Snake World

           I went to another new world today.  I wish there was a map of all these places.  This one was nasty.  I should have just turned around right away.  I didn’t report this planet in my report in Upsetting the Tides.  It wasn’t worth describing in the book, but I wanted to tell you about it because it disturbed me and I can’t stop thinking about it.

I couldn’t tell what color the sky was because there was a fog or mist everywhere.  I would have flown up for a better look, but as you know, I can only use one feature on the phone device at a time and I wasn’t turning off the shield on this trip.  It smelled terrible too.  At first, I thought it smelled like raw eggs but not quite.  Then, maybe sauerkraut.   Anyway, it smelled and it was difficult to see.  I kept my shield on the entire time.

                The only culture I came across was a group of snake-like creatures.  They must have been twenty feet long and a good two feet in diameter.  They were dark green and grayish with black spots on them.  Ugly and disgusting.  I hate snakes, so I really didn’t want to stick around to discover too much about those creatures.  If they had any cities, I didn’t see them with all the mist.  I followed them for a little while, hiding behind trees.  For one brief moment I saw the eyes on one of them.  There was a devious intelligence in there.

All I witnessed was a massacre.  There were a good ten to fifteen of them that herded a group of beasts into an ambush.  I wouldn’t want to go up against these horned, moose-like creatures but the snakes surrounded them and subdued them for dinner in no time.  They just might be the dominant species on that planet but I doubt they would consent to a conversation with me to discuss it.  In the middle of the slaughter I think one of the snakes looked up and saw me.  He just smiled and then went back to eating.  Smiled!  How does a snake smile anyway?  Uhhh.  That was my cue to high-tail it out of there. 

                I would have visited another world after that if I had thought to mark the portal entrance.  I walked back and forth and back and forth looking for the portal for over an hour.  It’s a miracle the snakes didn’t come after me.  I finally did find it and made my way home.  You can see why I left this episode out of my report.  I’ll just add that place to my do not return to list.   Maybe this was one of the places that Tr’zez visited and got beat up.  I’ll have to ask him about that.  

                Clark