Tag Archives: science fiction

May 16, 2017 · 11:11 am

Stardusters… Canto 47

galtorr-primex-1

Canto Forty-Seven – In the Flower Garden

“Don’t get too near that old plant again, Brekka,” warned George Jetson.  He shuddered with the memory of it scooping her up in the mouth-like blossom and nearly munching her to pieces as it had done to the scabby.

“Silly boy, the man-eating plant is now my friend.  He… or she… or it… is calling to me, telling me it will never harm me again.  In fact, it wants to help me and protect me.”

As the emerald-green girl tadpole walked closer to the huge blossom, the plant seemed to be smiling with flower-petal lips.  George looked at Menolly.  Menolly looked back and shrugged her bare shoulders.  She appeared to be creeped out by the carnivorous flower as much as George was.

Brekka stopped, naked and defenseless, directly under the giant blossom that was grinning at her.  She reached up with her left hand.

The blossom lowered to her.

“Oh, no!” gasped George and Menolly together.

But the blossom stopped an inch above her hand and let her stroke it… her… or him… under what could’ve been a chin, but definitely had the look of sepals.

“That’s a good boy, Lester… er, good girl… er, well… that’s good anyway.  You aren’t going to hurt anyone ever again, are you?”

The plant pursed its “lips”.

“Well, yes, I suppose you can eat all of those scabby thingies that you want.  That wouldn’t bother me a bit.”

The plant rubbed leaves together to get an actual chirping sort of sound.

“Oh, really?”

“What did he say?” Menolly asked Brekka.

“He says he… or… she can provide cuttings and runners to make baby plants that we can eat.  She says she… or… it can process carbon out of the air with photosynthesis and make plenty of food for us…  It says it… or he… um, can feed the whole Bio-dome if we want it to.”

“That’s good…” said George, “but if the plant is our friend now, wouldn’t that be eating our friend?”

“Lester says the plants on his… er… her world do it all the time… eat each other, I mean.”

“That will help with some of the food shortage problem, won’t it?” asked Menolly.

“Sure,” said Brekka.

“Maybe we should go talk it over with Sizzahl?” suggested George.  He really wanted to get himself and the girls away from the creepy plant-monster.

“You and Menolly go,” Brekka said.  “I want to stay here and play with Lester.”

“Are you sure that’s safe?”

“Lester can’t eat Tellerons without getting really, really sick.  So he will never again try to eat one of us… er, she won’t.  As long as we keep Sizzahl and the Morrells away from it… er, him.  Geez, the boy-girl thing is really confusing.”

So, George seized the opportunity to get away.  He dragged Menolly with him.  Brekka seemed happier with Lester anyway, and George was thinking… well, maybe he and Menolly could try some more… kissing.

*****

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May 9, 2017 · 10:51 am

Stardusters… Canto 46

galtorr-primex-1

Canto Forty-Six – Outside the Bio-Dome

Harmony led her troops up to the front door of the Bio-Dome.  They waited quietly for her to signal the next step.

“Shalar?  This is the only mostly-intact building in the entire area.  Do you think this could be where they went?”

“If they are still alive, this looks like the kind of shelter they might be drawn to.”

Harmony went forward to the entryway and peered in.

“Oh, my goodness!  All their clothing and equipment is piled in there.  Their weapons too.  If they are still in there, they are naked and unarmed!”

Shalar adjusted her own breath-mask to reassure herself.  “If they are not still in there… or if the air in there is the same as it is out here… then they are already dead.”

“No!  Not my children!  We will enter here and go find them!”

Suddenly the metal man with a handful of spinning blades appeared on the ledge above the door.  His hand-blades whirred menacingly.

“Men!  Catch it in a crossfire like I taught you and take it out.”

The Telleron soldiers knew better than to disobey Harmony.  Four took the left flank and two went right.  The crossing skortch beams fried the machine man, and quickly reduced it to dust and vapor.  Shalar shuddered at the realization of how ruthless and efficient Earther humans truly were.  Her semi-incompetent Telleron soldiers were displaying an unusually high amount of self-discipline and military know-how which they had learned entirely on this mission by following the old Sunday-school teacher’s battle commands.

“That was impressive,” Shalar remarked.

“Of course it was,” said Harmony.  “Now let’s get inside.”

The Telleron soldiers filed in using the precise order and the sweeping-for-enemies maneuver that Harmony had taught them on the way to the Bio-Dome.  The soldiers secured the entryway and the hall beyond while Harmony and Shalar went through the pile of belongings that had belonged to the tadpoles and the Morrells.  Shalar noted all the items on her computerized notepad.   The inventory suggested that everything the tadpoles had taken with them from the crash scene was present.

“They were all here, Harmony,” Shalar said.  “And they don’t have anything with them wherever they’ve gone.”

“We will take all this gear with us so that the young scamps won’t be gadding about naked.   Why they took everything off here is a mystery.  But in my experience with human kids, it usually involves hormones and misbehavior.  We not only have to save their little lives, but save them from sin as well.”

“Sin, Harmony?”

“Well, it’s complicated.  But running around a dying planet stark naked can’t be pleasing behavior to a loving but righteous God.”

“Oh, of course… that.”

Shalar looked down the dark hallway.  She was worried about the children.  The mystery only seemed to deepen and the peril looked increasingly worse.

*****

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April 11, 2017 · 10:20 am

Stardusters… Canto 42

Canto Forty-Two – On the Surface of Galtorr Prime Near the Crash Site

The landed Golden Wing Thirteen was completely surrounded by crazed scabbies with diseased mouths dripping saliva and venom, and wild eyes filmed over in a most unpleasant manner.  They gibbered at the crew of the wing without advancing further.  Several of the Telleron soldiers were good shots, but it was Harmony Castille’s weapon skills that had skortched half a hundred slavering lizard-scabbies.  That kind of brutal accuracy gave even the mindless scabbies pause when it was time to charge again.

“We need to fly out of here, Harmony!” said Shalar.  “With this many creatures here, the tadpoles could not have survived.”

“Nonsense!  We did not find their bodies in the wreckage.  My kids are alive.  Davalon and Tanith are too good and too smart to fall to these mindless lizard-things.  We just have to find them.”

“But we are outnumbered!” wailed Studpopper.

“They are using their claws and teeth to fight us.  We can vaporize them with these skortch rays.  There are only half as many now as there were when they first attacked.”

“But we’ve lost half our men already,” argued Studpopper.  “They have guns, some of them, and we don’t know how many more of them are out there.”

“Look at those idiots over there with guns in their holsters,” said Harmony.  “They are not even using them!  I don’t think they are smart enough to even realize that they have guns.”  To emphasize her point, Harmony blazed away with her skortch pistol at three of the lizard-men with guns and disintegrated them totally.

“You are right,” agreed Shalar, “about all of it, but we don’t know why these creatures are so stupid.   There may be smarter ones out there somewhere.  In fact, there have to be.”  Shalar skortched two more scabbies who were equally as stupid as the ones they skortched before.  “Why do you suppose they are so mindless?”  Shalar asked.

“Look at them,” said Harmony.  “They are covered in sores and wounds.  Their eyes are filmy.  I think they are sick.  Probably from this foul air that we have to wear the breath-masks for.”

Shalar nodded.  It was obvious that Harmony was right.  These walking horrors were out of their blogwopping minds.  But they were too stupid to be afraid and run away also.  That complicated things.

“Let’s charge the mass of them over there,” said Harmony, pointing with her weapon at a group of about thirty of the creatures.  “We take out all of them, and then we’ll have them outnumbered.

“Lead the way,” said Shalar.  Harmony was their best hope.  She was easily the best war-leader Shalar had ever met.  Sunday school on Earth was certainly a very effective place to learn small group combat tactics and strategy.  How lucky the Tellerons had been to escape from Earth without every engaging Sunday-school-trained military units!

With a great roar, Harmony lead the twelve remaining Tellerons to the group of shuffling scabbies she had targeted for the assault.  The confused lizard-men disintegrated into the surrounding air so quickly and so efficiently that it was obvious the Tellerons would not only win this battle, but they would clear the entire area of scabbies in minutes.  The rescue mission was looking more and more like a possible success.

*****

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April 4, 2017 · 10:57 am

Stardusters… Canto 41

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Canto Forty-One – Back Aboard the Mother Ship

Biznap hurried up the ramp and through the mist-filled corridors of the Command Center.  Xiar was going to do something about this.  He had to!  Biznap had always thought of Farbick as just another underling before, just another yellow-skinned Fmoogish boob…  But the truth he had come to embrace was that Farbick was the only other Telleron besides himself on this whole mission that could possibly make things work out in the Tellerons’ favor.  He felt slightly guilty about the fact that he was alive now only because of the sacrifice Farbick and Starbright had made.

“Commander Biznap!”  Docking bay officer Oogsblotter was surprised to see the second-ranking Telleron of the entire mission hustling up from the bay all by himself.  At least, he was definitely submissively bowing out of the way like a yellow-skinned Fmoogish boob.

“I need to see Xiar and Shalar, now!”

“The Captain is busy in the control center, and Science Officer Shalar is away on a recovery mission.”

“A recovery mission?  Looking for who?”

“Well, you sir… and apparently some of Xiar’s tadpoles stole a ship and went down to the planet too.”

“Merciful Crocodile Gawd!  Where’s Harmony then?  …My wife, I mean?”

“She is the leader of the recovery mission.”

Biznap was stunned at the news.  Nobody to rely on for help other than wishy-washy old Xiar and… himself.  Well, it had to be done.

“I need to see Xiar, and I need it to happen now!”  His voice was powerful enough to shake Oogsblotter down to his socks, as if Tellerons wore socks, and the docking bay officer fell all over himself scrambling to comply.

“I will get him immediately, sir!”  The officer crawled off on all fours to get to the Command Center and alert Xiar.  It felt kinda good to have that kind of power and respect.  Before the invasion of Earth no one had looked up to Biznap.  They secretly laughed at him for always striving to do his best and go by the regulations.  But then he survived the invasion, came back with the beautiful Harmony Castille as his prize, survived Commander Sleez’s insurrection, and ended up with Sleez’s job as First Officer.  They weren’t laughing any more.  Biznap was a rare thing… a Telleron who could accomplish things.

“Biznap?” said the hustling Xiar while making his way into the docking bay, “what has happened?  Where is Farbick and your crew?”

“Two are dead and two captured, but we located a key moon base from which Tellerons could operate as the dominant space force in this system.”

Xiar looked shocked.  “B-but you know we are not a large force.  We can’t stand up to overwhelming numbers of vicious, Telleron-eating lizard-guys.”

“We actually don’t have to.  This planet has decimated itself through greed and lust for war.  There are only two lizard-guys on the moon base, and only one of those is a soldier.  We could take them easily, and maybe rescue Farbick and Starbright at the same time.”

“You mean actually fight?  Not a secret invasion like on Earth?”

“We can do it, Captain.  I have learned a secret from Farbick and our experiences with the Earther primates.  If you care about one another and fight for your friends and family instead of yourself, you can actually win.  The fight means more, and you can do a better job!”

“Ooh, I don’t know if I could do that…”

“Your new wife, Shalar, and some of your children are already caught up in this.  Their lives are at stake.  You need to do this for them.  Just like I intend to do it for Harmony.”

Xiar bit his lower lip and seemed befuddled.

“You love them don’t you?  You have learned about love from everything Harmony and the Morrells have taught us… haven’t you?”

“Well,” said Xiar, apparently drawing the conclusion that Biznap intended, “maybe I do.”

*****

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March 27, 2017 · 10:17 pm

Stardusters… Canto 40

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Canto Forty – In the Bio-Dome Command Center

Davalon and Tanith found themselves naked and alone in the command center, looking at monitors and trying to figure out what was actually going on in the Bio-Dome.

“Do you think we can really trust Sizzahl, Dav?” Tanith asked.  Her large and beautiful eyes looked into the heart of Davalon, Son of Xiar… at least he felt that they did.

“I wonder…  She is not hiding the fact that she plans on exploiting us for her own reasons.  In fact, she has exploited us in bringing us here with those plants she tried to rescue.”

“That’s true.”  Those amazing eyes turned downward towards the floor.  “I was wondering after Brekka was almost eaten by that alien plant why she didn’t tell us that it was there… you know, warn Brekka and the others away from the flower garden?”

“Yeah, I was wondering that too.  She doesn’t seem to care very much if we live or die.”

The two Telleron tadpoles looked at the monitors.  The black-and-white picture screens showed no movement except that of the Morrells and Sizzahl in the cloning facility and the others in the crew quarters.  Everywhere throughout the facility the plants and the animals of the Bio-Dome lay mostly brown and dead.  Only the lone zhar-doe continued to wander and look for food as if it were still trying to survive.

“Do you think this planet deserves to be dying like it is?” Davalon asked.

Tanith looked him directly in the eyes.  “Planets never deserve anything that happens to them.  Comets strike the surface… species go extinct… all life comes to an end… none of that happens because a planet did something wrong.”

“What about the Galtorrian people?”

“I actually like Sizzahl.  She’s so smart and she works so hard… But these lizard people… ugh!”

“They’ve poisoned the whole biosphere.  They eat each other… like our people used to do… and they don’t even have to.  They don’t need to recycle protein and flesh in order to maintain their population and food supply.”

Tanith nodded her agreement.  “These Galtorrian lizard people are creatures from a nightmare.”

“Yeah,” said Davalon.  He realized how much he and Tanith always agreed on things.  She was more than his nest-mate.  She was his friend, his best friend.  If he was ever going to be old enough to be allowed to breed offspring, a rare privilege for space-faring Tellerons, he would want to do it with Tanith.  He actually felt he understood the love between Alden and Gracie when he looked at Tanith.  Davalon loved Tanith.

“What do we do next?”  Tanith looked to Dav for leadership.  He really wasn’t sure what the best course of action was.  They were committed to the present course of action.  Their space ship was wrecked and quite some distance from the Bio-Dome.  If they were to have any hope of living through this adventure, they had to find some way to make this place livable, at least until Xiar’s rescue party found them.  Would Xiar send a rescue party?  Dav didn’t know.

“We have to help Sizzahl for now.  We don’t have any other choices.  At least, not yet.”

“Davalon, I would die to protect you and keep you from harm.”

“I feel the same way about you.”

“But you feel that way about all the tadpoles.  You’re a hero.  But I mean just you.  You are the one Telleron that I couldn’t live without.”

Davalon looked at beautiful, naked, green Tanith standing there in front of him, not only without a single stitch of clothing on her, but more personally naked than he had ever seen her before.  Her soul was bare.  “And I repeat… I feel the same way about you.  You are that one Telleron for me.”

She put both her arms around his neck and hugged him breathless.  She was crying softly.  And all he could think to do was hug her in return.

*****

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March 21, 2017 · 11:04 am

Stardusters… Canto 39

galtorr-primex-1

Canto Thirty-Nine – The Bio-Dome’s Crew Quarters

Since Brekka had nearly gotten killed by a maniac sentient flower with hidden teeth, Brekka, Menolly, and George Jetson had not been apart by more than a few feet.  In fact, George and Menolly had spent an uncomfortably long time attached at the lips.

George finally pulled away from Menolly’s mouth to breathe.

“Oh, Brekka,” gasped Menolly, “we are so glad you didn’t die.  Life would never be the same again if I didn’t have you to dance with.”

Brekka crossed her arms and frowned at Menolly.  “What exactly are you and George doing exchanging spit like that?  I thought the two of you were never going to talk to me again.”

“You remember the kissing thing from Earther television?” asked George.

“Yes…” said Brekka cautiously, “like when Gilligan kissed Mary Ann that time to convince the surfer guy that they were boyfriend and girlfriend so he would surf back to Hawaii?  And she said he had skinny lips?”

“Um… yeah… that works,” said George.  “We discovered it makes you feel really, really good to kiss somebody like that.  Want to try it?”

Brekka pursed her lips for a moment and mulled it over.  “Okay.”

Without warning, she leaned over and kissed Menolly right on the mouth.  She tried to make it last like she had seen Menolly do with George… but… it was kinda yucky.

“I don’t really see what’s so great about it.”

“I dunno,” said Menolly.  “I thought it was kinda good.  Brekka is almost as good a kisser as George.”

“But,” said George, “maybe you would consider making some Telleron tadpole eggs with me… huh, Menolly?”

“Oh, you stupid-head…” said Brekka.  “We three are nest-mates.  That means we have the same mother and father… probably.  You know what in-breeding is?”

“We were programmed with that information in the egg, Brekka,” said Menolly.

“Well, you know… it might be the thing that makes Tellerons so stupid and incompetent… in spite of all the knowledge and skills programmed into us while we are in the egg.”

“Yeah,” said George, “you’re probably right.  But when I kissed Menolly that first time, it made me feel so strange in my stomach.  Isn’t it possible the feelings of the stomach are more powerful than the thoughts in the head?”

“I think in that episode of Gilligan’s Island it was the heart that love came from, not the stomach,” said Menolly.

“Well, my heart seems to be in my stomach,” said George, “really low down, too.  And it’s telling me to make tadpoles with the two of you.  We almost lost Brekka to that plant thing.  I don’t want to waste any more time.”

“You know that we are still too young for egg-laying, George,” said Brekka.  “Our ovipositors are not fully formed yet.”

“Yeah… but we could practice…”

Brekka was furious.  Why were male tadpoles so… so…?  Yeah, that.

*****

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March 7, 2017 · 11:34 am

Stardusters… Canto 37

galtorr-primex-1

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

galtorr-primex-1

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

galtorr-primex-1

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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