The weekly newsletter for Fed2 by ibgames

EARTHDATE: January 28, 2007

Official News - page 4

THE AMAZING WORLD OF THE ZLITHERWORM WHISPERER

by Hally Godarkly

Silus Tonkin is a remarkable man. He's very definitely an eccentric. Some would call him mad. He's been denounced by xeno-biologists as a dangerous crackpot, and by hunters as a spoilsport. Why? Because he wants to convince the rest of the Galaxy that they are all wrong, and he is right, about that fearsome creature, the zlitherworm.

Most people don't know very much about zlitherworms - if they have heard of the creatures at all, the extent of their knowledge will probably be that they are very dangerous and should be avoided at all cost. Even xeno-biologists, who are expected to know considerably more about alien beasts, have to admit ignorance about this one.

In preparation for this assignment I checked the Galactic Encyclopedia and the Fed2 Star archives and I found very little information about this alien creature.

Here's what we do know. The zlitherworm is found in the deepest of the deep caves on Castillo, one of the moons orbitting Jupiter, and home for many centuries to a scientific research center. Zlitherworms occasionally venture to the surface - for what reasons, nobody knows. They are not native to the tiny moon, of course - there's no way this lump of rock could ever have developed any kind of life, not even microscopic - but nobody knows how the species came to live on Castillo. Clearly, it was put there, but by whom? Why? How long ago? Popular conspiracy theorists favor the Martians as the culprits, of course, but then they blame the Martians for everything!

We don't know what the zlitherworm eats. We don't know what kind of air it breathes. We know it must breathe something, because dissection of dead beasts has shown it has internal bladders that store reserves of air that let it survive on the surface for a while. This of course leads to the conclusion that there is air of some kind in Castillo's deep caves, which is another mystery...

The one thing we do know, that everyone agrees on, is that the ferocious zlitherworm attacks humans on sight. Many unwary explorers were killed and injured in the early days of the colonisation of the Solar System before humans learnt to steer clear of the zlitherworm. Then, of course, bravoes looking for adventure started going out to hunt the creature, and trophies of mounted zlitherworm heads started to appear - and hunters with arms missing, bitten off by zlitherworms, started earning respect in the sort of circles that admire pointless macho risk-taking.

So, what's with Silus Tonkin?

Mr Tonkin differs in his view of the zlitherworm. He isn't afraid of encountering one - he looks forward to it. He doesn't consider them dangerous, for he is a zlitherworm whisperer!

Silus claims to have learnt zlitherworm body language and to be able to replicate it in such a way that the zlitherworm doesn't see him as a stranger to be attacked, or as food to be killed and eaten. Instead, he is accepted as a zlitherworm himself - a peculiarly-shaped one, to be sure, but a zlitherworm nonetheless.

Until now, Silus has been something of a recluse. Having tried to interest xeno-biologists in his discoveries early in his career and been rebuffed and denounced as a lunatic, he withdrew from human contact and spent all his time in the empty spaces on Castillo. But now he's decided to come out of his seclusion and try to get his point of view across again, and he did that by contacting the Fed2 Star rather than one of the respectable scientific journals that have rejected him in the past. Hazed wanted a top investigative reporter on the story, so of course she turned to me! I set off to Castillo, to talk to Silus and find out if there's anything to his claims to be a zlitherworm whisperer.

I was sceptical at first. Silus Tonkin comes across as a weird fanatic, and while I am as happy as the next newsdroid to write a story poking fun at yet another mad obsessive, I was hoping for something a little more substantial. As he stammered and stuttered through his explanations, his justifications and his accusations, I thought he would turn out to be just one of those "They said Edison was mad!" crackpots who thinks that the fact that nobody else in the whole Galaxy agrees with him means he must be right!

But then he stopped talking, and took me out onto the surface of Castillo, where he demonstrated his astonishing skill. My scepticism vanished in an instant. From the safety of a rocky structure which acted as a hide, I saw Silus - completely unarmed - walk up to a zlitherworm and stand in front of it for several minutes. I saw him touch it several times, on the leg, the body and the head. I even saw the zlitherworm touch him back; it reared up onto its back end and pressed its head against his. This made me shudder, but Silus was completely unruffled, and unscathed, by this contact with the alien beast.

I asked Silus if he'd teach me some of his methods, but he refused - he is very wary of sharing his secrets and I think he suspected that I would steal them and pass the knowledge along to... well, I don't know, the xeno-biologists who have ignored him up till now, perhaps? His years of ridicule at the hands of the establishment have left him somewhat paranoid. He explained, in his stuttering way, that he is very protective of the zlitherworms, who he considers to be his friends. He doesn't want them to be disturbed and is afraid that if his methods to deal with them safely were commonly known, the beasts would be plagued by researchers. Personally, I don't think all that many people would be interested, but I didn't have the heart to tell him so - and who knows, I could be wrong!

I did wonder why he had suddenly decided to break his silence, to come out of isolation and talk to me about his zlitherworm whispering? Because, he told me, he is worried about the sudden increase in the hunters coming to Castillo to bag themselves a trophy. It seems a new group has invested in more sophisticated equipment and has also come up with new tricks to avoid being attacked. This makes it easier for them to pick off zlitherworms without putting themselves in so much danger. Silus is worried that the balance has shifted and that, if the hunting continues, the zlitherworm population on Castillo could be wiped out.

So he agreed to talk to me to try and change the public perception of the zlitherworm, which might dissuade the hunters. Frankly, I don't hold out much hope.

Once again, Silus demonstrated little knowledge of the way people work - he may be a zlitherworm whisperer but he's certainly not a human whisperer!

If you're intrigued by my description of Silus Tonkin and his special way with zlitherworms, don't go looking for him - you won't find him. He remains a recluse and you're unlikely to stumble across him if you go and explore the surface of Castillo. And don't go looking for a zlitherworm, either - they remain extremely dangerous to everyone except the zlitherworm whisperer!


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