Waiting for the Sun 

By Alyx Shaw 

"RARF!" 
"Noooo..." I said patiently. "Not 'rarf', it's a ball. Can 

you say 'ball'?" 

"ARF! ARF ARF RARARARF! ARF!" 
I sighed. "This is pointless." 
The Faylan shook his head while blowing a 

raspberry. I looked at Tiff, who was lounging on a 
Romanesque couch under a simple shelter of woven 
branches, reading. 

"So what is this thing?" I asked, referring to the little 

red humanoid before me. 

A Torquere Press Sip - 1 

"You know what it is, Sebastian. It's a Faylan." 
"But what is it other than a Faylan?" 
"A right pain in the ass," said Tiff dryly. 
"RARF!" 
I looked at the pretty reddish creature. If you took an 

Olympic gymnast and crossed him with a greyhound, 
you'd get a Faylan. They're beautiful little beings, but 
they make me crazy, and have done so since I arrived on 
Sferkkaa. No one seems to have any idea what they are, 
and what really makes me insane is no one much seems 
to care. It's a Faylan. Well that's not good enough for 
me; I'm a natural scientist, I want to know what it is 
related to and how it fits in to the eco system. But I'm 
already boned right from the start because they're not 
native to Sferkkaa, and don't seem to fit into any 
category of which I can think. They're little 
hermaphroditic barking boneheads obsessed with small 
flying things, have a voice that can cut glass, and come 
in two varieties: arboreal and not arboreal. I refer to 
them as 'he' because that's the most obvious gender of 
the two, but even that piece of information is not 
technically correct as there is a second fully functional 
set of parts that only becomes evident when the creature 
is pregnant. And at the end of the day, with all my years 
of training, all I can say is, "Yes, it's a Faylan." 

"ARF ARF!" 
"Stop that." 
"RARARARARF!!! RARF!" 
If Hell had Pekinese, they would be Faylans. 
"Leave the poor creature alone, Sebastian." 
"But I want to know what it IS!" 
"It's a Faylan," said Tiff, his tone implying I am a 

complete knob. 

"Yes I know it's a Faylan, but what is it precisely?" 

A Torquere Press Sip - 2 

"Off hand I'd say about four feet tall when standing 

erect, arboreal, and probably in heat, which is likely the 
only reason he's putting up with your persistent attempts 
to teach him to speak." 

I looked at Tiff. "They have a heat cycle?" 
"They do when the outside temperature and humidity 

is right." 

"Well there, my life hasn't been a complete waste; I 

learned they go into heat." 

"RARF!" 
I gazed at the pretty red creature with the little foxy 

face. He gazed back at me, exhibiting no 'heat' 
behaviour that I could see. No trilling, rubbing, flirting, 
no enticement of any kind. 

"So why isn't he coming on to me?" 
Tiff flipped the page of his book. "Because he doesn't 

know where you fit into the grand scheme of things, 
either. Faylans have a very carefully structured pack life. 
He doesn't know if he ranks high enough to mate with 
you. For that matter he's not about to have sex with you 
if you don't rank high enough to have him." Tiff closed 
his book and gave me a thoughtful look. "You know, 
Sebastian, if you really must learn about them, I have a 
distant cousin who lives not far from here; he has a pack 
of about forty. Frankly, if there is anything he does not 
know about Faylans, then it is not worth knowing." 

"The nut case, right?" 
"That would be him." Tiff smiled. 
"I thought Draephus lived up north?" 
Tiff smiled. "He does, but he comes down to make 

sure his Faylans are all right. So shall we go?" 

"Yeah, why not? How often do I get to learn about a 

new species from a crazy man?" 

"Faylans are not new, my love." 
"They are to me." 

A Torquere Press Sip - 3 

"They're not new to you either; they've been in the 

trees the entire time you've been here." 

"RARF!" 
I looked at the Faylan I had been trying to teach to 

speak. "You just have to take his side, don't you?" 

"Hrrrph." 
"To you too." 
I tossed the ball to the Faylan. He watched it go up, 

then down, then roll to a halt. He then gave me a look 
that implied I was some sort of moron before leaping 
roughly twenty feet straight up to catch hold of a branch 
and pull himself onto it. 

"I could do that," I said, staring at the little red form. 

"I just don't want to right now." 

"Of course, darling." 
I walked over to Tiff and lay down beside him on the 

broad lounging couch. It had been eight years since I 
had moved here, and I still couldn't speak more than a 
few simple sentences of Sferkkaan, much as I would 
have liked to. Believe it or not, that didn't make me 
dumb. Sferkkaan vocalizations were many and varied, 
and they could reach pitches a human voice is simply 
not capable of producing. It's part of why music was so 
universally important to all the cultures on this planet. I 
could speak Sferkkaan if I were capable of producing 
their range of vocalizations. I was just lucky they could 
do English with little to no effort. 

I frequently heard how dull my language is. 
Another thing I wanted to do was ravish Tiff to 

within an inch of his little alien life, but it was the height 
of the Sferkkaan summer, which was an awful lot like 
living in the bathroom with the shower running full blast 
spewing nothing but boiling water. The air was hot and 
wet, and everything in the area was happy but me. I 
trailed my hand down Tiff's chest, my fingers wandering 

A Torquere Press Sip - 4 

over the damp cloth of his uniform shirt. His black hair 
was stuck like wet black snakes to the pillow, and the 
lenses of his shades sparkled with droplets of water. I 
picked the glasses off and set them aside so I could see 
his beautiful green eyes, and kissed him. 

"I really want to do unspeakable things to you," I 

said. 

"I'm not stopping you." 
"It's too hot and wet." 
"We could go make love in the swamp." 
"Yeah, but I hate the way the frogs all line up and 

stare." 

"They are frogs, my love; they are not staring at us." 
"They are. In fact, I'm sure they are offering 

commentary." 

Tiff set aside his book and rolled onto his side so he 

could face me. Beautiful little Tiff. I could stare at him 
forever. Beautiful, lovely, delectable… 

Something landed on the couch with a thud. I turned 

to look at the cat-sized arachnid, all black and gold and 
hairy. Ah yes, the Touskanian Cave Spider, known for 
its preference for fruit rather than insects, its ability to 
mimic words, and its lousy timing. 

"Do you mind?" I asked it. 
With perfect clarity, the spider said, "Bite me." 
I raised one eyebrow. "Who taught you to say that?" 
Tiff laughed. "I rather suspect it was Shahira." 
"Great. You'd think an Imperial Bird of Prey would 

have better things to do." 

"Well he is retired." 
"You'd still think a royal warrior from an ancient 

bloodline would have better things to do with his golden 
years than teach rude come-backs to the local 
arachnids." I nudged the enormous spider on its way. 
"Where is Tall, Beautiful and Arrogant, anyway?" 

A Torquere Press Sip - 5 

"Visiting his tall, beautiful and arrogant friends." 
Oh, that sounded good. I ran my hand along Tiff's 

side. "And all our other base-mates?" 

He blinked beautiful big green eyes at me. "Off 

getting supplies. They will be gone all day." 

"So it's just you and me." I nipped his neck. 

"Whatever shall we do?" 

"RARF!" 
I glanced in the direction of the noise. The spider was 

now sitting on the table and barking like a Faylan. 

"Let's go inside," I suggested. 
"But then I'd have to move," said Tiff. "And it's 

hotter inside." 

He had a point. At least out here in the misting rain 

we were cooler. I began picking at the front of his 
uniform shirt. 

"Well, it would be wrong of me to make you move," 

I said. 

I slowly undressed him. It wasn't especially easy; 

damp clothing makes for a charming visual image but it 
tends to cling to the skin. Still, what I found beneath 
those layers and folds of wet fabric was well worth the 
hunt. Tiff had a body that made me wish I could sculpt. 
He's all lean muscle, which was what I like. I never 
found huge muscles attractive. I much preferred 'boa' to 
'beefcake'. And believe me, Tiff can sit on a branch and 
entice me to taste his fruit any time he likes. 

He gleamed in the shadowed sunlight, pale silver 

slicked with mercury, the light following the lines of his 
body, as did my tongue. I tasted him all over, my hands 
wandering over each line and curve. Funny how after all 
this time I still couldn't wait to touch him, and each time 
was as good as the first. He's all soft compliance in bed, 
my Tiff. Probably because he could kill me in one swift 
motion. It was a bit daunting, making love to a man you 

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knew had personally killed at least thirty people in hand-
to-hand combat. He's a warrior, a weapon of flesh and 
bone. He could snap my neck without a thought and 
there's nothing I could do to defend myself. But all I 
have to do is touch him and he melts. His eyes glaze 
over and close, and he opens himself up to me like a 
demure concubine giving his master his due. I don't 
know why he lets me have him. But I'm damned glad he 
does. I settled over him and pushed myself deep into his 
perfect, gleaming body, and we began to make love in 
the misting rain. 

Shahira stepped out of the woods like some great 

lethal bird, almost seven feet tall and clad in black, 
scarlet and gold. He paused briefly to pick something off 
his coat, and cast me a disdainful look that let me know 
just precisely what he thought about some meager Earth 
scientist fucking one of His Imperial Majesty's most 
decorated veterans. 

"Tiff, when you're done with the monkey we really 

do need to address the situation with the radio; it's just 
not working." 

He then strutted away, fourteen hundred years' worth 

of breeding and bloodlines, death crafted into art and 
made flesh to guard the royal family. What I wouldn't 
give to just once see him break an ankle. 

"Sebastian?" said Tiff quietly. 
"Hmm?" 
"You stopped." 
"Oh. Sorry." 

*** 

The only way to live on Sferkkaa and not know who 

Draephus and his friends are is to be born deaf and blind 
and live your entire life in a cave. They are, quite 

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frankly, the biggest thing on the planet, war heroes as 
well as musicians, making them almost god-like on a 
planet that venerates both. Out of all of Draephus' 
esteemed companions, I've only met one – his lover 
Raski. He's like a Chihuahua on speed. He makes me 
nervous and all I have to do is hear his name. He showed 
up here at the base once because he used to be a pilot 
stationed here. I like Raski, I do, but it's exhausting 
being around him. I don't know what he's like at home, 
but here, so close to the place where he was once injured 
so badly that he died and doctors had to drag him 
screaming back to life, he's an absolute hyper wreck. I 
can't be around him because he gives me an anxiety 
attack, and he hates me because I once scared the crap 
out of him. 

In all fairness, Raski is beautiful. He's honestly one of 

the most gorgeous men I have ever seen. He's South 
Continental, so he has that striking black skin, and I do 
mean black. No shades of brown at all to warm it. Just 
hematite black layered over slate to form a color that 
looks like you could put your hand in it. His hair is 
black, too, gleaming silvery black, hanging in a long 
waterfall down his back. And that was how I first saw 
him: from the back, wearing his uniform, talking to Tiff. 

"Oh Sebastian! There you are! I'd like you to meet 

Raski. He used to be stationed here." 

So there I am, all pleased to have a chance to show 

off my fine Sferkkaan manners that I just learned, and 
Raski turns around and he's got these FREAKY BLUE 
EYES THAT GLOW IN THE LOW LIGHT!! 
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! 

I have since learned that the pale blue eyes are a 

logical adaptation to life in a jungle that is really quite 
dark. The human eye lens is smooth and… well… lens-
like. The lens of the South Continent Sferkkaan is 

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actually made up of tens of thousands little reflective 
surfaces that catch the light, refract and re-reflect it, and 
enable them to see better in the dark. Pale blue reflects 
light, whereas dark lenses would absorb the light. What 
this all boils down to is, stick Raski Jervyas in a dark 
room and his eyes will glow. Yay. Thanks for the 
warning, I almost crapped myself. So Raski went one 
way, I went another, both of us screaming for entirely 
different reasons, and there you go. One of the heroes on 
the planet personally hates me. So why do I care if Raski 
hates me? Well, that would be because Tiff's cousin 
Draephus is in love with Raski, and if there is a case of 
free-roaming Delayed Shock Syndrome on the planet, 
it's him. So Raski hates me, Draephus is insane, and 
we're going to visit them. 

To use a popular North Continent teen expression: 

Grim. Totally grim. 

"Why did I let you talk me into this?" I asked as we 

hiked along a path that, in two months, would be under 
water. 

"I thought you wanted to learn about Faylans," said 

Tiff. 

"I do but I don't want to end up feeding them." 
"Draephus is a sweetheart. He wouldn't hurt anyone. 

He's just a little tightly wound." 

I thought about the time I saw Draephus on the 

Sferkkaan version of a television. "So that time you and 
I were watching him on the Visual and he took a flying 
leap at a man's throat was just play." 

Tiff laughed. "Sebastian, the man was claiming to 

have been at a battle Draephus personally survived. Old 
warriors tend to take exception to that sort of thing." 

"All right, I can see his point," I said. "He's just a bit 

aggressive for my liking." 

"He's a darling. You'll love him." 

A Torquere Press Sip - 9 

Famous last words. 
Draephus' shack was not far from the base, but it still 

took a long time to cut your way through the jungle and 
reach it. In our case it was two hours, and the last thirty 
minutes of it was accompanied by Faylans screaming 
back and forth. Jungle security; nothing approaches that 
Draephus doesn't know about. All around were invisible 
sentinels, hiding in the trees, sounding warnings to one 
another. I hated that noise; it's a hellish sound, rising and 
falling like the tormented cries of Indian spirits echoing 
in a tomb. I had nightmares about that sound. 

We reached the shack, stepping out of the dense 

jungle growth into a small clearing, and the moment I 
walked out of the bush, the first thing I saw was a tall, 
rangy figure in a long coat that may have at one time 
been white or pale grey. He was leaning over the railing 
with the barrel of the most insanely large rifle I had ever 
seen pointed straight at my head. It was at least six feet 
long, lean and black, and the barrel had to be over an 
inch in diameter. It looked vaguely like a cross between 
a rifle and a rocket launcher. I froze in cold terror, which 
is quite a feat in a steaming jungle. Tiff was oblivious. 
He just waved and said something, and Draephus 
lowered the weapon. As he was setting it aside, I took 
hold of Tiff's arm. 

"What is that thing?" 
"It's my cousin." 
I rolled my eyes. "The thing he was holding." 
"Oh! That is a long-muzzled night stalker gun. 

Draephus has a few. He's very good with them. They're 
not terribly subtle but they do the job they were 
designed for." 

"And what is that?" I asked. 

A Torquere Press Sip - 10 

Tiff gestured at something I had yet to notice. 

"Killing night stalkers," he said simply, and walked 
toward the shack to greet Draephus. 

I looking in the direction he had indicated, and felt 

my eyes grow large at the sight of the rotting remains of 
an enormous machine. It looked at first like a gigantic 
wolf spider; in fact, it lay rather like one, on its back, 
legs curled, hydraulics and wires exposed as small 
jungle creatures picked the carcass clean of anything 
useable or shiny. 

I slowly approached it, walking over to the dead 

thing, reaching out to touch it. The machine lay where it 
had fallen years ago, three enormous holes blown 
through it. In what would be the thorax was a cockpit. I 
had heard of night stalkers, but until now I hadn't 
realized how terrifying they must have been. Spiders are 
renowned for getting into places people would prefer 
they didn't, and that was what the machine was designed 
for: infiltrating underground bases. The night stalker 
would creep through the jungle, delicate and highly 
sophisticated sensors listening for the sound of a human 
heart beating in terror, scenting the fear of its victims. It 
would then either release toxic gasses that would kill 
everything in a three mile radius, or simply hunker down 
and wait for reinforcements. It was a monster in every 
sense of the word, and I couldn't help but be glad it was 
dead. 

"Sebastian!" 
I turned in the direction of Tiff's voice, and saw that 

he was motioning me to come to him. My immediate 
reaction was to look up, because almost every time he 
calls me it's because the sky is about to explode. 

"It's not raining," I said. 
Permit me to digress here a moment. Actually, it was 

raining. The rain never stops, but after you have lived 

A Torquere Press Sip - 11 

here eight years you begin to start thinking in the 
Sferkkaan definitions of raining. Allow me to explain 
the variances: 

Not raining/sunny = High cloud cover, fine misting 

rain. 
Damp = Slightly denser cloud cover, light rain, some 
fog. 
A bit wet = Vancouver in January. 
Raining = Black skies, rain hammering down, 
occasional mud slides. 
Storming a little = You round up the animals, I'll start 
building the ark. 
We should probably stay in = Was that ocean there 
when we went to bed? 

"Just come over here." 
I did, crossing the clearing through the low plants and 

grasses and going onto the small porch. I had to walk 
past Draephus to reach Tiff, and I have to say it was not 
a comfortable feeling. Draephus was a very big guy, 
well over six feet, and he had the gun in one hand and a 
cigarette in the other, a pair of shades on his face. When 
I first came to Sferkkaa I didn't understand why 
everyone wore sunglasses on a sunless world, but I do 
now. On days when the cloud cover is high and the 
ground is steaming, the air takes on a strange over-bright 
glare. I'm not sure what creates it, but it can definitely 
cause something very similar to snow-blindness. It 
doesn't bother me too badly, but for delicate Sferkkaan 
eyes used to dim light, it can be damned painful. 

"What are we waiting for?" I asked. 
Draephus was standing just to my right, looking up at 

the sky. "The sun." 

He had my full attention. 
"The sun? I thought it never shone here!" 

A Torquere Press Sip - 12 

"It only does once every century or so," said 

Draephus. "I've never seen it. But they have." He 
pointed into the jungle at things I could not see. "Fayla 
is a sunlit planet. And they know when it is coming. 
Watch." 

I did, my eyes searching the dark green foliage, until 

at last I saw something move. A lean red body went up a 
tree, heading for the highest point it could reach and 
sitting there. This was a large Faylan, and he had a 
heavy collar around his neck, decorated with hematite. 

"That's Wrath," said Draephus. "He's an alpha. He 

lets everybody else know if it's clear. There's his little 
mate, Bird." 

I watched the little form flit through the branches of 

the tree, reaching the limb where Wrath was perched. 

"He's cute," I said. 
"He's a little monster," said Draephus. He showed me 

a forearm wrapped with bloody bandages. "He's what 
we call a bad breeder. The moment he gets pregnant he 
picks fights with anything and everything, then he ends 
up miscarrying because all he does is fight. He's too 
territorial. It's a bad trait, and it's causing trouble." 

"Can you do anything about it?" I asked. 
"Well I am, as far as they are concerned, the head of 

the pack. They do what I say. I'm waiting for his next 
heat cycle, then I'll go out and put him in his place. If 
the pack leader takes exception to a member of the pack 
who is in a receptive state, then others take that as a sign 
there is something not right and they shouldn't breed 
with him. As far as they're concerned I can mate with 
anybody I want to." Draephus smiled faintly. "I… prefer 
not to." 

"Get any offers?" I asked, tremendously amused by 

all this. 

A Torquere Press Sip - 13 

"Daily. Especially at this time of year. Here's my 

unrequited love now." He pointed out a small Faylan 
creeping toward us, moving on all fours along the 
railing, approaching Draephus and crawling into his 
arms. He was very little, with a streak of black in his 
hair. Draephus held the little creature, a faint smile on 
his face. "This is Theyrie. That means 'streak' in case 
you're wondering. The others don't like him because he's 
too small and he's a funny colour. You do see black 
occasionally in the arboreal Faylans, but it's rare. I'm 
going to take him north with me when I go. I've got 
another arboreal at home who will adore him, and he 
won't get picked on." 

I reached out to touch him, but the small Faylan gave 

me a strange look, and he began rolling his eyes back in 
his head. 

"Careful," said Draephus. "He'll bite, and those teeth 

go through flesh like knives." 

I withdrew my hand, then once more looked toward 

Wrath and Bird. More Faylans had joined them, 
spreading out in the yard, and the clearing was filling 
fast. The Faylans were seated in the deep grass, 
swaying, their faces pointed toward the sky. 

"Why are they swaying?" I asked. 
"Sun worship." 
My heard turned so fast I heard my neck crack. I 

looked at Draephus in astonishment. 

"Sun worship? Do you mean as in they enjoy the sun 

or…?" 

"I mean as in sun worship. Watch them. They line up 

in ranks, see? They do this on days when the cloud 
cover is at its thinnest. New mothers there with the 
babies, the old warriors there, elders in the middle…." 

I was astounded. "So they're not animals." 

A Torquere Press Sip - 14 

"No," said Draephus. "They're Faylans. People 

always expect intelligent life to look and act like us, and 
if it doesn't then we say it isn't human and we treat it like 
a lower life form. These guys are on our branch of the 
life tree. I'm not sure where they fit in, exactly. I'm 
thinking they may have something in common with the 
lemurs you have on Earth. But simple as they may be, 
they're definitely not animals." 

Theyrie suddenly leapt out of Draephus' arms and 

made his way to the edge of the pack, taking a place 
near the young adults. Then suddenly the entire pack of 
forty froze into place and stared up. 

"Here it comes," said Draephus. 
I'm not sure what I was expecting. A gradual opening 

of the clouds, perhaps, but no, it was as if the hand of 
some god waved, and the clouds opened, swirling away 
and leaving nothing but clear blue with a ball of purest 
molten gold in the middle. It had been so long since I 
had seen it. I didn't even realize I was crying. 

I stepped off the porch and walked over to the pack, 

taking a place near the back beside Theyrie, seating 
myself on the wet grass and looking up. It was so warm 
on my face, and the entire clearing lit up with a thousand 
colors I hadn't seen when I first arrived. The drops of 
rain were suddenly blazing diamonds, and every hue and 
nuance of the jungle flowers showed up in painfully 
vibrant detail. 

It was all so damned beautiful. 
For a full hour the Sferkkaan sun shone, and for a full 

hour I sat in it, rejoicing in its presence. Gradually the 
clouds came and hid it away, putting the golden toy of 
the gods back in the box for another century. The 
Faylans went back to their normal business. Theyrie 
bounded over to Draephus, allowing himself to be 

A Torquere Press Sip - 15 

carried inside, and I walked onto the porch, where Tiff 
was waiting for me. 

"Did you know the sun was going to shine today?" I 

asked, putting my arms around his solid little body. 

"No," he said. "I honestly didn't. But I'm glad it did, 

and you enjoyed it." 

I kissed him. "I loved it. This place is so beautiful, I 

wouldn't leave if I could." 

He smiled, and we turned and walked into the cabin. 

It was pitch black inside, my eyes still adjusting to the 
dim lighting. There was a man in front of me, but I 
could only vaguely make out his shape. Then he turned 
toward me and there were those DAMNED FREAKY 
GLOWING BLUE EYES! AUGH! 

I screamed. Raski screamed. Raski ran to Draephus 

for protection, and Theyrie cleared the entire room 
including the kitchen table in a single bound and sank 
his teeth into my face. It took fifty-one stitches to close 
the wounds. 

I have decided to leave the Faylan research to 

Draephus and just stick with frogs. 

End. 

If you liked this book you might like: A Strange 

Place in Time, The Thunder-Horse, Road trip, A 
Christmas for Vice, Sleep Walk With me, and Life Out 
There. 

A Torquere Press Sip - 16 

Waiting for the Sun 

Copyright © 2011 by Alyx Shaw 

All rights reserved. No part of this eBook may be used 
or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written 
permission except in case of brief quotations embodied 
in critical articles or reviews. For information address 
Torquere Press, Inc., PO Box 2545, Round Rock, TX 
78680 

Printed in the United States of America. 

Torquere Press, Inc.: Sips electronic edition / April 2011 

Torquere Press eBooks are published by Torquere Press, 
Inc., PO Box 2545, Round Rock, TX 78680 

A Torquere Press Sip - 17