Motel World of the Dragon: Dragon World, #9

By Joseph G. Whelan

Dinosaurs were having sex on the Moon sixty-six million years ago, and Bolon didn't like it.

 

Make no mistake about it, Bolon enjoyed a bit of the naughty now and then as much as any other healthy Goddess-fearing dragon (as they called themselves back then), but he was running an ore mine up there, by golly.  His employees were refining important metals on the Moon—gold, silver, titanium, and niobium—or so he thought.  However, now he was hearing about furtive nighttime antics involving tail rubs and feather strokes leading to full-on hot-blooded saurian sex—and ultimately nests and eggs and hatchlings.

 

It didn't help in the least that it was always nighttime at the ore mine, located in the permanently shadowed region at the Moon's South Pole.  Ore mine?  Lunar love nest with low-gravity sex was more like it!

 

After Bolon's female friends brought him down to Earth (so to speak), and made him see that the sex was going to go on going on regardless of any management memos forbidding it, and that he might as well profit from the shenanigans, he decided to build the first-ever motel on the Moon.

 

First things tend to be hard things (in a manner of speaking) and the Moon Motel was no exception.  Construction in those airless acres was difficult and dangerous, which translated into expensive.  

 

Expensive?!  Just you wait and see what Bolon ended up paying after consultants got involved: they talked him into a clawful of so-called amenities: first there was an artificial "sun" above an artificial "beach" and before it was all over, pterodactyls were flapping around with freshly caught fish firmly clamped in their toothy jaws!

 

Oh, it was fun times in the Late Mesozoic, all right....

 

Motel World of the Dragon is part of a series about an ancient dinosaurian civilization.  Each book stands by itself and can be read alone or with the others.  If you enjoy stories such as Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton, you should check out Motel World of the Dragon.  Cross the solar system—travel back in time—buy this adventure-packed tale today!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Triplanetary Press
• Release date: Aug 14, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393406792

Book preview

Motel World of the Dragon

By

Joseph G. Whelan

Copyright © 2020 by Joseph G. Whelan

All rights reserved.

Moon picture (modified by author) courtesy the National Aeronautics and Space Administration via the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.  Pterosaur-with-fish picture (modified by author) courtesy the Pixabay photo-sharing community.  Fireworks picture (modified by author) is from the author’s collection.

This book is dedicated to:

Joy Worsnup and Frederic Brulier

After half a lifetime's absence, their good works returned fireworks to my lonely sky.

Good timber does not grow with ease;

The stronger the wind, the stronger the trees.

—J. Willard Marriott

(founder, Marriott Hotels & Resorts)

Table of Contents

The Dragon World—An Overview

1: Motel Sex

2: Syllabus

3: Breaking Regolith

4: Enhancement

5: The Motel World

6: Association

7: What’s in a Name?

8: Moonwater

9: Beach

10: Resort

11: Weather or Not

12: Community Association

13: Moonwater Beach Resort

99: Explore More

The Dragon World—An Overview

About sixty-five million years ago, at the end of the Cretaceous Period of the Mesozoic Era, there lived a species of intelligent dinosaur.  This creature was about as big as we are.  It stood on two legs and a tail.  Its arms ended in hands with opposable digits.  Its body was covered partly in scales and partly in feathers.

They called themselves dragons.  They became the preeminent species of life on Earth.  They were omnivorous.  They had sharp teeth.  Adult females were usually slightly larger than males and this had ramifications, often unperceived, throughout society.

The Earth during the time of the dragons was divided into wild places, tribal areas, lesser countries, and advanced technological nation-states of which some were space-faring.  The dragons often called their nations great nests.  The word nest was freighted with many meanings and sometimes high emotion.  It could designate the physical nest where eggs were laid and baby dragons hatched.  It could refer to the home of a solitary adult.  It could mean an extended family group, a neighborhood, a workplace, or a distant outpost in the solar system.  There were times when dragons were willing to die for their nests.

The word nest also could refer to a military unit or base.  The dragons were as contentious as humans.  They had need of military units and bases.

This was the Age of Dinosaurs and in the wild places, monsters roamed.

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The events in Motel World of the Dragon occurred at a time when the dragon civilization was approaching its pinnacle.  The world was coalescing around two great nests, the Amber Feather Empire and the Emerald Feather Empire.  Expansionism and technology made military conflict more terrible.  In fairness it should be said that most dragons went about their lives peaceably just as most people do today.  Many great nests steered paths independent of the Empires.

There was only a single intelligent species.

The Amber and Emerald Empires took their names from the principal coloration of the feathers of the majority of their citizens but appearance in general was highly variable throughout both Empires.  The names of the Empires signified political hegemony and allegiance, not necessarily the look of any particular dragon.

The Amber Empire started out more monolithic and hierarchical.  The Emerald Empire began as a looser alliance of great nests.  As time passed and pressure from the Ambers increased, the Emerald Empire began to take on more of the aspects of the Amber system.

In the distant past the shape and the position of the continents varied tremendously.  However, by sixty-five million years ago, the dragon world looked much like our world.  The names of the landmasses and the oceans and so forth were different but the general appearance of the Earth was remarkably similar to what it is today, although there were some differences.

Birds are dinosaurs and dinosaurs are birds.  The saurian species that disappeared at the end of the Cretaceous are properly known as non-avian dinosaurs.  Anyone who has listened to the vocalizations of birds should not be surprised that the dragons developed rich and nuanced languages.  Those languages were different from ours.  For convenience and to minimize the use of new words, most of the principal dragon language has been rendered as the closest English equivalent.  There were queens and colonels and committees and employees, but it should be kept in mind that these are functional, not perfect, translations.  Perfect translations are probably not possible across species.

As examples of functional translations in Motel World of the Dragon, there was a business called Infinite Skies which had its headquarters in the great nest of Tabora.  Tabora was a nation located on the northern shore of the Central Sea, which we would recognize as the Mediterranean.  It should be understood that terms like business and headquarters and nation are approximations to our familiar words.  Often the approximations are good but occasionally the relationship is vague.  Between our world and the dragon world there is always a vast gulf of time and occasionally a vaster gulf of psychology.

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Dramatis Dracones

(Dragons of the Drama)

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The dragons lived in a world—several worlds counting their outposts throughout the solar system—no less complicated than our own.  The following list summarizes the actors in Motel World of the Dragon.  The spellings of the names are best attempts to translate a nonhuman language produced by reptilian physiology into English.

There are other stories in the Dragon World series that take place before and after Motel World of the Dragon.  Each may be read alone or together with the others.

WesternLandsSouth was the dragon name for South America.

Orb World was one of the dragon names for the Earth’s Moon.

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Bernipa – (female): One of a pair of lady friends attending a safety lecture on the Moon.

Bolon – (male): A financier in the great nest of Tabora; the owner of Infinite Skies.

Harrza – (female): The provost of the university in the great nest of Qwara.

Jullum – (male): A construction worker on the Moon; an employee of Infinite Skies.

Lemarra – (female): The commander of Camp Tiroga on the Moon.

Porrink – (male): The operations chief of Camp Tiroga on the Moon.

Rexla – (female): An ichthyologist and consultant.

Thonni – (female): An acquaintance of Bolon’s.

Tronken – (male): A front desk clerk and safety officer at the Moon motel.

1: Motel Sex

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Bolon was interrupted from his musings by the voice of the dome home robot emanating from one of its various locations.

You have a call.

I said no calls this afternoon.

Not exactly.

Yes, exactly.  Now leave me alone and take a message.

You said you would take no calls this afternoon—from anyone on Earth.

So?

The call did not originate on Earth.

Bolon hesitated.  All right.  Put him through.

The him is a her.

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Lemarra! Bolon exclaimed.  Good to see you!