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eBook Category: Science Fiction Nebula Award(R) Nominee
eBook Description: An abandoned alien ship has been found on the moon, and a scientist studying one of the mysterious control panels thinks he has found the main propulsion system ... a time machine.

eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: Galaxy, 1969
Fictionwise Release Date: April 2001

This eBook is also available in the following bundle(s):

• Larry Niven Bundle

493 Reader Ratings:

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Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: eReader (PDB) [28 KB] , ePub (EPUB) [26 KB] , Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [15 KB] , Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [69 KB] , Palm Doc (PDB) [15 KB] , Microsoft Reader (LIT) [37 KB] , Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [85 KB] , hiebook (KML) [64 KB] , Sony Reader (LRF) [45 KB] , iSilo (PDB) [12 KB] , Mobipocket (PRC) [16 KB] , Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [44 KB] , OEBFF Format (IMP) [25 KB]
Words: 4605
Reading time: 13-18 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

It was four years since Mike had landed on the Moon. In that time the human tenants had made a great deal of progress.

An emergency repair kit from the ship had yielded a method of creating artificial crystals of almost any shape from almost any solid, by building them up atom by atom. Already ships had lifted on rocket motors built from large diamonds.

A box which held perfectly preserved sections from some non-terrestrial animals, possibly used as food, had given them a field which would interrupt any chemical process. The applications were numerous and varied. A short-range death ray. A beam to fight forest fires. A new method of inducing suspended animation, very useful in surgery.

A sculpting implement, used by the aliens as a means of recreation (the base was infested with the statues they had left behind), had become a disintegrator. Turning it on had been heartbreakingly difficult. Mike had solved that problem in his second year, but had never been able to turn it off. The alien rec room had to be kept in vacuo, with a separate airlock, because air disappeared into the little ball of nothing at the end of the sculpting tool.

Enough progress had been made on the alien number system that it was possible to do calculus with it. The money system, however, remained a complete mystery.

Aside from the crystal maker and the airlock controls, the ship was as great and as fascinating an enigma as ever. The rows of "bunks" near the back--suppose a bunk changed shape and dumped its occupant during a 5G maneuver? The controls, in plain sight on a common-sense control board in the bunk section--what did it take to make them work? And what was the purpose of the dull red tetrahedron, seven feet on a side, which was set in the rear wall of the passenger section?

Mike was taking a coffee break with Terry Holmes, a pretty, cheerful, blonde little Doctor of Languages, the day he first said, "I think I know what the central pyramid is for."

Many people had said that, of course, but Mike was not addicted to wild guesses. "What is it?" Terry asked eagerly.

"It's a time machine," he said.