Tag Archives: Stardusters and Space Lizards

May 2, 2017 · 10:48 am

Stardusters… Canto Forty-Five

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Canto Forty-Five – Aboard the Galtorrian Space Cruiser Bone Head

The lizard soldiers roughly tossed Farbick into the holding pit on top of Starbright who had been tossed down roughly before him.  The Grandpa Munster face of Senator Tedhkruhz grinned down at him from above.

“I will allow you all to see the sights of beautiful Last-Star Fortress on the southern coast of the Bone Continent before we cut you all up for meat.”  Tedhkruhz cackled with porcine, gloating laughter.  Porcine was a good Earther word for pig-like, Farbick knew, and nothing reminded him so much of a gluttonous pig as the plans he had heard from the mouth of the Lizard Lord, Senator Tedhkruhz.

Bahbahr lay up against the wall of the prison pit, sobbing quietly to himself in inconsolable misery.  Stabharh stared at Farbick with cold, lizard eyes.

“Are you planning to return to the moon when you’ve eaten us?”  Farbick asked, trying to make it seem an innocent question.

“What?  Fat Bahbahr’s stupid Gundahl Base?  Of course not.  I have already blown the poop out of it with the biggest boom-bombs my people could manufacture.  There is nothing left of it to take possession of.”

“You are going to leave it for any other warlord to take?”

“What?  You mean Emperor Rekhpahree?  That unctuous toad has no space-worthy ships left to get up here.  Once we leave it, there will be no one coming here for a very long time, probably centuries.”

Farbick looked at Starbright’s frightened eyes and winked.  She had to know that the Galtorrian War Lord was playing right into Farbick’s selfless plan.

“You all get some sleep now, you hear?” gushed Grandpa Munster, “you have a big final day ahead of you tomorrow… all four of you.”

The lid was pulled over the top of the pit with a metallic clang.  Everything went to black at the same instant that Starbright caught hold of Farbick’s arms and pulled herself into his comforting embrace.

“So,” said Stabharh’s cold voice in the pitch darkness, “you hid the lizard children so Tedhkruhz wouldn’t find them and eat them.”

“We did,” admitted Starbright.  “At least they will live.”

“Why did you do that?” asked the soldier in a grim accusatory voice.

“We thought that those children deserved a chance to survive.  They have a future.”  Farbick knew the Galtorrians didn’t understand self-sacrificing love… not the way that Harmony Castille had taught the Tellerons from her little black book of Hebrew fairy stories…  But he figured there must be a heart in that lizard-man’s body somewhere.

“You would do that for creatures of another planet who would’ve eaten you if you had not fed them with your machine?  Why wouldn’t you want to see them die along with you?”

Starbright sounded deeply hurt by that.  “If I am doomed, why would it help me in any way to see them doomed too?  Your planet is deeply troubled.  You need those children alive.  They are your future.”

“Yes,” said Stabharh bitterly, “Galtorrians’ future, not yours!”

“I think the future is not yours or mine.”  Farbick weighed his words carefully in the darkness.  “I think the future belongs to all of us.  We don’t wish your people to die any more than we would wish for our own people to die.  It is the nature of those who are alive to want to keep living.”

“Not all people, frog or lizard, can possibly survive.  Survival of the fittest is the way of the Universe.”

“Perhaps,” said Starbright softly, “but the fittest doesn’t necessarily mean only the individual when the whole race is at stake.”

The darkness grew very quiet.  Was Stabharh thinking of a reply?  Or did he lose interest and fall asleep?  Perhaps Farbick and Starbright needed rest too.

“You frog people are just like the other alien races we met…” the small warrior lizard said after a long silence.  “You always talk about peace and helping others along the pathways to the stars… but this is actually the first time I have seen an alien practice what he preaches.”

*****

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April 25, 2017 · 10:53 am

Stardusters… Canto 44

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Canto Forty-Four – In the Bio-Dome

Alden and Gracie stood before the row of cloning jars, staring at the gently floating and twitching forms.  Sizzahl gently adjusted the nutrient feeds to the artificial placentas.

“They look so… so human,” said Gracie.  “Their little bodies are so perfect, and so big!”

“We will have them developed to birth size by morning,” said Sizzahl.  “The cloning jars use electro-magnetic chronol-enhancement to make the gestation occur in a fraction of the time.”

“Really?” Alden was aghast, “We will have ten babies to take care of by morning?”

“Oh, yes.  They will grow fast for a while.  They will be toddlers in less than a week.  And about your other comment, Gracie… they are precisely fifty per cent human.  Half me, half Alden… half Galtorrian…”

“…Half human,” said Alden.  It was stunning.  He and Gracie had talked about having kids, in fact, tried hard to have kids for years… and now, suddenly, they would have a family of ten children and three parents who, no matter how mentally old and wise they might be, were physically only between ten and twelve.

“I want to be a mother so badly it hurts,” said Gracie.  “But why so many?  How will we manage ten babies all at once?”

Sizzahl put a hand on Gracie’s bare shoulder.  “There is very little romance in what we have to do.  We have to raise up a workforce of these new fusion-race babies, possibly even an army.  We really don’t have a choice if we are not going to simply let this entire planet die.”

Suddenly a black-clad figure appeared above the tanks.  It was humanoid in form, but had a tail like a Galtorrian.  It wore a black mask like a ninja.

“Ah!  Scabby!” cried Alden, pointing.

“He moves too much like a lizard with no diseases,” said Sizzahl, a firm hand on the shoulder of each of the Morrells.  “In fact… he seems awfully familiar.”

“Sizzahl!  I thought Gohmurt had killed the whole family!”

“Senator Makkhain?” asked Sizzahl.

The lizard-man pulled off the mask.  “Yes, little one, I have survived.  The Cooperative managed to kill Emperor Rekhpahree in the last battle over Spidercrawl Fortress.  I came to tell your father and recruit him to our cause… um, forgetting that Gohmurt killed him, I guess… but it seems the Bio-Dome is wrecked and everyone else is dead.”

“I am not dead,” said Sizzahl, mistress of the obvious.  “And the Bio-Dome is not wrecked.   I have the atmosphere scrubbers working at full capacity, and I am trying to solve the blighted food supply problem.”

“Clever girl.  How did you survive the scabbies with nothing more than your little naked self?”  Makkhain pulled off his mask.  For a lizard-man, he had a very gentle face with wise bluish snake eyes.

“I’m not alone here.  Father’s robots are set to kill anything wearing clothes or carrying equipment.  How is it that you survived them?”

“I’m sorry.  Three of your father’s toys attacked me, and I had to break them quietly with this…”  He brandished a silver blade weapon with a hook on the end that was smeared with oil.

“Erm… I guess I will have to fix them, then.  They have been protecting us very effectively.”

“Who is this man, Makkhain?” asked Gracie.  “Should we be trusting him?”

“Oh,” said Makkhain, “your naked Skoog Monkeys talk?”

“We are not Skoog Monkeys,” said Alden.  “We are humans from Earth.”

“Of course you are,” said Makkhain.  “But apparently really scrawny ones.”

Alden was boiling at the insult.  Still, the lizard-man had a sword and Alden was naked and trapped in a mere boy’s body.

“Makkhain is my uncle,” said Sizzahl at last, “my mother’s brother.  He is one of the good guys.”

“That is good,” said Gracie.  “We need more good guys.”

“What are you doing cooking tailless Skoog Monkeys in the cloning pots?”

“These are fusions,” said Sizzahl proudly.  “They are half Earther and half Galtorrian.  They will be our new work force, hopefully with the best qualities of each race combined into one being.”

“Ah, girl, you always were the smart one in the family… a real dreamer.  But do you really need these things now that I am here?”

“Yes, uncle.  They are superior to the lizard-people who have destroyed this planet.  They will be a more worthy successor race than we were as an original race.”

Makkhain dropped down onto the floor of the cloning chamber and lowered the sword.  He quietly put an arm around his naked niece.  She hugged him fiercely and began to cry.

Alden felt awkward.  He was glad that Sizzahl had a family again.  He was also glad for an adult-sized ally.  But something about Makkhain rubbed him the wrong way.  Things just didn’t feel right in Alden’s farmer weather-bones.

*****

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April 18, 2017 · 11:09 am

Stardusters… Canto 43

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Canto Forty-Three – On the Moon Gundahl

The massive space cruiser set itself down on the ruined tarmac of the moon base.  Only Farbick and Starbright were there to meet it.  After all, the two Galtorrian overlords were still penned inside a force-field and all the young lizard-children were still soundly sleeping off a full meal.

The cruiser was heavily armed and had cannons sticking out in all directions like spines on a sea urchin.  It had some battle damage on it, but obviously gave far worse than it had received.  In fact, Stabharh had said that this was probably the same warship that had damaged the moon base to such a degree that chunks were missing from the moon.

“Can they really be as terrible as Stabharh says?” asked Starbright.

“I suppose he would know better than I,” said Farbick.  “He says this Senator Tedhkruhz led an army across all the continents of Galtorr Prime and murdered two thirds of the population of the entire planet.”

Starbright shivered.  Farbick put a comforting arm around her shoulders.  There was definitely something to be said in favor of the Earther way of showing love through physical contact.  Tellerons had been too cold and distant from each other for too long.  Starbright leaned into the hug in response.

The entry ramp of the cruiser came down, and some of the crew appeared at the top of the ramp.  There were Galtorrian soldiers armed with slug-throwers akin to what Earthers called assault rifles.  There were also clunky metal robots that looked a lot like trash cans with a pair of legs.  Two lines of soldiers and robots formed on each side of the ramp.  Then, decked out in a purple velvet suit, the Senator himself appeared.  Farbick couldn’t help but notice that the Galtorrian Senator had a smiling face that resembled Grandpa Munster from the television show   The Munsters of the 1960’s on Earther TV.  Grandpa Munster with no hair and a smiling face covered in green scales, but definitely Grandpa Munster.

“Where is Bahbahr?” asked the Senator in a loudly-projected voice.  Farbick couldn’t tell if he was using some kind of unseen microphone device, or his voice was actually that capable of booming.  “I know that the Galtorrian criminal I seek is here somewhere!”

“What will you do with him if you have him?” asked Farbick.

“He will get what he deserves… his just deserts are to be dessert.  We will cook him and eat him.  My soldiers are hungry.”

“If we give him to you, will you give us this base and leave?”  It was worth trying.

“Of course not.  We will take and eat all of you.  You can’t really believe you can prevent that from happening, can you?”

“There are four of us.  My companion and I have captured the scoundrel and his warrior.”

“Ha!  That is rich.  Tellerons who happened to catch the big and mighty lord of merchants!  And is his warrior toothless little Stabharh?”

“He is.”  Farbick hoped the children were well enough hidden that this cruel cannibal would never find them.  He had disabled all the Telleron tech except the force field that held the two lizard-men, so there was no chance that Grandpa Munster would be able to use the devices against anyone.

“You are going to have to accept the inevitable, Mr. Telleron,” said Tedhkruhz.  “Surrender now and you won’t be subjected to pain and torture.  We will make it easier on you.”

“Will you take us away from this place?  Or will you stay here?”

“Why-ever would anyone want to stay in a place like this?  I blew chunks out of this moon before.  It’s in pieces now.  Not a very nice place to be.”

“You have a better place?”

“Well, no… but I own several other installations that are at least partially whole.  We will be able to make something work.  Some of us are destined to rule and be the lords of this planet.  I have the power to be the last one standing, and I think that is pretty great.”

Starbright and Farbick just held up their hands and surrendered.  What else could Farbick do?  At least, Biznap and the other Tellerons would find this place where they could take up residence and possibly survive as a people.

*****

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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

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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 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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