Opposites Attract

Inspired by the genre of Interstellar/Aliens and the trope of Opposites Attract

“Why won’t this work!” Dr. Hoebaer slammed his desk in frustration. A pencil he forgot to secure floated away to a far corner of his laboratory due to the lack of gravity. Non-essential systems have been turned off for over a year as the crew aboard the S.C Outer Rings sought to conserve all remaining fuel.

Long ago, Dr. Hoebaer calculated that the S.C Outer Rings wouldn’t have enough fuel to return back to Earth. The crew had been out too far for too long, and none of the uninhabited planets they had stopped at had turned up anything that could be used as a fuel substitute. All hope rested on Dr. Hoebaer being able to synthesize something in his lab from the materials they harvested.

Dr. Hoebaer was in the middle of analyzing a mineral the crew had taken to calling Nutzlotium. This mineral’s only apparent redeeming property was that each sample seemed to have a slightly different composition. Maybe this sample would hold the key compounds necessary to finally synthesize a fuel substitute; at this point, the doctor was willing to try anything. Dr. Hoebaer loaded his newest sample into his spectrometer and started the analysis process. As he settled down to wait for the analysis to complete, he noticed a spark come from the back of spectrometer. “Crap!” He yanked the power cable to the spectrometer in an effort to save it from further damage.

With a growing sense of despair, Dr. Hoebaer approached the spectrometer fully prepared for the machine to be entirely ruined. He removed the Nutzlotium sample from the machine and prepared a basic diagnostic of the spectrometer. Fortunately, only a single capacitor had blown near the sample holding part of the machine, and he was able to replace it. After running the diagnostics again, the spectrometers was back to being fully operational. As he readied to load the Nutzlotium back into the machine, he noticed that it had turned a slightly different color from all the other samples. “Strange”, he remarked, as he loaded the sample and started the spectrometer again. Almost immediately, the contents of this sample of Nutzlotium came back as a match for fuel. Shocked, Dr. Hoebaer looked through his notes to try and determine what made this sample different from all the other samples of Nutzlotium. Then, an idea struck him. He prepared several more samples of Nutzlotium and passed an electrical current through them. One by one, each of the samples turned a uniform color. Upon further analysis, each of their spectrographic profiles returned a match for a potential fuel source.

Looking closer at his results, Dr. Hoebaer realized that the electric current caused ionic bonds to form between two, previously non-interactive portions of the Nutzlotium. With a yell, he got up from his chair and pushed off a nearby wall. He floated down the corridors of the S.C Outer Rings in a rush to tell the rest of the crew what he had just discovered. They weren’t going to be stranded for much longer.