For some suitcases, the journey ended at Melba’s office: the Lost Baggage Department. It was a cramped room in the basement of Interstellar Plus Flight Headquarters on Planet 462, where flickering lights cast shadows into every corner. Planetary dust drifted inside whenever the heavy exterior door opened.
Melba brushed the gray specks from her clothes, but the dust followed her as she passed through the headquarters doors.
The building was nearly empty. Most employees were relocating to the newly constructed Headquarters 2, positioned closer to the busiest interstellar travel routes. When Melba reached the third floor, she found the elevator deserted.
Her small workstation stood in one corner. The rest of the floor was crowded with suitcases and travel bags, each one reduced to only a few inches in height.
Every piece of luggage was sent through a molecular shrinker before an interstellar journey. Spacecraft could not carry unnecessary weight or volume, so shrinking the cargo allowed more belongings to travel between planets and stars. Once the luggage arrived, it could be restored to its original size.
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There was one exception: luggage accidentally loaded onto the wrong spacecraft. It was a serious problem, especially because interstellar travel could take decades. Sometimes it took generations to discover that a suitcase was heading in the wrong direction, followed by even more decades spent sending it back across the stars. Small packages were passed from ship to ship before eventually reaching Melba’s lost luggage office. Most passengers never contacted the company to claim their missing baggage or request insurance. They simply accepted that their belongings were gone forever.
There were no clear instructions about how long passengers should wait before filing a claim, but Melba did not mind. She spent her days wandering between towers of suitcases stacked like dominoes. An X-ray scanner let her inspect each bag for mold or damage, but what she truly enjoyed was catching a glimpse of another time and place.
There was a miniature knitted hat destined for a planet far colder than Melba’s world, where the temperature remained a steady 21°C.
Another suitcase held a tiny tea set. Porcelain appeared almost transparent beneath the scanner. No one drank from teacups at headquarters; every container needed a secure lid to keep out the ever-present planetary dust.
Melba’s favorite was orange suitcase 72, which contained a miniature chess set. The pieces were so small that she needed tweezers to move them.
As Melba dusted the suitcases, she imagined installing a permanent scanner in the lobby. Visitors could walk past and admire the hand-painted swirls on teacups, the delicate carvings on chess pieces, and countless other artifacts carried through time and space. No one could open the bags except their owners, who alone could restore them to full size. Even so, the scanners offered a glimpse into the past. Many of those miniature time capsules had been packed long before Melba was born.
She imagined how she would display the luggage and design a small label for each case.
Please let the world know that these items still exist.
Smiling, Melba worked her way through the towers of lost luggage and returned to her desk.
Then a message appeared. That was unusual; she rarely received messages at all. A tiny suitcase had been abandoned at her workstation.
A flashing notice announced that someone had requested suitcase 21. Consulting the catalog in her memory, Melba recognized it as a brown case filled with books. The print on their covers was too small for even the scanner to read. She imagined someone carrying those hardcovers through time and across the stars. Now, the books were beginning another journey.
Melba tried to summon a little happiness. The books had found a new home. Hooray, she told herself.
Then she saw their destination: sublevel 6, the garbage level.
Another message chimed. Two requests in one day?
I requested 35 suitcases. The message referred to a red bag containing a small knitted blanket, folded into itself like a woolen nest. It, too, was bound for sublevel 6.
Melba moved quietly between the towering stacks of interstellar luggage and retrieved the small case. She brushed the dust from its surface as it rested in her hands.
A third message flashed.
Source: www.nature.com