The Space Sieve Read online

DAVID AND CHIP MATERIALIZED inside a dark warehouse. Startled by their sudden arrival, pigeons fluttered in the steel framework overhead. Except for some large wooden boxes, the building’s cavernous interior was largely empty. The Space Sieve was dark, and David began to manually push it behind a crate.

  “Were back on Earth,” he said. “There’s nobody here. This is an empty building near the docks. We can rest here without any more excitement.” He stood there silently for a moment. Chip felt relieved at the stillness and at the familiar surroundings.

  But David was not being entirely honest. He too wanted a change of pace to distract him from the experience with the elevator. But David’s mind had begun a process of descending further and further into an increasing separation from reality, brought on by extreme vanity. In other words, so many things about his life had changed so fast and seemingly so greatly in his favor that his ability to be responsible or even rational was failing. (This is a common trait among your kind.) As evidence of this, I observe that at this particular moment he not only wanted a change of pace, he wanted something newly exciting and dangerous to watch from a distance, to entertain as well as distract him. He had the sense that after some time to rest had passed there would be some new excitement to watch. But his timing was off.

  He exhaled heavily. “Here, help me with this,” he said, and he and Chip lifted the Device into the side of an open crate.

  Just as they were finishing, the door at one end of the warehouse began to open. It was a huge, rollup door that clanked and screeched as it opened. Two black limousines came though the door, careened recklessly to the middle of the warehouse, then came to a stop.

  With David unwisely expecting a welcome distraction for his mind and Chip too dazed to think much about what was happening around them, the two boys watched.

  Momentarily however, it became clear to Chip that they were witnessing two groups of organized criminals preparing to undertake some kind of business between themselves. At that moment, Chip looked to the Space Sieve and then turned back plaintively to David as if to say, “David, let's get out of here.” But David, in spite of the excesses that they had already experienced that day, was becoming excited once again.

  “After all,” he thought, “we can leave whenever we want, or do anything else we want to, for that matter.” And at the same time David remembered how the two girls had run off into the forest in the world where the boys had left them. By contrast, here he and Chip found themselves in a dark warehouse ready to witness something frightening before their very eyes. In a way, he felt this was an odd form of payback to the two girls for not seeming interested in them. If the girls had wanted to go with the boys after all, they could have had the same sorts of fun the boys were having.

  David leaned over and whispered to Chip. “How’s this for some fun – a little danger? Who needs those two girls for this?” Looking in the direction of the limousines, where men were still piling out he said, “See those guys? They’re organized criminals. This is a deal they are going to do here. We get to watch. I looked it all up before we came.” He smiled and his eyebrows twitched slightly.

  Chip grimaced and then he shook his head and stared sternly at David. “How could you do something like this, after our near-death experiences with the Kex?” he thought. “Don’t you know by now that beings aren’t just playthings – that they can hurt us?” But he kept still, saying nothing.

  And so what we have here are two examples of what happens with your kind when you escape imminent peril. In one case, such as with Chip, you respond by becoming more cautious – less willing to take risks as a result of a near-miss. In another case, such as with David – your kind sees an escape from peril as proof of your own invincibility – and you become more willing to take risks. You assume that because random fate operates once in your favor, that you are somehow “lucky,” and can therefore “dodge a bullet” every time. Of course, this is irrational. And yet, this was David’s reaction to the frightening experiences that they had already had.

  Unfortunately, as is the case with random events, they do not always operate in your favor, and they would not operate in the boys’ favor this time. David’s increasing tendency to act as though he was invincible would this time prove to be entirely ruinous, as well as tragic.

  As the men talked, their voices rose as if they were all becoming more and more angry and soon, they were shouting. Then, events turned very much to the bad. What happened next is what is sometimes referred to as a “fire fight.” Perhaps this is because the weapons used depend on the combustion of powders that are confined inside small, metal cases, which have a relatively high-mass insert on one end. You call the weapons, “guns.” These weapons – your guns – are easily dealt with by any one of a number of superior technologies, yet they are very harmful to your kind when your bodies are unprotected, as in this case.

  What happened next, as the two groups of men fired their weapons at each other, was a scene consisting of a vast amount of noise, men standing, kneeling, falling, and leaning into their weapons as they fired them, with their arms shaking from the concussion and the recoil. Other men were trying to dodge, dive, and so forth, as their bodies jumped and shook from the bullets hammering into them. In moments, many of the men had fallen dead, and the side with the largest quantity of remaining, living men began the task of “finishing off” the remainder of their opponents, both the living and the wounded, until only a few remaining men were left alive, some standing, some kneeling, wounded, and some lying on the ground, dying.

  The leader of the victorious side, as it happened, immediately took cover inside one of the limousines when the fighting started. This is typical of such societies. The leader is effectually the only person of importance, while the other men, his foot soldiers, have lives that are meaningless to their leader. And, if they follow his wishes appropriately, the leader would prefer that his men’s lives should be meaningless to themselves as well.

  During all this time Chip had confined himself completely behind the crate, while David had watched the spectacle. But as David now drew himself back behind the crate he saw Chip with his head pressed against the rough wood, teeth clenched. And then David saw why. There was a hole in the crate where a bullet had come though next to Chip’s head – he had survived literally, by inches. David’s excitement immediately turned to regret. He exhaled suddenly, then said quietly, but definitely audibly, “Chip, I’m so sorry.”

  He said it so softly that in most settings it would not have been heard. But in the vacant warehouse, with the boys standing beside the metal exterior of the building, David’s voice carried. The leader of the men – his name was “Ernesto” – heard it and immediately motioned for one of his men to investigate. The man ran over, found and caught the boys, and dragged them back to Ernesto, where they stood amidst the blood and the bodies, and where they were surrounded by the living remnants of Ernesto’s men.

  At this point I will observe that the lesser sorts of your species have a peculiar characteristic. As crude and difficult as your language is, these low persons insist on inserting into their already coarse speech words which have little functional value. Rather than repeat these words here (and since they perform no useful purpose) I will simply insert the word “ding” in place of those words.

  “Hey, ding, what were you doing over there, ding?” Ernesto said demandingly. The adrenaline in his voice was apparent. “What the ding is going on – two little ding boys in this ding warehouse?” He motioned to one of his men. “Hey ding, what’s the matter with you ding? How’d these little dings get in here? Go see, ding! They got their little ding bicycles over there or something? Ding!”

  The man quickly darted behind the crate, then found and drug out the Space Sieve. “Ding!” he said. “There ain’t no ding bicycles. Just this piece of ding.” He pushed the Space Sieve over on its back, and it slapped against the floor with a crack that ec
hoed in the building. He looked back at Ernesto.

  “Ding!” said Ernesto, and he walked over to the Device. “This is why you dings all work for me and not the other way around! You’re all a bunch of ding ding!”

  He kneeled down and looked at the Device, and ran his hand over it. After pausing to think for a moment, he stood up and walked back toward the boys, and while acting nonchalant fixed his gaze on them. He waved his hand dismissively and said, referring to the Device: “Take the ding piece of ding outside and throw it in the ding bay.”

  As he spoke David’s eyes flashed, and Chip shot a glance at him.

  Without saying a word, they had confirmed Ernesto’s suspicion. He had never intended to throw the strange object away, but was interested in how valuable the boy’s thought it was. And with their facial expressions they had told him. It was clear now to Ernesto that the seemingly nondescript object was something very valuable to the boys. He smiled.

  “Well, well boys!” he said. “It looks like maybe this little black boxy thing is yours huh? Hey, you know what?” Using his foot he rolled over a dead body that was next to him. “Maybe I won’t throw that thing in the bay after all, huh?” He gave a big smile.

  Looking at Ernesto, Chip thought that in smiling Ernesto actually looked far worse than he did when he frowned. Chip had not seen anything like that before. It may be worth noting, if you haven’t noticed, that for the moment Ernesto is not saying “ding” when he speaks, thus showing that people who use that sort of language understand that for the most part, it is unnecessary, even counterproductive.

  “Hey, two cute little boys, huh?” He walked over and bumped David with a finger. This reminded David of something his father would do – give David a little bump or a pat. But in the case of his father, David sensed it as a mark of affection. In this case, it was more like intimidation. Then Ernesto ruffled Chip’s hair. “Hey Skippy, what we got in the car for these nice little boys? Don’t we have some ding soda . . . I mean, don’t we have some soda pop for these nice boys? Hey, you like ginger ale? Sure, all boys like soda pop. Hey Skippy, get my friends here some ginger ale. Hey Skippy – a couple of glasses and a little ice too, huh?”

  And so, stepping across the bodies, Skippy got two glasses of ginger ale and ice from the bar in the back of the limo, and he lumbered back to the boys. Chip noticed that under Skippy’s coat his white shirt was bloody. “Here, here you go.” He handed David his drink. “Yeah, and here you go, yeah. Yeah, nice boys.”

  Ernesto paused for a moment, still smiling. Then he walked back to the Device. He stood it up, looked at it, rubbed his hands over it, and ran his fingernails along the edge as if looking for a seam. He clenched his teeth with frustration. Then he looked toward the boys. He smiled again, and walked back near them. Standing about 10 feet away, he crouched, looked at both of them, and he held out his hands.

  “Well okay boys, let’s have it. What is it?” He stared for a moment, and then his face grew grim.

  “I SAID WHAT THE DING IS IT, DING!” he screamed, and as he did, his men shifted nervously. Then he smiled again and came very close to David. He brought his face right up to David. Once again, he spoke calmly.

  “So, tell me you little ding. What the ding is that ding?” Then he smiled again and he closed his eyes.

  “WHAT THE DING IS IT, DING?!!” But David said nothing.

  Then, Chip spoke quietly. “Ahem. Umm, David?”

  Ernesto smiled. “Oh, it’s David?” said Ernesto as he moved toward Chip. “Oh, where the ding are my manners? David is it? Ding. And what’s your name, boy?”

  “Chip,” he said.

  “Oh, Chip is it?” replied Ernesto. “Hey Skippy, this little guy’s name is Chip. Hey Skippy, look at Bernard over there. See what Carlos did to him? Hey, maybe we should call him Chip too huh?” Chip looked over at the body of Bernard. Suffice it to say, it was clear to him what Ernesto meant when referring to the body of Bernard as “Chip.”

  “So,” Ernesto continued, “I guess your name is ‘Charles’ huh? Hey, calling you Chip – it’s better than calling you ‘Charlie’, huh? Yeah. Yeah. Hey Chip, so tell me, tell your nice uncle here – yeah, that’s me, think of me as your uncle. Hey, does your real uncle give you a nice ginger ale huh? Hey boys,” he said to his men, “do you think this nice boy has an uncle that gives him ginger ale?”

  The men smiled nervously and looked at each other. Then, turning back to Chip he said in a soft voice, “So tell me. Tell me Chip. Tell me what that ding thing over there is huh?”

  And he waited for a moment. And then Ernesto took out a pistol.

  “David,” said Chip, “Why don’t you just show him?” Chip tried to be brave, but his voice cracked when he said it. When Ernesto heard Chip’s voice crack, he rubbed Chip’s head again.

  “There, yeah,” he said, and he waved his pistol at his men. “You see what your mama always said, huh? The way to get what you want out of people in life is to be nice to them right? Yeah.” And he walked over to David while giving another of his sickening smiles.

  This was what Chip had hoped for. He had bet that Ernesto would not imagine that the black box could possibly be a weapon, and Chip believed that he had just won that bet.

  “It’s all yours,” said Ernesto, motioning for David to go to the Machine. But as David walked over to the Machine, Ernesto stayed nearby him. “Hey, mind if I watch?” he asked.

  David kneeled in front of the Machine. He began to rub his hands over it as he had done the first time in his bedroom. The texture appeared on the surface of the Machine, and yellow and black parallelograms began to sweep across the screen as a set of buttons rose and flickered on the previously flat keyboard.

  Ernesto stepped back. “Ding,” he said under his breath. Then quickly, he was back at David’s side, resting his hand heavily on David’s shoulder with his fingernails digging into it. As David glanced nervously at Ernesto and winced at the pain, the yellow parallelograms diminished. The screen of the Device became darker, and the colored buttons dimmed and became more nondescript. All in all, the Device at this point looked more like the sorts of machines your kind makes, than the sorts of Machines beings such as I are accustomed to.

  “Why doesn’t he just do it?” Chip thought, wondering why David didn’t just whisk them away as he had done so many times before. But nothing happened.

  “DING!” A man was looking up, his bloodshot eyes bulging, and then everyone looked. Hovering in the space overhead was a duffle-bag shaped object covered with colored lights. It was the Tic. Although neither the men nor Chip knew what the Tic was or what its appearance meant, you should.

  It meant David wasn’t operating the Machine correctly and so it had spawned the Tic. David’s attempts to operate it were so inadequate the Machine believed it was in the hands of a novice. And in appearing, the Tic had neutralized all of the Space Sieve’s external functions. The Machine was powerless.

  Ernesto looked up too, his eyes widening with fear. “Ding it! Ding that ding thing! Ding it you bunch of ding!” And his men opened fire. Bullets ricocheted in the rafters, but nobody could seem to hit the object.

  Ernesto barked: “Johnny! Ding! Go ding up there! Go get it you ding!”

  Johnny froze for a moment, then reluctantly ran over to the wall and began to climb a facility ladder that was bolted to the wall and that ran up to the roof. But as all eyes turned back to David, the Machine had returned to completely black. David was rubbing his hands frantically over its surface. But the keyboard was dark. The screen was black. And when they all looked back to Johnny, the object – the Tic – was now gone too.

  Without realizing it, Chip had sunk to the floor. “This is really bad,” he thought.

  It had never occurred to Chip that a time might come when David could not operate the Device. But it had come. David was so overwrought th
at he had lost his intuitive sense about it. He was thinking about it too much. And in doing so, he had lost his intuition of how to use it. His mind was nothing but a sea of fear and regret for what he had done – for the foolhardiness to which he had once again succumbed. Now, even the Machine would not save them. No matter how hard he tried, he could not regenerate the former thoughts and feelings he used to have when he would operate it. He was trying desperately. But somehow, he could not connect with it. He could not work it.

  In his hands this Device of so much wonder and power now felt like nothing more than an old, useless piece of equipment, or even, a block of wood.

  Where it had seemed before to be connected to him – responding to his every command – now it was only an obtuse, unknowably-complex Mechanism. Where it had seemed before like his closest friend, now it seemed as though it couldn’t care less.

  Yet, it had not changed. It was still just a Machine. It could still do the same things as before. It still worked exactly the same way.

  What had changed was David’s frame of mind.

  Now, he could not operate it.

  “Ding!” said Ernesto. “Where’d that thing up there go?” Then pointing to the Machine, “And what happened to all the ding lights on that ding! What’s going on? Make the ding lights go ding on again! Hey! What’s your ding problem you little ding?”

  At this point David looked at Ernesto, and then he looked at Chip, and then David shook his head. “I’m sorry Chip,” he mouthed silently. And then tears filled his eyes.

  Ernesto winced. “What? What the ding?” He pointed the gun at David. “Hey ding. Hey lookie here you little ding! Hey look around! You see all the dead dings lying around here? Huh? Hey ding! You want to join ‘em? Huh ding?” And he cocked his gun.

  “Hey Ernesto!” It was Skippy who spoke, and he gestured toward David. “Hey Ernesto that ding over there’s the one who knows how to make it do the lights and ding.” And then he motioned toward Chip. “But this piece of ding over here’s about as much use as a pair of ding on a ding.”

  Ernesto looked over at Chip, then smiled. “Yeah,” he chucked. “Yeah.” And he walked over to Chip. Always respectful to adults, Chip stood back up.

  Now at this point while I will cease to describe the events in detail, suffice it to say that Ernesto took his gun and pointed it at Chip at a place where it would not kill him but where it would do great harm and cause great pain, and he pulled the trigger.

  At which point it would have been safe to say that Chip would never be truly the same again. And indeed, as he watched, David would never be the same again either.

  As Chip fell, David saw his face. There Chip was, innocent, paying for David’s vain foolhardiness. But as Chip collapsed to the floor, even then in his face was the same trust that he had always had in David. Even as Chip fell to the ground, he looked confidently to David to save him. And what really wrenched David was that in Chip’s eyes it seemed he believed somehow that all of this was something David had anticipated, that it was all according to David’s plans and that David would save him. Even now, he still trusted David. And as Chip looked toward him, David could see in Chip’s eyes there was no hate, no anger, only friendship, only trust. And as David watched the full, horrible consequences of his own careless actions fall upon his innocent friend, it’s worth mentioning that in that moment, in that situation, a lot of men when faced with the realization of what they had done would have sunk into an abyss of horror, remorse and a self-destructive form of guilt from which they would have never returned.

  But none of that happened with David. For suddenly in that moment, David felt no more fear, no more dread. He had no hate, no anger. He felt nothing at all. Having seen what he had just seen and realizing it was all because of his careless selfishness had been an overload, erasing all human sentiment from him. His emotional gears were stripped. Now he was as unfeeling, as uncaring, as the Machine itself. His face was expressionless as flint. Now, he didn’t care about Ernesto, about Ernesto’s men, or about the dead bodies around them. He had forgotten about the girls, about his mother and his father, and about everything he had ever known or cared about. He didn’t even care about his own life anymore. Now, in this moment, the only thing he cared about was Chip. And in that same moment, the only things that existed for him in all the world, in all of creation, were only himself, Chip, and the Device.

  With no interest in what anybody would do, say, or think, he turned toward the Machine. He touched it. The screen flashed to life. The keyboard blazed. His stool snapped into view.

  He and Chip were instantly at a distance of exactly 396 miles from the surface of your Earth. The stars in your part of Space glittered in the darkness, and your Milky Way traced its magnificent course across the sky. Your moon was silhouetted by your sun directly behind it.

  David was sitting on the stool.

  Chip was standing beside the Device. He had no sign of the injury he had just received.

  But while he looked whole, Chip was trembling terribly. Leaning against the Machine, he sank to his knees while looking at David, and as he tried to smile his face began to shake from side to side. Chip reached over and put his hand on David’s leg to steady himself and it appeared to David that within moments, Chip would faint. Chip had a pleading expression on his face that even with all that he had been through, David had not seen anything like it before.

  David knew that he had repaired the damage done to Chip’s body – that was relatively easy - but what about Chip’s mind? Chip’s mind clearly could not endure the memory of what had just happened, and perhaps, neither could David’s.

  Chip’s body had been repaired. But repairing his mind – repairing both their minds – this was much harder.

  But David was committed, and his mind was yet a pure vessel of singleness and purpose, together still with all his innate talent. And so, he operated the Machine once more.

  Momentarily Chip jumped back to his feet, made an expression of confusion, and chucked, as if to say, “What was I doing on my knees just then?”

  What David had done, is he had erased the memories of everything that had happened from the time they left the girls, until the time right now. He had erased both his and Chip’s memory of those events. Therefore, both of them believed they left the girls and had gone directly into space around the Earth.

  But he was not done yet. David now operated the Machine with a fervor and fluidity that even he had never before expressed. Numerous lighted screens and keyboards appeared to the left and right of the Space Sieve, with strange shapes moving across them. The screens and keyboards under them bounced forward to David and back again as he operated them. The best way I can describe it to you is to say that the screens and keyboards looked like a group of pets that were being fed by their master, jumping in and out as they each received a piece of food.

  David was fixated, and moved with chilling precision.

  Chip had never seen him like this – so purposeful, in such concentration – so robotic and at the same time, so human. Chip stood silently and watched.

  And in those next few seconds, David did what no living creature using this Machine had ever done before. In a moment, the auxiliary screens and keyboards of the Space Sieve disappeared, and the single remaining screen faded to a pale, glowing blue. David swung around, and as he did so, he tipped to one side momentarily, as if he had been mildly drugged.

  “I deleted everything,” he said.

  Chip raised his eyebrows, questioningly.

  “Something just happened a few minutes ago,” David explained. “I deleted it from your memory, from my memory, and from the memory of this Device. The hardest was deleting it from the memory of this Device.” David motioned toward the Machine.

  “What did you delete?” asked Chip.

  “That’s the thing,” said David. “I don’t remember either.”r />
  Chip paused. “Why did you delete it from the memory of the Machine?” he asked.

  “Because I needed to have it be gone,” David replied. “All I know is it was very, very bad.”

  You may be wondering then, exactly what it was David deleted. I will tell you. What David deleted was the entire memory of the Space Sieve. This is a remarkable feat that up until this time no one had ever done before. And in his desire to purge the events fully from their minds, David erased his and Chip’s memories of the events in the warehouse. Or at least, that was his intent. But your minds, and your memories, are complicated things with many interconnections. And David was not sufficiently knowledgeable regarding the workings of the human mind to have been skilled enough to remove only those memories he had intended to remove.

  Suddenly, Chip had that familiar feeling again. He didn’t remember the deleted memories, but he did still remember something important.

  “David, the girls?” he asked.

  And then David’s eyes twitched and grew very wide, and in an instant he had a feeling that he would remember for the rest of his life.

  It was a feeling far worse than he had ever felt before. It was worse than how he had felt when he caused them to be trapped in the hands of the Kex. It was worse than how he had felt when he had almost destroyed all of the Kex. It was worse than how he had felt when he had destroyed his thinking place, and although he no longer remembered it, it was worse than he had felt when he had seen Chip fall inside the warehouse. David felt worse than he would ever feel again – worse than any human should ever have to feel.

  In fact, this was the strongest feeling David would ever feel in his lifetime.

  David swung around and faced the Space Sieve. He operated it slowly, haltingly. As he did, Chip watched the lights on the keyboard, and the strange moving objects on the its screen. But then, he began to feel sick as he saw the expression on David’s face.

  Then, David bowed his head.

  Chip looked at him pleadingly. Somehow, Chip’s mind immediately went to the absolute worst possibility. “Oh, David. No. No.” Tears were filling Chip’s eyes.

  David’s voice now somehow, sounded not like the voice of a young boy, but like the quaking, quavering, oddly-pitched voice of an old man. “I didn’t just delete the part of the Machine’s memory about what just happened. He paused.

  “I deleted the entire memory.” David was trembling.

  “Wait. David, you don’t mean. David, you can’t . . .”

  David’s voice was weak. “There is no record of where they are. I have no record for where we left the girls. And the thing is Chip, I don’t remem . . . Chip, my own memory – I, I don’t remember.”

  Chip paused and thought for a moment. But as he did, he began to feel a little dizzy. His mind was beginning to reel.

  Then he started pacing back and forth around the Machine “No, no, no . . .” he repeated, “NO, NO, NO, NO. NO!”

  David shook his head, then bowed it. Chip saw this and he involuntarily grabbed David, and he shouted at him.

  “David! Take us back! Take us back!”

  Then Chip smiled sickly, and he plaintively entreated, “Yeah. Yeah – take us back – back to the beginning. David – take us – we can go all the way back. David, like you always do. David, just take us back!”

  David was still trembling, his eyes were filled with tears and there were drops of sweat on his face. He bowed his head. “Chip,” he said, “what have I done? Chip, what I have I done?”

  “David? David?” Chip asked plaintively, and he too seemed far older now.

  “They’re gone. The girls are gone, Chip. There is no way to tell where they . . .”

  And then Chip begged David. Using his most precious remaining memories, he entreated David from the heart.

  “David, remember how we used to play on the swings when we were little kids? Remember the backyard pools and the barbeques? You remember when we’d run down the alleys at night in our swimming suits and jump in the neighbors’ pools? They’d turn on the lights and come running out, and we’d run away and laugh?

  “David, remember the blue skies and the dust storms and how it would turn all dark and there would be a cloudburst? Remember riding our bicycles through the rain and coming indoors and changing our clothes and playing inside with it all thundering and pouring outside? Remember the ball games and the sleepovers and the birthdays and the candles on the cakes? Remember the summers and playing in the wheat fields in all those vacant lots? Remember sneaking back to the school and getting inside and running down all the empty corridors with nobody there? Remember getting up early in the mornings to go fishing – we’d make bait out of cheese, but bread dough worked the best - and the marble games we played with our friends in the Bermuda grass at recess when we were little kids and all those happy, happy days?

  “David, remember the first days of school and the new books and new teachers and being in a new classroom and seeing everyone again?”

  Chip knelt next to David, who was slumped on his stool, one hand on the Machine.

  “Remember all those days?” Chip continued. “Remember your mother and father and my Dad, and our brothers and sisters and all our friends? Remember the Cub Scouts and the Boy Scouts and the campouts? Remember the firecrackers and the bottle rockets and all the fourths of July? Remember your old mini bike and our slingshots and the butterflies and the TV shows and the snow cones after school and all those great, great days? David, remember all our yesterdays?

  “Oh David just take us back. Take us back to the Thanksgiving party where you found the Space Sieve. David, we won’t go play that game. We won’t try to hide in that closet. David, we won’t ever, ever go into that closet.

  “Just take us back, David. Just make everything go back the way it was. And then we’ll all just go on like we would have. David we’ll all just go on without ever having seen that Machine. That’s really all we have to do. Just take us all back to the way we all were.”

  Chip was looking fondly at David, but now, at last, it was without confidence.

  David shuddered. No one spoke for a few moments. Then David bowed his head and a tear dripped off his cheek.

  “Chip,” he said faintly. “It’s impossible.”

  “No,” Chip assured. “No David, you did it before! Remember, that planet you destroyed? You fixed it! You just went back in time a little way! You can do it David. You can! Remember?” Chip stood and placed his hands on the shoulders of his friend.

  But David only leaned back, closed his eyes, and cried, “Oh if somehow I could be saved Chip. I’ve lost my very soul. They’re gone. There’s no way, Chip. Oh, if only I could trade places with those two girls!”

  David turned away, and his voice was low and hoarse. “Oh, if only I could never have been born.”

  Chip shook him. “No,” continued Chip. “No. Don’t say that. No. Listen. Now that’s not right. Come on.” Chip chuckled a miserable, forced chuckle. “Come on now, be confident!”

  Chip looked around at the stars. They were beautiful.

  “Come on David,” he said. “Look at the stars. Remember: always reach for the stars, David. You can do it!”

  David shook his head now, becoming a little angry. “Look!” he said. “This isn’t some stupid thing where you can change the world if you have enough confidence. This isn’t ‘reach for the sky – you can do anything’ garbage. Listen to me, Chip. When I went back in time, and when we went forward, all I did was move back or forward along the time index of this Machine. It was like moving forward or backward along a string. But the memory is gone. There is no string, Chip. It’s gone.”

  Chip trembled as he looked at David. Then he said, sternly. “Well, if we can’t go back, then we’ll just have to find them.”

  David smiled and shook his head, and closed his eyes. “There are b
illions of stars in our galaxy,” he said. “And there are uncounted trillions of galaxies. And that’s just in our universe. And the thing is, where we took the girls, it wasn’t even in our universe. Do you know how many universes there are?”

  For a few minutes, they both just sat there and looked out at the stars. They were sharp, clear, and bright – and strikingly beautiful.

  For a moment, both felt everything would some how be all right – that somehow none of this had happened – that somehow, none of it could have happened – that perhaps it had all been a dream, even as below them stretched the brilliant expanse of your planet.

  But then they both saw the Space Sieve, its screen dimly glowing with a blue light. And as they looked, they both knew.

  There before them, waiting obediently, the unavoidable proof of reality, indeed as if embodying all of reality itself, the Space Sieve stood, silently.

  It was real. All of it had really happened.

  And yet, real as it was, the Space Sieve didn’t care. It took no interest in any of it at all. For it was only a Machine. All it had done was exactly what it had been instructed to do.

  The realization slowly sunk in. The girls were beyond their ability to retrieve. They had lost them, and there would be no surprise “fix” this time. Their parents would never know what happened to their daughters. The boys had lost a cousin. And they had lost Chip’s sister.

  After awhile, David spoke, and his weak voice had a strange, tuneful quality to it.

  “You know what the worst of it is?” said David. “The place where I took them isn’t even a real universe like this one. It exists in an almost-timeless reality. Our world – our solar system – will end before either of those girls will ever even be able to die. They will have to live there, as girls, forever.”

  Chip thought for a moment, but didn’t fully appreciate what David said. Then Chip said, somewhat inexplicably, “Well, given what that Machine can do at least I guess it’s a good thing we didn’t destroy our entire Earth.”

  And at this point, Chip did something that humans do when they are extremely upset. He expelled the contents of his stomach. David immediately whisked it away, using the Machine.

  Now, you are probably wondering, “So how do the girls then become reunited to their families? How does this all end well?”

  But I would remind you that this is not a story. It is not make believe. This is real life. And sometimes real life does not turn out the way we want it to.

  And I would remind you moreover, as I have already pointed out many times: That as far as your concept of reality can assimilate, when Chip and David watched the two girls run off through the forest, this would be the last time either of them would see those girls in their lifetimes.

  However, a little later on I will tell you what happened to the two girls. That will comprise the second part of this book.

  And while that next part of this account is the most important part, you might be surprised to know that the Space Sieve itself will hereafter no longer be a major part of this story. The part of this account that concerns the Space Sieve is now largely over, and the part that concerns David and Chip is now largely over as well. But before we move on, there is one more event having to do with the Space Sieve that I will relate.

  “It's too bad that thing doesn't have an ‘emergency button’, said Chip, trying to offer resignation or humor, he didn’t really know which.

  “You mean like – an elevator?” replied David, and David’s ears perked a little.

  Chip looked at David with sad eyes and smiled. “Yeah.”

  David leaned back on the little stool in front of the Space Sieve and looked out at the stars. Then, he appeared to become very animated once again.

  “I have an idea,” he said.

  And then David began to operate the Space Sieve with renewed fervor. Once again, auxiliary keyboards and screens materialized to either side the Space Sieve and David began to operate them as well. Soon, the stars around the two boys began to grow and merge, and soon the boys found themselves in a place that was entirely white, or perhaps more accurately, entirely bright.

  Then, David released the keys of the Space Sieve and leaned back. But unlike other times, the Space Sieve did not go dark, nor did it freeze. The screen flickered and the colored buttons on the keyboard were still fully illuminated and animated.

  “I did it,” David said. “You could say I pressed the ‘emergency button’.”

  Chip, still reeling from the experiences that they had just had, looked at David blankly and shook his head.

  “I did what you said, Chip,” David continued. “I pressed – well, not the ‘emergency’ button – you might say what I did was I pressed the ‘home’ button. I’ve returned the Space Sieve to its place of origin. This is the place where it was created,” David looked around, “the place where it was made – the place where it began.”

  Chip looked back at David incredulously, and his brow furrowed. “I, I don't understand,” he said.

  David motioned toward the Space Sieve. “This is a Device,” he said. “Every Device has a maker, and every maker works in a workshop of some kind. This is simply the workshop where the Space Sieve was made.”

  Chip shook his head. “But how do you ... how did you know where ... have you been here before?”

  David frowned dismissively and shook his head. “No, I haven't been here before. I simply found a way to command the Space Sieve to return to its point of origin. Somehow, even though its memory was lost it still retained the information needed to return to its point of origin. I just had the idea that the best place to have something fixed is in the place where it was originally made.”

  “But,” asked Chip nervously, “you said something about the ‘maker.’ What did you mean the ‘maker’?” Chip just stared at David. Somehow the thought of meeting the maker of this Device had only just occurred to Chip, and it was not a comforting one.

  And at that moment, the thought of meeting the maker of the Device did not seem so comforting to David either. David smiled and his eyes blinked nervously. “I know Chip, and maybe I didn't think enough about that. But the thing is, we have to do something. We have to somehow find out where I left the girls. This is the only thing I could think of. But now that you mention it, maybe it wasn't such a good idea ...”

  At that moment David saw in Chip's face that something had just happened. Chip’s eyes grew wide and his head bowed. With is own eyes widening, David began to turn to see what it was that Chip was looking at. But while still focusing on Chip’s expression it occurred to David for a split second that it might be better if he didn’t turn to look. As he hesitated, he heard a voice that was powerful, yet pleasant and gentle.

  “Hello, my name is ‘Actio’.”