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Travelogue

Christine scanned the horizon to where Aphos and Lagos were setting in the east. She would never get used to this planet's rotation. Everything seemed backwards on Valduria. The two moons caused the level of the emerald colored sea to fluctuate wildly, drawing back the liquid for several kilometers three times every day at their passing. Gravity was a bitch on Valduria.

Liquid was the best word in English to describe the substance that was contained in that inland sea. The names of the creatures that inhabited it were as hard to pronounce as the monsters themselves were to look at. Outlandish creations, composed of horrendous bulbous features with rows of ragged teeth, made swimming a suicidal adventure. Oh, for the sight of a normal blue sky, and a sun that didn't fill half of it.

"Did I mention the gravity?" she said to herself, mocking the voice of the recruitment officer who had assigned her to this rock in a high falsetto. "You'll get used to it," she continued, "I've been told that there's a slight odor."

No kidding.

Christine had found that by smearing eucalyptus oil below her nose that she could avoid throwing up more than five times a day.

"Join the Diplomatic Corps and be an emissary for Earth." She could still see the garish posters that proclaimed the benefits of travel to distant galaxies, with excitement as well as the great pay hyped as added incentives. If you could call excitement being constantly grossed out, or the salary even marginally adequate, then those posters had been true to their promise.

Learning the language had been a challenge. The Valdurians had a way of fluttering their "tongue" while speaking that was almost impossible to duplicate. That this method of communication resulted in the listener being splattered with saliva was an added bonus not mentioned in the brochures.

Christine had been on Valduria for three long years, and she needed only two more merit points to reach the stellar five hundred mark to qualify for a transfer back to Earth. She longed for the pleasant sights and smells that she had taken for granted during her twenty three years of life back home. This planet was truly the armpit of the universe. Of course there was no word for armpit in Valdurianese because the natives didn't have armpits.

She was currently riding on the back of a snarvel; a snail-like creature that traveled at surprising speed on a constantly renewing layer of slime. The trails on Valduria were thick with a coating of this substance, which

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