h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Probably the same way that someone can eat an eight-ounce hamburger, and gain an extra pound.

Yes, broelan, what did you want to ask me?

But... But... there wasn't any whipped cream in my design!

It doesn't matter, Arl. You can't expect to explain science. Why, if that were true, we'd get the same results everytime we performed the same experiments here!

Oh, yes, I suppose that makes sense.

Of course! Why do you think that I named my private science vessel "The Irreproducable Result"?

Seriously, though, since science says that you must get the same results, this is an interesting phenomenon. Did that device cause the transformations by sending out and bringing in matter from Zero Space, Hyper Space, Sub-Space, or some other similar alternate half-dimension? If so, then this whipped cream could just be a freak result brought about by the constant reshaping of it. If the matter was being brought to you randomly, then the frequent pressure alterations (for instance, if it's from the bottom of an ocean one minute to the top of Mt. Everest the next) that might exist could cause a malfunction, and then a detonation, along with the sudden appearance in our location of however much stuff was currently within the space/time rift at the time of failure. In other words, a dairy farm of some sort.

*Tastes the whipped cream*

Tastes like it came from Idaho. Anyway, is that how your mask operated, Arl? It would certainly explain the phenomenon. If not, how did it work? That could provide a few more clues as to the origin of all of this whipped cream.

Well, the mask is made of a material that is actually a bio-synthetic compound, sort of a genetically enginered living clay which I've combined with a stimulus-input device: the button that I was pressing to make the mask change shape activates a physical reconfiguration on the part of the organism. I was hoping that in time I could teach it face recognition, so that it would actually replicate other people's faces -- make me appear to be GL, or anyone else...

The mask itself neither gains nor looses mass when it changes shape -- it just concentrates its density differently.

At the moment I'm wondering what it's been eating.

Hmmm...yes, that would do it...

Frankly I'm amazed I came up with it. I wonder...

*goes over to where he dropped the mask. A smallish blob like creature is lying there, pulsating*

Eh! Affy! It's still alive! We've got to do something for it. Do you have any medical facilities here?

*Runs in, out of breath after running from the far end of the building.*

I thought I heard an unusual explosiooooooOOOOOoooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnn.

*The last bit of the above sentence is spoken as he slides across the floor after slipping on some whipped cream.*

Watch where that stuff flies. We may need it later.

Ow!

*GL comes to rest, somewhat abruptly, against the far wall of the room. He looks at the white stuff on the floor, dips in a finger and tastes it.*

Whipped cream? We had a whipped cream explosion? No wonder it didn't sound like the usual explosions.

Don't EAT that! Doesn't anybody care about this little guy?

*points to his "mask" creature, who is looking more pitiful by the second. Although it's actually more of a highly evolved, symbiotic fungus than an animal, it is giving the distinct impression that it is gasping for breath*

ptui! ptui!

*Looks around quickly to see if anyone saw him spitting. Hopes moderator doesn't notice. Walks over to Arl.*

Say, what is that little guy? He looks kinda cold.

*Packs a little of the "whipped cream" around the creature, who begins to breathe a little easier*

He's a bio-synthetic, symbiotic, highly evolved fungus. Sort of like living clay. I'm going to have to rebuild the stimulation device I've been using to incite him to change shape. I use him as a mask that can reform itself spontaneously. I'm going to have to figgure out what it was that caused him to explode like that, though. It's not a good thing.

*gathers up some more of the whipped cream, packs it around the mask.*

Hmmm.. Maybe if it has been feeding off of the psychic energy of an interdimensional being -- and if it has possibly been converting this energy into a more useable whipped cream form -- that's where all of this came from. Maybe he just over ate when I held down the button too long.

Possibly. We need to get it stabilized, though.

Garius, do we still have the snack-food devices that we used to keep the Brownie alive back during the election?

You mean good ol' Crepuscular Brownie? Sure we still have that stuff around. Somewhere.


I've been waiting for a good opportunity to bring him back.

*worries about what sort of being his mask has been feeding off of*

Yeah, let's het him stable. He'll need some moisture, and warmth, if he's feeling vulurable -- which he appears to be. I don't know why I call him a "he". Fungi don't exactly have genders...

Mosture and warmth ... moisture and warmth. Hmmmmmm. There used to be a biome at the Space Station. Wonder if it is back yet. Although, something smaller and more local would probably be better. Hmmmmmmm. We never did quite finish our sauna, but that would have been perfect. I think we got stuck, trying to calm down the nuclear heater enough so that it didn't melt the rocks.

Let's see now. We do have a terrarium that we used to use for our pet killer snails. It's empty now, but it has a big hole in one side where they bit their way out. We'll really must remember to go find them sometime...

Oh, and there's allodile room. Unfortunately, it contains an allodile...

*scratches head and continues to think*

The terrarium sounds good, if we can plug up the hole, add a heat lamp, and keep some degree of moisture in it.

That's the difficulty, isn't it?

If we used the terrarium, we could get some of the air-proof putty that I fashioned after the stuff from the Infocom game Cutthroats. And a heatlamp shouldn't be too hard to come by around here. Even if we don't, through some improbable circumstance, have one, we can just set a standard phaser to the lowest possible setting, and make a scatter beam. That would probably be a bit too hot, though....