Kimberly Arabus and the Dark Planet

Kimberly was sitting on a smooth stone bench, letting the sun beat down on her skin. She had taken off her shoes and socks, and the cool grass below her feet felt nice against her soles. The sun was almost directly overhead, and she squinted as it glittered in the air. A light breeze blew through the garden of small trees that surrounded the bench, rustling their leaves. It was a very quiet place.

It was hard for her to believe that she had been here for more than two weeks now. Two weeks - fourteen local days - of walking around in this place, talking to these people. Talking to them, eating with them, even sleeping with them! She didn't know how they did it - how they could live like that, every single day of their lives. How could they stand to breathe this alien air? How could they enjoy living in this world that wasn't theirs? And yet they seemed happy here; they were always smiling when they walked by her. No matter how many times she told herself that this was wrong or insane or impossible, somehow the thought of going home never came up again.

Kimberly tried to put those thoughts out of her mind as she looked up at the sky. The sky was so blue - almost an unnatural shade. Was it even possible for a sky to be this blue? But then again, what did she know about other worlds? Maybe blue skies were common here? Yes, she decided. This was probably not all that strange after all. And besides, who cared about the sky when there was so much else to look at? As she gazed around the garden, Kimberly noticed one thing in particular: a huge wall several hundred yards away from where she sat. She had seen it before and knew vaguely what it was supposed to be used for, but today she thought that she might actually go and look at it up close. She stood up and started walking towards it through the garden of trees.

The wall stretched endlessly into either direction as far as she could see; its surface seemed to be made of tightly packed dirt and rocks of various shapes and sizes, with large pieces of wood or metal sticking out here and there. It wasn't very tall; maybe five or six feet at most. At first glance it didn't seem like anything special at all - just a wall like any other - but as Kimberly approached it she became more and more curious about what she might find on the other side.

The wall wasn't very wide either; maybe three feet across at most. The wooden planks were spaced closely together and had been painted gray on both sides, making it impossible to see through from where Kimberly stood looking at them from the outside. She considered whether or not she should just walk right through the wall, but decided against it for fear of damaging something important (she didn't know quite what). Instead, she reached out with both hands and placed them on either side of one of the planks in the wall; then with all her strength she pushed down with all her might until finally something gave way beneath her fingers: there was a loud pop, followed by a few seconds of grinding sounds as pieces of wood scraped against each other inside the wall, then finally there was silence again as all movement stopped abruptly. Kimberly took a step back and stared intently at where her hands had been holding onto something just moments ago (now there was nothing but empty space). Hesitantly she reached out again, grabbed onto another wooden plank two inches above where she originally touched one last time - popping it exactly like before - then let go again to watch how things moved inside the wall's structure once more (this time only half as much noise).

She smiled when things went exactly as expected: popping both planks apart allowed something behind them to move freely within whatever space surrounded this whole contraption! That meant that there had to be some sort of channel inside - maybe even hollow! But why would someone build such an enormous wall like this if not for some kind of important reason? Kimmy thought deeply about what purpose someone might have in constructing such a unique structure... then suddenly it hit her: "This must be used for defense!" Of course! This entire thing must be able to slide sideways easily enough... perhaps even rotate! Then when enemies approached from somewhere beyond this garden (namely from behind) you would simply move everything over so that they could no longer reach your city anymore! With such a simple design you wouldn't even need any locks or hinges or anything else fancy like that: just two planks per panel... simple sliding panels... which is why none were visible anywhere along the walls length! She smiled broadly: "That's ingenious" she whispered excitedly under her breath... "Just brilliant!" As Kimberly continued staring at this marvelously intricate machine before her eyes, an idea suddenly materialized in her mind: if this entire structure is built solely for defense purposes...