Cary Neeper's Blog: Reviewing World-changing Nonfiction - Posts Tagged "excerpt"

(Tandra and family have just arrived on Varok, and two beasts have jumped onto the speeding train that is taking them home.)

Just then a clacking and thumping sounded overhead. The forced electronic whine of the coach doors accompanied rude noises from two squat beings, scuffling with an enraged Ahlkahn official.

"The human beings are not yet adjusted to Varok," the official insisted loudly, trying to keep two waddling, square-faced beasts away from Shawne and me. "They are not for exhibit."

I turned in my seat to watch the creatures. Their stubby torsos rolled from side to side on monstrous talons. Gargoyle faces tilted curiously between the hunched shoulders of the chitin-plated wings folded at their sides. Their wing tips, tapered cones of sensitive flesh ending in whip-like cords of prehensile tissue, rode in a forward position, as if in supplication.
"Oh oh," said Conn to me in English "Ahlork."

"What strange birds," I said.

"The nearest is a large female," Conn noted, "She's got bright blue scales."

Under converging brow ridges, her square face, heavily armored, carried a lippy sneer punctuated by two tiny black eyes.

"Better not call them birds," Orram said. "Varok's small avioids don't have such a distinguished ancestry as Earth's."

"No dinosaurs?"

"Not enough heat or light out here. And ahlork are built differently than birds, like tanks with external hard parts."

"Insectoids then."

Orram's sense of fun surfaced. "No, no, Tandra. Bad biologist."

He waved an invitation, and with a clatter of broad, plated wings, they came toward us, swooping low over two elder varoks sitting nearby. One varok grimaced and ducked ever so slightly in revulsion. The ahlork noticed, circled, and made another pass over him.

I felt a surge of mirth. Orram warned me to stifle it, but the ahlork had already seen my wavering smile. He flapped toward me and landed on my head, then peered down into my tear-filled eyes. I burst into laughter despite the dig of his talons.

"You are nothing more than an elll, with all that shaking and grimacing, First-Human-Being-On-Varok," the ahlork said in abbreviated Varokian. His flapping lower lip was distorted by a long scar that gave him a permanent questioning leer. "We made you crying, I fear."

I answered in Elllonian, trying to remember the ahlork manners Orram had taught me. "I cry for you, plated one," I croaked, "but not out of sadness." I spoke with some difficulty, for the scene played too vividly in my mind—this ridiculous, clumsy creature careening over the crowd of immaculate varoks. To keep himself safe from an overload of mirth, Orram retreated from my mind and gave the ahlork space.

"Please get off my head," I managed to say. "You are very heavy." With that I burst into another volley of chuckles that gave me some relief.

"Get off my human, Nidok." Conn bellowed.

"It's all right, Conn," I said, though the ahlork's talons were threatening to draw a little blood. "Easy with the toenails—Nidok is it?"

"Conn says my name. I see you are only half mad as varoks."

The blue-plated ahlork standing on the floor spoke in a voice broken with foam. "Surely Earth be beautiful. Not like this heap of ruins. Why do you come to Varok?"