There’s one thing about being on staff. I can actually have staff of my own. My job remit depends on finding something repairable from the alien junk found through the teleporter vents. I was lucky the first time. What everyone thought was a toy turned out to be a near perpetual motion machine. ‘Near’ because it had to be started and if it broken down needed a repair and was back working again. All I did was reattach a wire inside. Even so, these highbrows might be good at designing a teleportation machine but baffled by a simple mechanism or, as I did, get inside its shell. Hope someone else checked their wiring at home. Bet they live in death traps.
Still, I wouldn’t choose anyone from any of their departments. I needed someone with some street savvy but not cocky enough to want my new job. That’s when I thought of Quarry. I was teaching him when I got called freelance into this job. The teleportation scheme was making money but they still needed someone, still me, to look through the junk that also materialised and find something else miraculous. I can only be as good as the junk they brought back and a lot of it was just rubbish until it could be worked out what it was. At least, for the moment.
Whoever these aliens were and there were several types, their definition of junk and rubbish was different to ours. I mean, why dump different kinds of material? Why these piles of rock-metal? Maybe, I’m thinking the wrong way. Maybe it’s their form of shit of the defecation kind. It would explain why they would want to throw it away. I gave a piece a sniff. Not like our kind of shit and a Geiger counter showed no radiation. But what kind of species would shit rock-metal? Probably not carbon-based. Should have studied biology more. Even so, what kind of world did they have that they had to get rid of their shit that way and wouldn’t it deplete their mineral resources? I quickly wrote a few words report and told them to check if they were shit. Didn’t write shit. Needed a better word. The computer suggested ‘defecation’. Good enough for me. I added a point that their shit was good for mineral resources.
Even so, there was a lot of it. What did they do? Stand over their teleporter vent instead of a loo? I kept looking through the pieces hoping for a clue in the various shapes. Some of it was scrunched up. Almost like of their alien hands had done it. Maybe I was looking in the wrong direction. I’d been looking for anything that might have been an instruction manual, even computer chips and hard drives, as well as hidden devices.
What if some of this stuff was box padding? We wasted a lot of it in our own boxes. Maybe theirs was less disposable. Some of it was heavier and denser than others. That could be lagging. If it contained questionable material, like we once did with asbestos, that would be a reason to get rid of it. We’re just assuming the teleport vent was a means to just throw things away than they might be contaminates. I messaged Quarry to wear gloves going through the rubbish and if anything smelt wrong to put on a gasmask or use an oxygen supply and get out of there. I memoed elsewhere for the items to be send over to the warehouse and some for me. Enough for anyone else going in if they wanted to use it.
I divided the table contents into three so the matches could be seen better. Some of it could still be shit. Real shit from whatever these aliens did. Now there was a possibility of lagging and box padding. I bagged a piece of each to be sent for chemical analysis off-site. I gave each a letter than what I thought it could be. I didn’t want them second-guessing me or just agreeing. If it was box padding and the aliens had to ditch it, then it was no better than our padding. Lagging was different. They might have problems with some of its material, just as we did with asbestos, but might not affect us. If we didn’t then it might be a useful lagging material.
It would help to know how old these relics are. I doubt if it would help place their technology in their timeline but might place when they advanced. Carbon-dating wasn’t much help neither. Dissociated in the teleportation void froze that. We might have a number of years but no idea when the half-life started.
What we really need is an instruction booklet and even better a Rosetta stone. A later species doing the translation for us. Without knowing how old this species is, there’s no way to gauge what else we might find.
There were still bits and pieces from what we thought were from other species, but as far as I was concerned, the majority came from one species. Was there a choice? The tech guys weren’t sure. They weren’t sure. They had become cautious about sending parts through the teleporting vents in case they lost anything. So they built the vents around the world. No one was prepared to take a chance on a vent opening on another world. It might not have a nitrogen-oxygen mix atmosphere and slowly or quickly die. I said wear a pressure suit but they got antsy about coming back.
It was a lot harder to get them to move the teleportation vent for better pickings. Despite the marvel of the near perpetual machine, they were complaining how long it would take to move the main vent compared to making a new one close to the old one. Someone in the organisation was stalling. Why didn’t they didn’t want to do it considering how much extra money they could make. They must be pulling stuff out at the destination vents. So why aren’t they sending it back for me to look over or were they just dumping it? I sent a memo querying it again but figured it would be ignored again like the other ones. Maybe they had totters at the destination vents and I was the first of how many.
It only took a couple days before the results of the three substance analysis came back. I threw my note away. Whatever it was, none of it was shit. They gave long chemical names and a lot of them as if I could be baffled by science when I could us AI to look them up. The half-lives were interesting. They established they were al from the same period. So why dump it as three pieces than blend them together or maybe they were using the vents for storage?
I dug into the chemistry books. Of course, I didn’t expect to see any of these chemicals here. Were they making these names up? There might be some connection to our chemistry but they had some unusual bonds. It might give me some clue where to start and look smart to my superiors.
I mean, if I blend all three together, it could end up being a blend and do sod all. If they were chemically active towards each other, something might happen. Would I have to heat the up? But why three sets of block chemicals? Why not make it simpler? I wanted to have an idea of what would happen before I blended them or touch the blue paper. This was never in the bag when I used to tot. How much of each and which combination do I start.
Finally, I cut the three samples into various sizes and went out to the nearby field. The samples weren’t too big. It wasn’t that I didn’t have plenty to burn, just that the chemistry book just warned caution with mixing chemicals. I also didn’t have any idea if they were acids or salts. There had to be a reason to keep the three substances separate before they dumped them in the vent. I should be safe from that as long as I don’t do it a confined space. I had a table. Water and a portable gas Bunsen. Kept the samples in a strong box. It was tempting to bring a blowtorch but I had enough budget. It wasn’t like I was doing anything but simple chemistry. The real science boys couldn’t even tell what this stuff was really, so much for their degrees.
Six combinations. Nothing happened. Glad I didn’t invite anyone out to watch. They’d have been disappointed. The final choice was to mix all three together. The book did suggest one of them could be a catalyst. Once I mixed, I stood back. I might be a novice chemist but I’m not stupid. At least it couldn’t be nuclear. I wasn’t stupid. I’d put a Geiger counter over all three materials just to be on the safe side.
It looks like I’d have to go through all the other retrieved materials, looking for different types, and try even more combinations. Something must happen. I think I was on the right track. Just not this time. Well, there was one thing left.
I turned on the Bunsen and flamed them.
That’s the last I remembered. I woke up a few feet away. Not unconscious for long. Just stunned. The table on fire. The water bottle had been thrown with me. As I was stupid enough not to bring a dust extinguisher, I sprayed the fire with the water bottle. That did even worse. The flames soared higher but at least I wasn’t thrown backwards this time. I suppose I should be grateful that it hadn’t rained.
The table was ashes but the fire kept going. A lot longer than I imagined. Pure bucket chemistry. Like you would do when young with a chemistry set. I found one once. Unusual, had its test tubes full of chemicals. I remember my grandfather telling me that he ignored the instructions and just blended everything regardless. A lot of fizz but that was it. Here, it was different. With heat, explosive. With water, a confined fire. A hot fire. Multi-use.
I looked up. A few people had finally became curious to see what I was up to. What was wrong with these people? Where had their scientific curiosity gone? These coming over weren’t even scientists. A couple of the suits. What do I tell them that won’t fire me?
‘Well, gentlemen. We have a choice here. An inert explosive until fire is added. If you use water instead in a confined tube, we have an aircraft fuel. If you don’t want it, I’m sure I can find a use for it.’
They nodded sagely. Did they really not care that much?
end
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