MINDBOGGLING INVENTIONS ON BUMAR

The sky above the port was the colour of television, tuned to a dead channel. A small Nompsas robot hovered clumsily along the sidewalk and entered a door below a neon sign ‘Belchworld Bar’.

“You blundering bag of bolts!” the barman yelled. “Can’t read the sign on the door? No robots served here! Off you!”

Nomo, the small robot, shrugged off the remark. He left the bar, passing the sign ‘No Blood, No Soul, No Service’ and continued on the cold, dirty sidewalk. Wild inventions and designs were whirling wildly in his silicon mind, because Nomo was, in fact, a highly gifted artist and inventor.

In the shop windows some power puff girls were showing their assets, waiting for clients. At the street corner, a hawker served steaming string hoppers to a group of Ugaritic bannermen. One of them shot a dark glance at Nomo and made a remark to his fellows. They all laughed.

Nomo was used to it. Ever since he had lost part of his control unit in a fight against the awful aliens from planet Zeta-13, his movements had been awkward. No one knew what mental faculties he had gained from that encounter.

On this particular day, however, Nomo just didn’t feel like ignoring the insult. He held up one of finger of his left footarm and shouted in distinct Ugaritic cuneiform: “Your grandmother is a piece of toast!”

For a moment nothing happened.

Then still nothing happened, while the dense bannermen were busy grasping that they had been completely unexpectedly insulted. After a long while, they finally gave a very ugly growl.

Nomo had already turned around and started to get away as fast as his hoverfield would carry him. With a muted thump an yttrium ball hit the ground next to him.

The bannermen threw yttrium balls while they were running after Nomo. As is generally known, yttrium is a common precipitation on Bumar, much like snow on other planets, except that it is red and has a specific weight of 88.9. You would rather be hit by a ball of iron than a ball of yttrium if you had any choice.

Big and mean Ugaritic bannermen run of course faster than a handicapped little robot. They kept losing some ground each time they picked up yttrium and Nomo made clever unexpected turns while avoiding the heavy yttrium balls. Nevertheless, the bannermen were slowly catching up.

On the left side, a tall wall closed off the road, but on the other side Nomo saw a large billboard “SPELL – where spiffy space travellers fuel up”. Quickly he directed his hovering steps to the fuel station. Then he turned around and started to emit a hissing sound. The flying yttrium balls were suddenly reflected by an invisible shield and fell limply to the ground.

“Nice trick!” said a voice from behind a tall rocket that was parked in the gas station. It was Spacefox, who had been adding a little antimatter to the rocket engine.

“Oh, that’s just deflect-o-mato, my invention to deflect undesirable flying objects”, Nomo replied casually.

He looked at the rocket that stood towering in the fading, grey sunlight and said: “You must experience a lot of incredible adventures with your space shuttle!”

Spacefox corrected: “This is not a space shuttle, it’s a rocket!”

“Ah,” replied Nomo. He was quite impressed. “I really enjoy chatting with you, but my tomato* will soon be cooked”.

The deflect-o-mato is based on the technical principle that the smooth skin of a raw tomato* is harder to cut than that of a cooked one.