Antartoth II, Camping On

Where To Go To See Your Life Flash Before Your Eyes

by David Carroll Hall (aka Nomad of Norad) (nomad@tlvx.UUCP)
written 01 Sep 1984

This article is classified "Fictional"


Have you ever considered camping and/or backpacking on planet Antartoth
II?  There are some very important things you must consider, like not
going at all!  If you absolutely must go, then consider this article.

Always bring weapons!  Bring blasters, laser swords, phasers, anything
along those lines.  But especially consider the wonders that crates and
crates and more crates of sonic grenades will do.

Always sleep inside a force field; you just never know what may come
clunking/slithering/crawling/romping/skittering/bounding into camp.
Naturally you will need to tie everything down... with titanium chains
(after all, you can't put everything in the force field!)

Never go alone; you will need the safety others will bring, but especially,
you will need someone to help carry all that protective stuff.  Of course
companionship may also help keep you from going nuts/crackers/bonkers under
the pressure you'll encounter here.

There are some interesting items to take on such a trip, including multi-
function things that take less space than the individual equivalents.
Consider the combination laser-sword/lock-pick/nut-cracker/pocket-knife
which is sold in designer colors.  Think of the binocular/communications/
clock-radio pack.  And there are others.

But what about food?  Of course there is the stuff you can bring with you,
like dehydrated geff, gledg, and dlutches.  How about the things once
known as "teevee dinners"?  But you only have so much room in your packs.
Consider the food handy on the planet.  You must learn the types you can
eat, can't eat, and those you should be able to eat but can't because the
competition (animals) don't like your taking their sustenance (never mind
that you need sustenance too!).

I now give you warnings concerning certain creatures on this planet.
Never trust a smiling plomphtumpth.  Never camp near a blugtigof pit.  It
is unknown what creature or creatures are in it, but... well... there are
people who have come near enough to find out what's in there, and those
who are still alive, never camp near a blugtigof pit!  Then there are the
tsuztiklots which burrow under the ground in the night, come up in the
force field area and (ahem!) eat all the cloth.  (Obviously, they can
cause quite a stir in the morning, especially if there are ladies with
you!)  The best defense is to throw onto the ground lots of mothballs (for
some reason they will eat those even more readily and will quickly become
gorged on them and leave the cloth alone).

And then there are the spletlarpti trees.  Yes, trees!  They move around
by their roots (which are above ground).  They are rather harmless except
that they like to make noise.  They strike rocks together (in a musical
pattern), they beat logs between "normal" trees (trees like ours, that are
just plants).  But if that's all they do, why am I listing them here?  It
is because they also (ahem!) use tents as drums!  This is, of course,
impossible when the force fields are up, but some have been known to use
the force fields too!

As you can see, it is asking for trouble to camp on this beautiful (?)
little world.  Why bother?  Surely there must be better ways to spend
your vacation time than fighting for your life and sanity!

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