Chapter 24 What Is A Rardat?

After much too long a pause, Geodon replied that yes, that was very helpful; and it would make enough high quality casting material for a very long time. And asked, how far did the new cave go? Rardat replied that it was as far as he could get the bonds to disassociate in that amount of solar power, about 30 meters deep. Most of the cave was filled with the powder of the rock whose chemical bonds had been "disconnected" yet remained in place, nowhere to go. To Geodon, that looked like enough material to fill the planet's commercial needs for a very long time.

Nansella commented that sooner or later, PE was going to want to know how to make the material, if it got to be a moneymaker. And how would they explain Rardat's existence? "I don't think that PE had anything to do with Rardat or the facilities up in the mountain or the aircraft" she continued, a bit thinking out loud. Geodon went wide eyed at that for awhile; then quietly said something about just who did that, if not PE. Yet it was now getting obvious to even him that it could not be PE's doing either. Was it a leftover from the original planetary survey expedition that found this place and declared it potentially habitable by humans? That report was available and read by most everybody long ago; the expedition had not gotten closer than 300 kilometers of the surface, their spacecraft could not get close to an atmosphere without rapidly disintegrating. They carried no aircraft. Nor did they abandon anything on this planet, merely a quick look-see and then they were off again, no time to waste. Such as in boring tunnels through hard basalt. Even if they had toys that could do that for them.

Rardat had to have come from some non-human source. Yet in all their searching, the planetary discovery expeditions had never found life of any kind anywhere; it seemed that the galaxy was open and available to mankind, come get it, nobody to stop them.

Rardat was chattering away, bringing them out of their reverie. "...thank you for fully recharging my batteries. I stored some of that burst of focused solar energy for my own use. I ought to be able to function for a month without sunshine, thanks to your gift of concentrated solar power."

Nansella asked Rardat if it was a machine or was it a living being. Rardat asked her to define both of those terms. Nansella struggled to answer; a machine was made by people and used mechanical parts and batteries; living beings used chemical processes to live and were not made my man ... er, they were made by woman but ... Geodon filled in that if it was powered by batteries it must be a machine. Rardat said its batteries used a molecule much like Geodon did, Adenosine Triphosphate to store and distribute energy. They were back to square one on the subject, it seemed. Nansella asked it how did it replicate itself. Rardat said it would demonstrate, although it would take a lot of its battery energy to do it; and before Nansella could protest, Rardat turned into a blur that oscillated horizontally back and forth for about a minute then with a pop sound, there were two Rardats, only each half the size of the original. One of them spoke, asking if the two of them could remain here to begin processing the tunnel dust for assembly materials, and wait for the next solar energy blast to get more energy again, to finish the construction process.

That was OK with Geodon and Nansella, who retreated back to cave #3; this all was a bit much for them and their brains needed some respite time to recover. Geodon commented that Rardat had answered her question of whether it was alive or a machine and the answer was yes. Whatever, it seemed to be eager to be a helper. But a loose cannon on deck, if it could withstand a solar blast and even use some of it to dissociate the atoms of 30 meters of rock, while also hungrily slurping up some of the blast of energy to satisfy its hunger, recharging its batteries - which used something like ATP too. "So we seem to have a helper. Or maybe two helpers now. What shall we ask them to do to help us" Geodon asked Nansella and a bit himself too. When they are back in shape again - let's not ask them to demonstrate their reproduction again or maybe they will ask for us to demonstrate ours - let's ask what other kinds of things they can do. No, that might end up with tunnels bored in places not needed at all. Maybe they should be asked if they can help with specific tasks that he and Nansella were working on. Nansella commented that she doubted they could make lunch as good as she could. Geodon smiled and said he too would bet there were a lot of things Nansella can do very nicely but Rardat could not do. "Let's ask them if they can help with our casting process" Nansella suggested, changing the subject.

Geodon commented that they seemed benign and eager to help; maybe they could offer to help Rardat and ... whatever its twin was named. Hopefully not also named Rardat. Geodon was thinking back about the aircraft they had found in the chamber in the top of the volcano; it had had indentations in both sides of the inside of the aircraft, each of which had an object that looked like Rardat. There had been dozens of them. Apparently they had been sitting there in the dark until their batteries were depleted. Maybe they could ask Rardat how long it had been sitting in that airplane in the dark. That might mean something. If it was days or a few years, then more of them might be arriving any moment. But if it was millennia, then not so much to worry about.

If mankind found out what their home planet was, mankind might go try to destroy it, fearing rivalry in the universe with them; mankind's history had often been a bit that way. So maybe they did not want to know where Rardat came from. Nansella wondered how many times could they replicate without degrading the pattern of themselves. Maybe they could make a business of renting them out to do something useful; and since they knew how to get more of them, it could be a thriving rental business. But the Rardats probably would not take to being owned by anyone. Besides, if they made much money at it, most likely they would have soon found that they had their memories erased and be without any Rardat help or connection with Geodon and Nansella anymore. But, maybe they could ask if Rardat could help protect against the memory problem? It was unlikely that PE goons could erase Rardat's memory.

Nansella prepared them a nice hot meal, and they prepared to bed down for the night. They would occasionally hear the whump sound of a solar energy blast, and wondered how their little helpers were doing out there. Munching pulverized lava and soaking up megawatts of solar energy each blast. Was it fun for them to do that, Nansella muttered as they drifted off to sleep.

After breakfast the next morning, Geodon suggested asking Rardat to help with the construction of the emergency hideout. Nansella suggested that they could ask if Rardat could make more food for them, since they were fast running out of food and would have to start their journey back to town by tomorrow evening as they were otherwise going to be very hungry.

A few hours later, Rardat showed up at the doorway. Along with three more just like it. They had been busy, apparently. Geodon asked which one was Rardat; there was a simultaneous four-voice reply "I am Rardat." A bit of discussion could not come up with any means to tell them apart; they all seemed to think that they were the same entity. Geodon thought better of painting numbers 1,2,3, and 4 on them to tell them apart; they might not like that. And maybe it really did not matter which one any particular one was. "Rardat" Geodon began, "would you be able to help us make a new room over in another part of the tunnel?" Rardat agreed to see it it could be of help in that. Nansella spoke up and asked if it could make copies of a small package of candy she placed before one of the critters. One of the Rardats picked up the package of candy and left with it, heading to the area where the tunnel had been powdered and the dust was drifting into the lake. It will take awhile to get the parts, Rardat – the one of them still in the room - explained. It suggested that they go to the site of the construction of the new room; they could not do much just powered by normal sunlight, but they could do some, no doubt. So the five of them headed down the lava tube tunnel; when they got to the Y and turned back down the other tube's arm, Geodon briefly swept his flashlight over to see if the three Rardats were following, and they were right behind. When they got to the area of the collapsed roof of the lava tube, the three Rardats scampered up into the sunshine to top off their sunshine powered batteries. Nansella and Geodon ate their lunch up in the warm sunshine too; Rardat was watching them and commented that it could see how the material was being taken apart and used to make repair inside the humans and to provide energy through the ATP production enabled. Rardat did not comment on how inefficient it was compared to how Rardat got its nourishment, for which Nansella was grateful. She was feeling a little bit incompetent as compared to Rardat, in some ways.

When all of them were expressing satisfaction with nourishment up at the top of the pile, they went down to where the planned hideout room would be. Geodon asked if Rardat could do any tunnel boring while only using stored energy. And Nansella asked it they could re-assemble the tunnel rock in specific places. Rardat explained that it would be easier to just leave some of it in specific places than to have to put it back together. Geodon began to explain distances of a volume so that they would have the same measures in the project. Then Rardat said it could more easily bore a cave in the side of the tunnel than to dig material out and rebuild a room in the tunnel; one of the Rardat's could make the room as hollowed into the side of the tunnel, but only a room about four meters deep and three meters high, with a doorway. One of the Rardats went over to the specified spot on the tunnel wall and then there was a sound of dust pouring out of the wall; Rardat disappeared into the pile of dust, and Geodon hastily scooped the dust toward the pile of rocks fallen from the roof, which seemed a better place for the stuff. Rardat emerged from the dust pile and asked Geodon to carry it up into the sunshine, it had used a bit too much of its battery power. Geodon took it up and set it where it would gather sunlight for many hours before getting shaded; leaving it there, he went back down to where the room full of powder was. Nansella was already busy scoping dust out of the hole in the wall, and had exposed a nice rectangular doorframe as a walkthrough and had cleared enough to discover that the corners of the room were all nicely squared up, better than any cuts their tools could make without months of hammer and chiseling.

Geodon went in and helped her scoop dust out and move it over to the rock pile; he too was amazed at the quality of the workmanship done by the little Rardat. Geodon asked if Rardat could help move the dust out of the room; Rardat said that not nearly as well as well as Geodon was doing, but that it would make some candy if it was taken over to the area where the dust pile was near the pool of water on the floor of the cavern. Nansella asked how would it know how to copy the candy; she did not bring any with them; Rardat commented that Rardat out by the lake had identified the candy and what Rardat knew, Rardat knew. A bit mystified, Nansella carried one of the two Rardats over and placed it in the pile of decomposed basalt dust at the edge of the water puddle, and left it there. When she came back, she found Geodon pouring some of the dust into a shape of a shovel, flat on the cave floor; then the third Rardat proceeded to vibrate, and a few moments later said to dig into the dust. Geodon wiped at the dust pile but his hand struck something solid; he then grasped it and pulled out a object that would do for a shovel. Tapping it gingerly against the rocky floor, it rang as if a bell; it was a unitized object. He could see how strong it was; so he went over and began shoveling out dust from the room. In half an hour, the roof was cleared of the dust. Nansella routed the wires in from the solar panel up on top, moving the battery and LED lights to shine in there. They moved the few items they had stashed here before. Looked like they had a great start in a hideaway. Would need furnishings. Geodon said wait; he asked if the third Rardat had enough energy to pulverize out more dust from places in the walls to make seating nooks. Rardat agreed and then one seating nook poured its dust out, one after the other. Recalling the little pockets that the Rardats had been in while in the airplane sides, Geodon asked Rardat to make such small nooks for some of the Rardats, and soon there was all that dust to be shoveled out.

It was time to start back to cave number three for the night, so Geodon went up and got one of the Rardats and put it in his backpack for the trip back; the other two said they had plenty of energy left for the trip back. One of them produced a candy-looking package to Nansella; she took it and weighed it in her hand, then carefully opened the wrapper. And tasted it. She quickly ate the whole thing, and put the wrapper in her backpack, quite aware that they had had no candy brought along on the trip. Only the Rardat which was left back at the lake area had the sample candy. Rardat had some interesting capabilities indeed.