“The title indicates anatomy: I think it’s called Mouth or Mandibles or something like that.”
“Jaws?”
A couple of months ago in the desert of New Mexico, gigantic ants were discovered. These ants are similar in appearance and characteristics to the household and garden pests you are familiar with, except that they are mutations ranging in size from nine to twelve feet in length.
His bulldozer progress came to an abrupt halt as what he had confidently believed was an irresistible force ran into what was in fact an immovable object. In point of fact, it was a man in a blue and gray uniform he’d never seen before. A very tall man, the better part of twelve centimeters taller then he was. And a very broad man, who must have weighed at least two hundred kilos . . . none of it fat.
He had soft eyes, dark gray with just a hint of tangerine…and flame orange hair with streaks of gray programmed into it, and the colors shifted when he shook his head. It was hard to believe he was a cop. Or rather, a security comsim overseer. “Cops” are for backwards asteroids like Eggroll.
All these worlds are yours, except Europa. Attempt no landing there.
The ship arced out of a golden sky and landed with a whoop and a wallop that cut down a mile of lush vegetation. Another half mile of growths turned black and drooped to ashes under the final flicker of the tail rocket blasts. That arrival was spectacular, full of verve, and worthy of four columns in any man’s paper. But the nearest paper was distant by a goodly slice of a lifetime, and there was none to record what this far corner of the cosmos regarded as the pettiest of events. So the ship squatted tired and still at the foremost end of the ashy blast-track and the sky glowed down and the green world brooded solemnly all around.
This is an emergency from merchant vessel Hunter Gratzner, en route to the Tangiers system with commercial passengers on board. We’ve been knocked out of our shipping lane and entering a planetary body in the following position: X 35/8, Y 98/5, Z 21/6.
What’s the matter? Something wrong?
Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was Oh no, not again. Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the universe than we do now.
“What is it the boy’s father did, Petunia?”
"Nothing. He didn’t work. He was unemployed. "
Does this kid have a job interview?
I just want to go back up to my shed and get drunk.
He had found a Nutri-Matic machine which had provided him with a plastic cup filled with a liquid that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea.
There’s many drinks you’ll drink, me lads, but this one beats them all:
One hundred fifty-three and one-half percent alcohol,
A beer, brewed in a tesseract, that’ll shoot you through the roof –
And if you don’t believe me, I’ve got lots and lots of proof.
Meanwhile, the server brought the spacer her drink, which was a Laser-Drop in a wide-mouthed bottle. Tiny lasers in the glass suffused the drink with color: helium-neon red, zinc-selenium blue, sodium yellow.
“Oh don’t give me no more of that Old Janx Spirit
No, don’t you give me no more of that Old Janx Spirit
For my head will fly, my tongue will lie, my eyes will fry and I may die
Won’t you pour me one more of that sinful Old Janx Spirit”
I made him when I was drunk, and I haven’t the slightest idea how or why. All he’ll do is stand there and admire himself. And sing.
“Then every man would be as a god, you see. The result of this, of course, would be that there would no longer be any gods, only men. We would give them knowledge of the sciences and the arts, which we possess, and in so doing we would destroy their simple faith and remove all basis for their hoping that things will be better—for the best way to destroy faith or hope is to let it be realized.”
Neo, sooner or later you’re going to realize, just as I did, that there’s a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.
“Where are you taking me?” Nanoannie thought she was shrieking, but the sound came out a gravelly rasp.