Category Archives: novel

February 13, 2018 · 3:38 pm

Aeroquest… Canto 13

Canto 13 – Dino-Man

Fred 3576 was tied to one side of the tree, his girlfriend Wilma456 was trussed to the other side. Their pet, Dino6476 was laid out dead and ready for skinning, much too dangerous to try to keep as a live captive. The two cave youths looked at Ged with large, fearful eyes.

“I can’t wear that!” moaned Ham, looking at the fur loincloth young Fred was wearing.

The Nebulon Princess grinned at Ham. It began to dawn on all of them that she now understood the words being spoken around her. Ham blushed.

“We have to find that clown of yours before he can do some real damage. Unless you think you can do the riding beast, you are going to have to use what that boy is wearing as your disguise.”

“Ged? What are you going to do about the riding beast?” Ham seemed nervous about the grim determination he obviously saw on Ged’s face. Ged could tell just by looking that what came next was going to traumatize Hamfast Aero.

“I’m going to skin and eat this thing.”

Ged’s environment suit was laid aside. Ged sat down next to the dead raptor with his lectroknife. The blade shimmered with barely controlled energy. He slit the beast open from throat to groin. He quickly peeled back the hide, and then spent about half an hour stretching and preserving the hide on the gray ironwood frame he made from tree branches. The meat he carved off was eaten raw with special cat teeth he grew in order to eat the meat. Then he began to analyze and absorb. Complex DNA patterns formed in his inner eye. He had never gone further than imagining this process before, yet he knew he could achieve it. He ate more as he began to change. The skin of his face split at the nose ridge and fell away to reveal scales. The bones of his face began to elongate into raptor form. The more he changed, the more he felt the need to eat. As his own previous flesh sloughed off, he had to replenish his own mass with the flesh of the raptor. After another twenty minutes, Ged Aero had become a dinosaur, a Dionysian velociraptor.

Just as Ged had imagined, Ham was nearly in shock over the transformation. He’d seen Ged grow scales here and there, and change color a few times. He’d even seen the fangs grow in once or twice. But this was the first time Ged had let anyone else witness how completely his ability allowed him to change form. He knew it was disgusting and awful to watch, but he felt the time had come to reveal what he could truly do.

“Ged? How did you…?”

“Truly amazin’ Bucko!” Sinbadh gasped.

The Princess took Ham in hand and made sure he followed through with the plan. She stripped the captured Fred of his Bam-Bam shorts and then undressed Ham, before putting the caveman disguise on him. Ham was too far gone to protest or be embarrassed.

“Thaank you, Princesssss,” said the velociraptor that was Ged Aero. “You and Sssinbadh ssstay and guard the prisonerssss.”

The Princess firmly shook her head no. She stripped the girl of her Raquel Welch 1,000,000 B.C. bikini and put it on. Her small son she stripped naked. “We go,” was all she said.

Ham mounted on Ged’s saurian back and the Princess got up behind him. The little blue boy was wedged safely in between them.

“What is to become of us?” cried young Fred3576. “You killed our Dino. You can’t just leave us here in the wild naked and tied up!”

“No harm will come to you,” hissed Ged. “Sssinbadh will ssstay and guard you.”

“Blimey! Ya kin count on me, Cap’n. As long as ye don’t eat me. I am yer faithful dog! Space dog, that is!”

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Tagged as Aeroquest, novel, Planet Don't Go Here

February 6, 2018 · 2:59 am

Aeroquest… Adagio 4

Adagio 4 – Don’t Go Here

I have to tell you, brilliant as I am, I will probably never figure out the reasons for the existence of things like the Bedrock Culture of the planet, Don’t Go Here. I do know that the first colony that archeologists uncovered from there was a back-to-nature group that had a weird religion that insisted they reject all modern technology. After a number of years, their culture began to be inundated with marooned starship passengers by the Stardog Corsairs. It was claimed that the only entertainment that had been left to them were a handful of cartoon holovids and one holovid player. The Flintstones took on a kind of religious significance among the growing population of the planet.

Evidence clearly indicates that the first colonists were Galtorrian refugees from the planet Dionysus. They were a group of Galtorr/Human Fusions, Earthers, and a group of humanoid saurians known as Dions on Dionysus. You know what that mix looks like, right? Lizard men and half-lizard-men with humans mixed in. They brought with them saurian pets and work animals of the kind usually referred to in Galactic English as the dinosaurs. They also brought numerous Dionysian plants.

Now, Dions are not accustomed to wearing clothing anywhere but in space. They have natural scale armor and even their private parts and prehensile tails are covered by living leather and scales. That’s a fashion choice that makes me cringe a little. The humans who came with them were dedicated to the idea that it was only right to wear as little clothing as they could get away with in honor of their Dion friends. Even the primitive monkey people who were brought along as slaves, those peculiar furry pygmies known as Lemurians, were taught to wear nothing beyond the occasional synthetic fur.

I guess it only made sense when this back-to-nature group with their cartoonish ways and chosen primitive lifestyle were mixed with castaways from all over, and marooned spacers stripped of all tech gear, they were bound to mutate into a blended culture unlike any that had grown up anywhere else.

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For clothing, a few electrical material synthesizers were created from scrounged parts of the scuttled colonial ships. Thus, synthetic furs could be manufactured for clothing, since organic material was plentiful, but furred animals didn’t exist on the planet. Synthesized stone-foam wads could be easily hollowed out to make stone homes that looked almost exactly like the homes in the Flintstones holovids.

The fake orange furs with black triangles on them came to be known as Fredsuits. White fur dresses became known as Wilma Skins. Blue fur went into Bettypelts, and Brown was for Barneysuits. Bam-Bam Shorts and Pebblespelts, also known as Bonehead Skins, rounded out the major styles. Fred, Wilma, Barney, Betty, Pebbles and Bam-Bam became the most common names chosen by colonists and castaways alike. They began to distinguish themselves from one another by adding numbers to their names. Most ridiculous of all, the most common vehicle developed by the highly imitative culture was the foot-powered car. They gave up all practical value in order to imitate the cartoon show.

By the time the Aero Brothers arrived, the culture of the planet Don’t Go Here had degenerated into something unparalleled in history and monumentally silly.

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Tagged as Aeroquest, novel, Planet Don't Go Here

January 30, 2018 · 2:30 am

Aeroquest… Canto 12

Canto 12 – Goofy in Flintstone Land

Trav wasn’t wild about the plasticized fake tiger fur he was wearing. It was itchy and uncomfortable in all the most private of places. He kept his gob hat and eye-patch, though, unwilling to give up that part of his personal style. He was wearing this disguise only because Frieda had insisted.

Downtown Bedrock was an unusual place. For some reason unknown to Trav, the city designers had modeled things on an old Earth cartoon show called the Flintstones. It made sense to Trav, in a weird way, to have people dress up like cave-man cartoon characters and live in synthetic stone houses that looked like hollow mushrooms with flat tops. But he could form no reasons in his head for why a whole planet full of normal people would follow through on a strange idea like that. He thought he was more-or-less unique in the universe, the only one given to such ideas.

At a shop for selling Pterodactyl Burgers, he met a man named Fred347 Rubble. He was polishing the stone countertop with a white cloth and pouring the occasional Guava Juice for the customers.

“Excuse me,” Trav said, after gulping down the Guava Juice, “but do you know anyone who knows anything about Ancient artifacts?”

“You are the second one to ask that question of me in a week,” said Fred347.

“So, do you?”

“I know who would be able to answer your question, but you don’t want to go there.”

“Oh, yes, I do. I need to find out about the Hammer of God.”

The balding Fred347 glared at Trav as if he’d just said something completely stupid. It made Trav grumble to himself. Ged always thought he was stupid too. He’d show old Ged Aero, though. He’d find that hammer and make a fool of the know-it-all hunter from Questor.

“You have to go up Mount Quagmire to the mansion of Rocko Slaghoople. He’s the man who knows about ancient things around here. He’s a notorious gangster, though. He’s got a rock-caster with exploding bullet-rocks, and he likes to use it on guys like you.”

“Why thank you. I appreciate getting the straight poop, old Jester.” Trav saluted with two fingers to the brim of his gob hat.

“Yeah, go find out about poop from Slaghoople, moron.”

Trav was taken slightly aback. Why did people always respond to what he said rather than what he meant? It was a mystery well beyond a man like him.

A brisk walk got him to the top of Quagmire Mountain, where he could look down over a broad expanse of Bedrock City. The whole city was too big to see in one go. Millions and millions of people lived there in a sprawl of single to three-story rock homes. They were all people who wore fake fur and propelled their vehicles with bare feet.

Slaghoople Manor was a big oval rock with round holes for windows and crude wooden doors. The whole thing was dusty gray with veins of purple running through the rock. Palm trees leaned out from either side of the front of the building. Two thugs in fake leopard skins stood guard.

“Ay!” cried one of the thugs. “Whatcher dooin’ there?”

“I’ve come to see Rocko about an Ancient artifact, the Hammer of God!”

Each of the thugs pulled out an over-size wooden rock-caster. It was a cartoonish-looking hand-held catapult. “Getchuz inside!” ordered a thug.

“Okay, okay. Don’t shoot me with your scary-looking rock-thingies!” Trav grinned at his own joke.

“You’d do well not to laugh at the boys,” said a sultry voice from inside the open doorway. Trav entered to see a beautiful blond woman wearing what he would later learn was a Raquel-Welch-1,000,000-Years-B.C. Bikini. It was striking on the young lady, revealing much of her two best features. “Those weapons look foolish to an outsider like you, but they pack a deadly charge and can easily separate you from your head. Thog and Thing are deadly serious.”

“Who are you, beautiful lady?” Trav squeaked.

“Here they call me Gina Rock-a-Bridgeada. In the Galtorr Imperium, I was called Dana Cole.”

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January 29, 2018 · 4:07 pm

Writing the Critical Scene

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It is a novel I started writing in 1998 with an idea I first got in 1976. So I have been working on this book for either 20 years, or 32 years, depending on when you want to credit the actual work to have started.

It got it’s theme from the fact that I was sexually assaulted when I was ten in 1966, and the feeling the repressed memory of the trauma caused in me whenever I asked myself the question, “Am I a monster?”

Unfortunately the answer to that question, for practically everybody, is, “Sometimes yes.”

Psychological damage sticks with you for the rest of your life. It makes you flinch at things that other people don’t. More than once I must have confused both my mother and old girlfriends when I was compelled to wriggle out of hugs and physical contacts by panic. I felt unlovable. I felt like a monster. And for a lot of that time, I didn’t know why. But it is a novel critical for me to write. Pain needs to become art in order to completely go away. I need to imprison the feelings and ideas in a book.

I am now at the point in that novel where I must write the scenes at the crisis point, the high point of the action, and I have to control the flinching. I have to control the reactions I could so easily fall into. It is critical that I get the scene right. The success or failure of the whole novel is at stake.

Fools

I have played it over and over in the cinema in my head a thousand times… several thousand times. It is difficult. But it is there. Soon I will have it down, crystallized in words. It make take considerable time to publish it, though, because editing it will be at least as hard as writing it. And I seriously have to get it right.

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Tagged as The Baby Werewolf

January 23, 2018 · 4:08 am

Aeroquest… Canto 11

Canto 11 – Planet of the Cave Man

The planet itself was smaller than Earth, but possessed a lot more land space. Its oceans were limited to five vast and separate land-locked lakes. Vegetation was remarkably sparse, but what grew was tenacious and very much alive. What truly shocked the brothers, though, were the scan signs of over nine billion humans living on the surface and in vast caverns. This was a frontier planet with no record of being developed by the Galtorr Imperium or any of its predecessors. So how did they get there?

“Are we detected yet?” asked Ham nervously.

Ged looked over the scan and signal data on the commo screen. “I get no scans, beams, or even radar from them. There’s electricity of a sort, but nothing to indicate tracking or weapons ability. It’s low tech.”

“Are we sure they are human?”

“Definitely human, but Nebulons register as humans too.” Ged looked over at the Nebulon Princess as she sat looking admiringly at Ham.

“I think I moight know where they be from,” said Sinbadh.

“Oh,” said Ged sarcastically. “What do you know?”

“They be marooned ones from Stardog raids. It’s been a right while, it has, but this planet used to get lots of use from them Stardogs. Treasure buried here too, I’ll wager.”

“You can’t tell me the Stardog Corsairs captured that many ships!” Ged was on the verge of anger.

“Nay. But they was men, women, an’ children got left here. They’d no choice but to colonize.”

“Where do you want to set down, Ged?” Ham asked.

“Out of sight of the nearest community, I’d say,” Ged answered. He didn’t fancy being met by an angry mob, or even a worshipful mob. Mob was not a good word for planet arrival.

“Okay, I have the spot.” Ham settled the sleek safari craft down in a clearing amongst the strange gray trees that made up the brittle and somewhat spiky jungle. Ged put on a light set of harsh environment armor and dismounted through the underbelly portal in the nose of the Leaping Shadowcat.

Sinbadh picked up a set of laser pistols and headed out after Ged. Ham brought up the rear with the Princess and her small son right on his heel. He normally took the back on a hunting expedition, but he wasn’t used to this kind of attention from a pretty humanoid female.

Ged’s nose changed imperceptibly as he started tracking. The tingling he felt there meant he was transforming it into something akin to Sinbadh’s nose. The scent pictures it was taking in began to appear in Ged’s inner eye.

“We are on a strange trail,” Ged announced. “Two humans and a Dion-raptor.”

“How could there be a Dionysus dinosaur out here?” asked Ham. “I hated those things back on the jungle safaris to Dionysus. I don’t want to tangle with them here!”

“Well,” chided Ged. “It’s here plain enough. You’ll just have to be prepared to scream like a little girl again and work on your tree-climbing.”

Sinbadh laughed his growly canine laugh at Ged’s slammer. Ged smiled at the wolfman for the first time.

Over the next rise, they came upon the trio Ged had scented. It was a young human male with no clothing but a fake fur loin cover and an even younger human female with a fake fur bikini and plastic bone in her hair. They were riding on the back of a large dinosaur predator, perfectly at ease riding bareback on their meat-eating friend.

Ged knew the raptor species well. He had hunted them on the jungle planet of Dionysus. They lived there in a loose symbiotic relationship with the humans and the dinosaurian humanoids called the Dions that populated that jungle world. These creatures were smart enough to operate machinery and even communicate in a limited sort of sign language. They also turned rogue fairly easily and developed a taste for Dion flesh or even man flesh.

“Do we hail?” asked Ham in sign.

“Yes,” said Ged. He stood up from where he had been crouching behind a bush. “Hey! You there! Can we talk to you?”

The boy and the girl both looked at Ged and smiled. The raptor licked its toothy smile with a snaky tongue.

“My name is Fred3576 Flintstone,” said the boy. “This is my girlfriend Wilma456. And this is our dog, Dino6478. We’ve never seen anyone that wasn’t from Bedrock before!”

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January 16, 2018 · 4:31 am

Aeroquest… Canto 10

Canto 10 – Planetfall

Once back at the docking port on Frieda, Ged noticed that the new space ship Goofy had asked Frieda to make was gone. His concern spiked like an EKG from a surviving victim of electrocution.

“Calm down, Ged,” soothed Ham. “Goofy is unpredictable, but he hasn’t gotten me killed yet.”

“You know what he’s doing, don’t you?”

“What?”

Ged Aero

“He’s going after those artifacts the alien computer was talking about.”

“So?”

“Ham! Ancient devices with unfathomable powers? In the hands of a pyromaniac and lunatic? Don’t you see what comes next?”

“Well,” said Ham, looking down at his spaceship controls, “I do kinda see a disaster looming, if that’s what you mean.”

“Exactly what I mean!”

Ham Aero

“Oi believes ye need to track yer shipmate down, what?” offered Sinbadh.

In minutes the Leaping Shadowcat was docked and the three teammates were aboard Frieda. In the main control room, they found the Nebulon Princess in a red jumpsuit, her small son sitting on the floor at her feet. She smiled beautifully at Ham as the two brothers entered the room.

“I… am… free…” she announced in halting, yet clear Galactic English.

“Ah… Good,” said Ged. “Goofy at least started the task I set him.”

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“I… am… love…” added the Princess cryptically, moving directly toward Ham.

“Err… What?” stammered Ham.

“Oi thinks ye have an admirer, me bucko!” said Sinbadh helpfully.

The Princess reached up to touch one of Ham’s blond curls. “Nebulonin?” she cooed.

“Wha…? No. Human! Definitely Earther. I just have yellow hair.” Ham pinched the skin on the back of his right hand. “See, no blue!”

“Yes, blue…” she said smiling.

“Oh, what does that mean?” Ham blushed furiously.

“Your Nebulon slave girl has been set free by Trav,” supplied Frieda. “She means she is grateful. Your on-board library suggests she suffers from something called Stockholm Syndrome. She believes she is in love with you because you were her captors, but have been nice to her. She was apparently violated numerous times by those who held her hostage in the Imperium.”

“Erm, thank you, Frieda.” Ham said.

“Frieda,” said Ged, as if he had at that moment realized something, “Where did Trav Dalgoda go?”

“I supplied him with coordinates to find the Hammer on the surface of the planet. He went down there to find it.”

“I knew it!” swore Ged. “We have to beat him to the thing! Come on, guys! We go now!”

“Can we leave the Princess here?” asked Ham nervously as the Nebulon girl looked at him lovingly.

“Sinbadh? Can we trust that your corsair friends won’t come back?”

“Nah. Them buccaneers is moighty unpredictable like.”

“Everybody goes aboard the Shadowcat, then,” said Ged.

“Dang!” swore Ham as the Nebulon Princess took one hand, and her little boy took hold of the other.

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January 9, 2018 · 2:56 am

Aeroquest… Canto 9

Canto 9 – Sinbadh the Fuzzy

The wolfman was thoroughly restrained before Ham applied the wake-up spray. Ged held the laser rifle on him, aimed right between the eyes. It was easy to see the kill setting that Ged had it set on.

Ham Aero

“Well, hello, puppy!” said Ham.

“Erm! Hah? How did ye cave-boys get out here?”

“Cave-boys?” asked Ged.

The wolf smiled slyly. “You came from the Imperium, didn’t ye?”

“We’ll ask the questions here,” said Ged, emphasizing the point with the barrel of his gun.

“Erm, yes. I sees. Ye’ve invaded me home.”

“Don’t give us that slop,” warned Ged. “You’re a carnivore and a predator. You don’t live in this vegetarian’s paradise.”

Ged Aero

“Oh, I has for the last five of yer Earth years. I loves fruits and vegetatables. That’s why those scurvy Stardogs left me here to rot. Huh! I fooled ‘em, though. They stranded their head cook in the one place he most wishted to be!”

“What’s your name, puppy?” asked Ham.

“I yam Khforz Sinbadh. Ye can call me Sinbadh. I be the scurviest corsair what ever stewed up carrots with peas. Them Stardogs hated me for it.”

“Okay, we have a vegetarian Stardog on board our Grange station. What will we do with you?” asked Ged.

“Turn me loose. Let me cook for ye. In fact, whatever adventure ye are on, take me along! I longs to sails through them stars again. I have space between me ears.”

“Oh, good,” laughed Ham. “Now we have two of them like that.”

“Erm, I mean, I loves space. I didna mean I be stupid.”

“We’re not stupid either,” said Ged. “Why should we trust you?”

“I know,” said the dog-headed man, “ye’re thinkin’ a bloke like me will call his scurvy friends the moment he has a chance and scuttles ye like a total swab. But I gots no reason to love them scurvy Stardogs. Marooned I was, like old Ben Gunn. I’d sooner betray a Stardog than a man, I would.”

“Why do you talk like that?” asked Ham.

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“I’ve seen the holo-story of Treasure Island seven times, I have. Ther one what stars Robert Newton as Long John Silvers. It be me favorite.”

Ham reached to release the bindings that secured Sinbadh to a rack of hydroponic string beans.

“Wait, Ham!” said Ged. “We don’t need another one of your loonies and lost causes along on this quest. For once, let’s not take on the crazy alien just because he reminds you of our collie dog when Mom was raising us back on the sun-side of Questor.”

“You heard him. He’s a vegetarian wolfman from outer space who loves an old Earth novel enough to learn to talk like it. That’s the kind of thinking that makes us who we are. We’ve gotta hire him for our team.”

Ham was like a big kid begging his favorite parent for a new puppy. The irony was not lost on Ged. That little-boy charm of Ham’s had always kept the two of them together. It was the real reason Ged so dearly loved his brother.

“Oh! Alright then! YOU have to feed and water him. YOU have to walk him every day.”

Ham grinned. He was very handsome whenever he grinned.

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January 7, 2018 · 3:29 am

Mickey Makes Novel Magic

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Yep, it happened today. A box of ten books arrived from my publisher. Magical Miss Morgan has reached the published stage finally. It will hit the bookstores saying, “first edition; 2018”. I struggled long and hard for two years to accomplish this. I did practically all the work myself. Even the cover is my artwork. I don’t know how to explain the author feeling it gives me, but those of you who are published know what I mean.

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It may not be perfect, (Blueberry has branches with leaves on them growing out of her head), but it is beautiful to me. I approved it for the final time today. It goes to Amazon and Barnes and Noble soon. Don’t know when… but they tell me soon.

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So, do I recommend Page Publishing? I do not. But they did get it into print and into stores for me. And they also convinced me to self-publish from here onward. And I love this book. It makes me happy. Even if all the money I spent on it was for nothing and I am the only one who will ever read it cover to cover. I gave my daughter a free copy of it. She might read it. Someday. If the internet dies and nothing good ever comes on Netflix again…

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January 2, 2018 · 3:05 pm

Aeroquest… Canto 8

Canto 8 – Hammer Plans

Trav Dalgoda was busy with research. He had discovered that Frieda could answer practically any question his evil little brain could ask, and so, allowed him to feed his avarice and greed until they became obese and bloated. Where most men had two little angels on their shoulders, one good and one evil, to debate with, Trav had only these two little fat things that he actually called Greed and Avarice when he talked to them. They were discussing now how he could obtain the so-called Hammer of God.

“Ummm! Frieda says the Hammer is a building device and it is on the planet below. I have got to have it,” said Goofy to himself.

“Ged will distrust it, and he won’t let you use it,” said Avarice.

Greed scratched his fat red behind with his pitchfork. “We have to get there before Ged,” he said lazily.

“I can go down to the planet in my new star ship,” said Goofy.

“Yes, and blow something up with it on the way!” said Avarice.

“Explosions in space are so pretty!” cooed Greed.

“No,” said Goofy. “I can’t let myself get carried away. Ham always says, “Don’t blow things up, Goofy.””

“Not even a little something?” asked Avarice sadly, feeling the sharpness of his left horn with a fat finger.

“Well…” said Goofy, almost relenting.

It was then that the manic spacer was interrupted from his internal dialogue by the sweet-faced blue Princess. She had entered the room from behind him. They were all alone, just Trav, the Princess, and Frieda. She was as naked as the day she was born. She walked up to him, took his gloved hand, and put it sadly on her breast.

“Oh! No, girl!” insisted Trav, turning bright red under his eye patch. “Nobody asked for that!”

She pointed sadly at the slave tattoo on her right shoulder. She looked down at the deck beneath her feet.

“No, I mean it!” said Trav. “You don’t have to do that for me. I am not your master!”

“Maybe I can help,” suggested Frieda.

“How?” asked Trav.

“Tagasserah nah, po choi freem koohballa Marjarac Inoijuc.”

The blue princess was suddenly transformed into the happiest creature Trav had ever seen. She kissed the Goof on the end of his nose and left the control room clapping her hands together gleefully.

“What was that about?” asked Trav, puzzled.

“I explained to her that you wanted her to be free so she could be your friend. I explained that she owed you a debt of honor for releasing her from her servitude.”

“Really? All of that, huh?”

“Yes.”

“So what can you tell me and my two little friends about the planet below?” asked Trav.

“First you must put the Crown of All Stars upon your own head,” said Frieda.

“But won’t that melt my brain?”

“Oh, it might. But from what I’ve observed of you, I don’t think your circuits are complex enough to be in danger.”

“Oh, thanks,” said Trav. “Say, by the way, old Jester, can you teach the lovely Princess to speak our language?”

“Khomparuc sah, Trav. It shall be done.”

Trav Dalgoda, a goof for all seasons.

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December 26, 2017 · 3:15 pm

Aeroquest… Adagio 3

Adagio 3 – Homo Lupines

It was during the founding years of the Galtorr Imperium that genetically altered mutates, more commonly called “Freaks” were created in the laboratories of Faulkner Genetics. The lessons of Dr. Frankenstein were completely lost on those poor doody-heads. Most artificial races were created to fill very specific slots in the colonial plan. They first got away with monster making in the forgotten past. When the Galtorrian lizard people and the Earther primates were both struggling to make their way into space, they somehow managed to splice their genomes together to make one race that had the worst qualities of both. This melded race, of uncertain origin, is probably the fault of early Earther explorers who found the Galtorrian homeworld, and scared out of their pants by the warlike reptilians, began crazy-mad experiments the way witless Earth humans do. Having a mutual genetic link in the Galtorrian Lizard-Men meant that both the Galtorrs and the Earthers could feel like part of one people. Well, that was the big idea, anyway. These masters, though, having established an artificial ruling race, soon found use for slave races.

They created the tiny, elfin Peris of the planet Djinnistan to do immense computations in their overlarge heads with an edge of extreme creativity. The winged Eagle-men, also of Djinnistan, were used for jungle warfare and air patrol duty. They created the simian Security Beasts of the planet Karridon for obscure reasons, something about the Earther obsession with gorilla-like monkey violence. Even the speedy Longlegs of the planet Nestor’s Palace were not a natural race and kept as work slaves.

Some science geek (not like me, I’m a nerd rather than a geek, I have never eaten a light bulb) in the days of the Gene-Splicer Renaissance thought it was a natural idea to combine the genes of Earth men with the genes of Earth dogs. They reasoned that since dogs were man’s best friend, they would make a race of friendly, loyal dog-men. They could then be their own best friends! What a stupid concept! They overlooked the fact that all dogs on Earth originated from wolves. Wolves, if you didn’t already know, get hungry enough to eat you.

With my handy telescope I saw the Lupin Rebellion. Waves of wolfmen turned on their masters and stole spacecraft and weapons. Blood was shed as they threw off their collars and turned to wolf-pack piracy among the stars. They were carnivores and totally uncontrollable.

The furry man-wolves formed fleets of corsair raiders known collectively as Stardogs and laid waste among poorly protected colonies. Then, during the Second Unification War the Galtorr Jihad launched their war fleets against Stardog colonies and outposts, nearly making the Homo Lupines race extinct. The Galtorrian hero, Sir Echo Saurol, had every intention of wiping them out like fleas in a flea-powder factory. Only the Lupins who fled into deep space survived the wrath of the Galtorrians.

The first Aero-base, the sentient starport called Frieda, had originally been a Galtorrian Exploration Command Center. A surviving pack of Lupins and Stardogs descended upon it and slew everyone in the planetary command before fleeing further into the unknown. It had, however, been 329 years since the attack when the Aero brothers landed and claimed the base. They knew nothing of the Stardog Freaks and their Lupin Rebellion. All Ged knew was that Lupins were a creature he had hunted before, a very intelligent and dangerous creature to hunt. Soon both brothers would learn more than they ever wanted to know about Lupins, especially the one that had been marooned on the Don’t Go Here Grange station.