novelxo Chapter 25: Abyss of Infinity
“What do you mean the chefs just exploded tomorrow?” Captain Chesterton of the United Federation of Planets; demanded of his number one Lieutenant Sindwick. As the officer twisted into a figure of eight again. This mission certainly put tension into tense, where tomorrow became the day before yesterday, and this morning wouldn’t happen until tonight.
The captain pulled what remained of his hair out, and threw it to the ceiling where it slinked off. Just then the head mechanic unexploded, and strolled through the bulkhead. “I’ve got to get a grip on my self”, Chesterton told him self out of the mirror. “That’s easy for you to say” the real one replied. And then he found himself in his ready room, with a full breakfast tray.
Pushing it away as he felt full. The Captain wrote and sucked the ink off his day log three times, before it stayed. This is what he wrote, before it turned in to a sketch of a moose. “Day fifteen, or do we launch tomorrow. This new ship’s drive is causing no end of trouble. The mission to penetrate the membrane between our reality and another; is only partially successful. We left space doc, and reached a safe distance. Before engaging the artificial bubble of our reality about the ship.
This appeared to work, although how professor Quarkbender can tell the difference is beyond me. Next we opened the rip in our membrane, to penetrate the next universe so to speak. This is where things started to go wrong, very wrong. The professor had not calculated on there being a minute gap, between our membrane and the next. This is where we found ourselves, after the rip had sealed behind us.
The next barrier to cross was strait in front of us, but unfortunately the U.F.P. Endevorance is now wedged between the two universes. With not enough power to rip a hole, either forward or back.
As we teeter between universes, physical laws drift back and fourth, leaking from a myriad of realities. So on Wednesday the ship’s cat became a singularity, sucking the ship in to an infinitely dense ball. Then the day preceding and following, it became a cloud of mewing and an occasional claw, as it strikes out in frustration. Did I say time had become non-sequential too, or did I just read that then, perhaps it could be tomorrow?
Another annoying fact I’m yet to learn. Is that the professor has locked himself in his laboratory. Where the centre of the protective reality bubble has shrunk to, which I consider to be dashed uncivilised. As I and the rest of the crew like a taste of normality, at least once in a while.” The captain put down his pen, and it began singing to him. So he hid under his bed, darkness seemed to help.
Meanwhile relatively speaking, professor Quarkbender was in two minds, quite literally. For having retreated back with the bubble of reality, to within his lab. He had finally found it exerted enough pressure to hold steady, in this hostile environment. It took up about half the room, the other half of which was occupied with another version of the professor. Having gone through his notes on the theory of his device. He quickly surmised that by intending to pass through the surface of the reality interface, and then changing your mind at the critical moment. You could be in both existences at once.
So he sat with his notebook, ever the diligent researcher. As he tried to make sense of the world beyond, while his other self carried out experiments. The professor outside had tried to pass notes under the door to the crew. Explaining how he must remain isolated, to find a solution to their dilemma. But any attempt seemed to end in failure. As the paper either returned through another gap in the door, or became spiders that scampered away.
He tried to communicate verbally, to the bubble filling the other half of the room. But the professor inside it only got what sounded like a tuber learning to speak. Next, frustrated in his attempts to annunciate his wishes, the professor wrote down his message. But when held up, it looked like a bunch of lobsters attempting semaphore, badly.
[Note to reader, although I would like to recreate the message, I have yet to find a suitable type face, or indeed an ink that runs through all the colours of the rainbow at thirty seven hertz. So you will just have to guess at its contents. O.K. just for you here’s the translation, not that the professor understood it.]
“Laws seem to be seeping in from various locations. It may be possible to harness the effect, if some device can be constructed to measure field strength.” Frustrated, the professor in the bubble repeated his earlier trick of going and staying, in an attempt to communicate with the outside Quarkbender. But seconds after the attempt, the second professor outside the bubble became an anti matter version of himself. And they both cancelled the other out. Stamping his foot in frustration. Quarkbender sat on his desk, and meditated on how he could get out of this sticky situation.
Meanwhile to some other reference of time, the ship’s cook had found a solution to exploding. He had found it in a cupboard under the sink. Whilst he rummaged through it for his medicinal rubbing alcohol, having decided he was too sober by half. There was a box of ingredients he never knew he had. So by that instinct that all the best cooks use to whip up a masterpiece, he got his bowl out and added a dash of quarks.
Then he sieved in a couple of ounces of leptons, folded in to the mix a generous portion of gluons, and let it rest a minute. When the timer said it was sixty seconds before he started, he poured in most of his ship’s cookbook. It had melted in to its component molecules, and he whipped the batter once more, before taking the bowl over to the oven.
Ignoring the sign on the front, proclaiming it to be an eight thousand watt neutrino oven. The cook set the timer for the square root of minus one, and then he sat back to watch it rise. Just as he felt his atoms lose enough strong nuclear force to fly apart, the oven beeped and out came the cake. Popping a Higgs boson particle on top, he was relived to notice his atoms not exploding. So he sat down at the table to enjoy not only his continued existence, but also a reasonable facsimile of sequential chronology.
Not long after, possibly a Planck later. Professor Quarkbender came up with a solution. “What I need is some sort of unified field detector, possibly one with a detector for each force set at ninety degrees to each other. I’ll probably need an extra dimension or two to fit it in too.” The Professor mused to no one in particular, as he turned to his bench to begin work.
Yet another Planck later, Captain Chesterton could make out an arresting aroma. Seeking him out in his under bed hidey-hole. What was that appetising smell? He just had to investigate.
As he cautiously crept along the corridor, Captain Chesterton noticed time was becoming more progressive, chronologically speaking as he neared his goal. He sighed in relief, as he looked up the ladder to the galley. Glad he’d not have to tackle it in a non-sequential time frame.
Poking his head through the entrance, he spied the cook and called out. “Not exploding again Mr walker?” From his vantage point at the table, the chef saluted his captain and replied. “Aye aye sir, I think this cake seems to be holding me together.” His commander came over to inspect it. Just then the chief engineer came in to view, from an entrance to the engine room.
Just to confuse the reader we now go live to the professor, who has just completed his unified field detector. In what he thought was a surprisingly short time, although it may have been the lifetime of a star. Laying the device back down, he hastily scribbled a note that he hung round his neck. It said “I have found a pointer to get us home. Can you fix the engines? Love prof. Q.”
Then repeating his amoeba impression, he both sat back down to wait a reply, and headed off through his door. The recumbent professor hoped the note would suffice. For his facsimile was currently conversing to himself, in partial extracts of Emily Bronte novels, translated in to Portuguese.
I think we have confirmation of progress in the galley. The engineer has passed the mid field defence of captain Chesterton, and made a lunge for the cake. The engineer shouted through a wind that has suddenly whipped up. “That must be plugged in to the engines. I found an emergency instruction card quite clearly stating. That in cast of inter-universal stalling, any comestible handy can be implemented for engine ignition.”
As he touched the cake, all action ceased. And left in mid dive. The crew is seen in all three hundred and sixty degrees. As your viewpoint moves around the scene. Then with a reverse whoosh he had it. “O.K. let’s get this cake down to the engine room.” The captain commanded, and off they trooped.
Which is why mere Femto hours later, the duplicated professor arrived in the galley with a haddock hung round his neck. But following his nose, he made a beeline for the engine room. There he saw the three crew members, who had just been joined by lieutenant Sindwick, and his pet sheep.
(Except I’m lying about the sheep, it was a lama. O.K. you’ve got me, but he may have had a dead vole in his pocket. We’ll just never know).
“I bring good news” the professors double informed them. And he read from the card, now fully legible and not at all fishy. For he could read upside down. He explained (with foot notes), how the professor could navigate them home. If only they had an engine.
“Your in luck, this cake should do the trick”, the engineer suggested. “But how will I get the message back to myself in the reality bubble, it says here.” Read the professor from his script. “According to this almanac in my back pocket” informed the chef. “A slice of the cake should suffice to keep your reality in check”, and he took out his knife. Cutting the thinnest sliver, he handed it on a plate to the professor, who trotted off to get his counter part.
“Look the cake is sliding across the table.” The captain read out from page fourteen of his script. And sure enough the tasty morsel was being propelled, in the exact opposite direction to the missing slice. The engineer quickly welded a swivel chair to the floor, and sat with the cake in his arms. The ship seemed to move, but gasping for breath the engineer soon revised his plan. And he just rested the cake against the back of the chair. There seemed to be a constant force.
“Cut another slice”, commanded Captain Chesterton. “Aye aye captain” obeyed the chef. And as more of the inner surface of the cake was revealed, so the force on the chair and ship increased. Just then the two professors returned, with their slice of cake and the detector. Then they stood with their fingers pointed; some ware near the front of the ship. Thus they directed lieutenant Sindwick, as he steered his chair bound cake, like an outboard motor. Until with a resounding plop, they could once more see stars through the porthole. The two professors merged in to one, and sat on the chair was a single crumb. Which twinkled like a star, and then was no more.
Sat in his usual command chair, Captain Chesterton called down to engineering. “All engines working?” “Aye, aye captain” came the reply. And so to the constant hum of motors run at full capacity, the mighty star ship rushed home to mother Earth.
“It’s a bit sparse looking”, observed lieutenant Sindwick. And motioning professor Quarkbender over to the telescope he asked. “Can you identify that creature?” “I think it’s a Diplodocus”, the professor ventured. “Perhaps our re-entry point to this universe was a little off.” The professor shouted over his shoulder. As he dodged the hail of debris, being chucked at him.