Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology
From: mmcirvin@world.std.com (Matthew J. McIrvin)
Subject: Another early Matt McIrvin work
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1998 20:51:27 GMT
Organization: The World @ Software Tool & Die
X-Newsreader: MT-NewsWatcher 2.4.4

Down, down went our ship. We really were suprised. The probe had reported "life" but we had not expected this kind of life! A giant flower was the first thing we saw, 60 metres high! Man-sized winged snakes flew overhead!

We landed. The ladder came down and we descended. We set up a temporary base. I watched a "snake" come down and sip some sort of nectar from the flower and pollenate it. I've called them "space bees" ever since. One space bee landed. I found that it was harmless. Space bees did not sting!

It slithered along the ground like a snake and made a squawking sound. It then crawled under me, tossed its head, and with me on top, opened its wings, squawked, and flew away.

"Hey, wait!" yelled my companion, Mike. The bee swooped again and picked him up. "Whoa!" he shouted. "Whoa, you space drone! Boy, this is some steed!" "Yes, Mike," I replied. I called the bee "Drone" from then on. The planet had a reddish surface. It was catalogued as Kappa Z of solar system P25-A.

I'll flash back a while...

When an electron cloud comes around, you know it. First, there are the lights. They glare in your eyes as you plunge in. The worst thing is that you can't steer out of them. They're attracted to your ship. Then you hear a loud crackle in the radio-- before it gets goofed up and you lose contact. About that time your ship gets charged. It is repelled and you plunge out as fast as you plunged in-- thousands of kilometers from where you came in...

That was what happened to us. And we were relieved when we saw that we were near a planet-- Kappa Z. We send the robot probe out, and that was how we found life.

Well, here we are back at the beginning... We were riding on Drone. He flew through the air to a cave. "What's this?" I asked. "Why, the bee's hive," said Mike. (The only radioes not damaged were the short-range ones we talked to each other with.) Inside were some more space bees. Actually, their nectar-gathering habits were their only similarity to bees. They were rather advanced creatures. They slithered on the cave floor, hovered above it, and put the nectar in a pit so that it made a kind of honey after it sat. We tried some through our food tubes; it tasted sweeter than clover honey.

Somehow, the "bees" could radio-transmit their squawking; we heard it over our radioes. We lived on the nutritious honey and our freeze-dried food. We had our first problem came after a few weeks, when we found out something about the flowers.

We discovered that before, the flowers were in a torpor-- "asleep." But now they woke up! It was marked by the bee's refusal to pollinate them. We dragged Drone out and we headed toward a flower. When we got there, sticky tendrils shot out and grabbed us! I turned on my suit jet and zipped up just in time. Mike was trapped-- the tendril had wrapped around his jet. "Try to turn it on, Mike!" I told him, dodging the sticky arms. Mike was being thrust into one of two openings-- "mouths"-- that led to one of two bulbous organs-- "stomachs." "Turn it on!" I yelled. He did! The tendril sticking to him, he flew, by suit jet, around the "mouths" and tied the tendril into a knot, tying the "mouths" together. The plant pulled them apart and became timid. Drone transmitted some squawks to the cave and the "bees" came over and renewed their honey supply richly. We kept the plant content by feeding it our last supplies of meat. We didn't need it, anyway.

We were beginning to wonder if we would ever leave the planet. In a while, I had an idea. We talked into Drone's ear. "Base-- Base 35QP-- we are stuck on Kappa Z-- electron cloud accident." Drone opened his mouth and out came "We read. We will send help. Over." And help did come. A rescue ship. We left Drone on the planet, but I visited, and I talked to him via radio from then on.

-- 
Matt McIrvin    http://world.std.com/~mmcirvin/