Pellistair - Chapters 2 & 3

Chapter Two

Maria woke up the next morning, and was glad to feel that her head felt completely better. After breakfast, Ishka escorted her to Robert’s room again. “I think he’d like to see you” Ishka said. “He’s a bit… Distressed.”

Upon entering Robert’s room, Maria saw that there was a new person there, a lizard with a long, emerald green tail. Then she realized that the lizard was Robert. He was staring at his tail in perplexation “Is it normal for me to turn into a lizard so fast?” He asked Ishka, looking worried.

“Everyone takes a different amount of time to complete their transformation. You appear to be going exceptionally fast. But don’t worry, you won’t suffer from any side effects or anything. In fact, other than your unusually fast transformation, you appear to have completely recovered from the crash.”

Ishka paused here, and looked at Robert and Maria consideringly. “Which brings me to our next topic. The hospital heads have decided that you are both sufficiently recovered, and you may leave the hospital. We’ve also discovered that your space craft wasn’t very badly damaged by the crash, and that some of our mechanics might be able to fix it. Our capital, Pellangua, has the best mechanics on Pellistair, and it’s also where the Bereau of Off World Visitors is. Andrew Duval, the man you talked to yesterday, works there. I will be escorting you to the capital to talk with him and other experts on matters like these, and your space craft will be brought along with us. We leave in two hours.” With that, she stalked out of the room, leaving Maria and Robert by themselves.

“She’s escorting us? Oh dear” Robert said, looking displeased.

Maria laughed. “She’s not that bad, even if she is a bit cold, and has an odd sense of humor. She’ll make sure nothing happens to us.”

“If you say so,” Robert sighed. Then he blinked, and asked “Are you beginning to transform yet?”

“Not that I’ve noticed” Maria said. “Of course I might have started some subtle changes that I haven’t noticed yet.”

Robert sighed again. “Nothing subtle about what’s been happening to me. I get covered in scales, grow a tail, and my ears are starting to sink into my head.”

“They are? It’s a good thing you don’t wear glasses” Maria commented. Robert laughed.

Maybe this is what he needed, Maria thought. A place to forget about what’s going on back on earth, and other things to concentrate on. She looked forward to the trip to the capital with more enthusiasm than she had before.


Ishka stalked down the corridor. True, she was glad to be having a break from the hospital, but she felt like they were trying to get rid of her for awhile. She thought she had heard one of the head nurses muttering something about her needing a break, but she couldn’t be sure.
Maybe I should try finding a different job, she thought, heading down the stairs to the first floor. One where I could actually speak my mind, and not have to worry about everyone else’s well being. At least the two human seem to be able to take care of each other. She’d have to watch out for them in the city, but they seemed sensible enough not to do anything stupid, like wander off and get lost, or insult one of the alligator guards.

Well, maybe I will enjoy this, she thought, stepping out the front door into the sunshine. She could feel herself unwind a few notches. Maybe a break is exactly what I need, she pondered, heading off to arrange their traveling vehicles.

Two hours later, Maria and Robert were standing outside the hospital with two bags full of what they’d been able to salvage from the ship, ready to begin their trip. Maria looked around the town, wishing they could stay longer. All of the buildings were set far apart, with lots of trees between them. Wait a minute, wasn’t that a building in a tree? She peered at it, and was surprised to see a bunch of blue bird people fly out. They looked like children. They swooped around, chasing each other and pulling on each others feathers. She could hear a sort of twittering laughter.

“Are you two ready to go?” A voice asked them from behind. Maria and Robert both started, and turned around to find Ishka standing behind them. She had changed out of the loose green clothing she wore in the hospital, and was dressed in red and yellow clothes.

She smiled at their surprise, and said, “Our transportation is over that way”, elegantly extending a paw towards the left.

As they followed Ishka, Maria and Robert both looked around in wonder. The buildings were brightly painted, and the streets were paved in bright tiles, so bright they were almost hard to look at. A group of lemurs and monkeys played in the trees, throwing a ball to one another and performing elaborate flips and leaps. A turtle lay elegantly in a window, basking in the sun. Everywhere they looked, there were animal people, engaged in some activity or another. Buying, selling, playing, gossiping.

Before they knew it, Ishka had stopped in front of a large metal sled-like thing. Their space ship was perched on top of the sled, and there were several emus and ostriches tied to the front of it. They were preening themselves and talking with each other. One of them saw Ishka, Maria, and Robert approaching, and yelled (more like squawked, Maria thought), “Hey, boys! They’re here!”

“Boys? I’ll remind you that two of us are girls!” An EMU with particularly long eyelashes humphed.

“And very pretty ones at that. Now, we’re going to Pellangua, right?” An ostrich, who looked like the leader, said, trying to prevent an argument from starting, and directing the last question at Ishka.

“Yes, Pellangua. I hope that’s not to hard a trip for you” Ishka said, teasingly.

“Too hard a trip? Why you just watch, we’ll get there before you do!” The ostrich who had spoken first boasted.

The rest of the emus and ostriches joined in the boasting, each one trying to yell the loudest, and each one trying to best the others in tales of distances run and loads pulled. Ishka shook her head. “They may be loud and full of themselves, but they get the job done quickly and efficiently. They’ll be pulling your space craft to the capital.”

“How are we going to get there?” Maria asked. She hoped they wouldn’t have to ride on one of the ostriches or emus. That would just be weird.

“We’ll be taking this,” Ishka said, walking on a bit further and motioning towards their vehicle. It looked a bit like a motorcycle, except all gray, and much rounder than a motorcycle. There were two roomy side cars attached to each side of the vehicle.

“It’s a steam powered motorcycle”, Ishka said, rummaging around in her bag. She fished out three pairs of goggles, and handed a pair each to Maria and Robert, and put a pair on herself. “I’ll drive, and you two will travel in the sidecars.”

Just then, the ostrich and emu pulled sled sped by. “The last ones to Pellangua owe the others winners a meal!” an ostrich hollered.

“Well, we’d better get going, then, hadn’t we?” Ishka said, grinning widely and jumping on the motorcycle. Maria and Robert got into the side cars. As soon as they were in, Ishka started the engine, and they hurled off at a frightening speed. Maria thought she could hear Ishka laughing, but it was hard to tell over the noise.


They traveled all day, and into the night. Except for a few breaks to get out and stretch, they traveled non-stop. Maria must have fallen asleep at some point, because before she knew it, she was being woken up and helped out of the side car. “’re we going to go see the bureau now?” she asked sleepily.

“No”, Ishka said. “It’s the middle of the night, they wouldn’t be very happy to see us now. We’re going to get good nights sleep, and then we’ll go see them.”

Maria hazily saw a big room with long wooden tables, and a dark shadow working at a counter at the end of the room. She was led up a flight off stairs, and then shown into a bedroom. “I’ll wake you up tomorrow. Good night” she heard Ishkas voice say, and then the door closing. Maria plopped down on the bed. I’ll just rest here for a few moments, and then I’ll unpack my bag, she thought, as her eyes closed.


Andrew Duval looked out the window of the steam bus. He was heading back to the capital, after giving a speech at a small, worried town out to the west. Ever since he had arrived, and completed his transformation, the Bureau had been sending him all over the world, talking to people about humans, and what they were like, and whether they were a threat.

Pellistair had no military, and had very few weapons, and everyone was getting increasingly worried about the human visitors. More had been arriving in the last few years, presumably because space ships were becoming better, and the range that they could explore was expanding. A lot of people on Pellistair were worried that one day the humans would find Pellistair on accident, without crashing into it, and that they’d see the lush, pretty much unspoiled planet, with little defenses, and try to take it.

Duval sighed. Part of that was his fault. When he’d first woken up, with all these strange people around him, he had told horrible stories about earth’s weapons, in case the Pellistarians were thinking about taking over earth. This had been a bad idea. Some of the Pellistarians wanted to abandon or even kill him right there, since he seemed like such a violent, ill mannered being.

Thankfully, they hadn’t harmed him, and he had tried to undo some of the damage he’d done by telling them all the good things about earth, and going around giving talks about what to do if humans landed. He was kept very busy, and even after twenty years, no one really trusted him. He didn’t mind, though. It was better than what he had had on Earth.

He just hoped that these two humans hadn’t heard of him. It would complicate things greatly.



Chapter Three

Maria woke up to find sunlight streaming in her window. She got up, wondering how long she’d been asleep, and whether Robert was okay. She got dressed, and realized that she was very hungry.
She headed downstairs to the big room with the tables in it that she had seen earlier. Maybe there would be food there.

Arriving in the room, she saw that it was packed with people of all sorts of different species. A giraffe was hunched up in one corner, gossiping with a mouse, and a group of what looked like cuckoo burras were all laughing uproariously together. There was even a large fish bowl, with a goldfish sitting in it, eating a muffin and nodding in response to what the antelope next to it was talking about.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it here” Maria muttered, looking around her in bewilderment. A tall alligator was cooking something behind the counter. He looked up and saw her, and his face split into truly frightening grin.

“Well, here’s our new visitor” boomed the alligator, coming out of behind the counter and striding towards Maria. Should I run, Maria wondered in the short space of time it took for the alligator to reach her. Before she knew it, the alligator was shaking her hand up and down and talking loudly.

“You’re the first human visitor to this inn while I’ve been working here” he boomed, still shaking her arm up and down. “It’s an honor to have you here, and I hope you enjoy your stay. Would you like some breakfast?” This last thing was said with another frightening grin. Maria wondered whether it was safe here.

The goldfish seemed to notice her agitation, and said, in a bubbly voice, “Don’t worry. He’s perfectly harmless, and by far the best cook I’ve ever met. Go on, let him make you some breakfast”

This reassured Maria a bit, and she followed the alligator up to the counter at the front, wondering what he would cook.


Robert woke up to find that his ears had completely sunken into his head. Where they had been were two holes. He could still hear fine, though. The thing that surprised him the most, though, was the fact that his tail was now two feet longer. He flicked it experimentally. It was a nice tail, he supposed, but he’d rather go back to the way he was.

He hoped Maria was OK, and that she hadn’t started transforming yet. Once she started, there was no way of knowing if she could ever turn back again.

He sighed, and opened his door. He stopped in shock, as a barrage of new smells assaulted him. He could smell food, cooking downstairs, the soap a maid was using down the hall, the varnish on the floor, the smell of peeling paint, and many more smells he had never smelled before. I wonder if this building just has more pungent smells, or whether this is due to my transformation, Robert wondered, heading slowly down the hall.

He had to stop several times before he got down to the dining hall, so that he could pay more attention to the smells. He found he could smell better if he opened his mouth and sort of tasted the air. No one looked at him oddly when he did this, and he saw several other reptiles doing the same thing. Maybe this transformation thing isn’t so bad, he thought, turning into the dining hall.

After just standing in the doorway and sampling all the smells for awhile, he looked around for Maria. He finally saw her sitting at a long counter on the end, in between a hippo and a ferret. He frowned slightly, hoping they weren’t bothering her, and then he noticed a large alligator cooking behind the counter and laughing at something the hippo had said. He headed towards them, wondering what was going on.

Maria was uncomfortable. The hippo had just come up, and was telling lots of loud, bawdy jokes, and talking non-stop. The alligator chef, who she still didn’t know the name of, was cooking and laughing appreciatively at the hippos jokes, and telling a few of his own. She didn’t know why the gray ferret was here. He hadn’t said anything yet, just given her sympathetic looks every so often as the hippo had laughed loudly in her ear.

As the hippo became more engaged in talking to the chef, the ferret spoke at last. “I hear you crashed here on Pellistair a few days ago. I hope you and your companion didn’t suffer any injuries from the crash” he said softly.

Maria was relieved that he didn’t speak loudly, or laugh in her ear. “Yes, we crashed a few days ago, but we managed to get out of it with just a few bruises and bumps.”

Just then, the hippo laughed so loudly that the ferret winced and put his hands over his ears. When Maria looked at him questioningly, he uncovered his ears and said, “I have unusually sensitive hearing, and Martha is particularly loud today”, he nodded towards the hippo. “She’s always particularly happy when something new and unusual happens. I haven’t seen her so happy in months.”

“Am I the new and unusual thing?” Maria asked.

The ferret nodded. “It’s not a bad thing, it just means she’ll probably follow you around for awhile, showing you off to all her new friends.”

“Are all of her friends as loud as she is?” Maria said, looking worried.

The ferret laughed, looking happy for the first time. “No, no one is as loud as Martha. She means well, though, and if you’re in a tight spot and need a friend, she’ll be there for you.”

Just then, Robert showed up behind Martha. “Oh!” She said, noticing him immediately. “You must be Maria’s companion! I’ll let you two sit and talk” she said, grinning widely (her grin was almost as frightening as the chef's, Maria noticed. Martha had a bigger mouth, after all), and hurrying away.

“No doubt hurrying off to tell all her friends about you two, and how she met you two first” the ferret said dryly, shaking his head.
Robert looked at him questioningly. “Oh, I forgot to introduce myself” the ferret said, smiling. “My name is Fedore. I work in a accounting shop, a few blocks away. If you ever need anything, I’ll be glad to help.”

“I’m Maria, and this is Robert” Maria introduced the two of them. “We, as you know, crash landed here, and we’re here in the capital to see the Bureau of Off World Visitors, and to see if our ship can be fixed.”
Fedore straightened slightly. “I thought your ship was destroyed in the crash,” he said carefully.

“No, our ship is actually in pretty good shape” Maria said, “apparently in better shape than any of the other ships that have landed here were. They think they might be able to fix it, so we can go home. Not” she added hastily, “that we haven’t been enjoying our stay here, but we do need to get back.”

“Breakfast’s served!” the alligator interrupted, handing both Maria and Robert plates with piles of food on them. The food smelled and looked so good that Maria only dimly heard Fedore say “If you’ll excuse me” and walk away.

“This looks wonderful!” She exclaimed to the chef, digging in.

“I’m glad you like it”, the alligator said, grinning widely.

After devouring what was on their plates, Maria and Robert sat back, feeling much better, and much more ready for whatever the day brought. “Oh!” Maria said. “I just realized I didn’t introduce myself, or my friend. I’m Maria, and he’s Robert. Thank you so much for the breakfast, but” she stared uneasily at the empty plates, “we don’t have any money to pay you with.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that. Breakfast is free, complements of the inn. And I’m Ambrose, the cook of this inn” the alligator said, shaking both Robert and Maria’s hands at the same time. “Pleased to meet you.” This was said with a large grin.

Martha came bustling back up. “Oh, Ambrose, you’ll never guess what I just heard!” she said excitedly.

“Do tell”, Ambrose said, settling down to hear her story. This left Robert and Maria to themselves.

“I wonder where that ferret, Fedore, went” Robert mused.

“I don’t know, I was too busy staring at the food” Maria said, sighing at the memory of it.

“And I was to busy smelling it” Robert laughed, telling Maria about his newfound sense of smell.

Maria was envious. “I wonder when I’ll start transforming. It would be so cool to have a better sense of smell, or a better sense of hearing. I wonder how long it took Mr. Duval to transform” she wondered. “Andrew Duval… I’ve heard that name somewhere.”

“Maybe you’re thinking of the 20th century actor, James Duval” Robert offered.

“That’s probably it” Maria agreed.

“Time to go.” They turned around to see Ishka standing behind them.

“Does she enjoy scaring people, I wonder?” Robert whispered to Maria. Maria only had time to grin before Ishka whipped them out of the inn, waving to Ambrose as they went, and out on the street.