Here's the latest submission.

Fall of the Quantaline

by Hazen Wardle

Many thousands of years ago, when men on Earth were only just discovering how to harness the power
of fire, a majestic race of space-faring creatures inhabited two planets of a star system so many light
years distant from the Earth even now the famed Kepler space telescope has not yet detected even the
faintest of light from their star.

This race was the Quantaline.

They were similar to humans only in that they were bi-pedal, and there the similarities cease. They were
birdlike and they vaguely resembled crows, though even there the similarities were minor. They had
thick plumes of downy black feathers on their heads, faces and bodies were covered in fine feathers in
any color of the rainbow, and like many bird species, females tended to have the more subdued colors.
Eyes, set nearly on the sides of their heads, were large; the iris’s colored and ringed in red, and the ever
common black pupil. What may have once been wings eons ago had developed into flightless arms, with
only the merest hint of having ever been wings. The most notable distinguishing feature of this race
was that of their side-by-side double beak. Additionally, some had telepathic ability and others had the
capability of creating micro-wormholes which gave them the ability to see into the future or the past.

At the height of their civilization they numbered in excess of a billion-billion across two worlds. They
were highly skilled in anything imaginable, and their deep-space travel capabilities took mere weeks
instead of lifetimes.

They eventually discovered Earth and primitive man. Scientists on the fringes of both government and
society secretly took to experimenting on the primitive humans, transporting them in great numbers to
the Quantaline worlds of Rrefosdlia & Wyaeenll, only to eventually release those who survived back into
the wilds of the planet Earth. (But that is another story.)

For nearly 50,000 years the Quantaline people inhabited these two planets, having originally migrated
from a star in a neighboring galaxy. They knew, however, that their time in the Quantas system (for that
was the name of their star and sun) would be short, on galactic scale. The planets were perfect but the
star was not. It was a red giant, nearing the end of its long life, but the Quantaline grew complacent over
the past fifty millennia and their population grew to unfathomable numbers.

And then Quantas started showing early signs of death.

Although the Quantaline had the technology and the capability, evacuating a billion-billion people would
take many hundreds of years— if not thousands— and scientists had calculated, at best, that they had
a maximum of five hundred years before solar expansion grew too great to remain on the planets.
Something had to be done.

The governing body scrambled and additional deep-space transports were constructed. Regardless
of social or economic status, people would be taken on a lottery basis, but after the first five years of
development and ship construction, it was clear to all that even after 500 years had passed, only a small
dent would have been made in reducing the population on both planets.

It was then that people started to realize their plight. Even though doomsday was centuries away they
became panicky and frightened. Notwithstanding, construction on the massive ships continued though
they were many years away from the first ship being ready even for testing.

“Death to the sun!” the people cried in the streets. “Down with that terrible beast in the sky that
just goes around burning people like some sort of psychotic arsonist” A near religious-like anti-sun
move sprang up and quickly gained momentum across both worlds. People did not want to leave, so a
courageous group of scientists banded together, and for the next twenty-five years they worked on the
problem of reducing the size of the sun, of reversing its death-spiral.

And finally they announced their plans. A thousand ships armed with anti-nuclear matter would
approach the star Quantas and fire simultaneously. The people on board and the ships alike would be
simply called…Firefighters.

Preliminary tests had shown a small anti-nuclear rocket to have a minute impact, so theoretical
reasoning indicated a massive assault would yield larger results of the same.

At first the government wanted nothing to with this outrageous plan, but soon they bought into it as
well, agreeing that a quick fix was much cheaper in the long run than building millions of deep space
ships. ‘This will shrink the size of the sun, extending its life another 50,000 years at least!’ the scientists
assured the governing body. Thereupon they canceled the increasingly expensive relocation project and
instead dumped every available dime and able-bodied Quantaline into building the rockets and ships.

The crews of Firefighters were carefully selected, and they became instant heroes overnight.

Only a handful of Quantaline scientists remained skeptical of the plan. “The data is inconclusive!” They
rallied day after day to get the governing body to listen, to change their minds, but they would not yield.

Ten years it took to build the ships, as they needed to withstand the extreme temperatures now
radiating from the increasingly larger sun, and after only two years into the project the calculations were
revised and it was determined another 500 ships would be required. Each ship carried one hundred
rockets.

One hundred and fifty thousand anti-nuclear rockets intended to fire into the heart of the sun they
called Quantas.

The small band of dissenting scientists dwindled, their numbers reduced to only five as their colleagues
were pressured by others. One of those remaining few was called Lotros. He and his fellow scientists
each had mental capability of creating these micro-wormholes as well as telepathic ability. They
discovered many years ago that they could join minds and create larger worm holes. This ability they
had been developing and could now create one large enough to pass a small ship through. This would
be their life-boat, their means of instant escape should the rockets indeed fail. But they also knew from
data collected and re-examined that the chances of the anti-nuclear rockets failure were much greater
than their success.

The choice they had to make was great and heavy. On one hand they could escape safely and avoid the
impending disaster, but on the other hand was their sense of duty and honor to their people, to warn
them and try averting danger, making a run for it only at the last possible minute.

The time came.

Parades and parties were held in honor the heroic Firefighters, and soon after the ships were launched
with billions of spectators on the surface watching the broadcast and the lucky thousands watching first-
hand from multiple orbiting space stations and luxury yachts. Low planetary orbits were choked with
personal, commercial, and governmental craft.

Lotros waited in the escape ship, ready at a moment’s notice to join minds with his friends and open
the wormhole. The other four scientists, their final attempt at stopping the sun-shrinking attempt a
failure, diverted their own ship away from the command firefighter, making a beeline toward Lotros and
his awaiting ship.

From a distance they joined minds and the wormhole opened.

But even these scientists made a miscalculation. Behind them, their dual planets and many space-
stations dwarfed by the meddlesome and ominous star Quantas, now riddled with anti-nuclear rockets.

But Quantas did not shrink as expected. It exploded; expanding at an incredible rate even the fleeing
scientists could not escape. It expanded to a monstrous size, enveloping the entire sphere of space out
past the fourth planet, both Quantaline planets of Rrefosdlia & Wyaeenll were vaporized in an instant. A
billion-billion lives snuffed out in mere seconds.

The shockwave blasted Lotros’ ship through the collapsing wormhole, damaging the craft as it
disappeared to some unknown point light-years distant.

The Quantaline, arrogant in their attempts to control the forces of nature, perished in an instant, one
survivor, drifting in deep space, alone.

Thanks to my good friend Peter K. and his recent incessant nocturnal ranting’s on Facebook about “That
psychopathic ball of fire”, the Sun, which were key in inspiring a story I never realized needed writing.
Now, find out more about Lotros in “Dr. Who: The Secret of Excalibur”, available in the short story
volume ‘Inverted Orbits vol 1’ http://www.angelfire.com/ex2/gt6er/books.html

Here's the first submission for this round. Enjoy.

Hijacked

by Hazen Wardle

The girl was an assassin.
I can clearly see that now, looking back. You know what they say about hind-sight.
I'll tell you about it but I need to give you some background.

It is a time of both prosperity and misfortune. Multiple forms of energy have been tapped into in the
past decade and a half, each generational change scaling with such speed as to make Moore's Law
seem child's play. Energy generators and power plants that once took up many acres could now fit in
the average home. Internal combustion engines, now nearly obsolete, could run for days on anything,
exhausting very few harmful gasses.
I'm the head of a huge conglomerate of start-up energy firms, literally hundreds of small-time energy
producers banded together to take on the big-guy. It was a long road to the top but once we got our act
together we were larger than big guys, overnight.

They needed a brilliant mind.
They got me.
I'm better than brilliant.
Which is why I should have seen it coming.

The shindig had been planned for months, many of us meeting in the skybooth at the world multi-ball
championship game. I arrived in my custom air-ship; a dirigible, yes, but the fastest form of air travel
available, and the safest for me. A dirigible, you say? Yes. But not one of those clumsy, slow moving
behemoths of the early 20th century filled with deadly hydrogen gas.
This sucker is small, sleek, and fast, nearly zero drag, and coupled with the variable-antigrav generator
this baby can move. There are much smaller units available, but they have limited range and with the
open cockpit and jet engine right below the seat, I'd rather not. I do have a classic Harley, and when I
want to risk my life I take to the streets and the open road on that thing.

So anyway, I'm in my usual booth-another mistake on my part. I'm watching the game from the top of
the stadium. Really, I don't know why I bother going at all. I have a much better view of things on the
massive wall screen. Really I could just watch from home without all the hubbub. Perhaps it’s the
whole ‘being a businessman’ thing. Gotta make a good showing, I guess.
So anyway, I'm watching the players throw the balls around and trying score, hoping my team wins
(yes, my team. I own one of the three down on the field). Halftime rolls around and the festivities flow
out onto the play field.
Next thing I know the klaxons are blaring, people are running and panicking and explosions are
rocking the joint.

Suddenly she bursts in through the back door and hauls me out, just as if she had been my bodyguard
for years. "Quickly sir, right this way."
Blindly I followed; perhaps it was the explosions that blinded me, I don't know, but I followed her
anyway.
She was slim and dressed all in black, her outfit obviously leathlar--leather kevlar. Her many visible
weapons and lack of full body coverage screamed arrogance in her style, not worried about taking a
bullet or an mFrag. Her features were slightly Oriental--Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese? I couldn't tell,
maybe even one of the Japanese Yakuza splinter factions.

The window blows inward and instantly we are covered in a shower of tempered glass shards.

Leathlar has nothing on this stuff. Micro-fibre threads of neocabrisnite is inter-woven into the very

fabric of my suit. It moves and breaths like a dream, you don't even know it's there, no one does--you
can't see it if used correctly. I should have been more cautious and worn face and hand protection as
well, but then again, hind-sight. As I said, the stuff is nearly invisible, but feels funny on your face. I
guess that is why I don't like it; I don't like things on my face.
With the storm of glass coming my way I dive through the door and come through nearly unscathed,
but I won't realize until later my face was grazed.
The girl hurriedly helps me to my feet and prods me forward. 'Run! I'm right behind you!' she yells,
taking aim at some unknown enemy charging in through window.
The emergency exit normally at the far end of the hallway is missing; only a huge gaping hole remains.
It was my only hope of escape from whatever this was. I come to a dead stop at the hole in the wall and
survey the damage. The exit stairs lay in a twisted pile of wreckage hundreds of feet below. I'm stuck,
and glance back over my shoulder just in time to see the girl coming right at me. I catch a flying kick to
the chest and I am flung backwards through the hole, falling down and down and...

...And that's all I remember when I woke up.
She's standing over me; one of those huge guns pointed right at my unprotected head. As I glance
around quickly--a concession she willing gives me--I realize I am in some sort of craft, an airship not
unlike my own. In fact, the more I think about it, I realize it is mine. She must have hijacked it from my
crew and enabled the cloaking device.

'Yes, it's the Pony Express,' she sneered as she repeated the name of my airship, answering my unasked
question. 'Now, there are two ways off of this ship. I've been sent to kill you, but if you cooperate with
me perhaps that eventuality can be avoided...'

I apologize for not updating for a while. Things got crazy for a bit. Round 4 is done and there is a poll up. Vote for one of the 2 submissions. There is also a new image up for round 5, so get your thinking caps on and start writing.

Second submission for round 4.

VX2

By Hazen Wardle

Thankfully this barren rock has a breathable atmosphere. My life pack only contained a very limited
amount of clean air. The oxygen-converter in my suit could have supplied me with air for years, but it
was damaged when I got hit. Additionally, food will be a problem in a few hours.

I shouldn’t have even been here. Though the VX2 is a new ship and I have only logged a few quick
simulator hours, I am a veteran pilot. I can fly anything. Give me a barn, and I’ll fly it. I’m that good.

But this isn’t about me. It’s about the idiots in my squad. We were on a scouting mission, primarily. This
system consists of only five planets orbiting star HD45634 in the constellation Canis Major. We are on
our way through the area and decided to stop in for a look. It had been known for centuries this star
had at least two planets, and our own deep space scans revealed three additional planets, one in the
habitable zone.

“We’re half a light year from the SSS Nosugref. Admiral Meeker won’t know a thing.” That was the only
thing Downie had to say—the other two guys in the squad follow him like lemmings; I don’t even know if
they can talk! (But that is another story in itself)

None of the planets were worth much, and this is the only one with any sort of worthwhile atmosphere
to speak of—I suppose we could send in a team of mining engineers, but we all know it would end up
being run by poor people forced into slavery by some big power-hungry multi-national conglomerate.

Anyway, Downie and the guys decided it would be fun to see if their VX2’s could reach light-speed while
in orbit. Well, ok, maybe I’m exaggerating a little here. But they did want to race around this rock at top
speed. “Look at me! Look at me! Right turns only!” Downie yelled as he laid down the laps between the
planet and its asteroid of a moon.

So I’m holding orbit at 250k watching the idiots make fools of themselves. The three of them were
making me dizzy, but that’s not the reason why I’m stuck here. Yeah, yeah. I’m getting to it.

The guys got tired after something like a fifty or a hundred laps so they get this bright idea to buzz me.
They get into the classical delta formation and zoom right past me. The problem is, they seem to have
forgotten we were in space. Yeah, shock-waves and the like don’t form in a vacuum, so, like the moron’s
they are, they simply sped right past me.

Their trajectory was alarmingly close to the upper atmosphere, and they were nowhere ready to
land. All three of them actually dipped into the mesosphere, and I could see the plasma trails burning
behind them as they arced over the planet, disappearing from sight as they curved down and around the
backside.

I waited only just a few moments before I moved from my orbit, only then because they did not return.
They were on a very steep decent and it is very likely they were all caught in the planets gravity well.
Additionally, I could not raise them on the comm.

Time to go to rescue.

I eased on around the planet, sensors in all spectrums sweeping back and forth. I broke a sweat, and
that’s not typical of me. Believe me, on any other day I could care less if these idiots offed themselves
with one of their stunts. But in this current situation I needed them as much as they needed me. We
were a team, at least until we return to the SSS Nosugref—at which time I am seriously considering
asking for a transfer. I need to get with a squad that I matter to, a squad that cares more about the job
at hand than about horsing around.

As I am working my way around the planet I listen for any distress signals on the comm, but I hear
nothing. I scan the whole band and—

—an eye-searing flash of light and I suddenly find myself falling toward the planet. Something has hit
me, but I don’t have time to think about what. I’m in a flat spin and my controls only partially respond.
My reactions are automatic—as I said before, I’ve spent many hours in the sims, for this and other craft.
I manage to reduce the spin but I know I’m going down, that can’t be helped at this point. I launch a
distress probe at the last minute and ride it out as long as I dare. There is no way this bird will ever land
safely, so my only option is to eject.

At ten-thousand feet I pull the handle. The canopy ejects—two hundred years since the first jet
airplanes and they are still using ejection seats and detachable canopies—I can’t do anything about that
right now, but believe me, I do have some ideas on improvement.

The chute pops and I am jerked up and away from the derelict craft. I reach for the control handles and
angle toward the falling VX2. I am able to see the extent of the damage now. One wing is completely
missing and the other has a nice, round hole in the middle of it. It drops away and crashes, a smoky,
billowing cloud blooms a mile below me. I angle away from it knowing there would be nothing
salvageable.

I survey the landscape as I glide down, and I see no sign of the others. I am on my own.

Once I have landed all I can do now is wait. Hopefully my probe reaches the ship soon; I’d rather not be
stranded here any longer than necessary, and with those holes in what was my wings— something put
them there. This planet was presumed uninhabited, so I hope I am found by my people and not by the
natives. This whole situation could have been avoided.

So here I sit, waiting on someone.

I hear the comm in my helmet, and before I can pick it up I hear a ship descending in the background. I
look and realize today is not my lucky day. We were supposed to be alone out here in this sector. Turns
out we were wrong.

That is not an SSS Ship.

That’s the Telsnerians; the most fearsome race in the galaxy.

Here's the first submission for round 4.

Stranded

Tom J. Ferguson

 

  Sometimes I think that being the only Beriskevic female deep space fighter pilot is great. It sets me apart from the crowd. Just getting the position was a great feat in and of itself. I mean, where I’m from on the planet Beriskev, women do a lot of stuff, but I’m the only one who flies fighters. It was only by a fluke that I got the position. See, the Navy is skeptical about letting women enlist, simply because there are so many men that join, and we go into deep space in warships. A woman’s privacy is all but nonexistent, and that only leads to problems. So, typically, women don’t enlist in the Navy or Army. There are lots of women in the First Response Defense Patrol though. The FRDP is a branch of the military, however, they never go any farther than the edge of the farthest moon’s orbit. They are strictly a defensive force. The FRDP is where I got my start. I have been flying all my life. I started flight school when I was five, at my own request. Most little girls want to learn ballet, or horseback riding, or acting school, or singing. Stuff like that. Not me. I’ve never been comfortable as long as my feet were on the ground for as long as I could remember. So, I asked my parents if I could take flight lessons when I was little. I was a natural right from the very beginning. Flight controls come to me easier than walking or talking.
  When I was eighteen, I enlisted in the FRDP as a fighter pilot. I already knew how to fly- so it wasn’t hard to learn combat maneuvers, and I took to it naturally. I became the best pilot in the FRDP in a matter of months. So, naturally, when the Remissian attack came, I tore up their squadrons. I had already established a reputation by that time, and though I stayed right with my squadron, I still got more kills than the rest of them combined. The Remissians surprised us, but we still held them off. During the fight, and Navy Admiral on shore leave ended up in the FRDP Flight Control room, and he saw first hand what my skills were like. He recruited me personally, and asked me to fly with the Alpha Squadron of his flagship. Me fly in an Alpha Squadron? A nineteen year old girl only out of Combat Flight School for a few months, and they wanted me to fly in a Navy Combat Fleet’s most advanced, best skilled squadron? Wow, what an honor. Of course, I said yes. I would be flying with the Fifteenth Tactical Fleet in the Beriskev Navy’s oldest, and most reputable combat fleet. The Fifteenth is where every Navy crewman wants to be. The best of the best. The Fifteenth Fleet was one of fifteen formed for the Beriskev Navy during our revolution fifty years ago. Before that, we were just an outlaying colony of Earth, the only human settlement in the Andromeda Galaxy. We were so far away that Earth didn’t bother with us, until we formed our own government that is. Then suddenly, they were right there to remind us who was boss. After two hundred years of nothing from them, no supplies, no funds, no contact whatsoever but to replace the governor as needed, we decided to form our own government. Suddenly Earth remembered that we exist. We beat them after ten long years of war, and fourteen of our fleets were completely annihilated. We suffered ninety percent casualties in our army through the whole war, but somehow we won. Now we are facing an enemy that hates our guts for who knows what reason. The Remissians are the plague of the Andromeda Galaxy. If one person looks at one Remissian the wrong way, the Remissians will try to wipe out that person’s entire race. So, of course, when our Prime Minister told the Remissians that they can’t mine on our moons without the proper permits, they got really ticked and attacked. That’s when the Admiral found me. Now, two years later, at the age of twenty-one, I am still the only female fighter pilot in the Navy. And, it is quite an accomplishment. It can get a little depressing being the only woman in the Navy, especially when I’m deployed. I have no other girls to talk to. The guys all pretty much give me what  I want- having a woman aboard the ship is a luxury for them- or so they thought right at first. Then they found out that I don’t date every guy that I see, and then I was just part of the crew, just another lieutenant from one of their squadrons. And then we get to the first of the Remissian colonies, and the fight starts. My entire squadron gets blown away, and I am left to fend of twelve Remissian fighters alone. Okay, I am a great pilot, but even I am not that good. I shot down six of them, and retreated into the low atmosphere where I could use the abundant magnetic fields of this planet to keep them from getting a missile lock on me. And that’s when I found out that their fighters didn’t have that problem with their missiles. Yeah. I found out the hard way.
“Great, Miena, great. Now you gotta sit here behind this big, red, iron rich boulder until the rescue team finds you,” I muttered to myself.
I don’t get what the value of this planet is, the only mineral it’s got is iron, and it is very abundant in it. Useless stuff anyway. Weakest metal in the Andromeda galaxy right there.

There were only 2 submissions for round 3, but they were both good. Read them both and vote for your favorite in the poll to the right.

Here's the second submission for round 3.

The Rock

by Hazen Wardle

“The little planet looking thing in the distance there,” I told my grandson, who was perched on my
knee. “That was my home. And that is me, there, on the surface of that asteroid.”

“Really?” he asked, eyes wide with wonder.

“Yep. That was house and a space-ship. They did not make very many like that. It was an experimental
model, the first with true-artificial gravity.”

“Et-sterimental” the boy parroted. “Grabity?”

“Experimental,” I corrected. “It means it was the first one. It was built for practice.”

He nodded, a look of vague understanding on his face. “And gravity, my boy, is the stuff that keeps you
stuck to the floor. If we turn it off you’d float all over the place, like a balloon.”

“That was your house?” my other grandson asked. “It looks huge!”

“Actually, it wasn’t very big at all. Your grandmother and I lived in it quite nicely for many years as
we traveled through the solar system. It was comfy for us, but we would not have had much room if
someone were to come with us.”

“Well if it was not very big, how did the gravity work?”

“That’s the neatest part about it. The ring around the outside wasn’t just for decoration or to make it
look like Saturn, though if some amateur astronomer were to view it through a telescope it may confuse
them.” I chuckled in spite of myself, but the humor was lost on the kids so continued my tale. “The ring
actually spun around the rest of the sphere. It was nuclear powered, so it could go for years and years.
The spinning generated the electricity and created the gravity.”

“How’d it do that, Grandpa?” my oldest grand-daughter asked.

“Well, you know how electricity is generated. Spinning a magnet inside a coil of wire.”

“Yes, silly. I know that. I mean how’d the spinning create gravity?”

“Ah, that’s a secret I don’t really know the answer to. Physics and gravometrics is not my area of
expertise. I just know it worked.”

“So what did you and Gramma do in it? Where did you go?”

“We went all over. We visited Earth’s moon. Jupiter, Mars, Saturn. The Asteroids.”

My oldest grandson snickered. “That must have been funny to see a mini Saturn orbiting the real one.”

“Oh, I imagine some of the space stations then orbiting Saturn thought so too.”

“So what were you doing on the asteroid?” my grand-daughter asked.

“Checking samples. We needed to refill the supply tank for the food production unit. As long as it had a
good supply of most elements and minerals, it could make nearly anything. “

“Did you find any?”

“Oh, yes. We found what we needed. I even found a small rock I later had made into a ring.”

“Is that the ring Gramma always wears? That ugly little stone?”

I smiled. I never really thought it was ugly. “That is the one. It’s made out of some really special stuff.”

My young grandson on my knee pointed at the picture in the album, indicating me in the space-suit. “If
that is you, where is Gramma?”

I rubbed his head and chuckled. “Why, she is the one taking the picture. She wouldn’t let me go down
onto the surface of the asteroid without her. ‘There is no way I am going to stay cooped up in this thing
while you go down and have fun.’” I tried mimicking her voice but did a terrible job at it.

All the kids laughed. “Gramma? In a space suit? That I gotta see. Do you have a photo that?”

“Yes, it’s around here somewhere.” I answered, flipping through the photo album. “Ah yes, here we go.”
I pointed out a group of astronauts, each decked out in flight gear and a helmet tucked under one arm.

“That’s Gramma? But Gramma has white hair!”

“Silly boy. Of course that is Gramma. She was young once, and she had flaming red hair to boot.”

“She’s perty,” my littlest granddaughter commented. “That’s right, sweetie” I responded, rubbing her
hair affectionately.

Ignoring the mushy stuff, one of my grandsons jumped back to the photo at hand. “So what did you find
on the asteroid?”

“Ah, yes.” I leaned back and laced my hands behind my head.

“Well?” he pushed anxiously.

“We got the mineral supply we desperately needed, if that’s what you mean.”

“But…you got something else didn’t you?” I just grinned. He grinned back before coaxing it out of
me. “Come on, Granpa, tell us. What did you and Gramma find?”

“It was just after she took this picture,” I answered, pointing at the photograph. She had just jumped
from the ship and was in the process of landing. You see, the suits we wore could do that in light gravity,
easily go to and from the ship. We couldn’t land on Earth. The gravity alone would kill us if re-entry
didn’t burn us up first.”

“So what happened, Grandpa? What did you find?” one of the girls asked.

“Believe it or not, this little rock had a cave. It wasn’t a cave in the traditional sense. It was more of a
hole in the ground. Drilled into the face of the rock by a smaller asteroid. She stumbled upon it, well,
nearly into it actually. She had to hop over it, but that was easy as this little rock had very little gravity.
She reversed jets on her pack to keep from floating away, and the hollered for me to come check it out
with her.”

“Did a monster jump out at you, Granpa? Were you scared?”

“Nah. We weren’t scared. Maybe we should been, but we were young and reckless. But it didn’t matter
at the time, thankfully.”

“So what happened?”

“It was a gold mine.”

“Gold, Granpa?”

“Well, not actually gold…” I was stringing them along, drawing it out.

“Not gold?” the little girl asked.

“Nah. We found two things. One was a new mineral. Gilsonarium-that’s what’s on your Grandmother’s
ring. The first piece of it from the rock. They use the stuff in star drives now.”

“And the other?”

“Diamonds. Lots and lots of big diamonds…” I made a motion with my hands as if holding a basketball.