Chapter Text
The dust slowly came to rest on the little furniture and the various people inside the experimentation room.
"Is everyone still well?" a voice asked, after the noise had faded away. It belonged to Inue Kue, inventor of impossible things. The impossible part had been added by friends and foes, because so far, all his inventions had proved to be just that. Impossible.
Coughing replies from several sides were the result. It sounded encouraging.
"I'm sorry," the voice said. "Again."
"Dear Inui Kue, you should be sorry indeed," a somewhat muffled voice commented.
"I warned you it would be an experiment," the first voice defensively noted.
"You did indeed. Also, I'm grateful this is your property, dear Inui Kue" a third voice remarked. "Where has the light gone, by the way?"
Kue got up. A few bits of former equipment fell off him, rattling over the ground. After removing most of the annoying bits still clinging to him, he made his way over to a window and wiped it clean. Immediately the light of one of the suns streamed into the remains of the room. As many times before, he was relieved he'd been smart enough to build this place away from his house. Rebuilding the experimentation room was easier than a whole house.
As he saw what had happened, Kue suppressed an 'oops', and started helping people up, guiding them towards the entrance of what had been his experimentation room. As Kue reached out to the door, it did not open by itself, as it should.
This was not the first time, though, and Kue was prepared for it. He handled the small lever he had made, to manually force the door open. After a few pushes against the lever, the existing mechanism clicked into place and as the automatic system came to life. Reluctantly the door opened.
* * *
Outside the house, people had gathered, because the sound and tremors of this latest experiment hadn't confined themselves to the room.
As the dusty figures came out of the door, they were helped by the bystanders to get cleaned up as far as possible. Robes and shirts were patted, and dust was sent flying.
An Automatic Safety Unit was also standing by, just in case something serious was at hand, but nobody had gotten hurt.
The last person to emerge from the house, with a small cloud of dust following him through the door, was Kue himself. His neighbour-woman, Tridin Gloa, looked at him.
"Inui Kue. You again. Of course. When will you stop your attempts to blow up the entire street?"
Kue felt insulted. He was only trying to manifest certain things, not blow up anything. "As soon as I succeed," he said to Tridin Gloa. He straightened his back and tried to look proud, but the white dust all over his person and clothing destroyed his attempt.
By then, the ASU had calculated its services were not needed. Small green lights blinked, and after a couple of short beeps, indicating its departure, it lifted into the air and flew off.
Some loud cracking and snapping noises came from inside. Kue peeked into the room. "I think the ceiling is about to-"
Before he finished speaking, the ceiling agreed with what Kue had in mind. Sounds of something massive, landing on the floor, sent out a new cloud of dust which caught Kue first hand.
Tridin Gloa sighed. "I hope your entire house will do that." Then she turned around and left, disappearing towards her own house. Kue shrugged. He'd never gotten along with her, she always got upset over the smallest of things.
One of the people, who had been inside the former experimentation room, patted Kue on the shoulder, shrouding both of them in a new, small dust cloud. "Better luck next time, Inui Kue. This was highly entertaining. I am sorry that the room got damaged. Also, next time I might not be present."
Kue smiled, causing ripples and cracks to appear in the dust layer, which lay on his face as a mask. "I am glad you still enjoyed it, Rien Nuaa. This effect was not planned. And the damage... well, that will get fixed again. Someday."
All the spectators who'd been in the room, said goodbye to Kue. None of them was remarkably shocked by what had happened, as they had been at similar sessions before. Many of them would worry if nothing of this kind happened, because then something could be happening that could not be seen yet. As the dusty people left the premises, the gathered spectators also went on with their business.
Kue dusted himself off as much as he could, before he went inside his house, that was a good number of steps away from the remains of the experimentation room. Experience had made him create a small room where he could rid himself of his dusty clothes, so he wouldn't carry the evidence of the latest experiment all through the house. After doing that, and dropping the dirty garments into the cleaning chute, he went to the bathroom and deal with the dust which was on him. The amount was impressive, this time.
* * *
After cleaning himself up, Kue went into his main living quarters. He meant to sit down and consider what might have gone wrong with the experiment. He'd tried making things teleport through his machine, but each time the result was different, and not the expected one.
Zara, the central messaging computer, greeted him. "Hello Kue. There are two new messages for you. Would you like to hear them now?"
"Yes, please play them," Kue said, while preparing something to eat. Messages were a good way not to think of the experimentation room.
The first message was one that he had heard too often already. An automatic complaint from the Community Board, for causing noise and commotion. Despite all his attempts, Kue had not yet figured out how to delete these messages automatically. He was surprised a new one, about the disturbance just now, hadn't arrived yet.
The second message had visuals also, so he stopped eating as it played. It was a message from his friend, Sius Breen.
"Zara, play that loud!" Kue loved getting messages from Breen, and there were far too few of those. She travelled and worked in space, on one of the big ships, the Ba'Lar, and she hardly ever had time to talk to him.
Sius Breen's face appeared on the screen. She looked tired, but well, which made him happy. "Hello Kue, how are you? I am sorry that I have not been in touch for a while, but you know how it goes with these long trips. We should arrive in port in two more days. It would be great to meet up with you again, to hear what new things you have discovered. I'll get in touch again when we have arrived at Odis, okay? Bye bye!"
Kue smiled as the face of Sius Breen was replaced by Zara's logo. Breen always was fun to be with, and one of the few people who would judge him on what went right. Because not all of his experiments went wrong. One of his inventions had even been built into the ASUs. It was just a tiny addition, but his infrared detector had been useful in finding people in the dark...