By Zimri A. Z. Zoran
The knock at her workshop door startled the vaether out of Eulalia Clune. She flailed, her arms nearly sending the nebulum condensers on her crafting table crashing into the plasma generator.
If she had her way, whoever invented knocking would be vaporized in the galaxy’s largest imperial starsteam engine and served with starberry tea and crumpets to the space station doxies. But she’d settle for kicking in the kneecaps of whatever consarned foozler dared knock without warning. Every kneecap—however many the knocker had.
“Clune! I require your assistance!” A holler sounded from the door.
“Identification unrecognized.” Eulalia tried to imitate a house AI.
“Cluney, open the door!”
“Gears and gaskets.” Eulalia groaned. The quirky cosmologist would stand on her doorstep forever. He’d certainly done it before.
She wound a crank. Gears churned, rolling the door upward. Scientist Zebulon Keefe ducked inside. He wiped her blueprints off her workbench and carefully set a preservation cloche in their place.
Eulalia sighed. The suckers on her thick, prehensile tail plucked up her fallen blueprints. Her first pair of hands gathered and stacked her papers. She folded her second pair of arms across her chest and approached the workbench.
A stinging, noxious gas assaulted her nose. “What have you brought?”
Keefe stooped, his spindly legs spread wide, leaned his elbows on the table, and squinted into the cloche. “A water planet specimen.”
“So you bobbed a bauble from the swill that has you completely gollywhomped, and concluded I could be of aid?” Eulalia resisted the urge to kick his ridiculous knobby kneecaps while trying to maneuver around his awkward stance. Planting her suckers on the floor, she stood on her tail, lifted her legs and folded them. She squinted over Keefe’s shoulder.
The cloche swirled with murky liquid.
“Why not consult your peers aboard the laboratory satellite? They possess better means to assist you.”
Keefe’s shining third eyelids blinked, sending beams of light across her equipment.
“You wish to gunk up my gadgets, then?” Eulalia motioned to her perfectly polished inventions.
Keefe nodded eagerly. Eulalia’s corset constricted under the weight of her sigh. She presented an array of magnification machines while Keefe directed his shining eyelids into the cloche.
Keefe took a portwriter from the table and spoke as he typed. “The sample is oblong, green, of an uneven texture and has a blunt, roughened crown.”
Eulalia swallowed her disgust and gritted her teeth. “No, keep silent.”
“Its overall shape is similar to a felophant’s…”
“Nose! The word is ‘nose.’”
Keefe’s eyelids retreated, and he thumbed his chin. “That too, I suppose. But it’s far more alike to a felophant’s—”
“Please, no!”
“—ear mites.”
“Thunderation, Keefe! I feel ill.” Eulalia’s four hands fanned her face.
Keefe ignored her. “May I use your scopes?”
“If I manage not to vomit,” she grumbled. She placed her scope headset on him and tweaked the settings.
Keefe leaned forward, peering through the lenses and nearly pressing his face against the cloche. “Miraculous! This specimen is alive. Explosions ignite upon its surface, as if destruction awaits anything it touches. Perhaps its imprisonment serves to protect the universe. It must contain incredible power. A god, perhaps?”
Honestly? Eulalia tugged on the strap of her scopes. “Allow me a peep.”
Eulalia plucked the scopes from his head and studied the green mass. The specimen did alarmingly resemble a felophant ear mite. It had no limbs, however, and something bubbled upon the object’s surface.
Eulalia hummed. “Keefe, are you positive this isn’t a passel of microbes munching a rotting, foreign vegetable?”
Keefe floundered. “I say, Clune, who is the scientist?”
Eulalia lifted her scopes. “Who? Do elaborate. You and I are alone…”
Keefe huffed, the fur on his hackles rising.
“What was your field of study, Keefe?” she continued. “’Twas a dreadfully long time ago. I seem to have forgotten.”
His nose wrinkled. “Theoretical Science. Surely you’d have remembered had you been younger.”
“If my age hasn’t corrupted my memory, theoretical science is unrecognized by the Scientific Assembly. Thus you are about as qualified to deem this object a god as I am to call it a vegetable.”
Keefe’s furry face went purple. “If you are correct, what would you name it?”
“Hmm… A dull rotting vegetable with juice fleas that reeks of selgik sweat? Perhaps I should name it after you.” She smirked at Keefe’s pout. “And you? What would you call it?”
A wry expression crossed his face. “Ah, a murky-skinned god whose powers wreak havoc upon anything it touches? Shall I gift it your name?”
“What say you to a wager?” Eulalia asked.
Keefe narrowed his eyes. “What manner of wager?”
Eulalia poked his chest. “If you’re correct, you may request a boon of me and name your discovery. If I am victorious, you indulge one demand of mine and relinquish naming rights of both vegetable and juice fleas to me.”
He paused, then swiped the inside of his cheek with his thumb and extended it to her. “Very well. You have my vow.”
She chuckled. “You haven’t heard my demand.”
Keefe’s gaze held on her. “Nor have you heard mine, Eulalia.”
Her given name. Bold. “Well?” she asked.
“If I am victorious, you must leave the workshop and attend luncheon. With me.”
Eulalia held up her unruly mop of hair and gestured at her dirty gown and leather corset. “You certain?”
Keefe’s gaze held steady.
Eulalia chuckled. “You have my attention, Zebulon. Now, if I win…” She hummed. “If I win, you must call yourself a daft zounderkite when you present your discovery before Assembly on the Galactic Broadcast.”
Keefe’s extended thumb wavered, but did not fall. “You have my vow.”
Eulalia swiped her thumb inside her cheek, then entwined it with his. “And you have mine.”
A few moons later, Eulalia tapped her quill on the paperwork while watching the Galactic Discoveries Broadcast. Keefe looked like he wished to drown himself in flea juice during his speech.
She smiled. What should she name it?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Oh my golly, these characters! I love them so much! LOVE THIS!
@Beka: Why, thank you much, friend! I tried! XD
an amusing wednesday read!
Great repartee between these two! Hilarious 😂
What a fun story!! I love the unique vernacular you’ve created and these standout characters! 😆
@SC Steamer: Why thank you!!
@Arlan Gerig: Whew! That’s great to hear! I’m generally not very skilled at humor so it’s always an anxiety-ridden shot in the dark for me!
@Hannah: Thank you muchly, friend!! I am so honored you think so!!
Oh Ma Gerrr, this was a positively delicious and grody piece of literature. So fun, my tounge is so far in my cheek just from reading it, it’s tickling my salivary glands. Loved it. I will read it to my husband who will enjoy it I’m sure, as much as I did.