Chapter 23 A Friendly Toy

With the dawn, and some fresher food for breakfast, they were recovering from a bit too much adventure yesterday. The finding of the old artificial caverns linked to their private lava tube system, was looking like it was not so private or theirs anymore. This put a big change into their plans; or probably would. They talked about the implications of what they had seen. The systems inside the facilities did respond to their presence in the case of the elevator, so it was still active. But there did not seem to be any of the communications and monitoring systems that were characteristic of PE management's data and control systems. Apparently the aircraft was from their very first landing and facilities on this planet. Then, since it was so remote from the more hospitable area in which PE built its major industrialized cities, they left here. But why leave an airplane filled with toys here? Lots of it did not make sense. They were mainly relieved that they had managed to get out of there and get back here.

Recalling the toy that they had brought back, they got it out of Geodon's backpack, and set it outside in the sunshine, to watch it activate and see what it did. At least they ought to get some amusement out of their struggles. The little complex shape took awhile to start moving, apparently charging its batteries with the sunlight. Then it began to move; it managed a full circle turn, then moved back to face them. At least they thought it was facing them, since that side of the complex machine seemed to have more of what might be sensors and manipulators than the rest of the thing's surface. It did not seem to be doing anything more, so they went back inside the cave to make some tableware from the molds they had brought.

When Geodon went back outside to get some black sand for the casting, he discovered that the little toy had moved itself over to the edge of the water. Worried that it might be damaged by rolling into the lake, Geodon picked it up and moved it back to near the cave's doorway. Then he noticed the thing had something like a straw that was wet, maybe it needed water. So he moved it back to the edge of the water, the straw back into the water, and watched it for awhile. It did not seem to be moving toward the water; he did not want to have to go searching for the thing at the bottom of the lake. He took a pail and gathered up some of the black sand from the edge of the lake, and took it back to the site of their craftsmanship effort inside the third cave. After awhile Nansella remarked that the little toy robot had come to the edge of the cave's door and appeared to be looking in, but it was staying in the sunshine. She also pointed out that it seemed to be looking a bit rounder, was it her imagination? They went over and looked at it more closely, and yes, it seemed that its surface between the complex things on its outside had swelled out a bit and was more stretched. Maybe the toy needed water to work. On this planet, water was not easy to find. The vast lake nearby and the few smaller lakes like this one, were one of the few places a lot of water could be gotten easily. That could be a reason for having made the artificial tunnels and the aircraft hangar near here. Could it be that their tunnels had gone so far as to access water directly from in there?

Nansella pointed out that the mysterious tunnels seemed to have made significant effort to hide their presence. And accessibility; climbing the volcano from the outside looked probably impossible to do. Definitely not worth the trouble to do it unless specifically wanting to get up there. Of course, helicopters would find it easy to access up there. But from the air, it would not have looked like there was anything interesting in the cone of the extinct volcano. So it looked like the intent was to have a way to access water by a flying aircraft, and to not let it be known to others. Odd that the original PE exploration put effort into doing that; the initial planetary survey clearly indicated there was no trace of life on the planet, thus no competing lifeforms, big or microscopic. PE would have known that when they bid on buying the planet. this was not all making sense.

It suddenly made more sense when they heard a voice from the doorway. It sounded like a blend of Geodon's and Nansella's voices. The amalgamated voice said that it too came from another planet. And thanked them for rescuing it and providing sunshine and water. Could it help them in some way? Are we the only ones on this planet? it asked.

They looked at the little toy in the doorway, just outside where there was sunlight. The toy had talked, right? It was a interesting thing to have a toy robot say, but logical. It was almost like it was alive, how clever. And how it had managed to sort of imitate their voices too. Old Earth must have some really complex abilities that were not yet reproducible in the frontier planet, to have made it.

The toy in the doorway spoke again. "Can you hear me? I had thought that this mode of communication would work for you, since it seemed that you two were using it to communicate. But maybe not. I will try something else." It went silent as the two gaped at it, silently. Then they both heard words in their minds directly. "Does this work better? We both have come from different planets and are stranded here. Can I be of assistance to you? "

Nansella said to Geodon, that it had spoken into her mind directly. He said it did in his too. Maybe they ought to say something to it, the mind thing was really too weird. Nansella said "Hello. We are from Planet earth. Where are you from?" as she attempted to recall the lines from an old sci fi movie. The little toy replied that it was from planet ----- making an unintelligible sound. Yet was not gibberish; it sounded like it was a real name in some foreign language. Nansella replied that it was kind of it to offer to help. What kinds of things can it do that might be of help? It replied "Nansella, I too have a name, please call me Rardat. It looks like you are making a casting of an object, and need fill material that is finely ground, I can help make fine grained material out of the crushed rock here. It extended one of its appendages to touch a rock shard near it - and the rock melted onto a soft pile. It asked if that grain size was small enough. Geodon went over and scooped up some of it with a spoon. He replied that it was perfect, and thanked Rardat for his help.

Nansella looked at the fine powder in the spoon. It was of far higher quality than they themselves had been able to make. That could be a great help indeed. What kind of toy robot was that? "What else can you do to help us, Rardat?" asked Nansella. It replied that it could do many things. It was programmed to be a micro-assembler and cave borer when their spaceship landed here and was damaged, thus it could not leave to return to their home planet. It was so interesting to see other living creatures at long last, there were no creatures like Geodon and Nansella on its home planet.

Nansella said it first, slightly before Geodon. "It's alive! it's not a toy! And it wants to help us." "Yes of course I am alive and thank you for reviving me." it continued the conversation. It was using sound waves again, clearly preferred by these creatures. Nansella finally said that they would be very glad to be helped by Rardat and could they help Rardat in return? The reply was they had already been of great help by reviving Rardat. Geodon said that there were more like it where Rardat was found, would it like some of them for companionship? It said that it wold be fine to have more of its kind as helpers too, when they were needed to do a bigger job than he could do alone. Was "companionship" a word that meant more than a work helper? Nansella replied that "We two like to be both work helpers with each other, but also we spend the nights in very close proximity as part of companionship," but they are not working together at that time. They needed to do that companionship every night so as to function well as mutual helpers during the day. And that the nighttime thing only worked for two people, not three, Geodon hastily added, not wanting an added snuggle partner that was able to pulverize hard lava in a fraction of a second, to be loose nearby. Even if only trying to be helpful.

Once again Nansella took the initiative and invited Rardat to watch as they completed the casting of the dinner plate; the toy or creature or whatever it was stayed outside the door, however, apparently needing sunshine to function. They put the spoonful of pulverized material that had been made by Rardat into the mix, stirred it up with sand and thermal shock pulverized particles and adhesive, and filled the mold with it. Then used the ultrasonic generator to lock the materials together, And finally opening the mold and producing the dinner plate. They took it over and set it near Rardat for its inspection, wondering what it would think about it all. They were beginning to consider Rardat as a person, or at least a living thing; it seemed to think it was a living thing, too.

Rardat finally said it did not see what use the object had. They told it that it was a holder for food for when people ate a meal. It asked to be shown how that was done. Nansella went over to their picnic basket and got out some sauce, and put it on the plate. Then she proceeded to use the spoon to eat the sauce. She then poured some water into a cup and drank it. She then asked Rardat if it drank water with the straw. It replied that was the way it drank water. But it did not need a plate to assimilate materials for self construction. It demonstrated by going over to another rock shard and pulverizing it, then pouring it through a funnel part of itself, then extended new projections on itself. Geodon commented that Rardat was much like themselves, just looked different. We both need food and water. And ultimately the energy used by people had come from sunshine, although mostly it was used in the form of food which stored the sunshine's energy to be used anytime of the day or night, that way. Rardat said that it had a battery that stored a little energy, but not enough to do much work when it was not sunshine time.

Just then the satellite system had one line up and focussed a blast of concentrated solar energy to where the fourth cave was being made; there was a sound shock wave and some smaller grains flew past; but most of the fractured rock shards clattered down to the ground below the cave's opening. Geodon told Rardat to not go over where that happened, since that would probably be damaging to be near. Rardat said that was not an efficient use of solar power; was the purpose to make a tunnel in the rock, by just using thermal shock energy on the face of the lava? Geodon agreed. Rardat began its slow move toward the area where the cave was being made. Nansella said that it seemed to be quite aware of what had happened; so let it go do its thing. Maybe they all would learn something. Geodon checked the schedule and said that it would only be five more minutes until a satellite would be in position to send a two-second blast of focussed solar energy there again.

Nansella fixed a hurried lunch and they were both munching it while standing outside the cave's doorway, looking over where the beam would hit, and the little toy - or whatever it was - had positioned itself right where the beam would hit, or at least as high in the pile as it had been able to move itself. Then the solar blast struck, but the sound was not so sharp this time. It seemed like a lot more dust was in the air, but it settled quickly; and Rardat was visible sitting within a circle where there was no dust; the little robot seemed undamaged. It called to them and asked if this was what they wanted. Puzzled, Geodon went over to the cave face, and was astonished; there was now a cave bored into the lava flow, as far as he could see. The sides of the bore were smooth as glass, too. the cave seemed filled up about halfway with fine powder, enough to make an endless supply of tableware and lots of other things. "Was this helpful?" Rardat asked.