Skip to main content

story identification - What novel has people exploring a spaceship with cubbies that duplicated anything, including a hand?


A group of people are exploring a huge spaceship. They are worried about supplies until they find cubbies that duplicate anything put into them. They discover this by someone placing their hand inside one of the cubbies and it duplicates their hand. Specifically, once something is placed in the cubby, whenever it is removed it is immediately replaced. So there's now always a hand in the cubby.


Definitely True



  1. Everything in the above paragraph

  2. Read it more than 10 years ago.


I think...



  1. I read it approximately 15 years ago. I have no idea how old it was when I read it.


  2. The ship was discovered in a glacier, or the arctic or something, which was reflected on the cover.

  3. It may have not been a spaceship exactly. I think there may have been interdimensional/tranporting doors and they were unable to go back the way they came.


I did not finish the book and would like to now, so I will not be able to answer clarification questions about later plot points and would prefer to avoid spoilers.



Answer



Stranger Suns by George Zebrowski. Your description of the cover points to this edition.


George Zebrowski, _Stranger Suns_


This is from the back cover blurb, as quoted in a customer review at amazon.com:



Under the frozen ground of Antarctica lies the fantastic starship of a forgotten culture. Long dormant, it requires only passengers to awaken it . . . and Obrion's exploration team triggers the ship's launch. Prisoners in the empty craft, the four scientists find themselves reluctant, awestruck travelers through a universe where humankind has never ventured. And that is only the beginning: as Obrion and his companions explore the alien ship, they discover portals to an infinite number of variant Earths. The questions raised by these doorways are as innumerable as the worlds they access . . . but they only matter if Juan, Lena, Malachi, and Magnus can find their way back home.




And here is the discovery of the "duplicator cubbies". Lacking a copy of the book, I quote from the version in Amazing Stories, January 1991 (available at the Internet Archive) which may differ from the book version:



Magnus and the others stood before the wall of square cubbyholes, staring in silence. "This one here," he said.

Juan peered in. A bloody hand lay inside.

"As if freshly cut from my arm," Magnus said. "I put my hand in. The chamber glowed like the portals and there it was, down to the dirt under my fingernails. The principle seems an extension of the fluid doorways—direct manipulation of matter at the most basic level."

"Yummy," Lena said. "We'll bring all the food and water we have left, and all the scraps."

Magnus chuckled and pulled the hand from the chamber. "See, there's a mark where I wore my ring." He put the hand back. "If I take it out now, still another will appear."

"Did you have to use your hand?" Juan asked, feeling both relieved and repelled by the sight. "You might have lost it, for all you knew."

Lena nudged him. "Think what it means!"

"You have to take chances sometimes," Magnus said, "if you want to learn anything."

"Let's try it," Lena said. "I'm hungry."

Malachi gave them a sad look. "I should have saved one cigarette."

"Be happy you've quit," Lena said.



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.

harry potter - How could Expelliarmus beat Avada Kedavra?

I want to be very careful about how I ask this question – I am not asking How did Voldemort die? [CLOSED] Below the text is the relevant passages from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows if anyone wants to review them (I'm sorry for the amount of text). How did Expelliarmus beat Avada Kedavra and kill Voldemort? I feel the reason Harry's Expelliarmus overpowered Voldemort's Avada Kedavra curse has to do with who was master of the Elder Wand and how the Elder Wand works. I've always had trouble understanding fully how the Elder Wand works, though. How much did the fact that Voldemort never truly won or mastered the Elder Wand factor into how Expelliarmus reacted to Avada Kedavra and caused Avada Kedavra to rebound and kill Voldemort? An answer based in book canon would be especially welcome, but any canon source really is fine. Harry heard the high voice shriek as he, too, yelled his best hope to the heavens, pointing Draco’s wand: ‘ Avada Kedavra !’ ‘ Expelliarmus !...

Is there good canon evidence for the "Nightmare Matrix"?

On the Matrix wiki, there's an article about the Nightmare Matrix which says: The Nightmare Matrix was the second prototype Matrix, designed by The Architect after the massive failure of the Paradise Matrix in the hope that human minds would more readily accept an imperfect world with suffering. Unlike the first version, this Matrix instituted a basic cause-and-effect programming and forcibly made those connected to it accept the program. Vamp Prime, a possible remnant of the Nightmare Matrix. It also featured programs that resembled mythical evil creatures in various human mythologies such as vampires, werewolves, zombies, aliens, etc. It also failed, but many of the programs who were designed for it survived deletion in exile. The Merovingian and his wife, Persephone may have had their roots in this version of the Matrix. Upon its failure, the Merovingian started a smuggling ring of programs and information to provide a haven for exiles that would last for 6 cycles in the final ...

story identification - Anime with a boy hiring a creature from a stone, meets a man named Dante and starts a journey to collect crystals

I am from India, this anime or animated series (I can't remember this was made by the Japan or other countries) was aired between 2009 and 2012 probably in Jetix/Disney XD (but I'm not sure). This anime starts with a boy (the main character, I forgot his name) who find a stone (or crystal like thing) in his dad's property, his dad was missing that time. Some day he accidentally hire a creature/monster from that stone. Other day some creature attack him and he was saved by his creature and the story begins. In his journey to solve the mystery he meets a middle aged man 'Dante' (probably that was the name; this is the only character name I can remember). He had also some stone. After that they meet with one girl and a women (one of the girls is same age with the main boy character and probably will become his partner as the story goes on). Another women probably Dante's partner. Four of them started their journey to collect all the stone/crystal. They are collecti...