Page 6 of Smart@ss Cyborg

“REEEEEEE—!”

Followed by a painfully loud, abrasive honk.

“HAAAAAAAWWWWW!”

I clap my hands over my ears.

“REEE-HAAAAAWWW!REE-HAWWW!”

“What is wrong with you?!” I shout over theterrible din.

He continues emitting the screeching honks until he’s out of breath.

Slowly lowering my hands, I puzzle over this bizarre series of actions. I take a step toward him.

He wheels around and gallops away again, evidently ready to repeat the chase cycle sequence.

I, however, am done. Turning from him, I orient myself until I’m pointed in the direction I was at first heading, mentally preparing myself to travel on foot.

“Curses, this place is hot,” I mutter. “And insufferably dry.” I can feel the moisture in my body being pulled out, the killing air sucking it from my skin with impressively frightening evaporation. This is why some reports claim that humans are volatile. No living thing can be subjected to these conditions without going mad.

“This endless heat,” I pant. “With no relief from the scorching, merciless sun? This is immensely unpleasant,” I inform the parched landscape all around me. “But,” I say, nodding slowly to myself, “I figure it’s tolerable. At least this place isn’t experiencing a haboob.”

From my research, a haboob is a violent dust storm with blasting sand that can obliterate visibility and cause difficulty breathing.

I no more than finish speaking when an arid breeze lifts sand grains into the air and pelts my skin and eyes and mouth. I grimace, and grit scrapes my teeth. Since I can still see—albeit by way of painful blinking—I assume this isn’t a haboob… yet. Perhaps it’s simply the start of one.

“Go‘up where they walk,’they said.‘Up where they run.’They should have added‘up where they burn alive in the sun.’ Welcome to planet Traxia,” I mutter, practicing sarcasm.

With the sleeve of my arm, I swipe at my forehead—and the fact that my arm doesn’t bang into my hat reminds me to retrieve my hat before I begin my journey on foot.

Eventually I will reach a town. For now, off in the distance, I see what appears to be a homestead, a speck of a shanty with outbuildings fixed a mite below the horizon.

Jaw set, I set off for it.

My head cants in disbelief when I hear the sound of hoofbeats falling in behind me.

I turn around, and Paco is right at my back. His messily furred ears are pitched so far forward that one touches my sleeve. His eyes are large and keen.

“Paco?” I tell him. “You’re a smartass.”

Unbothered by this observation, he reaches for the handkerchief tucked through one of my belt loops and snatches it whip-fast with his prehensile upper lip and lower set of teeth, yanking it straight off me.

I force myself to swallow calmly, giving my throat something to do besides shout, which is oddly how I feel inclined to react.

I've seen humans shout in vids of course. But Yonderin bachelors are famously imperturbable. Detached, even. I should feel nothing that this animal ejected me from my seat and stole my kerchief.

As I force my eyes on the seemingly endless horizon ahead, out of my periphery, I watch the kerchief disappear into the animal’s mouth, slowly being pulled in by his odd prehensile lips, which swish back and forth as they suck up this article of my clothing.

Long cheekbones appearing puffed, he dares to turn his face in my direction… and he bumps his muzzle against my arm, knocking me in the elbow.

I ignore him. I keep walking.

Easily keeping pace, he bumps me a second time.

I continue to ignore him.

He bumps me a third.

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