Roller Ship

scifi story Chapter 2

Way too far now already. Like a tiny ant on it's long trip down an infinite branch, Hickey walked along a mountain ridge in a desolately remote mountain range in Honshu, Japan; Because of something he had seen on Google earth: A giant "toot-a-loop" resting on the side of a mountain nearby. Was it a roadside attraction or what? The “Toot A Loop” had been created in the seventies as a novelty AM radio one could un-twist and wear around the wrist, and now it sat as big as a school bus; relatively near to the location Hickey Walkins was visiting, on his continuing hunt for extremely interesting artifacts. The vintage and antique stores of Japan were choice. Full of surprises. Antique Road Show was such a boring but charitable affair...anyway, it was probably better to watch. It’s last location was a stretch to find anything remotely interesting. But what the fuck was this? a humongous Toot A Loop roadside attraction! away from any road?
Hiking steep and beautiful terrain is something he loved to do anyway. Hickey had been rock climbing for many years, and this up coming cliff looked easily enough to conquer without any equipment. "That's the way Hickey swings" he said to himself. "MARCH! to another drummer." After much unexpected trouble, he breached the edge to find the Toot A Loop Right where he expected it, resting on the plateau. Hickey slowly pulled himself up, dusting off the rubble he tripped slightly in his walk to the all too familiar yet giganticus am dial. Which began to slide into what was apparently nothing. Revealing an opening which a frog man was stooping slightly to come outside, holding his striped top hat so it would not fall off. It was a little difficult to be afraid because the frog man appeared like a kid would, emerging from the bottom of a spiral tunnel slide at the playground. IT was wearing long French striped pants a tailored suit jacket and an ascot .

"well, you took long enough, I had to move the ship because you were headed to the wrong mountain top.”

"excuse me? do I know you, little froggy man? would you mind taking off that helmet?"

“actually, this is my head. ...OK you got me, it's a helmet.” He took off the frogs head to reveal another smaller more realistic frogs head......

“I don’t know what the fuck is going on, but I’m interested.”

"as you might sometimes suspect at a moment of pause in the middle of the day…space doesn’t exist but what it’s filled with never ends. It just keeps on going and going and going on forever and ever and for fucking ever! our drives cancel out space up to the edges of each planet for a few seconds, for several meters . We roll over all of the gravity wells in the universe, hoping not to run into suns or anything. Do you want to see?”

Hickey took a pair of goggles from the amphibious beings hands and put them on, immediately he jumped back in shock and made a high pitched shriek at what he saw.

“Holy shit! it’s all right there.”

“Yes, indeed you are seeing the true, or more accurately; a different possible configuration of the contents of the universe. This filter shows the planets the around earth by Default natural visual configuration and each in order of proximity. This is what makes the travel possible. The very visual perception of it, opens the door to it. Discovered here on earth as well, it is known as the Hiperepurb unpertancy prinpipal or something like that. Yep, it seems like everything that's possible or ever been dreamed of does exist somewhere in reality.”

“really?”

“Sure, what the fuck, How would I know. Yes, there’s even a planet made of candy. Anyway, the point is that some of you earthlings think you know what stuff is better than other stuff. Me and my friends think your just our favorite kind of people. We want to give a small sample of people from the less advanced civilization the chance we’re all getting now: you know, “Space the final frontier…” But it’s not final and we mean the space you can use not just the empty space you’ve been used to thinking about. Now the empty space between worlds is just the space you travel on the surface of a dead planet long enough to realize it’s a dead planet and not just a desert. We can detect the extremes but there’s a lot of worlds where life never started for no good reason . Although I think our passage ways are tracking microbial organisms all over the universe.”

“ I do know a little sompin about a little sompin. But how will I get the food an supplies I need?”

“ We have a few hundred years use over you for like the most important invention in most histories in most galaxies ever : The 3d Printer. If you want a three course meal, you just download the molecular recipe and throw some phone book or dirt or whatever into The raw materials bin.
My friend Chibus found a new planet 13 years ago when ( un-translated pronoun) was trying to avoid a sun a little too late and came to roll over a tiny perfectly varied and beautiful planet, that was much more massive than it appeared because it was made of mostly diamond with giant veins of once precious ores and gems. Other than that, it's evolution had been similar to earths, minus the humans.”
Hickey, open mouthed squeezed out a whispered; “wow.”
"Chibus kept it a secret to all but most of (un-translated pronoun) closest chums." We were taking a communal tour of our new little jewel of a planet (a quarter the size of your moon), and discovered “The Emperor” had begun setting up his mining operation. And had already left with his first shipment of gold and gems that would soon bankrupt the united nations of the galactic core. He sold it quick , before anyone realized there was a whole planet made of this stuff. The ironic thing is that he was already rich and just liked to make people work for him but after a corrective action by the united planets, he could find no one to watch working for him. Soon, he will be here with a stellar business proposal or two for a few well established corporations and try to fill it up with slaves from your slave planet or another one in the vicinity of...
"there's an empire? What do you mean , slave planet? Were pretty free…no, your right."

"Ok, what's a euphemism, hmm... extremely dependant specialized workers. Well anyway, the Emperor is just this guy, who has a thing for making intelligent but primitive people follow him somewhere, he can play emperor until they "figure" out how to use his printers and escape with all their gadgets, and he goes off looking for some other group... hours of entertainment."

"doesn’t anyone get hurt?"

"oh god yeah! He always tries to kill his slaves when they rebel. Most of us have downloaded violence protection Printed out entropy bots, you know.... That's when the governments went out of big business, and focused on the infrastructures.”

"so why did you pick me? "

"You're a connoisseur, I know about your collection of the greatest gadget designs from your blog. I scanned them and shared them with everyone in my social group."

"are you all frogs?"

"no, frogs are from earth. I am wearing a costume, I just hate looking like a opalescent translucent iridescent elf." Her true form appeared long enough to get a good look and the frog was back. “come inside the Toot-A-Loop, I made it from a picture on your blog, I applied the shape to the design for my shell.”