Five
His discussion of the asteroids complete, Zota took the Star Challengers down a long hallway to another area of the center. There were two stations with a transparent window and a compartment that held a waldo along with several sample objects: rocks, calibrated weights, and a laboratory balance. Though she understood the simple physics and geology experiment, JJ discovered that performing the tasks was quite a challenge. Moving a waldo wasn’t as easy as operating the cockpit controls of the small aircraft her Uncle Buzz was training her to fly.
For practice, she and Tony were told to figure out each type of sample rock; their guidebook offered several straightforward experiments. Apart from the appearance, texture, and color of the rock samples, JJ and Tony needed to determine the density, because some rocks were intrinsically heavier per volume than others.
She operated the joystick and found it disorienting to separate her reflexes from the operation of the waldo. Instead of making a smooth motion in whatever direction she wanted to go, the robotic arm moved in three discrete directions: up-and-down, back and forth, or side-to-side. In order to position the grasping fingers where she wanted them, JJ had to do combinations of the steps.
“It’s kind of like those claw games at the arcade!” Tony said. JJ rolled her eyes. She was having a hard time grabbing the rocks with the claw, and didn’t need her efforts diminished by calling this a game.
Tony chuckled when she made some blunders, and she got frustrated.
“Be quiet!” JJ blurted. Catching herself, she forced herself to be calm, to concentrate. “Sorry, Tony,” she said, focusing on the rocks.
“No worries. It took me awhile to get it, too.”
When she finally adjusted the grasping claw over a rock sample, she double-checked the position of the metal fingers, then used a separate control to clamp the robotic grip. It took her two tries, but finally she held the rock sample in her waldo grasp. She set it on the tray of the laboratory balance, then meticulously lifted and placed counterweights to determine the exact mass of the rock. When she felt it was taking too long, she let out an exasperated breath. “I could do this all in a minute, if I could just use my own hands!”
“You’re doing fine,” Tony said. “Better than fine, actually. Really well!”
After she had determined the mass of the rock, JJ surrendered the controls to Tony for the second part of the experiment: placing a sample into a beaker filled with water in order to establish the volume of the rock. Simple arithmetic divided the measured mass by the volume to find out the density, the mass per volume. Armed with that piece of information, they looked up the density of specific rock types on a geologic table and found a number that matched, as well as a physical description that matched. They congratulated themselves on identifying the sample as granite. Figuring out an actual answer after so much work made JJ very happy indeed.
“Pfft. How is this going to help us stop an alien invasion?” Song-Ye muttered from the adjacent lab station, where she and Dyl were completing a similar experiment, while King worked at a glove box, another sealed compartment with thick padded gloves that protruded inside.
“Before you can do more complicated experiments, I need to make sure you know the basic science,” Commander Zota said.
“We’re all impatient, Commander, because we know that the stakes are so high,” JJ said.
Zota gave them a smile. “I understand your urgency, cadets. Very well, follow me. Let me show you something.” He led them back to his office, where he stood before the mysterious locked steel door. He removed a set of keys from his pocket, sorted through them, then inserted a key in the lock and opened the door. His figure blocked the view for a moment until he stepped aside to let them see a separate small room. Inside the cramped space stood an exotic boxy piece of equipment adorned with glistening spiral tubes. A faint glow of internal circuitry was visible behind translucent panels. The controls were covered with symbols like the ones they had reviewed earlier, but more complex.
JJ caught her breath, amazed, immediately recognizing that this device had not been built by human engineers.
“Is that it?” Dyl blurted. “The Kylarn time machine?”
“It’s what transported me back from the future.” Zota turned to look at them, narrowing his eyes. “It’s how I escaped. And I find a certain irony in the fact that we’re using Kylarn technology to change history—for the better, I hope—so we can fight the invasion when it comes.”
“We’ve already changed some significant things in the future,” King pointed out. “Thanks to our missions, Earth got an early warning about the hidden Kylarn base on the Moon, and we kept the aliens from taking over the space station.”
“Our most important mission is here in this time,” Zota said, “but the future is also important. I know you’ve grown attached to the people there. At first, I intended these missions to serve an instructional purpose only, but I know you want to help the future you’ve visited as well. I have adjusted this machine so that its projection field—the volume that it grabs and transports to another time—is right here inside the Challenger Center’s transport room. When a class goes through that room, they pretend they’re aboard a spacecraft and we give them the illusion of an adventure in another place. For you cadets, though, it’s real.”
“It sure is,” JJ said.
Being analytical, King studied the controls on the Kylarn time machine. “When you escaped, how did you figure this out?”
“The time machine controls look complicated, but are actually fairly simple for someone who understands the Kylarn language,” Zota said. “Most of the tentacled drones that do the work are not actually very intelligent.”
“They’re definitely ugly,” Tony said.
“And also, because they use tentacles instead of hands, fingers, and thumbs, the mechanics are kept straightforward. We were prisoners in the research camp for such a long time that Toowun and I learned the basics. It is essential to press the right sequence of symbols to activate the main power source.” He pointed to a flat area that did not look at all like an on button, but had a series of Kylarn symbols. Dyl got out his index cards and began sketching the alien design.
Pointing to another cluster of symbols, Zota said, “This one changes the year, calibrated on the Kylarn calendar. The years on their home planet are longer than our years, and they use a different numbering system, but I figured out how to convert them.” He patiently explained other symbols, and Dyl made notes of them all.
“It’s like that Simon game my parents used to play when they were kids,” Tony said.
“Simon?” Zota asked.
“It’s nothing,” Tony said, embarrassed that he’d brought up an old game Zota would never have heard of.
“What’s more theoretical, though,” Zota continued, “is where to go in the future. Because you’ve changed the timeline, I can no longer calculate with certainty what’s going to happen. So I’ll need your help—and I’ll have to trust you.”
From a side compartment in the Kylarn time machine, he withdrew five small handheld devices, like bracelets, which he distributed to each of the Star Challengers.
JJ held hers up, saw the blinking light of its circuitry, and immediately recognized it. “Mira had one of these. She sealed herself in the node room and activated it then she was gone.”
“It’s a beacon, a locator,” Zota said. “If you activate it, the time machine can find you and bring you back. Now, since I know where the ISSC is, I’ll send you there first. Go and learn what’s happened since your last mission. I’ll transport you to two years beyond where you were previously.”
“The asteroids were going to strike Earth within three years,” King said. “We want to allow ourselves enough time.”
“The question is whether we have enough time at all,” Song-Ye said.
“That’s why we’re going to investigate,” JJ added. “So you’re saying there’ll be other parts to this mission, Commander?”
Zota nodded. “We need to find out how Earth has decided to deal with the asteroid impact. Even though it’s no longer my true future, I still feel for those people. I know what they’re going through, and I want you to do whatever you can to help them. But you must come back safely, so you can spend your lives preparing your own generation.”
“If we don’t do it right, can’t we just use the Kylarn time machine to return to the same point in the future and try it again?” Dyl suggested.
Zota frowned at him. “That is not the way the time machine works. No do-overs. That would create a new level of danger for you.”
“I’m ready to do whatever we need to do,” Dyl said. “Any day we can give those squidbutts a black eye is a good day to me.”
***