Into the Belly of the Whale
Cissy was mesmerized by the slow, undulating dance of the oncoming space whales. It was hard to imagine that an entire world, ecosystem, or possibly Nebulon city existed inside each vast space-born creature. They were truly magnificent animals. And there were hundreds of them.
“Tash corridac! Compurac sah, mokkis nah Faldo Mecchanosic!” came a forceful voice over the ship-to-ship communications array.
The grin that had inhabited Suki’s blue face began to fade.
“What are they saying?” demanded Cissy, noticing the hint of distress from Suki.
They are ordering us to state our reason for visiting Mighty Clan Vorranac. But they call us an Imperial ship, and not in a very nice way.”
“Tell them who we are, Suki. And try to be nice about it,” said Cissy.
Suki launched into a long ak-ak-ak-awh session of incomprehensible Nebulonin words. Cissy continued to marvel at the gigantic whale thing coming towards them. It had two huge eyes, each the size of a large domed stadium, and hundreds of surrounding eyes of various sizes.
“They are ordering us to fly inside of the Prince’s space whale,” Suki said, deflated.
“Make it so,” ordered Cissy.
Suki piloted the Happy Luck toward the largest space whale’s slowly opening mouth. It was a gaping mouth more than twenty-five kilometers in width.
“We izzn’t going inna dere, iz we?” Friday whined.
“Yes, we are, Friday.”
As they slowly slid through the mouth they began to see how brightly lit everything was.
“What are the bright lights all around us?” Cissy asked.
Crocodile Guy quickly whurred through data. “The bright yellow ones are called sunsources. They contain actual cold fusion of complex particles to produce heat and sunlight. Crikey!”
“And the bright blue lights?”
“Even more impressive, Cissy. Those are brain cells that communicate with other brain cells via microwave energy streams. They are the brains and computer capability of the entire pod of space whales.”
“Wow.”
The scanner readouts began showing breathable atmosphere and exotic radiation in the environment that now surrounded them. Suki daintily landed the ship on a platform structure that could easily be the space whale’s tongue.
Blue-skinned warriors surrounded the ship. A parade of uniformed officials streamed toward Cissy’s space ship.
“What do we do now?” Cissy asked.
“We go out and meet Prince Porodor, son of a former Vorannac Warlord.” Suki gave a half-hearted smile.
“Is he one of the good ones?” Cissy asked.
“Well, no… As far as I know…” Suki said, “He’s one of the very worst ones we could meet.”
Catch a Falling Star 