Flidoring The Early Wars by Roger W. Hayes Page A

Tessslan quite some time to convince him that everything was all right.
    The floor of the cave was covered with small stones and a layer of dust that the Volkran’s engines kicked up—making the visibility drop to where Tessslan had to use only instruments to make the landing. When the dust finally settled down, Lyemad called out, “There! Over there! I see one of the Platonians in that tunnel on the left.”
    The Platonians stand about seven feet tall, are thin, and have pale green skin with half-inch round red bumps all over their bodies. They have a flat head that is wider on the sides and slopes down in the front to a yellow pointed beak. The beak is hard enough to chip away the stone on the cave walls to get the green slugs that hide in the crevasses. Other items in their diet include the vegetables and fruits that they grow around the small lakes.
    Bellmus was the first one to feel the stifling heat as the hatch started to open. He was barely able to take a breath as he said, “Hurry into the tunnel and do not stop for anything. I will follow last to make sure the Volkran is sealed up.”
    Inside the tunnel, Huglam greeted the Platonian with, “I am sir Huglam of Furzon,” and then pointing to each one in turn, he continued, “This is sir Antamus of Wicterus, Sir Timsssack of Graznos, Sir Slabriel of Angelus, and here comes Sir Bellmus of Electerus. We come to your planet in peace,” taking a line that he heard Bellmus use before.
    “I am Peckenson, leader of the Platonians, welcome to our world. Please follow me to conditions that are more hospitable,” he said as he turned and pointed to show the way. “A few minutes in this heat will dehydrate you sooner than you might think,” he yelled out, as they hurried down the long, stone tunnel.
    Many tunnels of various sizes branched off from the larger one that they were in as they made their way deeper into the network. At the end of some of the offshoots were large, brightly-lit caverns, where the Tamsek light was shining through small holes in the ceilings. Soft, indirect lighting hidden in channels cut out of the rock at the top of the tunnel walls gave the passages a yellow and reddish glow, as it reflected off the large amounts of sulfur and iron embedded in the rocks. Oxygen from the plants growing in the caves oxidized the iron ore to a rusty red color, while the heat in the outer part of the tunnel caused the sulfur to give off a smell that reminded Lyemad of a rotten Peldo egg—a large predator bird on Electerus that would often abandon its nest in pursuit of fresh prey. When Lyemad was a boy, he had stumbled across such a nest where the eggs had rotted. The stench was so great that he had never forgotten the smell.
    Lyemad had made his way to the front of the group and was talking with Peckenson about the other minerals he had noticed in the cave walls, when they turned a corner and the tunnel opened into a gigantic cave that extended a hundred feet above them and a couple hundred feet below them. Beams of light streamed down like beacons from high in the ceiling—lighting up the many colors of the rock walls, along with the lakes and gardens scattered on the floor below. Large outcrops of rock at the end of tunnels—just like the one they were in—dotted the cave walls. Steep pathways cut into the rock led down from the outcrops to the plush green floor that stretched out as far as the eye could see.
    Lyemad’s hearts skipped their beats as he gazed breathless and speechless at the almost mystical marvel. There were thousands of diverse-shaped rock formations lining the floor, walls, and ceiling. The Platonians had hand carved them to depict famous leaders from their past, mythological figures, animals, birds, and stellar objects. The workmanship was breath-taking—rivaling that of the Furzonians. The Platonians did not carve out any buildings because they lived in white tents made from the silk of the Lake Spider—a spider four feet in