ORIONIAN

ORIONIAN

"They were tall and white. I try to see them as men in some kind of white jumpsuits. The one nearest the bank is stretching out a long white arm toward Ruth."

"The arm stretches after her. It stretches and stretches to yards and stays hanging in the air. Small black things are wiggling from its tip." 

"I look where their faces should be and see black hollow dishes with vertical stripes. The stripes were moving slowly."

"'Get in, Althea, we're taking off for Orion.'"

James Tiptree Jr., The Women Men Don't See

EGGIAN

EGGIAN

"His snuffling is partly constitutional — Moa is an amphibian — and partly directed at his current customers, two impossibly cheerful young Comenor."

"Moa Blue's stern reptilian face softens."

"Moa smiles, a toothy effect that would have been intimidating in different context."

"'And' — she takes his scaly hand shyly — 'we'll remember you.'"

"'Well, now, wait till you read this last before too many thanks are in order,' he tells them, showing the glittering array of teeth that had carried his remote ancestors to dominance on his home planet of Hard Eggs."

James Tiptree Jr., The Starry Rift

MURNOO

MURNOO

"It is the embryo of a Murnoo often called a 'sex-animal.' The Murnoo is a very important part of the Ziello race, but it isn't a Ziello."

"The Murnoo grows very fast, and as soon as it releases the teat in the male's pouch it is born — a tiny furry helpless creature who requires care at first, but grows very fast."

"In only about three years it is full grown, but it doesn't look much like its Ziello father and mother. It's much shorter, with a rounded face and ears, rudimentary upper arms, and a short tail."

"Well, as a sex-animal it turned out a strange cream shade, quite lovely, with red ears and paws."

"They look partly like Ziellos and partly like big rabbits."

James Tiptree Jr., Collision

HRATTLI

HRATTLI

"We know it doesn't mean anything — you have Hrattli in top Gal Fed jobs and they look like poached eggs."

James Tiptree Jr., Your Haploid Heart

ESTHAAN

ESTHAAN

"Very human, is my snap reaction. He has the same number of fingers and features, his joints work like ours, and his skin texture — a feature on which i place great hunch reliance — is a cream-yellow version of my own brown. Eyes round, with laugh lines, and his smile shows human teeth with an extra pair of frontals. All quite standard except that his torso looks a trifle thick or blocky."

"'These owl-eyed marshmallows'"

"I rip the pilots clothes, exposing his swollen body. Two great angry scars run from each pubic ligament to above the crest of the pelvis."

"A supreme convulsion sweeps the Esthaan and the two gashes in his flanks swell, pulse, and slowly evert themselves like giant pea pods turning inside out. Amass of wriggling blobs of flesh tumbles down his sides. He screams."

James Tiptree Jr., Your Haploid Heart