Excerpts from Out of Tune

"The tank-like doka bug wheeled over the snaking roots and loose soil of Planet Orn with an air of pomposity. Its heavily-armoured body easily bulldozed through the rough terrain – rough for a centimeter-long beetle-like insect anyway. Unlike an Earth beetle, the doka bug had evolved specialized appendages that acted as toothed wheels surrounded by a membranous tread, allowing it to plow easily through the Ornian landscape. Its exoskeleton consisted of several layers of chitinous plates, which offered nearly perfect protection against predation. Because of this, the doka bug roamed around with complete confidence – some might even say arrogance. True, it was blessed with evolutionary gifts that rendered it highly adapted to the natural environment on Planet Orn. However, the environment had changed dramatically in recent years, and perhaps the doka was not quite as well-evolved as it thought. In fact, there was a distinct possibility that its inflated ego was no longer merited. Oblivious to this notion, the doka bug trundled along, hoping to happen upon a suitable mate. It had been trundling for quite some time – forty-two days to be exact – nearly the entire life expectancy of the tiny creature, and in all that time it had not come across a single specimen of its own genus, let alone its own species. It was running out of time to pass on its superior genes to a brood of lucky offspring. Of course, the doka bug’s simple nervous system did not enable it to form such complex thoughts, but its instincts hinted at a vague sense of urgency."

"Linda Pumpernickel awoke with a start to the sound of a large vehicle speeding past her bedroom window. She nearly jumped out of her leathery skin as the back end of the truck collided with the curb and crashed down to the pavement on the other side. She felt around blindly for her thick glasses and caught sight of the Anti-Pro delivery truck just as it lurched around another corner, again failing to dodge the curb. Linda was almost certain she saw a piece fly off, although she could never be too certain these days, what with her declining vision and increasingly vivid imagination. What she was certain of, however, was the odd feeling of empathy gnawing at her amygdala the same way each street corner gnawed at that poor truck’s undercarriage. She envisioned more pieces of machinery flying off the vehicle as it careened helplessly down the road, destination unknown, unable to slow itself down. It could survive quite a few dings, the loss of its headlights, a wiper blade. . . but what would come of the poor beast when its motor was inevitably penetrated? What about its tires? A tear formed in the corner of her left eye as she pictured the truck struggling to continue forward, slowing down, engine sputtering, coughing up vital fluids, until it could go no further and stopped lifeless and abandoned at the side of the road. "She snapped out of the daydream and lifted up her glasses to wipe away the tear before it could drop. She scolded herself for relating so strongly to an inanimate object, remembering what had happened when her great uncle Theodore had done the same. Linda suddenly became aware of the throbbing in her temples and the burning at the base of her esophagus. Her back creaked as she reached for the bottle of antacid that lived on her bedside table. She took a swig and almost choked when she noticed the time displayed on her antique two-dimensional alarm clock. Had she really slept in until ten o’clock? She really was letting herself go. She felt a pang of guilt for wasting the morning, but what else would she have done? She didn’t have any important business to attend to. She didn’t have much business at all. Since her retirement nearly five years ago, the amount of business in her life had decreased dramatically. Much like the air in that poor truck’s tires."

"Near the center of the elliptical Slyneid galaxy, the Molasses planet monotonously revolved around an unextraordinary star. Slightly less monotonous (but only slightly) was the training session that was taking place near the surface of the planet’s gooey exterior. Two young larvaluxi were trying their best to stay awake as the elder cochlean described the rules of the listentower in excruciating detail. If one of them fell asleep, they knew the grumpy elder would have it out on them. But it was exceedingly difficult to stay awake when the adult’s instructions were whispered so quietly. The elder cochlean had much more sensitive hearing than the younger larvaluxi and could not breach the surface of its planet for more than a few minutes at a time. In fact, adult cochleans had the most sensitive hearing of any sentient being in the universe. They received their common name due to their striking resemblance to the human cochlea, a small, spiral-shaped organ located in the inner ear. In humans, this organ contains billions of tiny hair cells, which bend in response to vibrations in the air caused by sound waves. Subsequently, the hair cells transmit nerve impulses to the brain, which then interprets the impulses as sounds, and that, in a nutshell (or perhaps more accurately, a cockle shell), is how humans hear. The bodies of adult cochleans functioned in much the same way, only they were much larger, approximately three to six meters in diameter, and contained many more hair cells of varying shapes and sizes. This allowed them to not only hear extremely faint sounds, but also to detect an extremely large range of pitches and to locate their sources. "Such sensitive hearing was both a blessing and a curse for the elder. It was a blessing because she relied on sound waves to create her own nutrition through phonosynthesis in the same way that a plant relies on light for photosynthesis. That, and it was very easy to eavesdrop. Her curse was that her hearing was so sensitive that she had to spend most of her time submerged in the goo that comprised her planet – goo that had a similar consistency to the molasses after which it was named. The high viscosity of the goo was difficult for soundwaves to travel through, which made life bearable for her. Bearable, but not particularly enjoyable, which was why, like most other adult cochleans, she was almost always in a foul mood."