New Beginnings

I wake up. Day 1,756 on this damn station. Day 1,952 since my mother died.

I sigh and sit up. This is not a hard a task in 0.1 gravity. This is one of the benefits of having my sleeping quarters located near the hub of the station. For those who haven’t slept in near zero g, the mattress has yet to be made that competes with this. Talk about sleeping on a cloud.

But it is hard to work in light gravity, so I make my way down one of the six grey tunnels that form the spokes of the station. Down towards the “office,” as the company insists on calling it. Those of us in that actually work in these places have another name for it.

There are no scheduled visits today. There rarely are at my station. Being that I am located on the edge of known space, I really only ever get traffic from scientific expeditions. And what with the downturn in the economy, the government is funding less and less of those. I wonder how long it will be before the company starts to close down the fueling stations.

But it is a steady – if lonely – job. That is what I signed up for. I never married. After my mother died I didn’t have any family left. I was always better with machines than people. It just seemed natural to trade in the latter for the former.

I like it.

I “fire up” the computers, which is wiggling trackball around until the monitors come on. I guess we use the term so that we can sound like people of action. Not that I have anyone to impress. I am all alone, after all.

Except for the bogey the monitor shows approaching the station.

I bring up the calendar and double check, though I know what I will find. Nothing. There are no scheduled events. No ships, no satellites, no meteors. Nothing.

Yet, the blip stubbornly continues to move towards me.

I try to hail it. No response.

It is still too far out to see by any visual means. By the speed of it, I have about two hours before it arrives, which means that headquarters will not get my message until it is six hours to late. I compose a message anyway and send it off. I attempt to hail the blip again. Again, no response.

I stare at the screen for ten minutes, then decide that there is nothing that I can do at the present anyway. So I check the maneuvering thrusters – just in case – and then go about my daily chores.

I am interrupted by a beep announcing a message. There is nothing identifying the sender. The message reads, “Hello. Please respond?”

Not your normal correspondence. I check the triangulation and see that it appears to be coming from the direction of the bogey. It is hard to imagine where else it could be coming from.

I respond “This is refueling station Exxon 14523. Please identify yourself.”

An immediate reply. “We require fuel. Willing to barter.”

I snort. What do they have on board, chickens?

“Please identify yourself.”

A longer pause this time.

“We are not known to you.”

No shit, Sherlock. I think this, but I follow company policy instead and reply: “You MUST identify yourself in order to receive permission to dock with this station.”

I do not hear anything back for ten minutes, so I begin to plan an evasive maneuver. I am interrupted by another beep.

“Remain calm. We are from what you refer to as Cluster MG-4253. We require fuel. Will barter.”

Who do these clowns think they are? I wasn’t born yesterday, and they sure as shit ain’t getting my fuel for free. Still, we are taught to be diplomatic…

“Please provide proof. Then we will talk. What do you propose to barter?”

I prepare to finish the maneuver plan, but a return message appears before I start to type.

“Please see attached video. For barter, we provide your mother.”

I open the attached video. The creatures on it are not human. I run a quick check. The file has not been altered. Which means…

Holy.

Shit.

My mind stops working. But then, a word calls me back to the present. Mother.

Mother.

Are they fucking kidding? Is this a sick joke. First contact or not, these guys are douchbags. I fire back.

“My mother? Go fuck your alien selves.”

A new message.

“Do not understand the proposed activity. Please open a video link.”

I start the video and…

And…

And I see my mother. Sitting right there. Smiling. At me.

Her face disappears behind my tears.

A Dreamer's World

Per our discussion on raising the awareness on the potential danger of Dreamers at Legalcorp, please see the transcript below:

BR: The first thing that I remember is walking through the halls of a dungeon. I am certain it was a dungeon. The halls were dark, but there was a bit of light coming in through vertical shafts. The light wasn’t direct, but it was enough to make out the mildew that clung to the walls and the cells that lay to either side.

JL: This is the first thing you remember? You don’t recall how you got there?

BR: No. I was just there. I remember, at the time, I didn’t question it. It just made sense that I was there.

JL: I see. Well, what happened next?

BR: I remember walking down the hallway. As I said, to either side lay regularly spaced cells. Most of these were occupied, but some weren’t. None of the cells had doors. The occupants appeared to be free to leave, but instead they sat there, staring at the walls. A few of them looked up at me as I walked by, but most of them just continued to stare at the walls, as if they were totally engrossed by their contents.

JL: And this didn’t strike you as odd?

BR: It certainly did. I was dimly aware of the fact that the king of the castle had tricked these people into submitting to imprisonment. He promised them safety and security, all they had to do was sit in these dungeon cells all day. Most were happy to do so. I was longer so content. I was ready to escape.

JL: And not one of them tried to stop you?

BR: Of course not. They didn’t know what I was going to do. Sure, some of them must have thought it strange, but I assume that most just thought I was headed out for some fresh air – or perhaps the break room.

One person did try to ask me what I was doing. I found out afterwards that it was Michael from accounting. He had I are fairly good friends. I recall stopping in the hall and looking at him. I must have said something about how I was done. I guess he thought I was just heading home early. It must be just as hard for the Awake to identify a Dreamer as it is for a Dreamer to distinguish between real and the dream worlds.

At any rate, he didn’t think anything of it and I continued down the hallway, towards the exit.

JL: And that is when your boss confronted you?

BR: Yes, though I knew him then as the evil King. He stepped in my way and put his hand up.

“Just where do you think you are going Brandon?”

“Out.” Was my reply.

“I am afraid I can’t let you do that. The TPS reports need to be finished today, you know.”

JL: Interesting…and the phrase “TPS reports” didn’t bring you back?

BR: Obviously not. I knew I had been caught, and that he wasn’t going to let me go. It was now or never, as they say. I looked down and found that my hand held a dagger –

JL: The letter opener?

BR: So it seems. I was surprised at how easily I was able to take the King by surprise. One would suppose that a King would have been a mighty warrior at one time. Years of rule had apparently made him soft and slow. The dagger found its home on the first thrust. He stumbled back away from me, surprise in his eyes. I suppose he had never imagined one of his subjects standing up to him in such a manner. He stumbled into a cell. This was followed by a woman’s scream. The inhabitant of the cell – presumably the screamer – ran out and looked me over.

“Brandon, what the fuck!”

This didn’t seem an appropriate response for a newly freed subject, and was the beginning of my Waking.

JL: But you were not yet fully Awake?

BR: Not yet. Next, the several of the prisoners poked their heads out of their cells.

The first woman yelled again.

“He fucking stabbed Bob! Call an ambulance!”

The name “Bob” really shocked me. Not really a regal name, if you follow me. Together with the mention of an ambulance, I was really well on my way back to Awake. By the time my co-workers tackled me, I knew where I was, and that I had just stabbed my boss. But of course, by then it was too late.

JL: It surely was. But that is in the past. Thank you for the recounting. I have just a few more questions for you. First, do you feel that you were properly trained by your employer on the dangers of napping at work?

BR: Oh yes, we were put through a half-day training seminar that covered workplace injuries, ergonomics, and Dreaming.

JL: And was an adequate supply of caffeine supplied to all employees?

BR: Yes. That is…usually.

JL: Usually?

BR: Look, I don’t want to get anyone in trouble –

JL: You stabbed your boss, Brandon, someone is already in trouble.

BR: Point taken. But it was really a simple mistake. I had pointed out that we were low on diet coke and Sheryl – the ordering lady – forgot to order it in time. There was regular coke –

JL: But you are of the Church of the Fallen Messiah? And your religious freedoms are protected.

BR: I didn’t want to break my vows and, well, I don’t know.

JL: You did nothing wrong, provided that we find there was no diet soda and someone can validate your story of notifying purchasing –

Recording ends. Partial transcript of interview of subject #43b2r5l (Brandon Repste) by agent #973 (Jannelle Lamb) for case #RD-9634. Suggest that this transcript be used in the training of future employees at Legalcorp. If you have any questions or concerns, please do contact my assistant, Janelle.

Best,

Charles Drent

Director, HR Department

An all-around solution

It is widely appreciated that smooth stones, such as those that are found in the beds of fast-moving rivers, roll more efficiently than irregularly shaped stones. Until recently, this had been a little more than a curiosity of nature – a bit of trivia that proved useful at the games played during celebration of the summer solstice. Last autumn, it was suggested by the cliff dwellers of the Northern Valleys that this effect could be used to ease the transport of heavy objects. It was demonstrated that smooth rocks of similar size could be placed underneath the object to be moved. The object could then be pushed, the rocks underneath it allowing for the object to slide.

While this approach has many advantages over traditional movement (such as dragging objects across bare earth), there remain a number of impediments to its widespread use. First, it requires the accumulation of multiple smooth stones of similar size, which may be a problem for people who live in regions that are round-stone-poor (such as a field with slow moving rivers). Second, each time the object being moved translates forward, it is required to move stones from the back of the object (which will be newly uncovered) to the front of the object. Thus, continuous movement of the object requires the involvement of multiple people. Finally, there is a limit to the size and roundness of stones that can be practically used in this method. Too large of stones are too heavy to move and replace, too small of stones must be replaced too frequently. In addition, efficient transport requires that the stones be equally round in all directions. Again, this constraint limits the usefulness of this approach to people that have a ready and ample source of stones.

Now, a group of hunters and gatherers from the southern plateaus have devised a method for using single stones to transport goods. They report that holes may be drilled through round stones and a wooden stick passed through this hole. A load may then be placed on the ends of this stick and the resulting contraption pushed. The ingeniousness of this approach is that the stick (which they are calling an “axel”) prevents the stone from moving away from the object that is being transported. In this manner, a single stone may be used to transport any object – overcoming the first two limitations of the previous method. Moreover, there are fewer restrictions placed on the stone being used (both in size and roundness) allowing for more efficient use of round-stone resources.

It remains to be seen how general these results are. For instance, can any stone be used? What about round wooden objects? Is there a fundamental limitation on the size of object that be transported for a given size of stone? Despite these questions, it seems likely that this approach will offer at least a partial solution to the problem of long-distance transportation of objects. For this, the people of the southern plateaus are to be congratulated.