyperlight escape capsule in the back. Hurry!”
Tinwin dashed to the capsule and arrived there while Kobb was still entangled in his seat belt. Somehow he was able to free himself and get to the escape capsule in time. As soon as everyone was on board, the capsule detached from the shuttle and accelerated in a random direction, luckily away from the star. However, without proper artificial gravity or other means of negating inertia effects all three lost consciousness rather quickly.
Melira was the first one to wake up. Only a red emergency light illuminated the inside of the escape capsule. Tinwin and Kobb lay to her feet, both still unconscious. “Wake up! Are you alright?” Melira asked.
Kobb carefully opened one eye, saw Tinwin’s face and decided to go back to sleep again.
“Wake up!” Melira shouted again.
“I’m awake, I’m awake,” Tinwin stammered while trying to stand up. “What happened? How long was I asleep?”
“Asleep? You were out cold.”
“Nonsense! I was just taking a short nap. Now I remember. You two were knocked out by the blast, so I got bored and decided to rest for a bit. I must have overslept.”
“Several hours,” Melira added. “What about you Kobb, are you alright?”
“I think so,” Kobb replied. “My head hurts, I’m hungry and scared, but other than that I’m fine. Thanks for waiting for me earlier. For a moment there, when I was trapped in my seat I was worried you’d leave me behind.”
“Believe me, Kobb,” Tinwin said, “I really tried. I just could not sacrifice your life for my far more valuable one. The door closing mechanism was stuck. I tried several times, but the capsule just didn’t close.”
“Well, thanks anyways. Where exactly are we now?”
Tinwin carefully checked all the instruments the escape capsule was equipped with. He looked at the composition of the atmosphere outside the capsule, temperature, incoming intercom signals and known star formations to finally arrive at a conclusion. “It appears we are inside a standard issue hyperlight escape capsule.”
“Somehow I figured that out by myself. But where is the capsule?”
“Let me have a look,” Melira said while checking all the instruments. “Atmosphere outside is breathable. Thats nice, so we did manage to land somewhere. Judging from the other instruments and assuming that we did not leave the system we must be on Kemos 12.”
“Is that good news or bad news?” Kobb asked, expecting the latter.
“Both actually. The good news is that I was here before. The bad news is that I decided never to come back here. Kemos 12 is an ice planet. It is not really inhabited, but there are some research stations scattered around. With that kind of scientists that like to do research in the middle of a frozen desert, just to be alone.”
“These sound like nice people,” Tinwin noted. “We should try to contact them, maybe they can give us a lift.”
“Normally I’d disagree. Those people are the meanest, most condescending creatures in the whole system. We have history, you know. But I don’t think we have another choice. I’ll open the door now. Ready?”
“Wait!” Kobb yelled. “What if the readings are wrong? What if there is no atmosphere outside?”
“In that case, I’d suggest you hold your breath. You might survive three times longer that way. Which wouldn’t be very long, regardless.”
Melira pushed a button while Kobb tried to suck in as much air as possible. The capsule doors opened and revealed a world full of ice and snow. Within seconds the inside of the capsule was freezing as well. A snow storm limited visibility and blew icy snowflakes directly in Kobb’s face.
“Let’s get going! We need to find one of those research stations,” Tinwin ordered and jumped out of the capsule. His relatively big feet and small mass made it possible for him to stay on top of the fresh snow. Kobb followed his example and jumped out as well and was equally successful. Melira tried a more careful approach and crawled out slowly and with great caution. Nevertheless her Skaren feet area to mass ratio was far inferior to the one of a Piki and she sank knee deep into the fresh snow. She tried to walk for a few steps but soon gave up. “It’s no use. Skaren are not evolved for that kind of environment. You need to leave me behind, I would only slow you down.”
“Nonsense,” Tinwin disagreed. “I learned one important thing from my studies in convergent devolution. All intelligent races are more or less useless in any kind of natural environment. But this is our great advantage. We have to adapt technologically in order to survive. And this form of evolution is magnitudes faster than natural selection. But it is your choice. Either you choose natural selection and die right here in the snow, because you are obviously not evolved for this particular situation, or you choose science and find a way to get out of this mess.”
“You are right,” Melira said and regained her confidence. She ripped two terminals from the inside of the capsule and tied them under her feet with some wiring.
“Way to go!” Tinwin praised her. “Now you are perfectly equipped for snowy weather. And it didn’t take hundreds of generations dying in the ice to adapt. I am proud of you. Kobb, you should take a leaf out of her book. Why can’t you be more like Melira and do something smart for a change?”
“Yes, Professor Tinwin. Thank you, Professor Tinwin.”
“So, Melira, where is the next research station?”
“I have no idea,” Melira answered. “I can’t see anything because of that snowstorm. The stations are distributed quite uniformly, so I guess it doesn’t matter where we are going. We should just choose a random direction.”
“That might be a problem,” Tinwin pondered. “A truly random direction is rather difficult to produce. We should assign every direction a non-negative integer and then produce a pseudo random number with some kind of algorithm. However, without a lab that might be a problem.”
“Or we could just head towards the sun,” Kobb suggested.
“Poor Kobb,” Tinwin said, amused. “In what way would that be a random direction?”
“But it would be a smart direction,” Melira noted. “At least we would not go in circles that way. Let’s go!”
Melira tramped forward, Kobb and Tinwin followed her. They walked for some time, but the snowstorm got worse until they were unable to see the sun anymore.
“What now?” Kobb asked.
“I don’t know,” Melira said. “
I can’t see anything. Maybe we should wait until the storm clears up. You see that thing over there? I think it is a rock. Or maybe even a machine from one of the research stations. The important thing is that it might protect us from the storm. We should try to get there.”
The wind was now so strong that Tinwin and Kobb had great trouble walking, but with Melira’s help they managed to reach the shielding stone formation. Exhausted, Melira and Kobb fell down, while Tinwin deliberately chose to take a short nap. It took over an hour until the storm finally calmed down. “I think it’s over,” Kobb said, relieved. The others opened their eyes and the weather was really much nicer. For the first time they got a clear look at their surroundings. Around them were houses, factories and streets, all covered in a layer of snow. As Melira looked upwards, she recognized the alleged stone formation, since it held a big welding torch and she finally realized where they really were.
She sank to her knees. “What have we done? We made it even worse,” she cried.
Tinwin approached her and cheerfully gave her a pat on the back.
“What are you talking about,” he said. “We totally succeeded. We rigorously solved the problem of global warming.”
Packet Loss
“I will fix it, I promise!” Dwakk assured his supervisor. “I am aware of the problem and currently working on a solution as fast as I can.”
“Aware of the problem? We lost seven more capsules. Just admit