From: lazuli@byron.u.washington.edu (Fred Sloniker)
Newsgroups: alt.callahans
Subject: And now, for something completely different.
Date: 21 Jan 1993 19:18:36 GMT
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
NNTP-Posting-Host: byron.u.washington.edu

In a previous article, Splash! wrote:

>Splash looks up as the newcomer arrives, and strolls over to the bar where Laz
>and Thyra are having a drink.  Laz looks up cautiously as a "normal"
>looking human male wearing shorts and a t-shirt approaches, sweating
>slightly.  "Gidday, I'm Splash ... the bar's resident marine biologist,
>from Western Australia.  As you can tell, it's slightly warm there at the
>moment - mid-summer, yahoo!  Anyway, enough of personal biases about
>weather (a pet topic of mine) ... can I shout you your next drink?"

Laz grins at Splash, motioning for him to join him and Thyra.  "Shout me
my..." he begins, then shakes his head.  "Nevermind.  Actually, I'm still
working on this one.  But thanks anyway."  He takes another sip of his
cocoa.  "Australia, eh?  I've always wanted to--"  But he is cut off, as--

(--as his typist receives mail from Andrea Evans, who isn't allowed to post
 from work, requesting he post something for her.  He obliges.)

>Another night in the Place. Hugs and greetings, conviviality and good cheer.
>The buzz of conversation is loud, continuous and punctuated with laughter
>and the rattle of peanuts. Then, those patrons with hair, fur or feathers
>feel them bristle as a strong wave of static electricity washes over the
>Place. Clothing clings to limbs, and pinpoint sparks arc from fingertips to
>metal. There is a vicious burst of electrical discharge, snarling and
>crackling just outside the Inn, and the night is banished by a savage blue
>glare of lightning. A neat semicircular section of the wall facing onto the
>street ceases to exist, sliced out of being and replaced by a convex wall of
>searing blue-white, whipping rays of interlaced lightning.

>Then, without warning, the ravening noise and radiance is shut off.
>Silhouetted in the opening, is a nightmarish creature from the dark between
>the stars. Over nine feet tall, its exoskeleton has the hard solid look of
>gunmetal, so dark grey it is black. But the smooth fluidity of its movement
>makes you feel sure this is no inanimate mechanism. Its form has the eerie
>cold beauty of all deadly weapons, the sleek efficiency of design with intent
>to kill. Its elongated head swivels silently from side to side as it trains
>its nameless senses on its surroundings. Its mouth opens, displaying complex
>rows of glittering fangs, needle-pointed, razor-edged, harder than diamond.
>Its voice is a hissing shriek, a thin, chilling sound, surprisingly quiet
>for a creature of its size. Taloned claws open and flex as it drops into a
>wary crouch, ready to move in any direction. Its tail, long and supple and
>ending in a wicked swordbladed spike, is arched like a scorpion's. Caution
>screams in every line of the creature's coiled stance. You wait for it to
>move, to attack. It remains absolutely motionless, its eyeless head still
>scanning the room.

(and, with that duty dispensed with...)

Laz sets his cocoa down on the bar, and walks over to the creature.  "Shame
on you!" he says to the creature, strangely unafraid of it.  "Look what you
did to the wall!"  He tsks slightly.  "Oh well.  Can't be helped now, I
suppose... anybody got something we can use to plug this gap?" he asks the
bar, now ignoring the acid-dripping killing machine like it was his brother
asking him to read his English report.

				---Fred M. Sloniker, typing for
				   L. Lazuli R'kamos, Squirrel Without Fear
				   lazuli@u.washington.edu