Here’s a bit of fun from the Work-in-Progress science fiction novel Far From the Spaceports. Mitnash is one of the main characters, and he is talking to the lady running the guest house on the asteroid Bryher where he is staying:

“Get away with you, Mr Mitnash. I’ll wager that can’t be done. Look now, were you wanting the chicken or the fish tonight?”

I hesitated, not being very sure. She laughed.

“No point spending too long deciding. It’s all guinea-pig anyway. I just prepare them a mite differently and you’d never know they’re the same animal. And it’s what you’ve been having everywhere else on Scilly.”

“Truly?”

“To be sure. Tell me now, where did you eat when you arrived on St Mary’s?”

“Taji’s.”

“And what did you have? His Venusian azure duck wrap?”

I nodded, and she carried on, “So did you really think he pays to ship real duck all the way out from Earth? Just to cook it and put it in a wrap? No, Mr Mitnash, all his menu is actually guinea-pig, but he’s very good at disguising it. For just me here, I only need one male and half a dozen females. Taji has three males and thirty females. Or something like that. So now, would you like the chicken or the fish?”

Look out for more extracts, and further news of Far from the Spaceports over the next few weeks. All being well, it will be published this year…

Meanwhile, here’s a recent NASA picture of the asteroid Ceres.