Melts

I put the tape measure in the approximate center of the box and let it float there. I close the door and turn the crank.

Rocky presses a button on the controls and I hear a muffled fwump followed by a steady hiss. A foggy gas rushes in from the pipe. Ammonia, presumably. The tape measure bounces inside—pushed around like a leaf in the wind. Soon, the hiss dulls to a trickle.

And then I realize my mistake.

The tape measure is one of those solid, construction-site kinds that are made of metal with tool-grade rubber grip pads. Thing is, Eridians like it hot. How hot? I can’t say for sure, but I now know it’s hotter than the melting point of the rubber on the tape measure.

The blob of liquid rubber undulates on the tape measure, sticking to the tool via surface tension. Rocky opens his door and carefully grabs my faulty present by the metal. At least that’s still solid. I think it’s made of aluminum. It’s nice to know Eridian air isn’t hot enough to melt that too.

As Rocky pulls the tape measure toward him, the rubber blob separates from it and floats off in his side of the tube.

He pokes the rubber blob and it sticks to his claw. He shakes it off without much trouble. Obviously the temperature doesn’t bother him. I guess it’s no different from a human shaking water off his hand.

In my atmosphere, rubber that hot would burn. There’d be all these nasty, noxious gases coming off of it too. But there’s no oxygen on Rocky’s side of the wall. So the rubber just kind of…stays a liquid. It floats off to the tunnel wall and sticks there.

***

Chapter 11