The tune was rich and subtle, yet there was something weird and 
alien about its perfection.  It had a deep structured layering, a 
sense of complexity and a feeling of heartrending yearning that a 
human composer, however gifted with genius, could not hope to 
recreate. 
        The music seemed to expand the limited horizons of the 
surrounding cramped stone walls, to reveal other huge and 
wonderful vistas, an epic kaleidoscope of fantastic locations and 
fabulous experience. Individual notes seemed to have a mystical 
vibrant life and they waltzed around the spotless cave filling 
every crevice, every possession of their player and composer, 
        The few delicately refined items of furniture that there 
were in the cave were of exquisite taste.  These objects, coupled 
with the neatly stacked books and papers, many of vast antiquity, 
were evidence of a cultured and discerning intellect.  And yet, 
these items lumped together were not much to show for a life that 
had lasted longer than that of Mankind's on Earth, that had been 
partly responsible the demise of the dinosaur, and had been 
witness to incredible events and a procession of human life in all 
its shades, great, pathetic and mediocre. 
        One item of furniture whose absence spoke volumes was a 
mirror.  This was not just an oversight or testament to a lack of 
vanity.  The player had a pronounced and deep-seated hatred of his 
outer shell. The broad face and powerfully muscular body should 
have been covered in a bountiful, full-bearded hirsute tangle, and 
yet, with the exception of the tastefully coifed dark brown head 
of locks, a mighty depilatory had been used to render the dark, 
leathery skin as hairless as a babe. 
        The wide middle-aged visage was brutish and hooked, with 
large lips, a prominent nose and forehead.  The great teeth had 
been straightened by an heroic amount of dental labour.  The 
overall hawkish aspect was offset by the brilliant green eyes that 
glinted like magical emeralds, proclaiming the intellect and 
restless vigour of their owner.  This restlessness was illustrated 
by the delicate fluttering movement of his fingers; although they 
were short, gnarled and stubby, they moved across the keyboard 
with a potent mix of speed, dexterity and grace. Like the music, 
the carefully chosen fabrics that clothed him were bright and 
colourful, of elegant design and finest construction with no hint 
of the gaudy or tacky about them. 
        Suddenly, the melody momentarily stopped, although the cave 
still seemed to hum with its resonance. The player tensed, became 
alert, aware of a slight disturbance in the atmosphere.  As the 
Queen appeared, his hands began to softly work the keyboard again.  
The Queen spoke. 
        'Greetings, Balidare, you are far from your home and your 
true form.' 
        'As are you', Balidare answered with perfect annunciation.  
His rich voice accustomed to tones of clipped imperiousness.  The 
Queen acknowledged the truth of his remark with a fleeting 
enigmatic smile before continuing. 
        'If you go to the bar in Shepard City, you may learn 
something of interest.' 
        Balidare turned with an relaxed indulgent frown. it 
succeeded in considerably fiercening his already grim features. 
        'I have spent enough time on this dead world to have covered 
every inch...' 
        His tone was distantly contemptuous.  Balidare was a being 
who had lived far too long and seen too much to have anything left 
to prove to anyone. '....There is nothing of interest on this 
mausoleum.' 
        The Queen played to her audience, her voice gently teasing.   
        'Is a way out of this system of interest?  Across the 
cosmos, a new start,' 
        Balidare was puzzled and yet intrigued. 
        'The mechanical's transports are no good for interstellar 
travel.  If you don't know ships, they look flashy enough, but 
they're only efficient for local bulk haulage.  They can't be 
upgraded.  I've checked.' 
        The Queen moved forward to emphasise her pay-off line.  Her 
grin was beatific as she whispered with overdone innocence.   
        'Who said anything about ships?' 
        As she vanished, she left behind words that hung in the air 
like Balidare's music. 
        'Go to Shepard City.  You have nothing to lose but time.' 
        Balidare did not take long to make up his mind.  Time was an 
old enemy.  When you had lived as long as he, you did not fear 
death or any danger.  The real terrors were the empty minutes, the 
endless parade of weary and wearying seconds.  The Queen had been 
right.  He had nothing to lose but a minute piece of hated 
continuance. His life had become like that of Mankind on Mars - no 
future but a sterile, tedious decay on this unnaturally 
resuscitated red planet. Deciding, Balidare began to pack a few 
most treasured belongings into a small metallic case.  His compact 
figure moved like a 1930's film gangster, full of pent-up vigour. 
        As he worked and folded with fastidious precision, he vainly 
tried to avoid thoughts of a past time; a time that seeped out of 
his unconscious like some insidious creeping poison. Once before, 
he had been offered a way out of this system, but then had come 
the sin; a crime so great that he had been estranged and cast out 
by his own kind, left marooned as a penance.  Even now he was 
unclear whether the sin had been born of loathing, of love or just 
the perpetual fatigue of loneliness. Unbidden, his mind framed an 
agonising picture, his father's stricken, haunted face as he had 
silently disowned his only son and turned to the ship.  "NO! it 
was too much."  He thrust aside the memories, rebinding them 
securely and forcibly into the deepest part of his subconscious. 
        With one sharp movement, he closed the metallic case and his 
access to the gloating past.  Walking out into the freezing thin 
air, he looked down from his lofty unassailable position halfway 
up Olympus Mons, the largest volcanic mountain in the Solar 
System.  Even his eyesight could not pick out the pathetic distant 
speck that marked the location of Shepard City and what might be a 
new future. 
        With a sigh freezing on his lips, Balidare started down over 
the towering sheer cliffs and bottomless chasms.  As he went, 
leaving behind his many years as a solitary hermit, albeit a well-
scrubbed one, he mutely gave thanks for the invention of thermal 
underwear and anti-gravity boots. 
 
 





Will had to admit it to himself; his thoughts on toilets and a 
multitudinous selection of other mundane subjects were just an 
evasion, an escape, partly from the pangs of hunger that were 
running rampant in spiky boots through his insides, and partly 
from examination of recent events. 
        Will was not used to deprivation of any kind and after 
roughly thirty hours in transit.  He felt too weak even to 
continue moaning and complaining to Sulphur.  He was having his 
first experience of what real belly-aching was like, thinking back 
with saliva-drenched longing to his regular bowl of tasteless 
yellow nutrient and vitamin-enhanced pap.  Will was not to know 
that his presence and the lack of intransit edibles were directly 
related to each other.  COMS was proud of its energy efficiency 
and allowed just enough fuel for the transport's journey.  
Unfortunately, Will and Sulphur's last-minute appearance had upset 
the fuel/load ratio and something had to go. That something was 
the inflight GRUB machine provided for a stowaway's use.  It was 
blatant logical contradictions like this that could give rise to 
the feeling that COMS were not as clever as they thought they 
were. 
        Sulphur levelly returned his companion's fixed gaze at his 
hindquarters.  He took note of Will's conspicuous drooling and the 
slightly desperate look in his eyes before feeling compelled to 
point out that a Personification's behind was constructed of a 
particularly toxic and inedible form of synthetic hide. 
        Will glumly subsided at this news and Sulphur as glumly 
considered him.  This was the man that had agreed to undertake an 
unknown horde of dangers and privations, and yet, he had been 
reduced to thoughts of eating his only friend because of a minor 
lapse in his calorie intake.  It was obvious that Will had a lot 
to learn about a life without accustomed comforts and privileges. 
 
 




 
The dust storm had been instantaneous.  A constant feature of life 
on Mars, ferocious freezing winds stirred the red iron oxide dust 
up into a frenzy, sand-papering the landscape. 
        The solitary mine entrance was obscured and buffeted by the 
storm. One of the first excavations to be abandoned, there still 
lurked life in its lower regions, far, far underground. Down in 
those depths, the clamorous vibrations of the inclement weather 
were replaced by another loud and throbbing rhythm. A blaring tune 
played at brain-numbing volume seemed to try to pound the 
subterranean rocks into submission and every now and then a 
trickle of dust weeped from the ceiling over the precariously-
placed joists, as if pleading for an end to its torment.  Such 
dust was soon ground underfoot by the hectic intoxicated movements 
of a pair of grubby trainers. 
        The cavern that was the source of this din looked like it 
had been host to a wild party given in honour of a rampaging mob 
of compulsive litter louts. There just had to be no other 
explanation for the confusion of the mess or the monumentality of 
its proportions.  To simply call the place a dump would be an 
understatement indicative of chronic idiocy. 
        Everywhere there was junk, or what looked like junk. Stained 
and negligently discarded clothing, food packaging and empty beer 
cans filled every inch of the floor, sometimes to an improbable 
depth. Every nook was filled with refuse and even some of the many 
ever-glowing video screens were partially obscured as they poured 
forth a mindless diet of grotesque game shows and banal action 
features carefully saved from the past. 
        In the middle, the solitary author of this chaos gyrated 
wonkily on top of small mound of garbage. As the song came to an 
and, she burped heavily, offering serious competition to the 
blasting sound level.  Then a new noise started.  Her frenzy 
increased as she casually tossed an empty beer can over a petite 
shoulder, consigning it to the grave of its many thousand 
discarded predecessors. Within seconds, a new can appeared as if 
by magic in her thin delicate fingers. 
        Her mouth opened eagerly, guzzling the amber liquid, and she 
started to sing.  Her sweet musical voice, made for the softest of 
ballads, was distorted, made raucous by ill-use as it screamed in 
off-key accompaniment to the deafening lyrics. 
        'Planetoid mass!!!  You're totally crass. Red Martian sky, 
f**k off and die.' 
        The Queen made her usual impressive appearance and went 
totally unnoticed by the dancing figure.  Up on Deimos, several of 
the Thingy's finely-tuned eardrums started to bleed. 
        'Greetings Grendella.  You are far from your home and your 
true form,' the Queen bellowed without response.  'I said, 
GREETINGS...' 
        Unused to being ignored, Sharon vented her majestic 
displeasure with an impatient flick of a transparent finger, and 
the loudest music system in the galaxy exploded showily.  Queen 
Sharon was momentarily halted by the fact that the volume controls 
of the video screens also seemed permanently welded to maximum, 
their vocal circuits locked into a riotous sing-along with the 
defunct audio blitzkreiger.  However, she had learned to think 
fast, and one by one, with a snap, fizzle and crack, the screens 
were likewise dispatched to fuse-wire heaven. 
        Amidst the resultant dust and the angry buzzing of the 
terminal tellies the merry tinkling voice, of the small female 
called Grendella could be heard exclaiming. 
        'FAAAARRRRR OOOOOUUUUTTTT!' 
        After a while, the swimming fog of disturbed particles 
cleared.  
        Grendella stood, poised for action, all appearance of 
drunkenness gone, the beer can discarded from fists that were 
curled to react with maximum force. 
        'Don't you know how to knock?' She said. 
        The Queen nodded towards the smoking electricals. 
        'Lets just say, my arrival was announced.  You are far from 
your home and...' 
        'I don't need cab fare.' 
        'If you go to the bar in Shepard City, you may find 
something of interest.' 
        'Listen, spook; I don't know what kind of weird holograph 
doc cooked you up, or why you're here...' 
        'I am neither a spook or a holograph,' came the haughty 
needled response. 
        'That's as maybe...' Grendella could recognise a good 
pan-dimensional being when she saw one, and was just being 
annoying because she enjoyed it, shrugged before continuing. 'I 
can always find something of interest in a bar.  What makes this 
one special?' 
        The Queen, who was starting to develop something of a way 
with a parting line, gave this reply as she vanished. 
        'Put it this way......' A wispy arm remained to wave in the 
direction of the blasted machinery.  'What else are you going to 
do for entertainment?' 


 



Grendella reluctantly conceded that the Queen had a point. She 
made her mind up quickly, partly helped by the fact that a move 
was definitely imminent, not to say pressing. 
        When one had developed slobbish behaviour to such a peak of 
grubby perfection, the inconvenience of moving home became dwarfed 
to amoebic size when compared with the trauma induced by the 
thought of doing something as desperately unbalanced as attempting 
to tidy up. 
        However before moving she would have to change clothing, 
even Grendella was forced to admit that.  Her current apparel had 
matured with a rich, pungent ripeness that transported it beyond 
the limits of any sort of normal society equipped with nostrils. 
        It was with real pain, both physical and mental, that she 
undressed. Mental, because having worn the threadbare outfit for 
some months, there was a feeling of a bond with the fabric.  
Physical, because the accretion of a month's grease and sweat had 
made that bonding a reality.  After much pulling and straining and 
the sacrifice of several layers of skin, she stood naked. 
        "Well!" she thought as she took stock of her dirt-bronzed 
physique and the devastated surroundings, "I know I'm a major 
scuzz bucket, but I really over-achieved this time." Perhaps it 
was because she had lived alone too long.  Meeting new people 
could be therapeutic.  If so, there would have to be concessions 
to good citizenship and a certain amount of courageous self-
sacrifice on her part.  All her high-toned thoughts boiled down to 
one unpleasant realisation: she would have to take a bath.  There 
was no way to avoid it, once she had confessed to herself that 
disrobing had only dealt with a fraction of her personal hygiene 
problems. 
 





 
After prolonged rooting about amidst the junk beneath her feet,
Grendella located a tee-shirt and pair of jeans that had withstood 
the ravages of her service better then most.  This is to say that 
they had mostly avoided being stained into the appearance of a 
work of pop art by their owner's carelessness in applying 
condiments and sauces. 
        She scooped up the clothing and tossed it with hasty 
disregard into a worn bag, along with several beers and other 
essentials for a journey, and ventured downward, moving through a 
series of caves that bore the tell-tale, after-party look of her 
habitation. 
        Beyond these caves lay the lower regions of the mine.  
Narrow tunnels, cold and forbidding, with here and there the 
scattered calcium remains of various mining fatalities, human 
skeletons providing grisly evidence of the dangers that were 
present when one mixed greed and an inhospitable location. 
        Grendella's small feet were sure as she made her way through 
an absolute clinging darkness.  She moved as if the tunnels were 
her natural habitat and inheritance.  Her wide, long-lashed hazel 
eyes had no need of artificial illumination as she probed even 
deeper, past the boundaries of human life-signs and past many 
weird and wonderful natural rock formations, through tiny spaces 
that seemed closed, even to one of her gamin proportions. 
        The journey purposefully continued to its intended 
conclusion, and at  last, she stood in a huge cavern.  The cavern 
was like some great aquatic amphitheatre, with a performance in 
progress.  The space was alive with tinkling liquid music as 
hundreds of droplets of water fell hundreds of feet from the high 
rocky ceiling into a magnificent lake that plunged down to unknown 
depths as it covered the cavern's floor.  This natural 
hydrographical symphony had remained unheeded for millennia, 
untouched and unseen, a liquid resource that had developed over 
millions of years into the largest body of water in the nocturnal 
subterranean recesses of Mars, into a lake that was pure and 
perfect. 
        Unconscious of the honour of being the only being in Martian 
history to stand upon this site, Grendella's only emotion was one 
of nervousness.  She had developed a theory in connection with H20 
over the years. Whilst admitting that water, or at least liquid, 
was necessary to life, she had decided that cultures that got all 
uptight about neatness and cleanliness and regular washing were 
invariably unhappy and prone to take out their frustrations on 
everybody else, so to stay content, she stayed filthy. 
        This grunginess was part of her personality.  Despite an 
outward appearance of being an enchanted delicate creature of the 
air, of magical forests and spring meadows. Grendella was of the 
earth, of the soil, a large amount of which covered her.  She was 
a lover of the depths, of caves and of dark underground recesses, 
with hydrophobia that was not born of fear but of genuine dislike.  
However, sacrifices had to be made in the pursuit of adventure and 
entertainment, and Grendella was a creature of some bravery and 
willpower.  Both characteristics which were stretched to their 
limit as she dived into the frigid water. 
        As soon as possible, she surfaced, her teeth too-firmly 
clenched in distaste to chatter against the burning icy cold as 
she washed and scrubbed off the many layers and months of 
accumulated grime, the dislodged muck insidiously sending its 
noisome tendrils through the water, fouling its purity, covering 
its surface with a film of scum. As she got cleaner, Grendella had 
to change place several times, turning each section that she 
inhabited into an evil smelling swamp. The many strange predators 
that hungrily approached her form through the increasing murkiness 
soon became victims of the new impurity of their environment, 
their poisoned bodies contributing to the desecration of their 
habitat. 
        Eventually she was finished.  Emerging from the violated 
lake, Grendella momentarily assessed her reflection in the dark 
mirror of its surface.  Despite the surrounding cloaking 
blackness, the deep pools of her pupils clearly took in every 
detail. 
        She was fair and slender, small breasted, almost childlike.  
Her body was fit without a hint of over developed hardness and 
much practice had replaced her people's heavy-footed method of 
movement with the light fluidity of a dancers. Hr hair was short, 
blondish with a hint of ginger, falling over ears that were 
delicately pointed.  Her eyes were large, with an amused twinkle 
and a slightly exotic slant, her nose was aquiline, her lips thin, 
her teeth small, strong and even.  She was like a fairy waif, a 
dit of a dot, tiny, about four feet high, but perfectly 
proportioned.  Having shed the cloaking layers of grime, she was 
revealed, like a rare gem plucked from manure, as a creature of 
brightly beautiful appearance and just like a gem, such beauty hid 
a deceptive strength. 
        With a final derisive snort at her reflected image, she 
turned, quickly dressing in jeans, trainers, and a tee-shirt 
almost two centuries old that read: "Relief For USA - End American 
Famine Now." Lastly, she pulled on a red leather baseball jacket 
of similar vintage, a souvenir, emblazoned across the back with 
the name and creed of a band she had once appeared with "The Slime 
Girls From Hell - Strumpets with Attitude." 
        With a final glance towards the lake, a brief mental shudder 
and silent cry of  NEVER AGAIN, Grendella exited the cavern and 
began the long journey upwards towards the surface, and to Shepard 
City. 
 
 
 



Will had made a discovery.  Space was "Bloody freezing!" 
COMS had made concessions to stowaways but heating was not one of 
them.  Will's grey utility suit was designed for a temperate 
climate and the human quivered rather like a plate of pap in an 
earthquake, fear and emergence from shock adding their own special 
impetus to the chilled conditions.  Fatigued, famished and at a 
low ebb after three days in transit. Will felt petrified by the 
unexpected future and dismayed by what he perceived as a parade of 
past empty years. All his life he had sensed that he was a 
mediocrity, squandering precious minutes wholesale on mindless 
routine. Living through videos and books, he had longed for an 
escape, for a chance to emulate his heroes and heroines, never 
considering what such a chance would mean.  Vivid as they were, 
those heroes, those stylised champions of the spirit were as fake 
as a Dickensland muffin. 
        Reality meant feeling scared and uncertain.  Will knew that 
he would have to find some sort of formula to shield his fragile 
sense of self-worth.  After some thought, he realised that the 
Queen had perhaps provided the key.  She had, after all, engaged 
Heroics INC., and it was Heroics INC. that she would get. The 
business-like approach was the answer; maybe he could even get 
some stationery and business cards printed.  If Will could not be 
a convincing hero, perhaps he could rise to the challenge of 
Chairman.  
        Comforted by visions of himself as some sort of rising 
intergalactic executive, Will even managed a smile.  Pausing to 
think of Sulphur, he wandered if personifications ever 
contemplated their navels, even though they did not have one. 
 




 
        "It happened, my systems were functioning correctly and I 
witnessed it. Therefore, it happened." 
        For even a basic system, the experienced past was easy.  
Sulphur readily accepted and dismissed the unconventional events 
that had brought him to this place, but the future was proving a 
little more tricky. 
        His circuits were designed to be incapable of lapses of 
nerve. After all the worse thing that could happen on a personal 
level, was the throwing of a switch.  However, Personifications 
had been provided with a basic level of self-preservation, one 
bolstered by daily contact with human paranoia about mortality, 
and Sulphur was experiencing a slightly odd, dysfunctional 
feeling.  As the sensation rarely existed outside biological life-
forms, he was to be forgiven for not recognising it as 
trepidation. 
        The dragon, like the many millions of circuits that went, 
into his makeup was a part of a machine society, a culture where 
the individual identity was part of a rigorously programmed whole. 
Being a minuscule cog in this culture he had a real sense of 
power, of worth and belonging. 
        Now, that feeling of sociable identity was to be totally 
swept aside, replaced by a void of uncertainty.  He suspected that 
he was soon to radically outstrip the boundaries of COMS 
consciousness.  Sulphur's relatively short span of "turn-on" time 
had mostly only equipped him to deal with the most petty problems 
of basic machines and life-forms. Like Will, he felt the urge to 
seek some palpable form of inner protection and searching his 
memory, he eventually found it.  This comfort came from two 
elements of personification programming regulations: 1) 
Programming note 66548/236:111 : Protect your human charge 
whatever the situation: 2) Programming note 66533/178:212: 
Whatever the limits of your experience, always seek to widen your 
knowledge.  Reassured, he managed something approximating a smile. 
Wrapped up in their own musings and unaware of the similarity of 
their inner thoughts. Will and Sulphur grinned unseeing at each 
other in the icy air. 
 
 
 




The Martian storm had finished its tantrum some time before. There 
had been a slight rise in temperature and the distant sun was 
making a guest appearance in the livid sky. The vivid notes of 
Latin American guitar and pipe music, scampered playfully out of a 
portable sound system and capered on the dusty parapet of the 
great house. Reclining with cat-like grace upon a sun-lounger, 
luxuriantly enveloped by rich fabrics, Magda Mures reached out a 
long languid arm and brought a tall glass of thick purplish liquid 
to her vibrant red lips.  Pausing to lift her large black 
sunglasses, she favoured the far away solar orb with a mocking 
wink and toasting motion of the glass before quaffing the fluid 
hungrily.  Her long tongue, supple and probing, passed over the 
strong white teeth and subtly pointed canines, collecting every 
trace of the delicious mauve-.staining substance. 
        The 2082 had been a good year for this vintage, it had been
a good harvest before the explosion in the chemical weapons dump 
which had spoiled the crop and erased Peru from history. Its taste 
was full bodied, robust and vigorous, her one remaining bottle 
closely guarded for a special occasion.  But something 
inexplicable and pressing had prompted its opening today.  Magda 
made a point of listening to her inner voices, it was a habit that 
had kept her alive for over nine hundred years and she responded 
immediately to the expectant tension in the air around her. 
        Queen Sharon's arrival was welcomed by a courtly 
genuflection, an indication of Magda's high-born East European 
origins.  The Queen returned the greeting with a smile, aware that 
the gesture masked a high degree of fierce alertness on the 
other's part.
        'Am I expected?' 
        'I had expectations of something.' 
        'If you go to the bar in Shepard City, you may find 
something of interest.' 
        'What could be of interest on this world of the dead?' 
The Queen's smile rippled enigmatically as she faded away. 
        'Old friends and new challenges...' 
Intrigued. The East European grinned wolfishly, and went to change 
out of her swimsuit. 
 




 
Magda was used to leave-taking.  After packing a few of her finest 
vintages for emergencies, she wandered round the sumptuously 
exquisite home she had created amidst the cold red rocks. 
        Modelled out of those very rocks to resemble the stern 
castles of her homeland, for many years it had stood alone on the 
forlorn plain, at once a beacon and a spider's web to the curious 
and incautious. The rough miners that had visited had marvelled at 
the medieval hangings and the startling profusion of fine pieces 
from many ages and cultures, before being sent away with weakened 
tread and fuzzily enshrouded memories as the price of their stay. 
        At last she paused in front of the magnificently ornate 
mirror that dominated the great entrance.  Reflections were 
another thing that mortals were thankfully wrong about.  Magda 
tenderly fingered the locket that draped around her alabaster 
neck, containing soil from a far distant homeland, as she took 
stock of herself. 
        Her form was tall and unnaturally pale, clothed in loosely 
clinging sumptuous dark fabrics that revealed only the long, 
narrow-fingered hands with dagger sharp-nails and the austerely 
thin beautiful face surrounded by masses of hair, tresses tied 
back, that fell in a shining column, as dark and straight as an 
ancient Egyptian queen's. Her eyes were also dark, like damp 
pebbles in the moonlight and wonderfully lively, her nose as 
narrow as those spiteful nails, with luscious lips of bursting 
scarlet fullness and very, very strong teeth. 
        It was no good; the Vamp look was just too old-fashioned.  
It was time for a new image.  She would have to change during the 
Journey.  Her lips parted in an expectant smile as she picked up 
her bag and put on her sunglasses. 
        'Here's to good hunting.' 
        With one fluid motion she emptied a goblet of its darkly red 
contents and then carelessly hurled it across the chamber. With 
the sound of shattered crystal still tinkling in the air.   Magda 
Mures, Vampir, turned and left,  enroute to Shepard City. 
 
 
 



To the accompaniment of a garbled belch of Vesuvian proportions, 
the Orange Thingy's many thousands of eyelids snapped open in 
simultaneous surprise. 
        Its numerous drooling lips, startled and gaping, spat forth 
searing globbits of acid across apace, branding great new craters 
into the surface of the Mare Fecundis, the Thingy having 
momentarily relocated to the south east quadrant of the moon. 
        The Thingy's plentiful sobs were soundly smacked by a 
combination of incredulity and disbelief at the realisation that 
it had actually lapsed into a doze.  The whole thing was just a 
measure of how brain-crumblingly dull this system was.  In 
comparison, watching paint dry with the Aquanis was thrilling, 
edge-of-the-seat stuff, and Aquanis decorators took forever. After 
all, they were an undersea culture. 
        The Thingy perked up and looked around hopefully Maybe it 
had missed something, but no, it felt the disappointment course 
through its multi-contorted form almost immediately.  There was 
that stupidly pathetic transport, plodding laboriously on its 
tiresome journey. Just approaching the asteroid belt which had 
long ago been collected to ring the Martian civilisation as a 
bristling moat against intruders.  Over the years, the belt's 
protective weaponry had lapsed into inactivity, as lifeless as the 
remains of its creators, allowing interlopers to travel as they 
wished. 
        Now, a final indignity was about to be heaped upon these 
solemn lumps of galactic masonry, for the Thingy had decided that 
it was time to introduce an element of playfulness into the 
proceedings.  With the thought came the deed and the asteroids 
were instantly metamorphosed into a assortment of objects that 
were very strange indeed. 
        "There!" Thought the Orange Thingy with a self satisfied 
internal chuckle, "...This should be interesting!"

© Gary Cahalane

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