The voice sounded hollow and echoing, which shouldn’t come as any surprise, coming from the bottom of a… what was that you said again… Bucket?

What do you mean you hold things? Lem asked, imagining various meanings for the statement.

I hold things he repeated. I could hold this book for you. He picked up the Ololian book from where it lay next to Poikani and put it inside himself. It looked nice and neat, the pages even. The room looked tidier, too. I could hold this Wizzzer, he said, and placed that in him, too. One less thing laying around.

Well, hello little one, Bucket said, picking up the cup from the frozen planet like a doll and laying it gently inside.

You’d better not start that racquet again, or you’ll wake the baby, Lem said with a sneer.

Oh, I’m sorry about that, Bucket explained, no one had come near me for I don’t know how long. I got used to making loud sounds hoping someone would find me.

I can hold this.

He deposited the joke book prize and wrapper with the other items.

What will you do with all that stuff now that you’ve got it? Lem asked. I’ll hold it for you until you need it, Bucket replied, and then I’ll hold something else.

Flash thought of the cat he had had back on earth. That cat was always taking any object small enough to carry. Sponges were a favorite item, and they would always go missing, to be found later under a bed. At least, he thought, they would know where to look for things with Bucket aboard. And what was the harm? He cleared the clutter, and one could argue that he added no clutter with his own presence, since he never touched down.

Bucket seemed to be good natured and helpful. Not only that, he seemed grateful to be rescued from a solitary life of drifting in space. He brought comic relief to the ship which, let’s face it, had become rather dull. Still, Lem had her reservations. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Bucket, she just sensed that there was more to the story. There was a mystery yet to be revealed. She tried to talk to Flash about her premonition.

Just look at him, Lem! Clearly he is a life form which is very different from you or me, just as we are different from each other. We can’t expect to understand all about him yet. This is why I came here. To see the different ways the universe put pieces together to make life. We’re made of the same stuff. Does he make you feel unsafe?

No, not unsafe, Lem answered.

Then why not try to be tolerant? Keep an open mind.

To Lem, it just looked like a rock, and not a particularly interesting rock. It was not very large. Not very colorful. A speck. A pebble in space. She was disappointed and couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about.

Flash, on the other hand, was intrigued.

Let’s see if we can get this thing in here.

Why? Asked Lem.

It wanted to be found, Flash answered, let’s find out why.

Indeed, the mysterious cuplike object had been sending out signals that were picked up by the mother ship’s computer, and led them to it.

Poikani asked if he could look at the Ololian book, and Flash handed it to him.

You said it was mineral but not rock. Here’s that word vitrification again. What does it mean?

It’s when something turns to glass, Flash answered, as he manipulated the grappling arm to retrieve the object.

He was able to grasp it with what looked like a large pair of tongs, and maneuvered it carefully into a decontamination bay.

Turns to glass? Poikani asked.

Yes, like sand at a nuclear test site, soil at the site of a lightning strike, or clay fired in a kiln, that sort of thing.

Flash picked up his cup and flicked it with his fingernail. It rang like a bell. This was made out of mud, he explained.

He showed him the glaze, with its drips and burst bubble. This was made from sand. It was forever transformed through vitrification.

Lem was not quite seeing the point, and did not like bringing anyone or anything new aboard the ship. Still, she was happy to see her son taking an interest. She, who had been so curious, seemed to have lost interest in the object that would soon be joining them.

The signals from the thing sang through the computer. It chirped and whistled in patterns that sounded more and more like music, or at least language. Some of the sound combinations made Flash chuckle and Poikani giggle. The same sounds made Lem bristle and stare.

When the decontamination was complete, Flash pushed a button that opened a door and raised the newly acquired cargo into the cockpit.

It hovered above the floor. Yes, it floated, as it had out in space. Upright, like a cup, or perhaps I should say megaphone, because the sound coming out of it was deafening.

Flash and Lem looked at each other. His was a look of pain. Hers was a look of dismay, and she yelled Make it stop!

Immediately, the air fell silent. No one said anything. Not another beep or whir emanated from the floating object.

They just stared at it for a long time, until Lem broke the silence and asked What do you think it’s for?

I’m Bucket, it said, I hold things.

The time came at last, that the mothership approached the mysterious object, adrift in space.

Asteroids were made of rock, metal or ice, though Flash had heard tell of a teapot orbiting Jupiter or Mars.

Well, this is interesting, Flash muttered to himself.

What’s interesting? Lem strained to see.

The image on the screen didn’t look like much of anything. Roughly rectangular, or possibly cylindrical.

What is it? she asked again, excitedly. Why is it so pixelated? What is it made of?

She glanced back and forth between Flash and the screen, growing more agitated, but Flash was oblivious to her suspense.

It’s small, he said in a mumble.

He just sort of flipped the image around for a while, studying its contours, but Lem could make nothing of it. If she had been familiar with earthly objects, she might have thought it was shaped like a bag of chips or a sleeping bag, rolled up. It was just a hazy shape with no detail on the screen. She was beginning to get frustrated with Flash, the way he kept moving it around like that and saying nothing. Finally, he spoke.

Yes, I have seen something like this before.

Poikani had fallen asleep staring at the small torn packet with the prize inside. Flash noticed this when he turned to pick up his cup.

Lem was exasperated. Incensed.

What are you doing? she fairly shrieked at his apparent nonchalance.

Her squeal woke Poikani with a start.

What is that thing? I’ve been wondering so long. Waiting to find out. Now it’s right outside and you’re going to make coffee. What is it you have seen before?

Flash sighed. Sorry Lem. I’m not sure what it is. Mineral. Not rock. Not ice. What do you think Poikani?

I want to open this.

He touched the striped paper. It is the only thing he had thought about since Flash pulled it from the Cracker Jack, but Flash had forgotten all about it.

Lem wasn’t through. But you said you’d seen something like it before. What have you seen?

This, Flash said, picking up the cup he had chiseled out of the ice in the cave on the frozen planet.

Can I open it? Poikani asked.

Sure

Flash flipped the object on the screen again and pointed out to Lem how it appeared to be hollow, with an opening at one end. Or if you tip it like this, an opening at the top. Like a cup, but bigger than a cup. A vessel.

Is it a spaceship? Lem asked.

I don’t know.

I don’t get it. Poikani said.

Lem turned to face him. What was your prize? It’s a stupid Ololian joke book. And it only has one joke in it. When is clay no longer clay?

Lem didn’t know the answer, and Flash was staring at the object on the screen again.

Poikani read the punchline: When it vitrifies.

Flash chuckled. Not because the joke was funny, but because, you know, Ololian humor.

He took down the Ololian book and opened it to a much clearer picture of the mother ship and what was just outside.

Flash Meridian didn’t know what time it was. When you are no longer orbiting a star, time becomes obsolete. There is no sunrise. No sunset. No day or night.

He knew what day it was on earth … what time it was in Michigan. But it no longer had anything to do with him.

He would sit and think. Read. Eat. Sleep. But it all felt random and subjective.

It was stifling and liberating at the same time. It was not a luxury since there was no other to contrast it to out here.

He thought about his child, and imagined the children yet to come. The impossible children he longed for, like the one who had come and gone.

The longer he thought, the less he believed. All the while, he watched Poikani grow.

Poikani was proof that this could happen. Children could come. In his head, Flash invented them, and made up memories for them.

He experienced cool boredom in the monotony of his flight through uneventful space. His life wasn’t punctuated by big moments, and over time, he grew to not only tolerate this, but to settle into a deep gratitude in partnership with his friend Lem. He saw his life as a spiritual practice.

One day, he said to Lem, I’m too old. I’m alone.

He felt silly for dreaming of another child. For expecting the atoms to come together to form another thing like him.

Even as he thought this, or maybe it was hours … or days later … at any rate, a beep sounded from the radar screen. It could have been anything. A rock or metallic asteroid, a spaceship, a whale, or a pumpkin, adrift in the vast expanse. It was like fishing and feeling a tug on your line.

Could be a trout, a bluegill or a boot.

At times, Flash felt as though he were just a bystander, watching the events of his life fall, eventually, into place. At other times, he felt that he had a hand in how events occurred. He couldn’t take credit for anything. He didn’t know what might happen next, yet he was part of the process. He was part of it all.

Sometimes, it felt as though the universe had pulled the rug out from under him, but so far, he had always persevered. In retrospect, the time he spent worrying was pointless. He decided to trust something bigger than himself.

He put his arm around Lem and Poikani, her son. His fingertips just happened to graze the corner of the Ololian book. Subconsciously, he fondled the book, flipping the page corners with his thumb. He felt relaxed, his mind unencumbered by any conscious thought.

The cockpit of the mothership was well lit, but Flash had a far away look in his eyes. His vision transcended the physical world, and thoughts bubbled up from somewhere. He was aware of memories and dreams that floated up from his own distant past, and some that started from someplace deeper still, from the river that flowed through, and connected all human beings.

Wordless fragments rose, their undulating shapes passing through him from some ancient place, and continuing their ascent far beyond him without labels or definitions. He would catch up with them one day, when, free from the confines of his now necessary cells, he also surfaced.

Eventually, something unnamed beckoned only to fade. The longing alone remained, both comforting and taunting him, until he picked up the book.

Here, too, images were presented, only these engaged his conscious mind.

Certain whales preferred a connection to the ground, and hovered so close to the soil that their flippers touched down.

Flash read that they swam so low that they left a trail of grooves in the dirt. They fought the tendency to float any higher.

Over generations, their limbs would transform into feet, and these few whales were content, touching the ground.

Deep inside, they remembered that they once flew.