I sat down by the open door and read for a while. The tale of people living in space was brand new to me, and opened a world of possibilities.
It was the cold that finally drove me away, and I came back with a sheet of paper and a pencil. I sketched out my plot, and wrote a script to describe something like the original story. It was a story of space, but everything was possible.
The cold was not something I could face, but if I was going to live in space, then I was going to have heat. I would need ways of generating heat. I would need to go wherever I wanted, whenever I wanted, and take the heat with me.
I went and looked at any books I could find on the subject, and spent hours and hours building a model of my central idea.
I was designing a machine to open a rift into another dimension, pulling in heat from the first dimension's sun, and sending it back to the second dimension's sun.
I called it 'The Engine.
I had been working on the engine for a long time. It was not perfect. It had a flaw, in that it could only be closed or opened once. To fix that, I decided I needed a receptacle for the material coming from the first dimension and the first dimension's sun. I centered the machine on a planet called Chiron, named after the mythical centaur who uses a weapon called the Chironian Fire.
I believed that this mechanism was a weapon, and applied the attributes of a weapon. It had a definitive place, and a definite function.
I finished the Engine a few days before I dropped it through the rift. I had finally learned to do everything I needed to do in the other dimension. I had learned how to open a rift, how to make a port, how to power my design, how to build and refine my designs, how to calculate the temperature accurately, and how to position a port accurately.
My training was finally complete. I wished I could have used it to make the engine ship, but the time was past. I dropped the Engine through the rift and built it into a sphere. I adjusted the speed of the machine and sent the entire sphere into the rift, as it should have been. My theory was correct.
The machine stopped the cold. I set it to putting heat into the first dimension's sun's atmosphere, and started the timer.
I reached out to the stars, and there they were, dimly shining just beyond the horizon. I pointed the receptacle at the closest star and dragged it. The fires of the second dimension's sun were always brighter, as much as a million times brighter.
I watched the first dimension's sun shrinking behind me as I pulled the receptacle with me, through space.
The star was larger than I thought, but I calculated for it. I could see the rift growing, and the distance was reducing. I increased the power.
I had it. I would be able to return to the second dimension's sun with my cargo. I'd done it.
After a few weeks passed, I had traveled tens of thousands of light years, and it was time to return home with my cargo. Nothing was left of the first dimension, except for the oozing surf, beaming heat into the receptacle. I knew the time had come for me to return home.
I approached the rift, only to find a giant wall of ice. It completely surrounded the rift, and was growing. I knew that I would never leave the first dimension on that day. I had sealed my fate.
I adjusted my brakes and stopped. I never liked the ice, but I knew its function. It was a precaution.
I turned my attention to how to build my heat engine. I would need to build a heat generator, a means to power it, and a place to attach the heat generator that would not be covered by ice.
The ice was growing faster. I saw the end in sight. Soon, there would be no hope.
I needed to provide heat to the people who would live here forever. Heat was their only hope. Without heat, they would die.
I had made a machine to provide heat to the people of the second dimension.
I wore my gloves, and looked around. I saw the ice coming towards me.
I looked back, and saw the rift. It was open. I could see the first dimension. I turned my attention back to the ice, and built myself a shield.
The ice was not coming anywhere near my shield, but it was coming closer. I was going to have to make a new shield.
I began building the heat generator, drawing the essence of the first dimension's sun into my lifetime supply of the bedrock of the second dimension. The ice was nearly all around me.
I was on the last days of the first dimension. I would not leave this earth, and I would not live in the first dimension. I would live in the second dimension.
I'd calibrated my velocity, and I would leave on a floating impulse of heat, pulled by the heat generator. I would stay on the floating impulse long enough to jump to dozens of different areas of the surface of the second dimension.
I needed to get some fuel to fire my generator, to keep it going, long enough to make the jump, and long enough to provide heat to a lot of people.
I adjusted my speed, built my destination into the map, and loaded my fuel tank with solar material. I would have to release my fuel as I rocketed across the surface of the second dimension.
I railroaded along the surface at extreme velocity, and opened a gap in the ice with my shield. I watched for a long time as the ice continued to build around me, with the pit that I had created. I opened another hole, and another hole.
I knew my shield would stop most of it, but the ice was building rapidly. I watched as the shield tore through the ice and built a little crack around the bottom of the pit.I would make a collar to contain the ice.
I watched as the ice grew, and built a collar to contain it.
Hi owlant,
Join the Curie Discord community to learn more.
Your content has been voted as a part of Encouragement program. Keep up the good work!
Use Ecency daily to boost your growth on platform!
Support Ecency
Vote for new Proposal
Delegate HP and earn more