YARN BY MARK ANTONY RAINES

This story  is loosely based on the Ebook
And The God's Laughed by Fredric Brown.


How lucky was i to end up working on an asternoid.
To make matters worse i was there with four other shucks :each of us signed up for a month :sending time between tasks just gasing about nothing of importance.
My room was tiny not able to swing a cat although that would be animal cruelity.
No books;magazines or games just four lovely white walls to stare at .

We had our daily excitment of once a day terrestrail newcasts from good old mother Earth which brightened our boring montonious day for less five whole minutes.

Our average working day in our space suits due to the asterniods atomsphere was three hours and have of that was getting in or out of the spaceships airlock.

Due to the day and the boredom we all decided to set up a thing called The Lairs Club to see who among us could come up with the best whopper .


Charle Dean was one of the best one some proper dillies .

Charlies Whopper

" When i was working in the olden days on Mars we had trouble with the Bolies who looked like alligators on stilts and used blow guns and tactics like the Indians of the wild west .

We managed to capture one of the Bolie heads and he had flappy tiny ears in which were zircon studded earrings "

Zeb Warrah  stood up and sniffed the air and said.
"The air smells kinda bad :i going to do my next shift"
Charlie knew  this was a dig at his tall tale.

It  was my turn.
 "We left earth eight months thier where six of us on the M _94  all specialists but not your top notch kind. We On a journey to Jupiter  when  we hit the asteroid belt ;our radar did not see most of them as it was like plutoian  darkness :by hook and crook and a hugh  slice of luck of the irish  we made it through.
So we land on said Planet  , my job was to stand guard against unknown dangers that pop up like a piece of burnt toast.

Blake pipes up .
"Did  your pop  pop hit some zircon earrings"

I  carried on with my story and out of the corner of my eye i could see Charlie was  looking sternely  at Blake.


"Well all seemed quieter than a graveyard  on a sunday morning church service :then i saw a funny kind of mammalian "

One of the fellow joined in the game of wind up Charlie.

"Earrings :what about them"

I  said "Ok yes bloody  earrings  i noticed the local natives of the planet  wore only one  which made them seem lopsided mind you thier earring was a gold hoop about three inches in diameter(sorry if reading this  part of story i am afraid i am old school and dont use metres ).

The natives village was very place mostly a collection of mud huts .
So we decided just three of us would go do a pow wow with the village elders  while the unlucky three went  back to the humdum of the spaceship.
The elderz turned out to be funny ;quiet dignified not the savages we were expecting .
It  was all going on swimingly   until a native not wearing any earrings at all threw a spear at us then ran.

So due to our oxygen runni g out bar Lecky  the linguist who was always so bloody  effectant  and and loads left of his oxygen so we left to recope and come back in a hour"

The rest of the crew in unision .
"Yeah just get to the best parts we starting to fall asleep back here".

When we got back Lucky was  wearing  one of the natives earrings in his left ear he swapped  it for   a pocket  side  rule"

Crew in unison again.
"Why a slide  Rule "

Lecky replied
"To help them to learn how to multiply  and divide; I showdown them   to extract  square  roots "

I  made a    whistling  sound  to bring  Lecky  towards  me  and told him to stop being  overexcited and come back to the spaceship  straight  away  as it was against  space  star   fleets   orders  to interfere  with other  alien species  environment s.


Lecky told us the natives  had   desire to learn  new ideas  and the earring  was a sign of  membership

Blake "  Was  it gold or   zircon  diamond? "

I said
"Give  a rest about  the earring  "

At this point  of my story  I was feeling a  bit  cramped up from  sitting  on my bum too long  it was  feeling  numb.

I  stood  up  to  stretch  my  legs :as I was  swinging  my arms around  my hand hit a pistol  resting   in a clip on a side wall  .

"What's  the pistol   for? "  I asked.

Blake reply  with a wily  grin .
"Rules  man;we have to have  one  on every spaceship  says the council  even ones on an asteroid; dumbbell  the lot of them".


Charlie I say before  you  lot do .
Is there any more  mention  of earrings "


I took  a better  look at the gun ;it was an old fashioned  metal  projection  weapon  about  twenty  shots circa 2000  and very dirty.

I started  to  give the pistol  a good clean :yeah I admit a bit O.C.D .
So I carried  on my tale while cleaning  this old relic of a gun.

"Lecky  would  not  take off that damn  earring    and acted very funny  when Hayes  wanted to  examine  it.

Three of us  went  back to the village  to have  a bit more  look around in case we missed  something  the first  time around.
Then just  as we thought all was well  as native  throw a spear that just missed  us by a couple of feet.

When the three  came back   Hilda was now displaying a earring  in her left ear  she was gushing   about  how it made her feel  like a queen.

Haynes    just  wanted a earring   for analysis. He wandered off ;then  we heard  crys  and screaming.

We rushed  to  see what was  occurring; Haynes was covered  in wine stains and yes you probably guessed  wearing  a earring  in one of his ears.


I was beginning  to  get a  real  bad horrible  feeling  about  the current situation.

So I decided  to  fellow one of the natives who lead me to a water hole on the outskirts of the village.
Charle"I bet it's monsters "
Blake "Yeah wearing earrings ha ha"

I ignored these comments  I carried  on with my tale .

"What  I saw next  was shocked me to my very  core; In the water  were two crocodiles  and standing in a line was this native I followed  ;so I crept  a little  closer  to  get a better view .
Two fellow natives  waded into the water then half way each give a yelp and went down like a sack of potatoes.
Then both stood  up on stumps instead of legs and started to talk  in grunting fashion his fellow native replied.
Then the really weird bit the one at the shore took off his earring and handed to the one with stumps  for legs ;the previous earring owner dropped  down  dead and the other picked him up and threw him into the water, at this point I turned and ran as fast as my little legs would let me.

I broke  my story  to have a drink of water  to quench my Thrist as it was drier than camels in the Sahara desert.


" You can imagine by now as i was back  in that spaceship my paranoid thought s about  the  other four crew members was going into hyper drive.


I knew they  were trying  to  act natural and my flight or fight spider senses were telling me to be on guard.


Now and then slips would  occur  for one thing they had forgot to talk or should I say one would turn  to another and look like he was saying something but  did not; I was sure they were talking telepathically.

Then Dick got your
up to go to the storeroom  and I followed him and closed the door.
Blake "Wink;wink ;Nudge; Nudge say no more "

I replied
"Oh grow up "


Yet again back to my story.

So whilst  inside the  storeroom  I told Dickleburgh of my worries that the others :Art:Hilda :Lecky; Haynes were  not whom they seemed.
Dick just let out a huge sigh and said.
"I told the others were would  nudge more practice and then he grabbed me by the hand and revealed on his wrist  was a gold ring similar  to the others earrings  bit his was a bracelet  instead.

I was too dumbfounded  to say anything.

Charle.
"This is getting a bit screwier by the moment "
Blake.
"Let her carry  on it likeeps this tale better than yours and it features  earrings "


They the non members of my crew who was had no real existence for they were  parasites whom attached themselves to a body to animate and think with.

The natives who we were now knew to be the Ganymedean were  easy  to  use as once they the parasites kew of there earring god it was easy to find a way into there primitive minds.

Both Charlie and Blake spoke on unision.
"Are  you  saying that this parasite when it took  other  a person  it ran him and his thoughts of mind  but somehow  keep the its own  identity; what  happenshe to people  it takes over"

I said;"Asia far as I can understand the process the person the parasite takes over stays in the sub conscious part of the  brain  in kind of chemical straight jacket.
So they  have all the person serving previous experience and knowledge.

 Blake "So that  explains  the  bit of your story  about the native  who lose his last in the water and  then walked to the other standing on the rivers edge "
Charlie "Yeah it was to get a body in better shape; a bit brutal if you ask me"

I carried on.
"They  said to me by telephatic  thought they  came from outer space far from our  know universe from a planet called Ganym.
There landed on jumpiter and lose contact with its previous occupients.

So they managed  with  one last grasp  of survival interest to find the river  by the natives village.

Charle"Why did not  give the knowledge of space flight to the natives "
I replied "They can't as they  can only  be as smart as the minds they occupied.
And now they  had  us and our spaceship and thier next destination  was Earth "
They wished  to dictate and propagate and use the earrings and bracelets  to signify uniquely who they  were.

And then work  secretly  by taking  over  people in power in secret  until the time was right.
They waited  for my human reactions   then
Lecky took  a ring out his pocket pointing a gun straight  at me; then he said  put it on or  die ."
At this point  my space cadet training  kick in on automatic pilot.
I battered the gun out of his hand and made a dive to the floor. "

I managed  to get  to the displaced  gun on the floor and as they all rushed at me i fired three at them;nothing  stopped  they were like  relentless Zombie s .
I thought  unlike Zombie s these parasites  of my former  colleague s could only  be stopped  by removing earrings or bracelet.
I ran out into Ganym  colder  than a frozen over then  hell atomsphere .
They  just  stopped  and looked on from  the  spaceship s front  door.
For they knew I would  be unconscious from  insufficient oxygen within  three  hours and if did survive  that the extreme  cold would.

So I reached a stone and sat down to gather my thoughts; slow my breath down as I knew  from  my training  that if I panicked I would  lose oxygen much quicker. What could I do!"

Silence then Blake  said "What did you do ?"
"Nothing I replied I just sat awaited my fate "
Charlie "Till Morning "

I lost  consciousness  and when I came  to it was dark in the spaceship.
Blake had a very puzzled frown "What hell do you mean? "

The situation in the spaceship on the asteroid  changed in a hares breach as Charlie made a sudden dive towards the the gun in was cleaning  in my hand; I slipped  the cartridge _clip back in.

Blake "Sit down you fool don't you  remember it's all about the  best  whopper told "
But Charlie  kept the gun in his hand and ask me :Hillary to roll  up here sleeves 
I Hillary said  "What about  my ankles? "
But Charlie  was deadly  serious. Nothing  on Blake.
I said  I was about  to take a shower  aso the spaceship was hot and my overalls are soaked through with sweat. I then slipped my clothes off revealing nothing  by my curvy birthday suit.
Whilst  in the shower  is heard Blake laughing and Charlie softly muttering a curse to himself.
Then as I came out  the shower  ;wrapped  in one towel and drying  with another.

Charle "Damn you Hilary I thought  my whopper was a dilly that's good back  to our  normal boring day to day talk. "
A sharp rapping thumped  on the hull near the airlock.


Charle said 'If you tell  that other lot what a chump you made out of me I beat your  damn ears and those bloody earrings! "

Report No 67843
Asteroid J_864A
"As planned I tested  the terrestrial minds  of human s by telling  them the true story of what happened on Ganym.
And found them capable of acceptance.
So it is my conjunction that the idea of embedding ourselves in the human  creature  was a excellent success and essential to our plans to conquer them.

Our Scientists admit  we made mistakes on Jumpiter and learnt not have Earrings or Bracelet s or other appendages as we learnt it will arouse suspicion.
So we the council  have  decided to  stop wasting  time and  reanimate the four humans aboard the  ship and set off  to Earth.

Officer Hilary Parasite.