Tag Archives: novel

March 14, 2017 · 2:44 pm

Stardusters… Canto 38

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Canto Thirty-Eight – The Bio Dome Cloning Facility

Alden tenderly rubbed Gracie’s naked back and shoulders.  He loved his wife desperately and wanted to make love to her again… but she inhabited a child’s body and that just felt wrong.  Of Course, he was living in a child’s body as well, his physical age reduced to childhood by the de-evolution machine that Commander Biznap maintained in his space ship (along with at least a hundred other machines on Telleron space ships or aboard Xiar’s mother ship).  They were both physically children again, though their minds were filled with a combined seventy-eight years of life experience, something no actual children had.  Gracie purred like a kitten and grinned at Alden with her ten-year-old’s face.  What a strange life they now had together.

“Will you allow me to take skin and tissue samples for DNA?” asked Sizzahl, also naked, but not so noticeably because she was covered in skin that looked like a soft version of alligator-skin.

“You can only take them from me?” asked Alden.

“I can’t use Gracie’s DNA.  She is now a simuloid, made of artificial flesh.  Her DNA bears highly technical artificial helixes that don’t smoothly mesh will real DNA.  Besides, you both claim to want offspring of your own… and this is the only way you will ever do that.”

“What?” said Gracie.  “We can’t grow up and make babies of our own?  The natural way, I mean?”  Gracie looked shocked and shaken.

“I thought you knew.  The child-sized simuloid you used to stay alive was only ever programmed to be child-sized.  Its tissue regenerates like a child’s. So now that the termination program is removed from your artificial system, you are effectively immortal… but will always be child-sized.”

It was Alden’s turn to be shaken.  “We will never grow up?”

“Well, you can, if you choose.  But you can also keep using the Telleron machine to stay the same size as your wife.  That probably will make you immortal too.”

Sizzahl’s yellow lizard-eyes with the snake-like pupils were dead serious.  No way was Sizzahl joking… not that Alden had ever even seen her laugh.

“But what if we don’t want to be children forever?” asked Alden.

“As long as you don’t get killed on this horrible planet,” said Sizzahl, “you will have to choose to die and terminate yourselves.  You will not die of old age.  At least, Gracie won’t, and you don’t have to age either if you don’t want to.  The Tellerons’ technology allows that.”

It was a lot to take in all at once.  Children forever?  Alden couldn’t get his mind around such a thing.  Did he want to live forever if he had to do it in a child-sized body?

“Tell me more about these babies you plan to make,” said Gracie.

“I was going to use the cloning vats that I have used for animals to make two sets of five, one set male and the other one female.  I will accelerate their growth to a teachable age, because I will need them to work for me as soon as they possibly can.”

“And Alden and I could be their parents?” asked Gracie.

“Well… genetically they would be surrogate children, owing their genetic heritage half to me and half to Alden.  They would be Galtorrian/human fusions.  But you would certainly be welcome to think of them as your own.  Alden is technically their father.”

Gracie draped her arm around Alden’s naked shoulders.  “I want to be their mother, Alden.  We will have ten kids.  That’s as many as anyone on my side of the family ever had.”

“Do we really want to bring babies into a horrible world like this?”  Alden was horrified at the thought.

“Yes, we certainly do.  You have to admit, repopulating this dying world is a noble reason to have so many kids.  And you know how much we would both love them.”

“But we are doomed to stay child-sized, Gracie.  We would be midget parents.  And, Sizzahl?  Would they look like lizard-people or humans?”

“I don’t really know, of course, but I like to think they would look more like humans… maybe with scales or a tail.”

Alden shook his head sadly.  He could not do this.

“Will you let me scrape the skin on your arm, Alden?” asked Sizzahl, “and swab the inside of your mouth with a special cloth?”

“Of course he will!” said beautiful, child-like Gracie with adult certainty.

Alden nodded agreement and held out his bare arm.  Women always decided these things anyway… didn’t they?

*****

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March 7, 2017 · 11:34 am

Stardusters… Canto 37

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Canto Thirty-Seven – On the Moonbase of Gundahl

Starbright used the material synthesizer to make a wide variety of synthetic meat dishes.  Tellerons really didn’t care for that sort of protein-heavy fare, but if the synthesizer had not run out of molecules in the storage bin, the little lizard people would’ve eaten until they burst like over-filled balloons.  As it was their little lizard bellies were round and stuffed to the point of hurting on the synthetic meat and Skoog gravy.  The lizard children all curled up in satisfied but stomach-achy balls on the control center floor and drifted off into hibernation-like slumber.

“Now that you fed them into a stupor,” said Farbick, “I will pick up all their weapons, and we are in control of the situation at last.”

“You don’t fight fair,” growled Stabharh the violent little lizard man.  “You are not supposed to win the battle by feeding my troops into a coma.  There was no blood and death and drama.  Where’s the glory in that?”

“I don’t think we were looking for glory,” said Starbright.  “Victory for us is staying alive… and possibly finding a new place for our people to live.”

“Not here!” protested fat Bahbahr.  “This moon is my sacred property, legally purchased with the blood of slaves and warriors, and owned by me and my family for all time.”

“You have family?” asked Stabharh surprised.

“Well, not any more.  Senator Tedhkruhz probably ate them when he took over Predator’s Preserve and all the military bases I owned on that sub-continent.”

“What about these children?” asked Farbick.  “Were you going to share this place with them?”

“No,” said the fat overlord, “we were planning to eat them, since we are running out of edible food all over the planet.  These are all merely low-class slaves and chattel.  I might’ve saved a female or two to fertilize eggs with… there don’t seem to be any other living nobility besides Tedhkruhz and Rekhpahree and a handful of their kin.”

“Those young soldiers still belong to my command,” growled Stabharh.  “You will turn them over to me when you let us out of here.”

“What if we don’t?” asked Farbick.  “We could put the two of you down on the planet with the force-field box you are trapped in.  We could keep this Moonbase for ourselves, and let Harmony Castille teach these lizard-tadpoles some manners.”

Bahbahr howled incoherently at that.

“What kind of mind-control device is a Harmony Castille?” asked Stabharh.  “Especially one that is strong enough to control lizard brats that I have trained as killers?  It would take a very powerful force.”

“Harmony calls it Christian Bible-teaching,” said Starbright with a shrug.  “I have noticed it has the power to make Tellerons feel shame and self-loathing.  And it can apparently also help any species to care about one another in a self-less way.  I’d say that was pretty powerful mind control.”

“Well, you better hope it works at a distance,” sneered Stabharh.  “You see that monitor over on the control panel?  The one with the blinking red warning lights?”

“Yes,” said Farbick, suddenly concerned.  “What does it mean?”

“One of Senator Tedhkruhz’s space battle cruisers is headed here to destroy this moon for all time.”

“That can’t be good,” sighed Starbright.  “How do you know that that is who it is?”

“Because only Tedhkruhz still has working space ships, and you lot stupidly allowed one of them to survive its encounter with us.  He obviously figured out who we were and where we were going in spite of your lah-dee-dah invisibility cloaking field.”

Stabharh’s evil smirk was loathsome and foul to look at, Farbick thought.  Even serpents on Telleri, the really big ones, weren’t as horrid to look at as this reptile was.  Even if he was about to die right along with Farbick and Starbright, Farbick knew this lizard-man was going to enjoy whatever happened next.

*****

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February 21, 2017 · 11:44 am

Stardusters… Canto 35

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Canto Thirty-Five – In the Control Center on the Moon Gundahl

Farbick and Starbright still had the two lizard-men in their force field trap, but they were definitely also surrounded and in big trouble.  Thirty-four half-sized lizard men, or, rather, lizard-boys and lizard-girls were standing around them in a huge circle, looking at them with snaky eyes and holding things that looked distinctly like guns.

“You’re surrounded now,” warned Bahbahr from his prison, “and the kids have krahzhen-lachhers with them.”

“Krahzhen-lachhers?” asked Farbick.

“What they call tommy-guns in the language of the Untouchables starring Robert Stack and Walter Winchell… you know, automatically repeating slug-throwers.”

“Wait a second!” said Stabharh, “kids?  Where is your handler?”

“We had a fight over who was going to die next to provide food for the others,” said one of the lizard-girls, “so we killed and ate him.”

“That showed good initiative,” said Stabharh.    “Now kill these two Tellerons and we can eat them too.”

“Wait!” said Bahbahr.  “We still need them to show us how the alien tech works!”

“Why?  They will just try to trick us again.  They might succeed in killing us the next time.”

“You can’t have them killed yet,” argued the fat lizard-man.  “We’re still stuck in the invisible box.  We have to get out of here before you have them killed.”

“Um, I hadn’t thought of that,” said Stabharh.

“Are you really, really hungry, kids?” asked Farbick of the lizard-kids.

“Oh, yes!” answered four or five of the lizard-kids at once.

“You see all this technology we have here,” said Farbick slyly.  “We have a machine here that can make food out of thin air.”

The little lizard people all drew closer to the pile of Telleron tech with wide, questioning eyes.

“Don’t listen to them!” barked Stabharh.  “They will trick you!”

“Aren’t you going to eventually kill us and eat us too?” asked a lizard-girl.  “You did that with all the adults in the station after the Senator’s attack started the food shortage.”

“We kept you alive so we would have a next generation of our people,” said Bahbahr in a pleading voice that made Farbick shudder.

“But you would eat us before you let yourself starve to death, right?”

“She has you there,” sneered Stabharh at Bahbahr.

“We can leave them where they are,” said Starbright.  “The material synthesizer can make food out of random atoms.  It can feed you for long periods of time.”

“Food out of nothing?” asked a lizard-boy skeptically.

“Not out of nothing,” admitted Farbick.  “We will have to find carbon and proteins and other molecular materials to put into the synthesizer when the current fuel runs out.”

“But we can make food out of garbage… or recycled dead bodies,” said Starbright.

Farbick hated the fact that for too many generations in space the Tellerons had used extra tadpoles and personnel for fuel for the synthesizers aboard the mother ship.  Eating children was not a good thing, and their cultures both needed to stop doing such things.

“Well, can you make us some food?” asked a lizard-girl.  “We are in no hurry to free Lord Bahbahr.  He is a terrible ruler and we all hate him.”

“We might like him better with what the Earthers call ketchup all over him,” added a lizard boy.

“You cannot rebel against me!” shouted Bahbahr.  “I own all of you!  You must obey me!”

“He’s in a cage, right?” a lizard-girl asked Starbright.

“Yes.  But let Farbick and I make you some nice meat sandwiches to eat.  You can give us those heavy, nasty old krahzhen-lachhers and we can decide what to do about Stabharh and Bahbahr later.”

“Okay,” said several of the lizard-kids.  The gun-things were handed over and Farbick made a food he had seen on Earth with the material synthesizers.

As one lizard-boy received a synthesized hot dog with a big, toothy smile, he turned and grinned at Bahbahr.  “You do have an awful lot of meat on your bones,” the lizard-child said.

*****

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February 14, 2017 · 12:03 pm

Stardusters… Canto 34

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Canto Thirty-Four – The Main Flower Garden

The five tadpoles and two Earther primate adults with the bodies of children were all together again, with a very concerned lizard-girl genius in the center of the circle lost in thought.

“I can’t answer for what the plant did,” Sizzahl said, shaking her head.  “It should not have done what it did.”

Brekka was being held tightly between Tanith and Menolly, the slime was almost gone from her bare green skin, wiped off by a concerned George and an even more concerned Davalon.

“You mean it shouldn’t have eaten anybody?” asked Tanith.

“No.  It shouldn’t have spit Brekka out.”

The tadpoles all glared, either at the plant, which was happily munching on the scabby it was eating, or at Sizzahl.

“What do you mean?” asked Gracie Morrell.

“It is an alien life form brought here by the wise ones and left behind when they returned to their home systems.  It has never let anyone live before.  It ate my father and the Great General Gohmurt as they fought over the fate of this very Bio-Dome.  It has eaten every naked scabby that found its way in here, including the intruder tonight.  I have never known it to spit anybody out.”

“How is that a problem?” asked Alden Morrell.  “We have Brekka back safe and alive.”

“Well, yes… that is a very good thing.  But it means we don’t know everything about what it will do next.  Can it move about and eat us at will?  Who will it eat, and who will it not eat?  And can we learn why?”

“I can tell you that,” said Brekka.

“Really?”  Sizzahl looked skeptical.

“Yes.  It can speak inside my head now that its saliva has penetrated my skin.”

“What?  Perhaps you are having a delusion caused by the trauma of nearly being eaten!”

“No, it’s true.  He says that in the language of the people who put out the I Love Lucy television broadcasts he is named Lester.  His other two blossoms are Thing One and Thing Two.”

Gracie bent over Brekka and put a concerned hand on her cheek.  She looked into Brekka’s eyes.  “Are you sure you weren’t dreaming?”

“It’s true.  I can prove it.  Lester, make Thing Two waggle its leaves.”

The blossom that was not munching the scabby wiggled all eight of its leaves in a way that reminded Davalon of how Earth people wave at one another.  Everyone but Brekka gasped a tiny bit.

“Tell me more,” insisted Sizzahl.  “Why didn’t Lester eat you?”

“Well, it’s kinda because I don’t taste very good.”

Menolly and George giggled at that, then both looked embarrassed.

“I mean,” said Brekka, “Tellerons are more amphibian in nature and not as warm blooded as Galtorrians and Earth people.  He could happily eat Sizzahl and the Morrells, but Tellerons have a body-chemistry that could make him very sick.  And besides… he’s been wanting to be able to communicate with Sizzahl for a very long time, and I gave him a way to do that… or, maybe, gave her a way to do that… I guess Lester is both a boy and a girl plant at the same time.”

“Me?” said Sizzahl.  “Why did he want to talk to me?”

Brekka looked up at the blossom that had engulfed her.  “He says he’s sorry that he ate your father.  When he ate your father, he absorbed all of your father’s thoughts and feelings… as well as the General’s thoughts and feelings.  He says he knows that your father was one of the good guys… not evil like Gohmurt.”

Sizzahl began to cry.  Davalon had not been certain before that moment, but now he knew that Galtorrians could feel love and have emotions just like Tellerons… and Earthers.  She was not the self-sufficient little super-genius she always seemed to be.  She was an orphan who missed her parents.

“Will he eat me or the Morrells now?” Sizzahl asked.

“He’s determined not to,” said Brekka, “but don’t get too close and cause temptation.  His blossoms get very hungry waiting for the next scabby to wander in.”

“Is he willing to help us in trying to save this planet?” asked Sizzahl, the tears drying up.

“Of course he will,” said Brekka.  “He likes the plans your father had to re-make this world into a better place for all sorts of people.  And he hates plant-destroyers like Gohmurt.  He promises to eat all the scabbies he can in order to help you make your father’s dream come true.”

*****

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February 7, 2017 · 12:32 pm

Stardusters… Canto 33

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Canto Thirty-Three – Aboard Golden Wing Thirteen

Shalar looked at the readout on the control panel in front of her.  There was no mistaking that signature.  It was the same kind of supra-magnetic photon drive used in a Golden Wing, and it was no longer operational.  It also appeared to be crash-landed in the middle of a debris field, and that couldn’t be good.  In addition, it also had to be the tadpoles’ ship, because Farbick and Biznap on the other missing ship were too capable to have crashed in that manner.

“Is it them?” asked Harmony Castille.  The beautiful young Earth woman who was really an old lady made young and beautiful by Commander Biznap’s own de-evolution machine.  She had a grim face, like someone who expected the answer could only be bad news.

“I don’t see how it could be anybody else.”

“Life signs?”

“I register bodies with no breathing and considerable signs of disease.  No living bodies… but no confirmation that the dead ones are our missing tadpoles.”

Harmony seemed to stifle a sob.

“Why are you so affected by Telleron tadpoles, Harmony?  I understand how much you are in love with Commander Biznap, but none of these tadpoles are his.”

“I have never in my long life had children of my own.  I have always loved children vicariously through the young brats and evildoers I taught in Sunday School at the Methodist Church back in Iowa.”  A tear escaped the beautiful young woman’s eye and rolled down her powdered and rouged cheek.  Shalar couldn’t help but notice that even though the woman’s face was young, her eyes held a certain look of wisdom and experience, as well as pain.

“I will be very sad if I have lost young Tanith and Davalon.  They are very probably children from my own eggs, even though we usually only keep track of the male parents.”

“I will miss young mistresses Brekka and Menolly, too,” said Harmony sadly.  “Their immature giggles and love of dancing always seemed to brighten the room whenever I tried to teach them important life lessons from the Bible.”

“I thought the way you talked to them while teaching them meant you loathed their immature behavior.”

“Oh, I did hate most of the behavior, but I adored those girls.  Underneath the death-eye frowns I gave them, I was always secretly laughing at their antics.”

“I never realized that about you before, Harmony,” Shalar said with some sympathy.

“What kind of mean old fuddy-fuss did you take me for, Shalar?”  Harmony gave a small chuckle with the reply.

“The kind you were pretending to be, apparently.”

“I will miss the Morrells, too.  They were a little dim sometimes, but basically good Christian people.”

“…And how about little George Jetson?”

Harmony’s eyebrows raised in disbelief of some sort.  “That little heathen?  He was almost as full of Satan and evil ways as one of our Earth boys from the Norwall Methodist Church!  He made me wonder sometimes if he actually had a little bit of wicked Baptist in his demon blood.  I never met such a child for pranks and playing with his privates when he should be listening to some good, soul-saving advice!”

Shalar was amused by that reaction.  She was beginning to understand how self-contradictory Earther primates actually were.  In fact, she understood that the reaction actually meant that Harmony would miss that little rapscallion more than all the rest put together.  Shalar had come to see that the old church lady always claimed to hate most what she really loved and adored.

“Studpopper, can you land this wing near the wreckage down there?  We need to find our missing children.”

“I will certainly do my very best, my lady.”

Harmony quickly grabbed Studpopper’s pointy green ear and twisted.

“You’d dang well better do better than that!” the young old lady cried with passion.

*****

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January 31, 2017 · 12:15 pm

Stardusters… Canto 32

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Canto Thirty-Two – In the Main Flower Garden of the Bio-Dome

There were three large red-and-yellow blossoms on robust stalks in the center of the garden.  Everything else was either withering and brown or completely dead.  George Jetson felt slightly creeped out by the three giant, healthy plants in the center of so much death and rot.  Still, he didn’t object as Brekka and Menolly danced and sang as they moved towards the bright colors of the three blossoms.

“Georgie?  Why aren’t you dancing with us?” sang Brekka.

“Yeah, why not?” added Menolly.

“I don’t need to dance with goofy girls right now.  I… I’m supposed to guard you and keep bad things from happening.”

The girl tadpoles scoffed and continued to dance towards the blossoms.

George watched the leaves of the flowers, easily the size of dinner plates, begin to twitch and move.  It was almost as if they were trying to detect something either by feel, maybe of vibrations in the air, or possibly by smell.  George knew from his educational programming that leaves had openings called “stoma” that sniffed the air as they breathed carbon dioxide in and oxygen out.  It wasn’t an important fact, was it?

Suddenly there was a large, burly lizard man bursting in through the far door into the flower garden.  He was completely naked, for reasons unknown.  He was also obviously a scabby with the tell-tale white, filmy eyes and desiccated patches on his naked scales.

“George!  Help!” cried Brekka.  She had danced so far towards the three live flowers that the interrupting scabby had her cut off from Menolly and George.  George leaped forward to engage the monster in hand-to-hand combat, but pulled up short when he noticed the huge teeth and long, scimitar-like claws on both hands.

“Brekka!  Run away!  We will catch up to you on the other side!” screamed George.  “Menolly!  Come here to me!”

Brekka broke toward the flowers and ran.  The scabby followed her.  Menolly reached George and threw both of her green arms around his neck, making him unable to either flee or fight.  Both of them watched the pursuit of Brekka with absolute horror.

The largest of the three blossoms moved its huge flower-face closer to the fleeing Brekka.  The four main petals of the blossom formed into two sets of opposing jaws.  As Brekka moved close enough, the blossom engulfed her entire body and lifted her into the air.  Her screams were muffled by the blossom that seemed much more like a gigantic mouth.

“Oh!  No!  Brekka is gone!” cried Menolly, sagging against George Jetson.

“It ate her!”  George was too stunned to move.

The flowers were still in motion.  The two remaining blossoms grabbed the scabby, one seizing its head, and the other grabbing a leg.  The two blossoms pulled in opposite directions, splitting the unfortunate lizard man in two, then settling down to munch contentedly and smack their petal-lips.

Menolly was devastated and sobbing uncontrollably.  George didn’t know an awful lot about the hugging and kissing stuff that Earth humans did on their television shows, but he felt the urge to try.  He held Menolly tightly with both arms and pressed his mouth to hers.

“Mmmph!  What are you doing?” Menolly moaned.

“I’m comforting you, dummy.”

“Well, don’t stop!”

When the blossom that had engulfed Brekka began making retching noises, George was almost too lost in the entire kissing thing to respond.  He felt rather funny in his lower stomach as the two tadpoles pulled apart.

The blossom vomited Brekka onto the walkway.  She was clearly still alive, but covered with sticky-looking goo.

“Ooh,” moaned Brekka, “that was not very fun.”

*****

My Art

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January 24, 2017 · 12:23 pm

Stardusters… Canto 31

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Canto Thirty-One – Moonbase Gundahl

Commander Biznap was a capable pilot and Farbick admired the way he simply turned the Golden Wing in the air and took off towards the mother ship.  Simple and elegant was always the mark of skill.

“Now that your commander has gone and left you to die…” said Stabharh, the scrawny little Galtorrian lizard-man enforcer, “you need to show us how to work the space tech devices.  And hurry because I know some Galtorrians that are dying to eat you.”

“Have you ever eaten a Telleron before, Stabbie?” asked the cruel and obese Lord Bahbahr.

“Of course not.  But we haven’t had food in so long, I was beginning to consider eating you, my lord.  And don’t call me Stabbie.”

“Ah, we will have none of that!  You are required to lay down your life to serve me.   It is the law, and I own you body and soul.”

“Who besides me is left to enforce the law?” asked the skinny lizard with an evil grin.

The smile vanished from the face of the corpulent Galtorrian ruler.  Farbick carefully noted the malevolent glares passing between the two lizard-men and vowed secretly to himself to take maximum advantage of such a situation.

“What device would you like to learn about first, my lord?” asked Farbick with a timely interruption.  Then he strategically added, “the skortch pistols perhaps?”

“I am much more interested in the force-field thingy that kept the cannonballs from destroying that spaceship.  You have no idea how useful that could be if Senator Tedhkruhz learns that we have returned here.”

The little enforcer seemed to whole-heartedly agree with Bahbahr.  So Farbick moved near to the force-field control and activator box lying at the foot of the pile of Telleron tech.

“That is a very wise choice,” said Farbick as Starbright looked on encouragingly.  “May I turn it on and demonstrate?”

“Please do,” said Bahbahr.

Farbick ignited the control box with the click of a button and a sudden electrical humming noise that sounded reassuring and powerful.

“By adjusting the three-dimensional coordinates like this,” said Farbick, “I can place an invisible shield around you and Stabharh.  You can’t see it, but it is impervious to kinetic attacks and weak energy attacks.  Gunpowder will never pierce it.  Show them, please, Starbright.”

“How?”

“Pick up that chair there and hit Stabharh over the head with it.”

“Now, hold on there, frog-boy!” growled the lizard man.

Before Stabharh could even flinch, Starbright picked up the chair and threw it at him.  It shattered in the air as it encountered the generated field.

“Impressive!” said Bahbahr.

“Do you want to know what I find most impressive?” said Farbick, laughing.  “It can be shaped in the form of a box.  Just as the chair can’t penetrate the walls of the force field, neither can the two of you.  You are our prisoners now.”

The two lizard-men seemed stunned.  It was entirely possible that Farbick had won the day already.  He could now pick up a skortch pistol and finish these two threats in a blink.  Yet, somehow, that didn’t feel right.  He could not do a deed that was just as bad, if not worse, than what the lizard-men themselves were capable of.

From the courtyard above in the ruined fortress, Farbick and Starbright suddenly heard voices and the sound of someone scrambling hastily through rubble.

“I thought we were alone on this moon,” said Starbright, horrified.

“We were…” said Stabharh with a sneer, “at least we were not burdened with anyone who counts.  But the remaining inhabitants of Gundahl are coming now, because of my silent alarm.  And hopefully they have weapons to kill you two with.  Who is the clever fellow now, hmm?”

*****

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January 17, 2017 · 3:05 pm

Stardusters… Canto 30

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Canto Thirty – Outside the Main Floral Garden in the Bio-Dome

While Davalon and Tanith worked seriously on examining plants for Sizzahl; Brekka, Menolly, and George Jetson grew bored.

“Tanith, can’t we go in there where all the flowers are?” asked Brekka in a whiney voice.

“You should wait until we have completed this task,” said Tanith with a serious frown of concentration on her emerald-green face.  “This examination needs to be done.”

“Seriously?  Tanith?” whined Menolly.  “We’ve lived on space ships or orbital stations all our lives.  We have never had a chance to play among actual flowers, and we can see big ones in that next room there.”

Davalon and Tanith continued to have their noses among the plants brought back from the wreckage of the space platform.  George Jetson was grinning widely as he knew full well how this would play out.

“We have no way of knowing if it is even safe to go in there,” said Davalon into a plant he was examining with one of Sizzahl’s special tools.

“You can’t give Menolly an answer like that,” said George with a sneer.  “She’s not smart enough to know what the word safe actually means.”

“I know more words than you do, smarty-frog!”

“Don’t you think the girls will be all right if George goes with them to protect them?” Tanith asked Davalon.

“No.  They’d probably be in even greater danger that way,” said Davalon, grinning up at George.

George was sure he had them right where he wanted them then.  He knew perfectly well that Menolly and Brekka were a couple of horrid harpies when they were bored and needed something to entertain themselves.  That’s why they were always the two that called for Mickey Mouse Club music back aboard the ship and always started the tadpoles dancing.  Dav was going to give in so he and Tanith could do the science stuff that he seemed to love, and he would certainly expect George to take on the burden of entertaining the female tadpoles.

“So, you will let them go?” asked Tanith, obviously somewhat anxious for the answer to be yes.

“Stay close enough that we can hear if there is trouble.  You can’t take weapons or even put on clothes, you know.”

George saluted Davalon.   There were no delusions among the tadpoles who was in charge.  Davalon had explored Earth and lived to tell about it… brought specimens back to the ship, and even won the favor of Captain Xiar.  How could he not be their leader?

“Okay girls,” said George in his sexiest leadership voice, “follow me and we will go play amongst the posies.”

The girls, now thrilled at the prospect of exploring the Bio-Dome further, pranced naked towards the big transparent door.  George, also stark naked and very confidently green, followed close behind.  As they opened the door and entered, he noticed some writing in the language of the Galtorrian lizard people.

“Bresht makka sziithappi,” is what it actually said, but somewhere in the deepest part of George’s egg-sack programming, a little voice was translating, “Beware!  Man-eating plants!”  He ignored the voice.  After all, Tellerons were not men.  Were they?  And surely tadpoles were not men.  Especially not girl-tadpoles.  He skipped after Menolly and Brekka.

*****

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January 10, 2017 · 3:20 pm

Stardusters… Canto 29

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Canto Twenty-Nine – In the Bio-Dome

Being naked was almost more than an Iowa Boy who grew up in the 60’s and 70’s could take.  It was immoral, wasn’t it?  And those feelings that boys get when they are around even the idea of naked girls?  They were back with such force that it practically knocked him on his behind with the sheer power of desire.  Alden Morrell was lost and afraid.  As he stood in the arboretum amongst dying alien trees and dying alien field crops, he tried to hug himself calm.  It really wasn’t an inappropriate desire, was it?  He did not feel urges towards the lizard girl or the naked Telleron girls.  He knew, they weren’t human, after all.  Sure they were pretty, but… and the only girl he really desired so strongly was, after all, his wife… by law.

“Alden?  I was looking for you in the living area?  Why are you here in the greenhouse?  What’s wrong?”

Gracie walked toward him, comfortable with her own nudity in ways that Alden simply wasn’t ready to comprehend.  He loved her… but she was a child.   The size and shape of a child.  Wanting her was wrong… wasn’t it?  He was, after all, a child himself.  At least, in this new body he had been given he was.

“I don’t know.  I can’t stand being naked so much.”

“You look good, and I love you for it.”

“But, I…”

“Alden, we are farming folk.  We know about soil and plants.  Can’t we help Sizzahl save her planet?  And those lovely zhar-does?”

Alden looked about him at the withering undergrowth and the soil beneath it.  He was a farmer, wasn’t he.  He picked up a handful of moist black dirt and held it to his nose.

“The soil smells rich with nitrogen, like it had a soybean crop planted in it last season to fix nitrogen in the soil.”

“Do lizard men know about crop rotation?”

“They must to have soil this rich and fertile.  If only we had some good corn and beans.”

“Could we get some on the Telleron space ship?”

“Most of the plants they grow on board the mother ship are ferns and fungus.  They prefer swamp plants mostly.”

“Rice, you suppose?”

“Maybe.  We can ask Xiar if we live long enough to ever see him again.”

“Alden, we are here by a miracle of God.  I was old and dying, and now I’m young and alive again.  You’re younger and more energetic than I’ve ever seen you.  I wish we had grown up together so I could’ve known you when you were like this before.  I would have loved you from the very first time we met and known you for so much longer.”

Alden stopped thinking so much about himself.  It made things easier.  He focused on the problems of Sizzahl and the tadpoles.  Yes, he was a farmer, and this was a farming problem.

“Maybe we can help Sizzahl and all the rest,” he said.  “Maybe we could find leaves and stems among the plant samples that don’t have the disease and try growing some small cuttings into whole plants.  I don’t see any place here where they’ve tried that.  And we can ask the tadpoles about what seeds they have from Telleri.”

“And maybe even Earth,” added Gracie.

“Yeah.  Maybe even Earth.”

*****

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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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