Tag Archives: Stardusters and Space Lizards

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.”

*****

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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 13, 2017 · 12:18 pm

Unrepentant Blog Plans

I am not out of things to write about.  In fact, I have far more ideas than I have time to manage.  So I will waste some time I don’t have in plotting out the way forward through the creative jungle.

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I am at the climax of the novel Stardusters and Space Lizards.  I have seen by posting it chapter by chapter here that I must not only finish it, as a good, timely science fiction novel, but that I must experiment with publishing the entire thing on my blog.  I may later self-publish the thing, but you will get the chance to see the entire rough draft here… on Tuesdays.

I also have several cartoon series that I want to expand upon and publish here.  That includes my Action Figure Follies, my Tales From Fantastica, and Hidden Kingdom.  These are also posted in my vault, Mickey’s House of Fiction.

I want to post further on what I am learning about the perilous publishing journey that I hope to complete before I die, sharing with you some of the many secrets, tricks, hopes, and foolishnesses I have used to shoot myself in both feet and sink myself into the quicksand of author anonymity.

I have a post in mind about the YouTube videos of the NerdWriter, an auteur of infinite and in-depth ideas.  I want to share some of his amazing work and insights with you.

And the conspiracy theorist inside me is bursting to get out with everything I have learned about William Shakespeare. who has never really been who we think he is, and the very solid evidence of why I believe in this loony conspiracy theory when I don’t believe that the moon landing was faked by Franco Zeffirelli.

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At some point, too, I need to let you in on the creative processes that occur as I write the novel Recipes For Gingerbread Children.  It seems to be another inevitable novel that has to come out of me before my stupid old story-teller head explodes with it.

And maybe I need to explain who Dr. Seabreez is, and why there is more than just one me traveling through time and space and laughter.

I know that is a lot to threaten you with all at once, and you may find a post like this extremely boring.  In fact, you may have given up reading already.  But I do intend to make these writing abominations actually occur, so you may as well grit your teeth and get ready as the creative wheels turn, or have a flat, or grow spikes… something like that.

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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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December 27, 2016 · 2:55 pm

Stardusters… Canto 27

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Canto Twenty-Seven – In the Bio-Dome

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

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

“Is Zahr-Doe its name?” Gracie asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Oh?” asked Gracie.  “How?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*****

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December 20, 2016 · 4:42 pm

Stardusters… Canto 26

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Canto Twenty-Six – On the Moon Gundahl

Farbick and Starbright sat together on the bench outside the fat Galtorrian’s office in the moon base where the Tellerons were now prisoners.  Biznap was inside arguing vehemently about something.  The two lizard-men, apparently the only lizard-men on the entire moon, were arguing from a position of strength and superiority, though Farbick could plainly see that the Telleron landing party out-numbered them, seemed smarter than them, and definitely had better and more capable technology.

“Do you think Commander Biznap will secure our freedom?” Starbright asked guilelessly.  Her large green eyes were shimmering with tremulous female uncertainty.  She was attractive in ways no other female had ever seemed to Farbick before.

“He’s the best officer and negotiator we have in Xiar’s entire fleet,” Farbick answered, “so, no… probably not.  We are not very competent when it comes to things like this.”

“We are doomed?  Will they eat us?”

“Well, Biznap couldn’t bargain his way out of a paper sack,” said Farbick.  “Especially in view of the fact that we can’t really let these cannibal lizards get their claws on high tech devices like cloaking fields, invisibility cloaks, and skortch rays… certainly not star drives for space ships.  But a paper sack is made of paper, after all.  We could punch our way out.”

“What do you mean?”

“These lizard men are not very smart.  They are not very well armed, as long as they don’t acquire and learn how to use our weapons.  They seem tough on the outside, but I think we could beat them in a fight.”

Starbright looked at him skeptically.  “You think so?”

“We need to take the initiative.  I’m sure if the three of us, as Tellerons, worked together and eliminated the little warrior-guy, the fat one would surrender easily.  He doesn’t appear to be the kind who fights his own battles.”

“You are very brave and haves been through lots of difficult situations, but I’m a poor, frail female with skills I learned in the egg, but no practical experience.  I would end up causing you and brave Commander Biznap to die needlessly.  It would be a terrible thing.”

“We are not going to give up and be beaten so easily,” said Farbick.  “If I learned one thing in my time as a captive among Earther primates, it is that every individual has inner resources that they may not even know they have.  Together we are more formidable than we have ever let ourselves believe.”

“You really think so?”

Farbick looked at her lovely round face and earnest expression.  He thought about the kissing thing.  He had seen Alden and Gracie Morrell do it.  He had seen Harmony Castille and Commander Biznap do it.  It was a strange Earther thing, but if he turned his face just a little to the right, he could…

“What are you… mmmph… doing?”  She looked shocked.

“It is an Earther custom, expressing respect and admiration.”

“Oh… it is?”

“And love.”

Her eyes lit up at the Earther human concept that had seemingly been the only thing to thwart the invasion of Earth.  He could see she was intrigued.  Old reruns of I Love Lucy and Bewitched were part of every Telleron tadpole’s how-to-be-like-an-Earther training, programmed directly into their developing brains while in their amniotic egg-sacks.  Tellerons were gestated in eggs and programmed with learning programs until they were the equivalent of an Earther eight-year-old, at which point they were all saturated with the kissing thing poured directly into embryonic brains, and ready to be born.

“Like Darren and Samantha?  In Bewitched?” she asked.

“Yes.”

She leaned in and repeated the gesture.  She improved on it.  It lasted a very long time and Farbick felt that she liked it nearly as much as he did.  They could make tadpoles together… even if he did have inferior Fmoogish blood in his veins.

At that moment they were interrupted by Commander Biznap.

“Good news!  I have secured our release, Farbick!”

“What did you promise them?” asked Farbick.

“That we would strip the entire available tech out of the wing and leave it here, along with Starbright to teach them how to use it all.”

“And how do we get Starbright back?”

“Oh, uh… we don’t.  When they are finished learning how to use the technology, they will eat her.”

*****

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Starbright

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