Category Archives: science fiction

January 3, 2017 · 3:39 pm

Stardusters… Canto 28

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Canto Twenty-Eight – On the Gundahl Moon Base

“I am not leaving Starbright here to die alone on an alien moon, Commander.  You will have to skortch me before I agree to that!”

“I would be happy to do exactly that if I had permission to pick up a skortch ray!”  Biznap glared back at the angry, stupid, stubborn Fmoog, as Farbick was quite busily glaring at him.  Why couldn’t the blogwopping Skoog monkey accept that Biznap had generously bargained to save his neck because… after all, Farbick was the only capable spacer that Biznap really had on the whole blogwopping space ship!  (It should probably be noted that Biznap’s conscience was screaming at him in Harmony’s voice that he should never use a curse word like blogwopping out loud, but his wounded pride was also screaming back that blogwopping Harmony Castille didn’t know what blogwopping meant anyway!)

“You are giving these creatures more credit than they deserve, you know.  Nothing is really stopping you from marching in there and picking up practically any of the devices they confiscated and use them to turn them inside out in the most painful way possible.”

Okay.  You had to give Farbick credit.  He was smarter than most Tellerons would be confronted by a tough situation like this.  It was one of the reasons Biznap didn’t want to part with him too.  But he was so blogwopping stubborn because of that bloopo Fmoogian blood of his!  “And stop it, Harmony!  I am not saying blogwopping out loud!” he said out loud.

“What?”  Both Farbick and Starbright looked confused.

“Well, I mean… you know… Harmony, she’s always saying… and I can’t… well…  Oh, just shut up!  Will you?  Especially you, Harmony Castille!”

Farbick started laughing.

“What are you laughing about?”

“You love her a lot, don’t you,” said Farbick.  “I mean, you even hear her voice when she’s not around.”

Biznap was suddenly cold.  “Yes…  I mean…  I really need to live to see her again.  I guess that’s why I let them railroad me into such a terrible bargain.”

“It doesn’t have to be as terrible as you think,” said Farbick in a surprisingly calm voice.  “You have left to them a majority of our complex and high level technology.  You can tell them I am staying with Starbright because I can explain how to use some of the devices she’s not familiar with.  You can tell them they can eat me too.”

“No, Farbick.  You should come with me back to the mother ship.”

“It will be all right, Commander.  There are things I can demonstrate in that selection of technology that I will be more than happy to demonstrate directly on the two of them.  You may be able to come back here and claim this moon base for our people when I’m done.”

Starbright was obviously thrilled with Farbick’s plan.  She wrapped her arms around the Fmoog and squeezed him tightly in the same affectionate way that Biznap remembered Harmony doing to him.  It was obvious why Farbick wanted to stay.

“It’s your life to throw away as you see fit,” said Biznap.

“Don’t you think Farbick can out-think them, Commander?” Starbright asked with nervous eyes.

“Of course he can’t.  Tellerons are hopeless at things like this.  We should all be dead already.  But I do want to get the space ship away from these horrible lizard-guys, and Farbick’s plan is a lot better than no plan.  Well… fifteen per cent better, anyway.”

*****

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December 27, 2016 · 2:55 pm

Stardusters… Canto 27

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Canto Twenty-Seven – In the Bio-Dome

The delicate creature was four-legged and long-necked.  It looked a lot like Bambi to Alden if Bambi had been a reptilian creature with hexagonal violet-colored scales all over it.  It had large indigo eyes that made it look fawn-like and vulnerable.

“It is called a zhar-doe,” said Sizzahl sadly.  She was standing next to Alden and Gracie with the creature in front of them.  She reached out and stroked the side of its Bambi-like head fondly.  “It is the last of its kind, and when it dies, its species will be extinct.”

“Is Zahr-Doe its name?” Gracie asked.

“It is the species.  Why would you give it a name?  When we had vast herds of them, they were a domesticated food animal.”

“Will you eat this one?” asked Alden.   He still had his hands clamped over his private parts, but he reached out with his left hand to touch the thing’s velvety-soft ear.  It was an exquisitely beautiful creature.

“Only if it is a last resort.  It is too beautiful and precious to be butchered without great need.”  Sizzahl was petting the creature tenderly.  Hard to believe it didn’t have a name already.

“Is there no way the species can be saved?” asked Gracie, stroking the creatures neck with both hands.  Alden had loved Gracie since the moment he had first met her, but now, looking at her standing in the Bio-dome’s artificial forest of dying trees and plants petting the Bambi-thing, he noticed how lovely she looked as a completely nude young girl in the middle of a browning pastoral setting.  He was attracted to her in spite of the fact that her body was now a child’s body, but it was so much more than that.  Gracie’s simple, loving concern for a gentle creature of another world… well, it was looking more directly at what he knew to be Gracie’s soul than he had ever done before.

“I have the cloning technology at my finger tips,” said Sizzahl.  “This place was my parents’ attempt to save our natural world from the predations of the greedy and ruthless creatures that dominated our society.  But, the question becomes, should we save the species by cloning it if we cannot feed it and the new creatures will only starve, suffer, and die?”

“We brought you the plants you needed, didn’t we?” Alden asked.

“You did.  I thought being on the space station would protect those plants and I could bring them here to grow new food sources.”

“Is something wrong with the plants?”  Alden shivered, not with the cold of being completely naked in an alien place, but with a sudden fear that he already knew the answer to the question.

“They are all blighted and dying.  I asked he Tellerons to verify it with the instruments, but I’m nearly certain.”  Sizzahl was actually crying.  Alden saw tears in her snake’s eyes.  It was difficult to comprehend a lizard-person crying, but the little-girl alien was so human-like as she was crying…

Gracie, bless her Iowegian heart, wrapped both her arms around Sizzahl and held her in a comforting hug.

“My goodness, girl,” Gracie said, “You are warm and soft to hug.  You are more like us than the Tellerons are.”

“My people are warm-blooded just like yours.  We are not really reptiles, you know.  We are more saurian… like your birds or your dinosaurs on planet Earth.”

“How do you know so much about Earth?” asked Alden.

“Well, I am a genius among my kind.  I have what you would call an I.Q. of about 195 in the terms of your science on Earth.  Besides, the alien visitors that used to come to our world, like the Sylvani or the Zeta Reticulans have brought specimens of your people here for study and to perform certain special tasks that aided in their off-world agendas.”

“Earth people have been to your planet before?” asked Gracie, cuddling the lizard-girl close to her warm heart.

“Oh, yes, and I imagine some of our people have been taken to your world too.  The governments of both our planets have been contacted long, long ago by space-faring races.”

“Really?”  Alden was skeptical.  Walter Cronkite and Bryant Gumbel never said anything about aliens contacting the government.  “Why haven’t we been told about this?”

“Judging by your television broadcasts, I believe your government believes the average person is too stupid and easily upset to comprehend the truth.  Our leaders were like that for many years before your leaders even were told.  There will come a crisis point one day, though, that people will have to find out.  Here it came shortly before we started to destroy ourselves with unending war for profit.”

“You are going to save your planet, aren’t you, Sizzahl?” Gracie asked, suddenly seeming alarmed.

“I don’t know.  Sometimes I think they are not worth saving.  Sometimes a people on a planet can become so self-centered and terrible that they don’t deserve to survive.  The alien visitors gave up on us a few years ago and left.”

“We are alien visitors,” said Alden, “and we aren’t giving up on you yet.”

“You are not afraid I might eat you or take advantage of you?”

“Of course not,” said Gracie.  She patted Sizzahl on the back in a way Alden knew was meant to be reassuring.

“I do want to take advantage of you, though.”

“Oh?” asked Gracie.  “How?”

“Your DNA is somewhat compatible with my own.  Not yours, Grace, because you are a simuloid now, not a real person.  I want some of Alden’s DNA to use to make a fusion race, half Galtorrian, half Earth human.”

“You mean you want me to make babies with you?” Alden gasped.

“Not the way you think.   I want to make them in a sealed jar and grow them in vats.  I will just need samples of your blood and tissues.  It doesn’t even need to hurt.”

Alden felt a bit shaken.  Could he do that?  Or was Sizzahl right to suggest her people deserved to go extinct?  And what did she mean when she suggested Gracie wasn’t real?

At that moment, Davalon and Tanith came in looking sad.  Both were naked.  Both were holding each other’s hands.

“We have bad news,” said Tanith.  “The plants we saved from the space station are all diseased according to the instruments.”

Sizzahl only nodded, then buried her scale-covered face in Gracie’s shoulder to cry more loudly.

*****

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December 18, 2016 · 5:14 pm

The Interstellar Bad Poetry Challenge

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The Ixcanixian Cultural Ambassador from the Squeelix Sector of the Planet Ixcanix sent me an e-mail about his planet’s newest idea for a cultural exchange.  He calls it the “Ixcanixian Spleegle Gorn Vorpaloop” which translates to the “Ixcanixian Interstellar Bad Poetry Challenge”.  At least, it does if I am conjugating the verb “Vorpaloop” correctly.  It is difficult because you have to drop the silent “y” before adding the “aloop” without causing it to explode.  I know it is probably a very bad idea to present it here on this planet, but he talked me into it by promising to promote my novel Catch a Falling Star on his homeworld and at least two other planets in the Bugeye Federation.

Here are the rules for the alien poetry contest;

  1. Entries can only come from planets in the Orion Spur of the Sagittarius  Spiral Arm of the Milky Way Galaxy.  (So, for you non-astronomers out there, we on Earth do qualify.)
  2. All poets must be less intelligent than the Mud-Eaters of Paralaxos IV as they will be employed as judges of what poetry is truly bad.  (Again, Earth qualifies as we have recently elected Trump and also allow Nigel Farage of Great Britain to continue to exist.)
  3. Entries must not be so long that the total weight of letters exceed critical mass and form black holes in the intergalactic servers when uploaded.
  4. Vogons need not apply.  Their poetry is so bad, they would automatically win, causing the death of trillions of bad poetry readers in the galaxy.
  5. Entries must not cause thermonuclear reactions with cesium.
  6. Please refrain from confusing good poetry with bad poetry.  The Vornloos of Talos XII are looking for poetry they can weaponize, and no one wants a poetry contest winner to suddenly create World Peace on Talos XII.  That would be bad for the galaxy as a whole in ways that are very difficult to explain.

A sample of interstellar bad poetry is included here to inspire the kind of poetry we seek.

Ratzen Bargle’s Bisketoon  (a love poem by Touperary Kloob, Poet Laureate of Antares VI)

Ratzen Bargle was a Doofus,

From the planet Rufus-Ploofiss,

And he had a lovely bride,

With a head not tall, but twice as wide.

She had three eyes and two were green.

She had the loveliest fleen you’ve ever seen.

And as they sat ‘neath a wayward moon,

He kissed his lovely bisketoon.

Immediately before naught was said,

She bit off his tiny three-eyed head.

And then she ate him bones and all

With sauce that really becomes the fall.

And so it is on Rufus-Ploofiss,

That  males all die with one last roof-kiss.

Because they sit under wayward moons

With their lovely, hungry bisketoons.
 

 

Should you have the unfortunate urge to participate in this senseless and probably suicidal poetry contest, you are welcome to offer four-line poems in the comment section, or email longer poems to Mickey at mbeyer51@gmail.com.  I will attempt to transmit the worst offers to the Ixcanixians as soon as I get my interstellar flooglebeeder transmitting again.  I will also post winners in a future alien poetry blog.

I have been warned that prizes range from instant execution by the Lizard Lords of Galtorr Prime to a beat up copy of Mickey’s 2012 novel Catch a Falling Star.  So, good luck with the bad poetry.

 

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December 13, 2016 · 3:56 pm

Stardusters… Canto 25

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Canto Twenty-Five – Inside the Bio-dome

As Davalon, Tanith, and both of the Morrells scurried into the airlock of the Bio-dome, Brekka, Menolly, and George Jetson, already naked, were merely standing around watching them.  There was a lizard girl covered in green and yellow scales, more human-looking than any Telleron, completely naked too, and only about the size of an eight-year-old human.

“Why aren’t you running?” cried Alden Morrell.

“Take off your clothes,” said the lizard girl, “and then you don’t have to worry either.”

“What?  Why?”

Alden had gone all red in the face, a look that Davalon had come to know as embarrassment.

“The guardian machine-man reads anything artificial as signs of a scabby.”  The lizard girl seemed no more embarrassed by her nudity than were the tadpoles.  “It looks for manufactured goods like clothing or weapons to determine a target.  Naked you become part of the flora and fauna that it guards.”

Davalon and Tanith quickly stripped down and the Morrells were forced to follow suit.  When the machine-man came into the chamber, all clothing, skortch rays, monitors, computers, and tracking devices that the tadpole expedition had brought with them lay in a pile in a corner by the door.  The artificial man wandered over to the pile, examined it, picked up a few items, and then put them down again.  Davalon wondered at Alden, all red in the face, hands clamped over his genital area.  Gracie, it seemed, was far more comfortable being nude and did not display the same behaviors.

“When can we get dressed again?” asked Alden immediately after the machine-man left.

“Never,” said the lizard girl.  “I have a number of still-functioning machine-men guarding this place and all the bio-forms in it.   You are only safe as long as you remain completely natural and bear no artificial clothing or gear.”

“We have to be naked as long as we’re here?”  Poor Alden seemed distressed.

“It’s all right, Alden,” said Gracie with a huge grin.  “You haven’t looked this good naked in a number of years.  You need to let go and learn to love your new body.  I certainly think you are handsome!”

Alden grimaced uncomfortably.  Davalon agreed with Gracie.  His foster father’s child-like form was not at all unpleasant to look at.  In fact, he was beautiful to a Telleron tadpole who loved him for all the sacrifices he had made to be here with his foster son of another world.  He had given up life in Iowa.  He had given up his home and all his possessions.  He had given up his former identity as Alden Morrell, Iowa farmer.  And he had even given up his adult body to return to the body he had inhabited as a child so he could be the same age as his wife in her new simuloid body.

“You are Sizzahl?” Davalon asked the little naked lizard girl.

“Yes.  I brought you here.  Hopefully your cart is full of plants, seeds, and spores that I can use to save this world.  I might need samples of your flesh and blood as well.”

“You brought us here to eat us?” squealed Brekka.

“Of course not, stupid frog-girl.  I just mean I might have use for your froggy DNA.”

Davalon noticed how human-like she was.  Sizzahl had no hair.  She had a bony ridge on the centerline of the top of her head, and she was covered in soft-looking hexagonal scales, but otherwise she looked very human.  Her body proportions were the same as an Earther primate.  Her eyes had vertically-slitted pupils, but her face was human-shaped.  Even her pre-pubescent breasts and genitals looked more human than Telleron-like.

“Why would you need our DNA?” asked Tanith.

“Haven’t you noticed?  The biosphere of this planet is dying.  The stupid politicians, warriors, and industrialists killed it by over-using and abusing all of its natural resources.  And besides, boneheads like Senator Tedhkruhz poisoned what was left to bring his enemies down without realizing he would kill himself too.”

“How will you do that kind of restorative science without artificial devices?” asked George Jetson.

“There is plenty of tech built into this place that we can use without ever having to carry any of it with us and reveal ourselves to the machine-men.”

“How does that protect us from the scabbies?” Davalon asked.

“The scabbies are like the creatures in your Earther zombie movies.  They carry whatever they were wearing or carrying in life.  They don’t have enough brains left to get naked and put down their weapons.  The few that wander in here naked are fairly easy for me to kill by myself.  I assume that will be even easier now that you are all here to help me.”

“Who said we were willing to help you?” asked George Jetson.

“Will you not help me?” asked Sizzahl.  Her eyes, though snake-like, seemed almost to beg.  All tadpole eyes turned toward Davalon.

“I don’t see any reason not to,” Davalon said.

*****

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December 6, 2016 · 2:37 pm

Stardusters… Canto 24

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Canto Twenty-Four – In the Midst of Mayhem on Board the Base Ship

No one was about to argue with Harmony Castille.  She was intent on putting together a tadpole-hunting team to go after the runaway children, and the two adults who were in child-sized bodies now and therefore suspect as well.

“All right,” said Xiar skeptically, “exactly what do you want me to do about this situation of yours?”

Harmony arched her sleek black eyebrows and puckered up her beauteous visage into an angry old-lady stare that chilled Xiar to his very amphibian bones.  He had never known any female could put so much venom and vinegar into one look, but he was humbled now.  Nothing in his experience as a colony leader and deep space explorer had prepared him for this level of determined, disciplined horror.

“You will give me the commando team I ask for, and if you are any sort of war leader at all, you will grab a gun and lead from in front.  It is your heathen little frog-brats I intend to rescue after all.”

Xiar shuddered.  “All of my best men went with Commander Biznap.  And if I go be the war leader you speak of, who will run this ship?”

“May I suggest,” offered the beautiful Shalar, “that Harmony herself is the kind of war leader you need for this expedition.  Not only is she fierce enough, and capable enough of teaching the troops everything they will need to know, she has a good heart and a moral conscience.  You can trust her to do the right thing.”

Xiar let out a small sigh of relief at that suggestion… but he certainly wasn’t about to let Harmony herself hear it.  “Harmony, I will put you in charge and allow you to select the assault force.”

“Well, in that case, I need Shalar as my executive officer.  She has the smarts that are going to be needed in this combat theater.  I anticipate a bloody campaign, but we will prevail because God and science are both on our side!”

Xiar was once again horrified.  Since the Earthers had taught him all about love, he had been totally at the mercy of Shalar’s beauty.  What if something were to happen to her?  The love of his life?  The mother of a few of his favorite tadpoles?   “Does it have to be Shalar?”

“Yes, Captain, it does.”  Harmony’s eyes narrowed to vicious slits.  “I need you to actually care enough about this rescue mission to be willing to do whatever it takes to bring everyone back safely.  She will be my incentive for you to do the right thing at the right time.  Am I wrong, Shalar?  Doesn’t it seem he loves you enough to do anything it takes to get you back safely?”

“Oh, I hope so,” said Shalar, giving him that loving look that made him feel so squishy on the inside.  He did love her more than anything… more than life itself… well, almost.

“So, we will take Shalar, fifteen of your very brightest men, and Sub-lieutenant Studpopper… because he owes me!”

“You mean Sub-sub-sub-lieutenant Studpopper?”  Xiar grinned at that thought.

“Yes, that chicken-livered fellow who is not so smart most of the time, whatever you are calling him now.”

“Oh, fine choice.  He’s one of my finest junior officers.”

“That better not be true,” grumbled Mrs. Castille, “for Shalar’s sake and safety, if for no other reason.”

“Well, then,” muttered Xiar morosely, “I wish you luck in finding fifteen Tellerons who are actually smarter and braver than Studpopper.  Taken as a whole, they are a pretty sorry lot.”

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November 29, 2016 · 3:38 pm

Stardusters… Canto 23

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Canto Twenty-Three – On the Terrible Surface Amidst the Ruined Palaces

The tadpoles had been totally on edge for half an Earther hour by the time they reached the bio-dome that Sizzahl had guided them towards.  Only Tanith and Davalon had been trusted enough to carry skortch rays, and Tanith had nearly disintegrated the grav-cart by which they were moving the precious plants merely because she heard a loud, un-explained sound from the near distance.

But the door to the bio-dome was in sight.  It appeared that they were going to make it without seeing, hearing, smelling, or even suspecting the presence of those nasty, horrible scabbies that Sizzahl had warned them about.

“What is that sound that sounds like claws clicking on concrete?” said Brekka through her helmet.  “It sounds real close!”

Tanith whirled around and skortched a stone gargoyle drain-spout.

“Not there!” cried George Jetson, “It is behind us and coming fast!”

The dinosaur-like creature the scabby was riding disappeared in a fog of disintegrating atoms as Tanith whirled and fired.  The scabby landed on Tanith and drove her down into the rubble at their feet.  Davalon immediately launched himself onto the crazed lizard-man’s back, grabbed him around the throat and rolled him headfirst to the ground.  As it was momentarily stunned, Davalon lifted Tanith and carried her towards the rest of the group.

“Look out!” cried Brekka.  “There’s another one!”

The second was not a lizard-man, scabby or otherwise.  It was some kind of mechanical man made of corroded and discolored metal.  It had blades instead of hands, and it leaped on the prostrate lizard man, cutting, filleting, and murdering the scabby.

“It’s rescuing us!” cried Menolly in surprise.

“It’s going to kill you as soon as it is done with that scabby!” said Sizzahl from the shadowy doorway.  “Come inside as quickly as you can and strip off every stitch of your clothes!”

Davalon was surprised, but never-the-less took action.  He pushed Tanith to lead the way to the voice in the shadows.  Then he forced Brekka, Menolly, and George into the shadows after her.

“Please, Dav, come with us,” said Gracie Morrell pulling on Davalon’s sleeve.  Alden took hold of the other sleeve.

“Mother, I need to make sure that thing doesn’t catch up to you.”

“You may not sacrifice yourself to save us,” said Grace.  “You may not!”

“You do not have permission,” said Alden.

“If you don’t come with us now,” said Gracie, “then we all stay and die together.”

“Um, Gracie…” said Alden nervously.

Davalon looked at the monster as its metal claws finished ripping the heart out of the lizard man’s lifeless corpse.  Its metal visual sensors focused on the three of them.  “Okay… let’s go fast!”

*****

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November 15, 2016 · 3:41 pm

Stardusters… Canto 21

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Canto Twenty-One – In the Wreckage

The repaired anti-gravity coils were not one hundred per cent successful.  The station whirled to the surface of the planet in a flaming spiral that scattered red-hot sparks throughout the dirty brown clouds that made Galtorr’s atmosphere nearly solid.  The impact cracked the seal between the station and the space ship that had impaled it.  Smoke and toxic atmosphere rushed in.

“Ah!  The air stinks!” cried Menolly.

“The hostile environment suits!”  cried Tanith.  “Get them on!”

Everyone obeyed as quickly as they could peel themselves off the floor.  Alden and Gracie had trouble with the helmets since they were designed for beings with a head fin on their heads.  Brekka’s suit was almost too tight to put on.  She had to wriggle, pull, and squeal to get it on.  But when it was on and all she had to do was push a button to make it fit properly, she didn’t push it.  Davalon wasn’t exactly sure why, but he did notice her admiring the reflection of her shapely behind in a piece of interior chrome.

“What do we do now?” asked George Jetson.  He turned his helmeted eyes toward the intercom that had been their connection to Sizzahl.  “Sizzahl?  Are you still there?”

“Of course I am.  I’m not the one crashing through the atmosphere.  How many of you died?  Are the Earthers okay?”

“Is anybody dead?” George asked.  “Speak up if you’re dead!”

“We’re all okay,” said Tanith.  “I already counted all the survivors.  All seven of us made it into environment suits.”

“So, we’re all here.  What do we do next, Sizzahl?” Davalon asked the intercom.

“I need live plants.  Round up every live plant on the station and bring it to me.”

“Where do we find you?” asked George Jetson.

“Well, I need to have you tune your communicators into the intercom broadcast so I can talk to you and guide you.  This dome I am in is hidden well.  You will need to follow my directions very carefully to find me without guiding scabbies to my sanctuary.”

“Er…” said Menolly, “what are scabbies?  That doesn’t sound good.”

“There’s a movie called Night of the Living Dead, the Galtorrians’ favorite Earther movie, do you know it?”

“No.”  They were all quiet, but Davalon wondered what Alden was thinking.  He seemed to have heard of the movie.

“In the movie, dead people crawl out of their graves and eat the living people,” Sizzahl explained.  “That’s a little bit like the scabbies.  They are diseased, and they attack and eat anything they can get their rotten claws on.”

“Oh, no!”  Menolly fainted and her metallic helmet clunked against the floor of the station.

“Don’t worry.  If you can get here without being discovered by them, I am well protected here.  I am looking forward to having you here.  I’ve been alone for a very long time.”

“We are coming, Sizzahl,” said Tanith.  “Tell us how to tune our com units.”

As Sizzahl explained, Davalon looked at the plants the Galtorrian wanted.  They were rather browned and blighted.  He wasn’t sure they were really what Sizzahl wanted.  Still, gathering up the plants was not too much for her to ask.  After all, she had saved all of their lives.  By rights, Davalon and his crew of truants should all have died already for their mistakes.

*****

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November 8, 2016 · 3:34 pm

Stardusters… Canto 20

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Canto Twenty – Wing One Airborne Once More

The two lizardmen were both secured in the passenger seats in the cargo area of the wing.  The fat one was causing the anti-gravity compensators to work seventy-five percent harder, but Biznap and Farbick had always kept Wing One in tip-top shape.  It flew like an agile glide-wing aerial beast through the toxic fog of the Galtorrian skies.

“Why is there so little life left on this planet?” asked Farbick.

“I think a better question is why there is any life left at all?” said the fat one.

“What has happened to your planet?” asked Biznap.

“Great warriors rose up to do battle and win at all costs,” said the fat one.

“And while they did it, corporate parasites like Bahbahr here grew wealthy and horded all the best food, all the best technology… the best of everything,” said the little one.

“And warriors like Stabharh here destroyed the towns and cities and society that they claimed to be fighting for,” said the fat one.  “This one would not be alive if I hadn’t persuaded him to work for me and protect my interests instead of continuing the carnage.”

“It is possible to get tired of killing,” said Stabharh.  “I rather enjoyed it once, but when Grakknarh and I escaped from the scabbies I realized that there were really no more mountains to climb, or cities to burn.  A Galtorrian can’t live without something to strive for.”

Looking out the front viewing portal of Wing One, the crew and the two visitors could look down on the scarred and pitted landscape.  There were buildings of concrete and steel everywhere, but none were wholly intact.  Many were on fire, slow-burning fires that produced long dark plumes of greasy smoke and bits of burning rubbish.  No green was visible anywhere.  The colors of the landscape were brick-red from rubble, burnt orange from open flame and firelight, black from soot and cinders, and filthy brown from dirt and sewage.   It was a sad and basically repulsive landscape.

“If you’ve stopped destroying things,” Starbright thoughtfully asked Stabharh, “then what keeps you alive?  What do you live for now?”

“Keeping Bahbahr alive and carrying out my assignments in spite of scabbies, fires, and loss of will has become a game.  It keeps getting harder, especially now that Grakknarh is dead.  I don’t want to do it forever, but it only ends when the scabbies kill and eat me.  I’m not particularly looking forward to that.”

“I don’t know why you are so gloomy,” said Bahbahr.  “I couldn’t be any happier.  With most of the population of Galtorr gone, look at all the resources lying around ready for me to claim them as my own.  I may already be the richest man on the planet.”

“You may be the only man on the planet soon enough,” said Stabharh.

“I can live with that,” said Bahbahr with a grin that chilled Farbick to the bone.

*****

dav-2

Farbick

 

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November 1, 2016 · 2:13 pm

Stardusters… Canto 19

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Canto Nineteen – Back Aboard Xiar’s Base Ship

Harmony Castille had been searching for an hour for little Davalon and little Tanith.   It was well past time for their Bible School lesson on the story of David and Goliath.  Nothing was more important to Harmony than pounding Bible wisdom into the heads of these little green heathens.  She had gotten practically all of the grown-up frog folks to wear clothing for the majority of their day.  Tadpoles, however, were much harder to train to have some modesty about gadding around the space ship totally nude.  The very idea!  She had to overcome this nonsense about Telleron children needing to absorb nutrients and moisture through their skin.  She could dose them a whole heckuva lot better while they were wearing clothes.  All she needed was a few large tablespoonfuls of cod-liver oil and a generous helping of a good laxative.  You couldn’t help but feel healthy and whole with your bowels thoroughly emptied and roasted clean from the inside.  And where had these naked heathens gotten to?  Brekka, Menolly, and George Jetson were missing too.  Rapscallions as bad as any of those awful Pirates back in Norwall, Iowa.  Definitely a bad influence.  And the trail led directly to…

“Sublieutenant Studpopper?”

“Erm, yes, Miss Castille?”

“Is it possible you know the whereabouts of Captain Xiar’s children, Davalon and Tanith?”

“Erm, yes, ma’am.  They were assigned a support mission and went out on Golden Wing Sixteen just after Commander Biznap’s mission went down to the planet.”

“Support mission, hmm?”

“Yes, ma’am, er…  I mean… erm, um…”

“Land sakes, young man, why ever are you so nervous?”

“Erm, well… no offense, ma’am, but you have a great a deal of power over Captain Xiar’s family and crew.  And I can’t afford to be making any more mistakes.  I may already be headed for the protein vats to be made into tadpole cookies for my blunders on Earth… while following that awful, terrible, traitorous Commander Sleez.”

“Please!  No one is going to make you into tadpole cookies while I have anything to say about it.  Those would obviously turn out to be the most bad-tasting, foul cookies ever baked.”

“Oh, thank you, ma’am…  I, uh, think.”

“So who gave the order for this support mission?”

“Um… erm… Captain Xiar?”

“Hear it from his mouth didja?”

“Um… well, no…  Oh, no.”

Harmony gave him one of her meanest old-lady lion-tamer stares that could turn rattlesnakes non-poisonous and boil the truth out of any evil little Sunday-school student who ever tried to get away with a big, black belly-thumper of a lie.

“I will report the mistake immediately.”

“You are dadgum right you will!  And take responsibility for it too.  You won’t be turned into tadpole cookies, but I guarantee you the top of the list for latrine cleaners, and you will probably head the list of those asked to go out there and get them back!”

*****

dscn4411

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October 29, 2016 · 3:15 pm

Man-Eaters

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I finally finished this illustration for the novel Stardusters and Space Lizards.   So I know that many of you are now thinking, “What the @#$%&! is that?”  But I must confess that one of the characters in that science-fictiony humor thingy about planetary environmental Armageddon is actually a man-eating plant with three heads.  But it needs to be pointed out, that though he/she/it seems to be menacing Brekka, Telleron girl space explorer, and at one point in the novel actually eats her, he/she/it does not like the taste of Tellerons, and befriends them later in the story.  So, he/she/it eats earth humans and lizard people, but not frog-like Tellerons.  This is probably only an important distinction to nutty sci-fi nerds like me, and you should feel completely free to ignore it.

It is important, though, for me to finish this humorous but didactic tale in a more timely fashion.  If I don’t finish it soon, we are going to have a man-eating carrot-man-thing that likes to eat girls as our next president who will deregulate all polluting industries and cause the heat-death of the planet Earth.  And then my novel will not only be unfinished, but also completely irrelevant.  These are the worries that keep me up late at night.

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