A Study of Hummus
It's slice of life trying-to-be-harder sci fi, ok?
Author's Notes
[IN PROGRESS]
I'm just the Technician
"Oh. Sure. I can tell you stuff."
"You have to go really fast? Right? Like a million miles an hour."
Ji'haeh got out the tablet. Alice was used to this. They tended to really like their numbers.
"Oh hell no. A bu-lli-on-miles-an-hour is far too slow. We have lives, you know. I don't want my kidlings to see this ship."
She got that look. It was arbitraryily large number time.
"The strangelet short jump drive goeth - do you know parsec?" Alice shook her head. "Light year?'" Alice knew those words. "go half a light year in an hour".
"How many miles -"
"Nine Tru-lli-on, I think, counted by the A's, yes? Your numbers make all things look bigger."
"And... how is that a short jump?"
"Oh, this ship made to build a path, usually not have two toruses on it. Can go farther in smaller ship with clear path."
"A clear path?"
"Hydrogen. Not enough to smell, but oh... if not cleared, small ships go BOOF." The motion of her.... everything,,, obvously meant an explosion.
"This ship is two big to BOOF then?"
Ji'haeh seemed to laugh. It didn't quite fit. "Oh no, it happen. Strong ship. Stay one piece while fix. That happen sometimes even when send a cleaner ahead."
"And the cleaner... cleans a little path... where it flies. And then you fly after it."
"Not... it clean a stopping point. Path dirty, go to fast to matter much. Big magnet enough to keep us safe in the dark."
"The... dark? You mean in space."
"Oh. NO. Yes, the dark is space. Nine Tru-lli-on miles per hour - light can not keep up at all. Not see the shits. Strange vibrations, yes, see light no."
"It's .. pitch black. Like underground a cave."
"Or bunker. Yes. Very hard to study the dark. Easy to go in, hard to come out. BOOF."
"Then what do you use as fuel? That has to take a lot of power, right?"
"Ah, the strangelet. We push them with magnet. Very tricky, powerful computer decide how to do it. Magnet computers have many tricks. Make big mountain of weight crished my neutron star to fit in hands act like nothing is there when we want it to. Throw us across dark when we want it to. Speed like rocket when we want it to."
"So... it that engine broke you'd be stuck here?"
"If strangelet short jump drive broke, we be blanket across solar system."