Total pages in book: 159
Estimated words: 149470 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 747(@200wpm)___ 598(@250wpm)___ 498(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 149470 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 747(@200wpm)___ 598(@250wpm)___ 498(@300wpm)
I shrugged.
“It’s fine. It doesn’t taste like anything, really.”
He nodded.
“It’s not supposed to. It’s meant to meet your nutritional needs—not stimulate your senses.”
“Geeze, I’d hate to come from a people so ‘advanced’ they didn’t want to enjoy what they ate anymore,” I remarked, scooping up another cube. “Don’t you have any food that’s fun to eat on Korrigon Four?”
“We do have traditional feast day foods,” Sir said stiffly. “But we live mostly on the nutritional gel—it’s better to eat a bland food that doesn’t distract from important business matters.”
“If you say so.” I ate another cube, letting it melt into a flavorless puddle on my tongue and then swallowing. “But I think you’re wasting this incredible resource.” I pointed at the Matter Synthesizer wall. “If it can really make anything, think of all the amazing dishes you could create!”
What I meant was, dishes that I personally am too lazy to make. I love to watch vids online about making all kinds of exciting, exotic foods, but when it comes to actually trying the recipe—tracking down the hard-to-get ingredients and doing all the arduous prep—well, I’m not as into that.
But if I had a big machine that could just make anything I could imagine pop into existence, well, you bet I’d be making all kinds of crazy recipes, day and night! I’d be popping out Coq au vin and Chicken katsu curry and macaroons and all kinds of stuff—you’d better believe it!
Sir simply nodded condescendingly and went back to his own nutritional gel cubes. I finished mine—noting that while they didn’t exactly fill me up, they did at least stop my stomach from grumbling—and then sat there, swinging my legs like a little kid sitting on a park bench as I waited for him to finish.
“Would you like to see the rest of the ship, little one?” he asked, when he had popped the last jiggling cube in his mouth.
“There’s more?” I asked, surprised.
“Just the cockpit and the control area, but you can at least get a look at where we’re going—if that interests you.” He raised his eyebrows at me and I nodded eagerly.
“Yes, please!” I was hoping to figure out how far we were from Earth and how long it might take me to get back there. It couldn’t be too far—right? I mean, we’d been traveling for less than twenty-four hours—or ahrns as Sir called them.
“Come.” He gathered both our empty bowls and put them into one of the medium-sized doors. Then he shut the door and there was a muffled pop and a flash of light.
“Oh!” I jumped, looking at the door uneasily. “What just happened?”
Sir shrugged.
“I sent the containers we ate from back to their original form. The Matter Synthesizer doesn’t just create matter, you know—it can also destroy it.”
“Wow…” I looked at the wall full of doors with even more respect. Not only could it make anything you could wish for—it could also destroy waste and turn it into floating molecules of air. Thinking of the plastics pollution problem back on Earth, I couldn’t help thinking how much good even one Matter Synthesizer could do there.
But…it could do a lot of bad, too, I admitted to myself. If it fell into the wrong hands, some crazy dictator might use it to make a ton of nuclear weapons. Or a greedy billionaire type might use it to make new products to flood the market and then keep all the wealth to himself. Yeah, I could totally see either one of those things happening. We humans couldn’t be trusted with this level of technology.
It was a sobering thought and I was quiet until we passed from the kitchen, through the living area, and to the very front of the ship. There was a single, wide seat up here and lots and lots of glowing gauges and readouts. But there was something strange too. After a moment, I put my finger on it—though I looked everywhere, I didn’t see any way to control the ship. I mean, there was no steering wheel or yoke, no levers to pull, no dials to twist, no buttons to push—just…nothing.
“Well? What do you think?” Sir asked me.
“How do you drive it?” I asked, frowning up at him. “I mean, I don’t see any way to steer.”
“Steer?” He frowned and then rumbled with laughter. “Oh, I see—you want to know how I control the ship. With this.”
He picked up another golden circlet—this one had little black pads attached to it—and brought it down on his head until the black pads were in contact with his temples.
“So…it’s like the Matter Synthesizer?” I asked, raising my eyebrows at him. “You use your thoughts to control it?”
“Of course.” Sir nodded. “Most of our technology relies on mental manipulation and thought control.”
“I see,” I said, trying not to be impressed and failing. The Korrigons really were much more advanced than we were back on Earth. Not that that made them better than humans, I told myself stubbornly.