Chapter Two: The Transporter

Copyright 2009. All Rights Reserved.

After the aliens had left and the kitchen had started cleaning up, I accepted the language translator with thanks from my dad and went to my room. I took out the transporter that the alien had given me and dropped it carelessly on the bed so that I could get the can of cleaner. Instead of lying quietly on the bed like any reasonable inanimate object, it floated gently in midair, bobbing up and down like a toy boat in a bathtub.
I looked at it, surprised, but then figured that it hadn’t been affected by our artificial gravity. I picked up the can and looked in it doubtfully.
There was a strange, thick liquid in the container that looked and smelled like clear nail polish. I flipped over the lid and saw that attached to the other side was a small brush. How handy. I picked up the brush and got to work. After some hard scrubbing, the transporter was clean and shining, looking much more like the first transporter that the alien had showed me. I remembered his words before he had left.
He had said that there would probably be a few glitches but nothing serious. He also said it had voice recognition and that he had programmed it to respond to my name. All I had to do was name a place or choose the surf option and I could go wherever I wanted. The alien told me that his name was Toald and that the transporter would be able to find him.
As I sat there looking at the transporter, I decided to take it on a trial run before telling Dobbs or my dad. It was so seldom that I was able to give them a surprise, so this would be a secret at least until I tested it. Just then there was a loud knock at my door. I jumped, and looked around me frantically, looking for a hiding place for the transporter. In the 5.3 milliseconds between when the knock came and when the door started opening, the transporter “disappeared”. When the door opened to reveal Dobbs, I was sitting innocently on my bed, reading. I looked up inquiringly.
“Yes?” I asked, remembering to keep a finger at my “place” in the book as I looked up at him. “It is time for your lesson in Science. I came to get you.” Dobbs said in his slightly metallic voice.
“Oh, that!” I said.
“You were supposed to come to the classroom twenty minutes ago.” said Dobbs.
“Sorry! I forgot.” I said truthfully.
“Why?”
“Well, I—I forgot.” I looked down at my book. “I was busy reading.” I answered.
Dobbs stared at me. He has known me for most of my life, and he is a logical computer. That book, a gift from my father about mining on Earth's moon had been sitting on my desk for the last three months without a page read, and something did not compute in my changed behavior.
Eventually, he ended the staring contest and told me to meet him in the classroom. I waited until Dobbs had started off towards the classroom before I stood up. Then I looked back at the bed. Where I had been sitting was the transporter.
"Natalie!” Dobb’s voice echoed down the corridor.
“All right, I’m coming!” I yelled back, shoving the transporter into my closet.
When I reached the classroom, Dobbs was waiting for me.
“Today,” he announced, “you have a science test.” I looked at him in disbelief.
“Today?” I asked.
“Yes.” Dobbs said.
“Does it have to be today?” I asked.
“If you procrastinate, you’ll have a science quiz as well.” Dobbs said. I sighed.
An hour and a test later, Dobbs finally let me leave the classroom.
Once I got back to my room, I rummaged in my closet and finally found the transporter, now once again dusty but still better than before. I surveyed it carefully, then leaned close to it and said clearly into the little hole on its side
“Take me to Earth.” There was a pause, and then a high-pitched buzzing sound, and a female voice said clearly
“Ymatk lornth cally ta bedin Earth”, or something like that.
“Oh, great.” I muttered. I hadn’t thought that I wouldn’t be able to understand my transporter. Then I remembered the translator gift from my dad. I dived into a pile of clothes and emerged successful, clutching tightly in my fist the now treasured translator. I looked it over, pulled a few levers, decided it was ready, and repeated my request to the transporter. The buzzing noise began again, and the same female voice said
“I’m sorry, Earth cannot be directly reached. Please try again later or use the surf mode.”
“Surf mode.” I said, and the transporter began vibrating crazily. Suddenly the voice said
“Entering surf mode.” The small hole turned into a big hole, and the machine spit out a strange little remote control thing.
In design it was quite simple, just four little arrows pointing the directions of a compass. Beneath the arrows were the numbers from 0-9. I glanced at it briefly, and then looked at the transporter. To my surprise, I saw that the transporter had projected an image onto the wall that shimmered blankly. I pressed an arrow on the remote control, and it flashed to a bare, vast, red plain, with a tall, dangerous looking volcano in the distance. In the corner there was the number 82365. Evidently the remote control was like a television, and each different place had a number.
I started flipping through all the various places, and even though some of them looked pretty interesting, none of them looked anything like Earth. Finally, though, I got to a scene that showed a meadow surrounded by trees. It was an overcast day, but there was grass, the dream of every space-raised kid. This was definitely the place I wanted to go. I went up to the wall and put my hand on it gently.
My hand immediately went right through the wall, and I felt a strange tingling feeling all over my body. I jerked my hand back quickly. After a moment, I slowly put my hand through the wall again, following with the rest of my body. I looked around me. I wasn’t quite in the meadow, but I was halfway between both. Then I made a big mistake: I looked down.