An Introduction to Hilbert Space, Page 4

Bathunet was busy threatening us in rhyme, and you two were just panicking, I did the only right thing to do. I sneaked up on her and stole her pinky. I think we didn’t use enough water. It was still dry and easy to break loose.”

  “You did what?” Kobb asked, while throwing the finger in the sand. “That’s disgusting!”

  “No, that’s science!” Tinwin disagreed. In his opinion, Kobb simply did not have what it takes to be a researcher. This was what made him a perfect assistant. Every other assistant would have tried to claim the found relic for himself, at least try to publish a paper about it, or even start an own research group in the future. Kobb, however, had no such ambitions. He was happy that he was not buried alive and keen to get home as soon as possible, which was why he already lead the way back to the shuttle. Tinwin picked up the royal pinky, blew off the dust and stored it safely in his pocket, before following Kobb.

  As they reached the tent, Tinwin, a very keen observer, immediately realized that their ship was gone. He also spotted an old adversary, previously presumed dead. The Brushbot was in bad shape. One of its arms was completely gone, the other one could only twitch. His head was now way flatter than before and the lights mounted on it had gone completely dark. The worst effect of the damage was, however, that its understanding of the 729 revised rules of robotics was now dubious at best. This caused it to see Tinwin as a big threat to all microbes and it had to take action. His programming suggested that the only way to stop the evil professor was to bury his ship. Despite the damage, the Brushbot was still able to move sand. And it must have done so for quite some time, evident from the fact that the shuttle was under a thick layer of grains. As the robot saw Tinwin approach, it turned to him and started its evil laughter routine, one of the last functional routines it had left. It proceeded to fire a concentrated sand beam directly in Tinwin’s right eye and, with its last remaining power, squeaked, “Vengeance! Vengeance at last!”

  As Tinwin finished his story, all the students were applauding. This had never happened to him before. After the crowd had calmed down, the Hironian student rose from his two chairs.

  “Thanks Professor Tinwin. That was an incredible story. Do these things really happen to you regularly?”

  “All the time,” confirmed Tinwin. “And if you think that was a good story, you should hear what happened to us at the mining colony Madona-Epsilon-Prime once. Kobb and I went there only to look at something strange the miners had found, but in the end we nearly were responsible for - well, I guess this story is better told another time.”