Tag: humour

Day# 14 Sqorthk, Animal Phase

a Sqorthk in animal stage for Wheeler's Orbits, by Jande Rowe

Tastes Like Chicken!

Adnirovjyna Sqorthk, Animal Phase: During the rainy season the shell becomes leathery, then soft and peels off to reveal the third phase of this fascinating creature: it is now an animal, capable of pulling itself along the ground in a kind of inch-worm motion, digging its front fin-arms into the soil an hauling itself forward, then stopping to let its long back legs catch up. then it hunches its back and repeats this activity until it is far from the plant of its origin. That is, if carnivorous predators don’t eat it first.

The animal-Squorth gives off a honey-like odour from it’s pebbly skin that carnivores find strangely attractive, and many have learned that the meat under that skin is deliciously sweet and satisfying (As Wheeler soon learns). In the animal stage the Sqorthk is easy prey. It cannot move quickly and has no natural defenses.

In the animal stage it neither eats nor drinks, its main purpose seems apparently to be to move itself as far as possible from the parent plant  so to drop its developing tubers to begin the cycle again. In this regard the Sqorthk has allies in the native peoples as they will protect them from predators, often keeping them as pets, and regularly harvesting their tubers for planting once the rainy season has passed.

Since the Adnirovjyna have a strong taboo against eating the Sqorthk during their animal stage, would it be any wonder that Wheeler’s appetites could bring them to the very brink of interplanetary war? Or at least, very bad feelings?