The alien's luck improves when he chances to meet Karen, a girl who dreams of space adventure. Thanks to his powers of telepathy, he can communicate with his new ally, who gives him the all-too-fitting nickname Stinker. Although he finds Earth technology primitive, Stinker is helpless to return to Sylon with crucial information for the battle against the Zarnk. Karen enlists her computer-savvy classmate, Jonathan, in carrying out an ambitious plan to "borrow" a space shuttle. In the meantime, the three must avoid drawing the attention of their families, NASA, and the Zarnk as well as the local skunk population. This thrilling escapade will enchant young science-fiction fans.
The alien's luck improves when he chances to meet Karen, a girl who dreams of space adventure. Thanks to his powers of telepathy, he can communicate with his new ally, who gives him the all-too-fitting nickname Stinker. Although he finds Earth technology primitive, Stinker is helpless to return to Sylon with crucial information for the battle against the Zarnk. Karen enlists her computer-savvy classmate, Jonathan, in carrying out an ambitious plan to "borrow" a space shuttle. In the meantime, the three must avoid drawing the attention of their families, NASA, and the Zarnk as well as the local skunk population. This thrilling escapade will enchant young science-fiction fans.
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Overview
The alien's luck improves when he chances to meet Karen, a girl who dreams of space adventure. Thanks to his powers of telepathy, he can communicate with his new ally, who gives him the all-too-fitting nickname Stinker. Although he finds Earth technology primitive, Stinker is helpless to return to Sylon with crucial information for the battle against the Zarnk. Karen enlists her computer-savvy classmate, Jonathan, in carrying out an ambitious plan to "borrow" a space shuttle. In the meantime, the three must avoid drawing the attention of their families, NASA, and the Zarnk as well as the local skunk population. This thrilling escapade will enchant young science-fiction fans.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780486822679 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Dover Publications |
| Publication date: | 05/25/2017 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 96 |
| Lexile: | 820L (what's this?) |
| File size: | 282 KB |
| Age Range: | 8 - 12 Years |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Stinker from Space
By Pamela F. Service
Dover Publications, Inc.
Copyright © 1988 Pamela F. ServiceAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-486-82267-9
CHAPTER 1
Fugitive
Again the deadly blue light engulfed him. Flinching from the brilliance, Tsynq Yr struggled with the controls. Abruptly his scout ship veered away, and the cool glow faded.
He knew he was a crack space pilot, one of the best in the Sylon Confederacy, but that Zarnk cruiser was closing on him fast. He was hopelessly outgunned and outpowered in this cheap scout ship he'd had to steal to escape the orbital fort. What he wouldn't give now for his own trim little Sylon fighter.
Blue radiance flared again, and Tsynq Yr abruptly changed the ship's course. He could not let them get him now. Three years of miserable skulking and spying, and finally he'd pieced it all together. He'd found out the Zarnk plan for attacking the Delta Arm of the Confederacy. He must get that information back to Sylon High Command, and he wasn't about to let a blundering Zarnk cruiser stop him.
The cramped cabin burst into blue glare. On Tsynq Yr's right, the control panel fizzed and crackled.
He surveyed the damage. Now that's done it! The stabilizers were out. There was only one choice left, he realized, and he didn't like it. The maneuver was difficult and dangerous at the best of times. In this piece of flying space scrap....
Before the Zarnk could fire again, Tsynq Yr slid the drive control to the top of the scale, well beyond the safety limit. The little ship shuddered and shot off through space. With the rising speed, the blackness around him began to waver and vibrate as he neared the fringes of hyperspace. This ship was not equipped to make the jump into that dimension, but with skillful piloting and split-second timing, it skipped along the dimensional boundaries like a stone skips over water.
Tensely Tsynq Yr played the controls. If he didn't obliterate himself, this little trick should throw off pursuit for a time, enough time perhaps for him to repair the ship or find some Sylon reinforcements.
As space pulsed and shivered around the speeding ship, an alarming hum rose from the controls. That last Zarnk hit must have done more damage than he'd thought. Suddenly the hum turned into a scream and the ship abruptly lost speed, spinning off through black, star-spotted space.
When, with much cursing, he'd brought the spinningunder control, Tsynq Yr looked out at those stars. Where was he? Skipping along the edges of hyperspace played havoc with physical location, and he had no idea where he'd been dropped off. Of course, his pursuers wouldn't either, but that would be no help if he'd been plunked somewhere in the Zarnk Dominion.
But no, the stars showed he was in neither Zarnk nor Sylon territory. Terrific! Exploring uncharted regions was all very well, but not when he had top secret information to pass on.
A quick glance at the smoking control panel showed that here he was and here he was likely to remain, at least until he could work some repairs. He trained his scanners on the nearest star system. Planets, yes, mostly useless. One marginal, one fully habitable. He homed in on the latter.
If the Zarnk ever managed to trace his wild route here, this planet would be an all too obvious refuge, but he had no choice. His little ship was making new alarming sounds.
He sped toward the target, a globe swirling with greens and blues and whites. Pleasant-looking, all right, but too much water. With half the ship's systems out, this landing was going to be rough enough. Tsynq Yr hoped it would at least be on land.
Plummeting down toward the planet's night side, he knifed into the atmosphere. Too steep. He tried to pull up but failed. Worse, he seemed to be heading into a local storm system.
Dark clouds closed in. Everywhere the atmosphere discharged in long forked bolts. Suddenly the ground, splotched with vegetation, was hurtling toward him. Too fast. Much too fast.
When Tsynq Yr awoke, he realized two things. First, his ship was nearly destroyed. Second, he was dying.
This body had served him well. At first, he'd taken it on merely as a convenience to his spy mission. Like most active Sylons, he'd lost track of how many bodies he'd used since the one he'd had at birth. But this body had worked well, was attractive in its own way — and he'd grown attached to it.
And he would die in it, too, if he didn't find a suitable host — soon. His mind cast about, seeking life forms. Vegetation was plentiful, but all seemed rooted and subintelligent. He sensed other creatures that did move, but he probed and found they weren't much more intelligent than the plants. Tiny flying creatures seemed interested only in finding out if his own dying body was good to eat.
Desperate now, he probed elsewhere. Here was something larger. It wriggled through the soil, but its brain was negligible. He doubted his intelligence could even fit into it. And besides, it had no appendages. He could never repair a ship in that body.
Suddenly the thing he probed at was snatched up and eaten by another creature. This new one would have to do. He hadn't the strength to look further. Yes, there was a brain, not a big one, but he'd worked with worse. And there were even hands of sorts.
With his last shred of strength, Tsynq Yr shot his being into the alien creature. The native's intelligence registered brief surprise before it was pushed to the back of the mind and the Sylon took over.
Beady black eyes blinked as he gazed at the alien world around him. Vegetation everywhere, tall and short, orange, brown, and green. Moisture blew from a clouded night sky. His eyes, it seemed, were designed for seeing in the near dark.
Curiously Tsynq Yr examined his new body. There was a head and a tail, and four short legs supporting a body that was low to the ground. Mammalian, apparently; the whole body was covered with hair.
That hair was clearly the most impressive feature. It was long, soft, and marked in a striking pattern. The background was glossy black. White capped the head, and two bold white stripes swept down the back and out onto the bushy plume of a tail. Quite handsome, really.
CHAPTER 2Meeting in the Woods
Dark Destroyer dropped in beside the Princess of Light. One by one the other action figures followed before Karen slammed down the lid.
Swinging the old battered lunchbox in one hand, she clattered down the stairs and into the kitchen. Her mother looked up, her face taut with the unfamiliar strain of sewing curtains.
"Going out to play?"
"Yes," Karen replied as she scooped several peanut butter cookies into her pocket.
Mrs. Blake's frustration over the curtains ricocheted against her daughter. "Karen, honestly! Why don't you ever play with anyone?"
"Oh, Mother! There's no one here I want to play with."
"We've been here two whole months now, Karen. Surely you've made some friends by now."
Karen swayed by the doorway, hand itching to grab the knob. "Oh sure, some of the girls at school are okay, but they aren't like. ... They don't play my sort of games." She'd barely avoided saying "like Rachel." Her mother had threatened to scream if she whined any more about leaving her best friend behind in their old hometown.
Karen sidled toward the door. "These girls just want to dress up, put on makeup, and play with dolls."
"And those things in the lunchbox aren't dolls, I suppose?"
Karen sputtered indignantly. "These are action figures! They aren't silly dolls that wet and poop on demand. They're characters in great interstellar dramas, adventurers bounded only by imagination!" She placed her hand on the doorknob and threw out a line that was sure to divert her mother's train of thought. "Besides, all the other girls live in town."
"Yes, your father would choose a picturesque 'handyman's delight' way out in the sticks." Mrs. Blake sighed and gave the curtain an angry stab with her needle. "But still, it's not completely isolated out here. Why don't you play with that kid who lives up the road?"
"But he's a boy!"
"Well, I can't help that. Besides, if you're so nuts about space, you two should be made for each other. I understand he's wacky over space, too."
"Mother, it's not the same at all. When Jonathan Waldron looks at stars, all he sees is numbers and facts — not the drama, the romance!"
Sewing calmly again, her mother seemed to ignore this comment. "I was talking with his mother the other day, and she said Jonathan's room is full of space posters and models, and he knows the names of every astronaut, Soviet or American, since the year dot."
"There weren't any astronauts in the year dot."
"Talk about being too factual! Oh, go on out and play."
Quickly Karen slipped out the door. Last night's storm had polished the sky to a bright blue. Against it, the autumn colors of the woods ahead rose like a jeweled crown.
Freed from parental plans, she skipped toward those trees, heading for the hidden clearing she had already made her special place. But as she hopped over the rain puddles, she found herself still thinking about Jonathan Waldron.
He might be interested in space, but he was a real nerd nonetheless. All numbers and no soul. It was bad enough having to ride the bus with him. But be friends with him? In school Jonathan was a whiz in math and science, but hopeless in English. His poems stank. Of course, she thought with a giggle, boys stink generally. Still, she wouldn't mind seeing his room and all those models and posters.
Reaching the clearing, Karen dropped all unpleasant thoughts. It was breathtakingly beautiful here. In the brilliant sunlight, the flaming red maple leaves glowed like stained glass. Settling down among the maple's gnarled roots, she leaned back and looked up at the gleaming leaves. She was a medieval princess taking refuge in an ancient cathedral. The stark white branches of the sycamore across the clearing were the soaring marble pillars. Or maybe she was a princess on another planet, taking refuge in the heart of the giant Sacred Jewel to escape the soldiers of the Dark Empire.
Opening the lunchbox, she spilled the action figures over the grass. Birds chirped busily in the leafy recesses of the woods. From a distance, the crisp air carried the tang of burning leaves. It mingled with the rich moldy odor of damp earth and fleeting whiffs of woodsy animals.
Although Tsynq Yr's first hours on this planet had been trying ones, he was fairly pleased with his new body. The creature's native intelligence was not high, but the brain was adaptable, and Sylon intelligence was very compact. And besides looking elegant, the little beast had some very interesting senses. Hearing and eyesight were keen, and there was another sense, the olfactory one, that he'd seldom had before. Life was suddenly full of interesting odors, not the least of which was his own.
The state of his ship, however, was far less satisfactory. It had smashed into the boggy earth, and the outside structure had all but disintegrated. Already the remains were sinking from sight. Somehow, he'd have to construct or borrow another vehicle.
That meant finding out something about the level of native civilization. During his fateful descent, the little ship's scanners had shown signs of civilization on this planet, but he had no idea how advanced it was.
He had set out to discover this about the time dawn came to this world, with its medium-size sun appearing in the east. His host's body was suddenly telling him it was time to sleep. He put aside that message easily enough, but messages from the empty stomach were harder to ignore.
His rations were gone with the ship, so he let his body's instincts take him to food. Soon he was industriously turning over dead logs and snapping up the bugs and fat white grubs underneath. He didn't dare let his own instincts rise to the surface, for fear he'd be instantly sick. Even so, the rotten raw bird's egg he ate was almost too much.
It was the smell of food enticing to both his selves that brought him to the clearing. Under a red-leafed tree, a bipedal creature was sitting, eating a round flat piece of food.
His mind as well as his sense of smell reached out, and instantly he realized that here was a species of considerable intelligence. Perhaps one of this planet's civilized beings. Artificial garments, large brain capacity. He probed into the thoughts.
There was a running account of soldiers of a vast interstellar empire pursuing the female monarch of a rival power. So these beings had achieved space travel. He was in luck!
He decided to make himself known — mentally. His new body clearly didn't have much speech ability. How should he start — ask what sort of space drive they used? Maybe he should inquire if they had any knowledge of the Sylon Confederacy or the Zarnk Dominion. Or maybe, part of him urged, he should just ask what the creature was eating.
"I am dreadfully hungry," he thought. "Would you share some of that?"
The girl looked startled, then muttered, "Karen, you dope, don't have Dark Destroyer ask for a peanut butter cookie."
"He wasn't asking, I was," came the thought as Tsynq Yr stepped into the clearing.
Karen's look of surprise changed to alarm. Slowly she stood up and began backing away.
The Sylon stopped advancing and studied her. She was clearly frightened — of him. Puzzled, he probed her mind. It had something to do with the olfactory sense. A word jumped to the front of her thoughts, a word with very negative associations. Skunk.
CHAPTER 3An Alliance
Karen backed up slowly. She didn't like abandoning her loyal band of action figures but was afraid any sudden move would startle the skunk into stinking at her.
"I won't stink at you!" came an indignant thought.
"You will, too. You're a skunk!" Karen shook her head violently. "Hold it, kid," she said to herself. "Better go play dress up with the other girls if you're going to start making up dialogue for skunks."
"You didn't make it up. I said that. But don't worry about your model creatures. My main interest at the moment is with the object you're eating."
Bewildered, Karen looked at the half-eaten peanut butter cookie in her hand. Hesitantly she threw it into the clearing. "Here," she said aloud. "But if you think I'm going to talk, or think, at animals that can't talk, you're crazy."
Tsynq Yr waddled toward the cookie and after an ecstatic sniff began munching, his thoughts unhindered by the crumbs in his mouth. "Delicious. But you are being most unreasonable. I am obviously not an animal that can't talk, since you are talking with me."
"You are an animal that can't talk!" she thought back.
"You are a skunk, and skunks can't talk."
"Obviously, then, I am not a skunk. This is really very good. Have you got any more?"
Automatically her hand went to her pocket and she threw another cookie onto the grass. "So what are you then? You certainly look like a skunk. And smell like one, too, I bet." Suddenly she clenched her fists. "No! I will not talk, or think, at a skunk!" Deliberately she turned around and started walking away.
"Oh well, I suppose you aren't intelligent enough for curiosity."
"Don't you think insults at me!"
"You were thinking some pretty insulting things about my odor."
"That's because you're a. ... Oh, this is impossible! All right, all right, what are you if you are not a skunk? And don't think I believe in you just because I'm thinking at you." She took a few steps back. The black and white creature in front of her was licking crumbs off the grass.
"First let me ask you if the terms Zarnk or Sylon are familiar to you."
"No, they're not." Mentally the answer felt honest to him. "But," she continued, "I asked you a question first."
"All right, then, I'll tell you. I'm in the Space Corps of the Sylon Confederacy. A Zarnk cruiser was after me, and I had to oscillate along the hyperspace boundary to escape. My flimsy little scout ship was damaged, however, and I spun out into this sector. Then when I tried to land here for repairs the ship was completely wrecked. Now I need help getting off your planet."
"Oh," Karen said, sitting down again at the base of the tree. Her mind registered fear, fading into doubt, fading into interest and finally excitement. But there was no extreme surprise, confirming for Tsynq Yr that these people were familiar with space travel and extraplanetary life.
"So," Karen said aloud, leaning back against the tree trunk, "let me get this straight. You're a skunk from outer space, some bad guys are after you, and you need to get back to some place out there." She waved a hand vaguely at the leaf framed sky.
"Right. Except I am not really a skunk. I borrowed this body from a passerby. My earlier body was fatally injured in the crash."
"Wow," she said shaking her head. "Do you change bodies all the time?"
"No, not all the time. It takes too much energy. I only do it in dire need."
"Oh." She was silent a moment, then reached into her pocket. "Would you like another?"
"Yes indeed. What are they?" He ambled forward, his white striped nose twitching eagerly.
"They're cookies, made with peanut butter."
"Peanut butter?" His whiskers tickled her outstretched hand as, squatting on his hind legs, he retrieved another cookie. "I imagine I'd like this in any body. Maybe I should take some home with me."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Stinker from Space by Pamela F. Service. Copyright © 1988 Pamela F. Service. Excerpted by permission of Dover Publications, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Tsynq Yr, a Sylon scout and pilot, is flying a stolen spaceship behind the enemy lines of the Zarnk Empire. In the course of evading a Zarnk battleship, the Sylon crash-lands his vessel on Earth. Grave injuries force him to abandon his body and assume the form of the only available host—a skunk!
The alien's luck improves when he chances to meet Karen, a girl who dreams of space adventure. Thanks to his powers of telepathy, he can communicate with his new ally, who gives him the all-too-fitting nickname Stinker. Although he finds Earth technology primitive, Stinker is helpless to return to Sylon with crucial information for the battle against the Zarnk. Karen enlists her computer-savvy classmate, Jonathan, in carrying out an ambitious plan to "borrow" a space shuttle. In the meantime, the three must avoid drawing the attention of their families, NASA, and the Zarnk as well as the local skunk population. This thrilling escapade will enchant young science-fiction fans.
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