Platypus Portal

The secret to interstellar travel was eventually found, not in the laboratories of Washington or Beijing, but in the riverbeds of eastern Tasmania. The planet Earth’s ultimate ambassador to the cosmos was not Homo Sapiens, as many had predicted, but Ornithorhynchus Anatinus, a winningly eccentric species known, to some, as the Duck-billed Platypus. Having discovered the miniature wormhole amid the rocks and leaf rot of their native habitat ⁠— a jagged, purple opening, crackling with uncertainty ⁠— the Duck-billed Delegation had waged a yearslong intergalactic charm offensive. Their fan-like feet waved diplomatically from the tranquil canals of Mars. Their slick, water-absorbing fur delighted the Hive Queen of Alpha Centauri, whose species had never known the concept of ‘wet.’ Their tails coiled with power and statesmanship as they helped to move organic matter for the Moon Beetle Dung Dams of Aldebaran IV. It was the most successful ambassadorial mission in the history of…