Category Archives: aliens

Canto 69 – Coffee Time on the Shadowcat (the Blood-Red Thread)

My first meeting with Ham Aero and the crew of the Leaping Shadowcat was in the Trophy Lounge on the lower deck of the Shadowcat herself.  The charming white-furred Lupin boy, Sahleck Kim, led me there when I arrived from the White Duke’s shuttle. 

“So, you’re the cabin boy?”

“Oh, yes, Dr. Marou.  It’s hard to believe, I know.  I’ve gone in a matter of a few weeks from Count Nefaria’s dungeons where I was destined to die, to working aboard the space ship of the great Safari Master and adventurer, Ham Aero.  My future is suddenly bright.”

The child’s eyes glistened like an excited puppy’s as he told me his tale of rescue.  He led me to a seat in the Trophy Lounge where I could sit and eat one of Sinbadh’s sumptuous meals.  There was a stuffed head of a dragon-mouthed pakoollie beast from the planet Samothrace looking directly down on my plate, trying his hardest to ruin my appetite with his ugliness.

            “My boy, do you have any coffee?” I asked.

Sahleck grinned in a wide-mouthed way that only Lupins can manage.  “It’s one of Commander Sinbadh’s specialties!” He said.

“Bring me some.  Please.”

The boy hurried to the mess.  At that same moment, Ham and Duke Ferrari entered.

            “I guess, with Cloudstalker’s departure, you are the Captain of the ship again,” said Ferrari of the curly moustaches. 

“Oh, I think you still out-rank me,” answered Aero modestly.  “Hello…  You must be Professor Googol Marou.”

Ham offered his hand to me and I gladly shook it.  “Yes, I’m honored to meet a man who has traveled almost as much as any explorer.”

            “The reputation has not entirely been earned,” said Ham.

            “This is YOUR ship, Ham,” said Ferrari, frowning slightly.  “I think you should be the captain.”

Ham smiled.  “I won’t argue that now, Han.  Have you met Dr. Marou?”

“No, no…  Nice to make your acquaintance, Doctor.”

“I too, am honored,” I said.  “I am not used to meeting such powerful inter-planetary politicians.”

Ferrari looked at me as if he were slightly annoyed.  “You know the White Duke.  He’s a bigger light in this galaxy than I am.”

“Well, if you say so.”  I know I must’ve been grinning ear to ear to hear my own friend being praised in this way.  I wonder how Ferrari actually took that.

Ham looked at me quizzically.  “Professor, what’s in all the boxes you had installed in the skinning and mounting lab?”

“Oh!  My invention!  I have to tell you about it.”  Gleefully I related everything they needed to know about the Marou Ancient Light Holo-Assembler Telescope and maybe a tad bit more as well.  I explained how my sheer genius had allowed events to be viewed from light years away, and thusly, years in the past.

“Umm, that’s very good, professor,” Ham said.  “I guess that will come in handy…”

He didn’t speak with enthusiasm, but I knew he was actually quite impressed with me.

Canto 68 – Blunderful Voyage

When Tron sent a message to Frieda’s Starbase at Don’t Go Here, he requested Ged himself come to Outpost for little Artran.  Frieda, however, knew that Ged was at Gaijin with Xavier Tkriashav.  She sent a courier in a brand-new Express Boat to Gaijin.  It was listed for Tkriashav or Ged Aero only, but somehow it got delivered to Vince Neill aboard the Megadeath.

Scarpigo Snarcs wore an X-boat officer’s uniform as he gave the message to Vince.

“All right, dude!  I’ve heard of this kid-dude.  It’d be an honor to serve Ged-dude and the pirate-dude at the same time.  We leave immediately!”

“Thank you,” said Scarpigo in his guise as Bill the Postman.  “I will just be hitching a ride.”

“Wha…?” said Cold Death, his bright green Mohawk shaking in confusion.

“ME RIDE WITH YOU!” said Scarpigo in that extra loud way you normally talk to stupid people, as if they were deaf rather than merely mentally impaired.

“Okay, Bill,” said Vince.  “You can ride if you try to be just a bit quieter.  That gnarly voice of yours can surely give me a headache.”

Nikki Sixx looked over the coordinates to Outpost, tried to figure out the navigational logarithms in his head, and then gave up; inserting the computer crystal with the jump program that Bill the Postman supplied him with into the ship’s navigational computer.  The Megadeath roared musically to life.

Now, travel between the stars is a miracle of physics and mathematics that only takes place in certain narrow corridors of gravity and space.  A space ship creates a field around itself that alters the fabric of space nearby.  Space will actually fold itself around the matter the star ship is made of.  It appears to disintegrate in one place, and, after a period in which the space-time continuum percolates around it, reforms itself in the new location.  The location could be anywhere within a range of six parsecs, even empty space.  But spacers only found it useful to travel from star system to star system.  Fuel would eventually be necessary and none was available in empty parsecs of space.

Twenty-seven hours after they had taken flight from Don’t Go Here, the Megadeath arrived at Outpost.  Immediately they were surrounded by Pinwheel Corsairs.

“Alien ship of unknown design!” called the nearest corsair, “state your business here.”

“Yo, Dude!” warbled Vince Neill from behind his mirrored shades.  “We come on a mission of mercy from Ged Aero.  We come to pick up little dude Artran and take him to Gaijin.”

“We don’t recognize you and we don’t know any Gaijin.  Prepare to be atomized.”

“Whoa, not cool!” said Neill into the communicator.  He immediately threw the Megadeath into maneuvers that the corsairs had never seen attempted, let alone being able to catch up with them.  The highly efficient ship made with Ancient technology danced out of reach of all Pinwheel weaponry.

“Is this an attack?” rasped Tron’s voice over the communicators.

“No, Dude.  I just don’t want my biscuits fried by you!”

“Stop, then, and prepare to be boarded,” said Tron.

“Whatever you say, Dude.” Despite everything that was sensible, the Megadeath and her Rock-and-Roll crew had fallen into the hands of a desperate pirate who faced total annihilation at the hands of the Galtorrian Imperial Fleet.

Canto 40 – Sad Tidings at the Spaceport

When the space ship called Megadeath, the Rock and Roll Starship, docked at the now prosperous spaceport of the planet Don’t Go Here, they interrupted a solemn ceremony.  Administrator Bam-Bam Salongi was about to be buried in space.  His body, encased in a glass torpedo pod, was on display in Frieda’s central administration hub.  The relatively new crew of the space port was gathered around for testimonials and remembrances.

Frieda’s Metalloid form stood guard over the office.  The Dion girl named Taquira was kneeling by the foot of the makeshift coffin and Tabitha Blue Arrow, in Lady Knight armor, stood over the head of Bam-Bam’s final resting place.

Xavier Tkriashav entered the office first, shock registering on his dark, inscrutable face.  Behind him stood Captain Tommy Lee, Pilot Vince Niell, Nikki Sixx, and slack-jawed Cold Death.  All removed hats and became silent mourners.

“What has happened here?” asked Tkriashav.

“Fez Amin and the Monopoly Brigade,” said Frieda.  “He came here and killed Mr. Salongi and kidnapped Tara.  We killed one of his Lieutenants, but he used Tara as a shield to make his escape.  I’ve tried to organize pursuit, but we lost him completely in the Imperium.”

“We should not have left you vulnerable to attack,” said Tkriashav, shaking his head.

“We were unprepared for treachery,” said Tabitha, the Lady Knight.  “It will not happen again.”

“We have ships now to defend our home,” said the Dion, Taquira.  “We just don’t have any pilots to fly them.”

“We are outward bound now, to places where I know we will find a large number of willing spacers ready to come here and help get that problem solved, at least,” said Tkriashav.  “I have places to go where I know all kinds of Psions.  We might even see if we can strike an accord with the Nebulons we believe are migrating in mass towards this part of the Orion Spur.”

“You know,” said Tabitha, “you are opening your arms to all the peoples the Imperium loathes?”

“Yes,” said Tkriashav.  “That was the idea.  All us rejects will band together to make something far better than what Imperial Space has to offer.”

“You are a hopeless idealist, Psion Master,” said Tabitha Blue Arrow.

“Does that mean you will leave us and go back to the Imperium?” he responded.

“Of course not,” replied the Lady Knight.  “We need idealists as leaders.  It’s the reason I joined Cloudstalker’s Corsairs to start with.”

“You are good man, Psion Master,” hissed Taquira the Dion.  She switched her brown lizard’s tail.  “We like you a lot!”

“Tara wanted us to tell Ged Aero that she loves him,” said Frieda.  “I fear those may have been the last words we’ll ever have from her.”

“I will have some students I have to deliver to Ged on Gaijin,” said Tkriashav.  “I will tell him the grave news.”

An emerald-green female Galtorrian walked into the main office at that moment.  “Ged Aero, you sssay?” she hissed.  She was beautiful in a serpentine way, snake-eyed and tressed with flowing green hair.  She wore the uniform of the Imperial Scout Service.  “I must find Ged Aero.”

All eyes turned suspiciously to her.

“Why do you seek Ged?” asked Tkriashav.

“I must find the fulfiller of the Prophecy of Zhan!  I have sssearched for him for yearsss.  I mussst find him if it costssss me my life!”

“We shall see.  You will surrender all weapons and travel with me under guard,” said Tkriashav.

“Yesss, whatever I mussst do.  But, I mussst find him before hisss enemiesss do.”

The pheromones she gave off at that moment made every male present feel as if he must fall in love with her.  Xavier couldn’t help himself from feeling it too.  He tried to probe her, but she was apparently a Psion too, though not a type he recognized.        

Canto 36 – The Palace of a 1,000 Years

    The city of Kiro, Gaijin was a heavily populated place.  The city was full of high-rise pagoda towers and Kyoto-style castles.  Dominating the skyline was the huge obsidian sculpture of a Black Cat atop the Temple of the Four Pillars of the Secret Way.  Naylund Smith explained it all to Ged Aero as they made their way through the ornate city.

Ged and Dr. Smith were accompanied by the two children and Xavier Tkriashav.  Tkriashav’s young nephew, Friashqaztl, trailed behind the group, timid and shy.  All the newcomers were overwhelmed by what they saw.

“This place is more beautiful than anything I ever saw in my visions,” said Tkriashav.

“Do I understand correctly that you are the Master Telepath and Psion?” asked Naylund Smith.

“Yes.  I am a powerful telepath, teleport, and clairvoyant.  I am not the most powerful of my people, however.”

“Perhaps,” said Dr. Smith, “but you figure prominently in the Prophecy of Shan.”

“If that is a book, I’d like to see it,” said Tkriashav.

“In time.  It is a holy book to these people.”

All around the small group, silk-robed people had been gathering to watch as if the six people from the space ship were a circus parade.  Many shouted “White Spider!” as if prayers had been at long last answered.

“Can you tell me why I am supposed to be this White Spider?” asked Ged as he took long strides to hurry past lemon-yellow-skinned admirers.

“It is destiny.”  Naylund smiled and nodded his head indulgently.  “The web of outer space has brought you to us to pick up the threads woven by the last White Spider.  The last spider wove this world and its society.  You have come to link it to other webs and expand this world’s reach back into the stars.”

“You talk a lot of poetic nonsense.”  Ged looked away at the sky.

“Poetic nonsense is also sometimes Truth,” said Dr. Smith.  “I will help you to learn that in time.”

Finally, they came to a beautiful castle made of white stone and Gaijinese Teak wood, inlaid with bright blue sapphires.  It appeared to have been their destination all along.

“This,” said Dr. Smith, “is the Palace of a Thousand Years.  It is your new home.”

“We will live here?” asked Junior.

Dr. Smith looked at the blue boy.  “It is the palace belonging to Shen Ming.  It is the traditional home of the White Spider.  It is the place where the last White Spider, Shan Sasaki once lived and worked.”

“Do you expect me to give up space travel?” asked Ged.  “It’s the only life I’ve ever really known.”

“It will be part of the life you will lead as the White Spider.  It is the work you are expected to do for us.”

“Hmm.”  Ged stared up at the curved roofs of the Palace of One Thousand Years.

Naylund Smith led the way into the palace through a large wooden gate.  Inside they came into a courtyard that bustled with activity as if it were a small town all by itself.  The courtyard had an ornate Torii arch that marked the center of the great building.  There were practice yards there where groups of children under the care of a schoolmaster were learning martial arts, probably karate.  There was a large oriental garden for quiet contemplation inside the palace, as well as the entrance into a riding stable filled with two-legged llama-like mammals called kians.

Naylund pointed out the two master towers where the instructors lived.  There was a massive central building which Naylund called the Akito House.  It contained the vast White Spider library, a place that had almost as many bound volumes of books as books on computer memory crystals.  Finally, he pointed out Shen Ming’s Hall, which, he informed them, was the White Spider’s official residence.

They entered Shen Ming’s Hall through a double door that proved to lead to a huge indoor bathing pool.  Naked yellow men, women, and numerous children were all bathing there.  Junior Aero would’ve blushed if his skin hadn’t been blue.  Ged’s skin turned crimson.

Up a marble stair, they came into the Administrator’s Hall, and a large, stately office.  Behind the desk was Shen Ming himself, looking spry for a man of nine hundred years.  He was bald as a cue ball except for a single top knot at the apex of his head, and he looked like a wrinkled Alfred E. Newman.

“Honored Shen-sensei,” began Dr. Smith.  “I bring before you Ged Aero.  He is…”

“I know, Naylund-sama, I know.  He is the new White Spider.  I would know him anywhere!  He is just as Shan-dono described him in the Prophecy.”

The silk-clad ancient moved swiftly out from behind the desk and took Ged’s hand.  He placed it on his own hairless head.  His ridiculous lop-sided smile made new wrinkles blossom across his wizened face.

“I pledge to you all that I have, White Spider,” Shen Ming said in tones of awe.  “I will serve you all of my remaining days.” Ged couldn’t begin to speak.  The place and the situation filled him up.  Tears welled up in his eyes