Rella and the Three Sisters

Some day many years into our future there lived three sisters. Now each of these sisters excelled in some area and were known as the experts in their fields. The eldest sister was a trained exobiologist who knew more about the various alien species in the galaxy than just about anyone. She was also very skilled and much sought after for missions involving identifying strange new races. The middle sister was a trained meterologist who excelled in the control of weather. She had participated in several difficult terraforming projects and was in the process of planning many new colonies, as well as assisting several other planets in improving their weather patterns without damaging their ecosystems. The youngest sister was a skilled diplomat who had helped create many treaties between planets. She had stopped many cultures from warring and helped to create peace among several major alien races. While the sisters were all very talented, they had one major problem and that was their father. If money had still been in use their father would always have been bankrupt. As it was their father kept promising their services to various planets without first consulting them. Usually, upon explaining the situation everything turned out all right, but occasionally more problems resulted.

One day their father was traveling around an unexplored part of the galaxy in a small spacecraft which the daughters had gotten for him. Suddenly, he was sucked through space into another dimension. He was immediately confronted by a group of bear-like humanoids who threaten to destroy him for trespassing on their dimension. The father begged them to spare him, saying he did not want anything they had but simply wanted to go back to his own dimension. Now these aliens who called themselves Barians wanted to learn about the other dimension and upon hearing from this man who he was, made a suggestion. "If you agree to send your daughter the exobiologist to teach us all about your dimensions cultures," he explained, "we will set you free." The father seeing his chance immediately agreed and was wise enough not to ask for anything else. The Barians claimed they would send someone for his eldest daughter in seven days. At that the father suddenly found himself back into his own dimension.

Well, the father hurried home to tell his eldest daughter what he had promised and to protect her from the Barians. He knew his daughter probably would not want to go because she would be isolated in another dimension with only one race to study. Upon telling the eldest this she became very upset and berated him for promising her to some planet in another dimension. She had no time for single planet dimensions when she had so many planets to discover in this one. The power involved in switching dimensions would mean she would be stuck in that other dimension for most of her time. Her father was lucky he had had enough fuel to make it back in the first place. However, in three days time the Barians arrived. The eldest daughter out of kindness agreed to meet with the Barians and she planned upon explaining that she would be unable to go and teach on their planet despite the agreement they had made with her father. Yet after talking to the Barians the exobiologist in her became intrigued. This was certainly a very new species whose biology seemed quite different than any she had previously seen. As a result she chose to go with the Barians. Before her father even realized what had happened she was off with the Barians in their spaceship. At this, all of the sisters and their mother got very angry at the father for making these false agreements. Now they might never see their sister again, for it was doubtful that the Barians would be making dimensions shifts again.

Though unhappy, the father set out in his little spaceship to explore the galaxy some more. Luckily the Barians had given him a tremendous amount of fuel to apologize for taking his daughter away so he had even more than he had before his accidental dimension shift. Strangely enough while exploring this new part of the galaxy the father got sucked randomly into another dimension again. Luckily, because he was sucked in he didn't waste energy going in or he would never have had enough fuel to get back out. Upon entering this dimension he was once again immediately confronted with an angry race who were annoyed by this intrusion from another dimension. This race was a bunch of eagle-like humanoids who flew upon wings throughout their planet's atmosphere. In reality their planet had little actual land mass and was mostly gaseous which made a great planet for a bunch of bird people who had constructed floating nests for cities. Anyway these people called the Adlerians were threatening the father for interfering in their dimension. Well, the father was scared out of his mind because it is highly unusually to be doing this much dimension shifting in one life time. He also felt that he would like to live a little longer. He immediately asked them to spare his life and promised to send his daughter the meteorologist. She, he explained, was an expert on weather patterns and since these people lived in the atmosphere he figured this might be helpful. The Adlerians upon hearing this thought it was a wonderful idea because they had been having a series of storms which were causing havoc by throwing their floating cities into one another. As a result they consented and said that they would arrive on Earth to pick up his middle daughter in seven weeks. The father then used the remaining amount of fuel to return to his own dimension and hurry home.

This time the father was afraid to tell his daughters and wife what he had done. They were already threatening to take away his spaceship since he had wasted all of his fuel already. So he kept silent figuring the Adlerians would never be able to get to Earth. Well, seven weeks later the Adlerians arrived and came to the middle daughter. She was rather annoyed when she heard what her father had done because she did not want to be stuck in another dimension like her sister was. However, upon hearing of the tremendous weather problem upon their planet she chose to go anyway and was off before anyone knew it. Needless to say the mother and remaining sister were rather annoyed at the father who kept bringing these strange interdimensional races to take the other sisters away. They refused to give him any more fuel. However, what they didn't know was that the Adlerian had actually given him some more fuel in appreciation for suggesting his daughter to them. And so the father set out to explore again, this time careful to go to a completely different part of the galaxy.

After encountering several blackholes, a few wormholes, and then a bunch of temporal anomalies which were usual for the father, he amazingly encountered another dimensional shift. At this the father decided his space traveling days were over because no man in history had encountered this many dimensional shifts in one year. In fact probably in a life time. Once again he encountered an angry alien race. You have to understand dimensional shifts were very uncommon at this point in time so people tended to be annoyed by dimensional intruders. Anyway these people looked like whales, but were sentient and had built a tremendous city under the sea where they could live an work peacefully. They had but one problem. They were at war with an evil race of merpeople who wanted to rule the sea. The Whalites, as they were called, apparently were very sick and tired of a certain mermaid named Ariel who wouldn't stop singing. Well, the father begged for his life and promised to send his youngest daughter the great diplomat who could end their war and come up with some kind of compromise about Ariel's singing. The Whalites, at hearing that his daughter might convince the merpeople not to take over the sea and might even make Ariel shut up, decided they could free the man. They told him that they would arrive on Earth in seven months to collect his daughter providing the war wasn't finished by then.

Well, the father was absolutely sure when he got home that he couldn't mention a thing about this t his wife or daughter. Both of them would surely lock him up somewhere where they could keep an eye on him. However, he decided to give up his ship himself because all the dimensional shifts had been too much for him. The youngest daughter noticed her father had stopped exploring and wondered what was the matter but decided to be diplomatic and let him come to her. However, he never said anything. Then seven months later the Whalite showed up. Well, the youngest daughter was not happy, but felt a need to help these poor people end their war so she left with the Whalites. Needless to say mom was not very happy. She berated her husband for his bad behavior which had resulted in all of her daughters leaving the dimension. She had heard nothing from her daughters and did not expect to any time soon. She was only happy that she still had her newborn baby girl and she told the king if he promised her to anyone, she would personally have him sent to a penal colony.

As the youngest girl, Rella, was growing up she was repeatedly told about her sisters who had been such great experts in their fields and were now lost to the galaxy forever. As a result Rella became very interested in dimensional physics and how people could travel between dimensions. She learned that her father's trips had been accidental, and that few people could plan trips between dimensions. Yet she wondered how the Barians, Adlerians, and Whalites had done it. When she was old enough and had studied all she could about this field, she decided to set out in search of her sisters.

Rella had gathered the coordinates of where her father had encountered the dimensional shifts and set all the instruments on her ship to record whatever happened. Unfortunately, she did not get sucked into the other dimension upon reaching the coordinates. It appeared that this sort of hole between dimensions which had allowed the energy free shift to occur had moved. So she continued to scan that area of space because she knew she had only enough energy to make three shifts back from each of her sister's dimensions. Eventually, she found the hole and was sucked into the other dimension. There she luckily avoided immediate detection and searched out her sister by looking for human life signs. Finally, she located her sister on the Barian homeworld and headed there. Her sister was overjoyed to see her infant sister now grown, but she quickly told her sister to leave for the Barians would not be happy to have another unrequested encounter with the other dimension. But Rella refused to leave explaining that she wanted to figure out a way that her sister could come back home. The eldest sister then went on to explain that in reality the planet on which the Barians lived appeared in earth's dimension every seven days. That is how the Barians had been able to easily come and get her on Earth seven days after the girl's father had encountered them. Rella immediately was intrigued by the concept of a planet which flipped between dimensions on a regular basis and refused to leave until she learned more. As a result the eldest sister agreed to hide Rella until the shift when the Barians would be more willing to talk to her in their dimension. Seven days later Rella woke up and her ship's monitors reported that she was now back in her own dimension. At this point in came her sister and the leader of the Barians. The Leader explained that their planet had originally belonged in this dimension, but something was causing it to shift into the other dimension for six days a week. He then preceded to give Rella all the information he had gathered on dimensional shifting. "Hopefully," he said, "someone will eventually figure out how to bring their planet back permanently to its home dimension and that way your eldest sister could again visit Earth." He then requested that Rella leave before the next dimensional shift.

So Rella set off to find her next sister who had been brought to the homeworld of the Adlerians. She once again could not find the anomaly that her father had found, but she eventually found the new location of the shift between dimensions. She again avoided detection by the Adlerians, and searched for her sister until she found human lifesigns on a nearby floating city. The sister begged her to leave. She explained that the Adlerians did not like intruders and she was quite happy solving their weather problems though she would like to go home. This planet she explained also shifted between dimensions but only returned to its home dimension every seventh week. Once again this was how the Adlerians had been able to visit earth without expending enormous amount of fuel. Well, Rella explained that she wanted to figure out how to help both her and her eldest sister and would like to watch the dimensional shift and ask the Adlerians what they knew about this strange phenomena. So the middle sister agreed to hide Rella until that time. Seven weeks later Rella noticed that they had once again shifted dimensions Her sister then came with the leader of the Adlerians who began to explain what he knew of the shifts and when they had started. Strangely enough, they had begun to occur around the same time as the Barian's planet had begun to shift. Once again he asked that Rella leave before the shift for they tended to be annoyed at outsiders who arrived to remind them of their plight.

So Rella set out in search of her last sister, the great diplomat, who had gone to help the Whalites. Upon finding the hole to the other dimension she set out to find her sister. She was immediately struck by the rather annoying singing coming from a red-haired mermaid, but she ignored it and sought out her sister. Her sister was very happy to see her because she was getting a little tired of the Whalites' squabbles. She explained they had stopped the war, but it might continue if she couldn't get Ariel to stop singing. After hearing her sister out, Rella explained her mission. The diplomatic sister suddenly gasped as she explained that the Whalite's planet did the same shifting on a seven month basis. However, she was afraid the Whalites wouldn't be happy Rella was there so she hid Rella until the next dimensional shift. Immediately after the shift occurred the leader of the Whalites appeared with the third sister. She provided Rella with the data they had obtained about the shift including the date it had first occurred which coincided with the time the other two planets had begun to shift. She then wished Rella good luck and asked her politely to leave before the next shift. Not that Rella needed prodding she was sick of Ariel's singing.

Rella decided to go home and study her data in a lab at home. She began to put together a pattern. Several major cosmic events had all occurred in that area of space at the same time. Somehow they had all caused these three planets in the>

Transfer interrupted!