Chapter 15: Malagnon Beta

I hope you enjoyed the previous chapter penned (or typed, written, scribed or whatever means of creation the author used) exquisitely by none other than the famous Jonny10. “I’ve never heard of Jonny10 before” you may say. And to that I say of course you haven’t for you are probably a mere earthling sitting in some third dimensional structure lovingly (or begrudgingly depending who did the building) constructed by another third dimensional earthling. I use the term ‘probably’ because I am unsure how far this scientific journal of epic proportions will reach into uncharted space and time.

The reason you, our most studious reader, have not heard the name Jonny10 is because his exploits are generally unknown ‘round these parts. If you were to travel to Malagnon Beta, the third planet in the Pikchur galaxy, you would most assuredly see at least 1,754 statues erected in homage to the enigma that is Jonny10. Generally, these statues are no more than a pile of rubble tossed haphazardly into a central location due to the fact that no one in Malagnon Beta has ever actually seen Jonny10 but they apparently assume he resembles something akin to said piles of rubble.

The reason for this is simple and straightforward; the people of Malagnon Beta have come to believe that rock piles are synonymous with wealth and want nothing more than to show earthlings the extent of their wealth. And what better way to show ones rock wealth than playing a game of Avoid-Being-Crushed-By-Large-Heavy-Objects. Though being crushed by rocks is seemingly impossible due to their unique physiological makeup. The rules of the game are fuzzy at best since we have not yet translated the Malagnon language or individual dialects of the many tribes of the planet.

In one visit to the primarily forested planet we were greeted by what can only be described as a hyperactive yet surprisingly tame bucket of an unknown liquid. The bucket attempted to interact with our landing party but only managed to dump half of its contents on our pilot. We believe this is how the Malagnons communicate. Currently we are developing hyper-sensitive outer coverings that can detect the subtle differences between three drops from a bucket which we have come to conclude has the meaning of “Lets play a game of Avoid-Being-Crushed-By-Large-Heavy-Objects” and four drops which means “Your standing in my foot.” Not only does the language differ by the number of drops, but it also depends on what sound the drops make as they strike a surface. For instance drip-drip-drop is a completely different phrase than drip-drop-droop. One of my personal favorite sayings is drip-pang-zap, I’m not sure what it means but whenever someone says it the buckets literally quake with laughter (insofar as it is possible for a bucket of unknown liquid to laugh).

How these buckets of liquid managed to grapple and throw rocks has yet to be discovered. It may have something to do with the odd properties of the liquid in the buckets, which resembles wet glue in texture but is clear like pure spring water. It is my belief that the buckets are merely the “clothes” of the liquid as I have seen, with my own two viewing organs, the liquid jump straight out of one bucket and into another. Fear not, for the first stop the floating Island of Ventosus will make after the demise of the planet will be on the humble planet of Malagnon Beta where we will be able to observe the indigenous beings more closely.

At any rate, the large piles of stone lying strewn across the planet look almost vaguely like a finger when viewed from the far reaches of space. The vague finger shape seems to be pointing in the general direction of Earth, and who on Earth has the most space-sounding name? Jonny10 of course, which is why we at QSP and certain members of the HSC have come to the logical conclusion that the piles of rubble are actually a monument to the intrepid space explorer and have also deduced from various top secret experiments and observations that the game of Avoid-Being-Crushed-By-Large-Heavy-Objects is merely a front to make it seem as if they have no idea what we are talking about.

The many scientist and other higher-thinkers at the HSC are trained to see through such fallacies and can readily identify at least 27.986 ways the beings of Malagnon Beta have tricked the greater Milky Way area into believing that they are only unintelligent buckets of unknown liquid that can somehow lift boulders the size of Texas. It is the proposition of some lesser beings in the LSC that we may not be on the verge of a major scientific discovery. Of course, anything the LSC has to say is automatically stamped as erroneous babblings spewing from a pit of nonsense. Therefore I recommend we disregard anything and everything the LSC has to say and proceed to build a space elevator to Malagnon Beta in all haste. This will start the downfall of Earth but will speed the launch of Ventosus Island into a self-contained floating mass of all that is good and right.

I don’t see how this could possibly backfire.