Theatre of the Gods

by M. Suddain

  Each day after dawn a man would enter: he was bald with a delicately tattooed scalp, and he was dressed all in black, like a monk from the depths of hell. He always came accompanied by a giant henchman who, for lack of space in the room, would remain in the doorway, blocking the bright light from the corridor with his frame. The giant was stripped to the waist, and around his neck he wore a kind of tool belt held secure by a spiky collar. The tools themselves were the tools of his trade, the tools of a torturer. His name was Daniel, and as you well know, anyone called Daniel is evil. The first man’s name was LEON. (All caps. Pretentious? Well, you tell him.) Each morning LEON would say the same thing. He would say, ‘Good morning, Master Fabrigas. Have you finished our engine yet?’ It had been the same every day since he had attempted to leave his universe, failed and been secretly imprisoned by his own Empire. Each day was a fruitless struggle: like the mythical beast Esphodius, forced to push a great boulder to the top of a hill, only to forget later where he’d parked it. This prisoner’s day would begin with a polite enquiry, move on to begging, and end in pain.

  ‘Please, sir,’ said the old man. ‘I told you I cannot rebuild my engine without the things I asked for. I need a proper laboratory. I need a dark-ooze spectrometer. I need a quantum mortar and auto-pestle.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ LEON would say. ‘That all sounds very complicated. Tsk, tsk. What are we to do? Daniel, do you perhaps have any tools the master could use?’ And Daniel would grin, his fat fingers would search his belt for just the right tool, and the master would cry, ‘Monsters! Monsters without mercy!’

  That was essentially how it went. Until today.

  ‘Good morning, Master Fabrigas. Have you finished our mighty engine yet?’

  ‘I told you, I need the fissile plugs I asked for. And a new pencil!’ The old man held up the tiny stub to the light.

  ‘I see,’ said LEON. ‘That is interesting. Very, very interesting.’

  ‘Please, I beg you –’

  ‘Oh, there’s no need to beg, is there, Daniel? Not today. Today is your lucky day. Wash and put on these.’ He tossed a bundle of fresh clothes onto the bunk.

  And so the old-beard suddenly found himself in a transit car, crossing the gap between Her Majesty’s prison and her palace. He had not seen this view in centuries, and my stars how it had changed. ‘Am I going to see the Queen?’ he asked.

  LEON laughed. ‘Oh you should be so lucky, old man. Today you’ve got a meeting with an important businessman.’

  *

  The Man in the Shadows did not have eight chambers to make an impression on a guest. He sat alone in a modest drawing room on the far side of the palace.

  ‘Master Fabrigas, at last we meet. Won’t you have a seat?’

  ‘Thanks to your torturers I can no longer sit. I can stand, or I lie.’

  ‘Oh, let’s not call them torturers. I like to think of them as persuaders. I have been reading your file with interest. Tell me what you remember about your capture.’

  ‘I remember everything. Not a single detail escapes me. I left to travel to the next universe. My engine failed and I returned to my Empire. Along the way I was intercepted by a Vangardik unit. They took me prisoner and tried to force me to tell them the secret to my engine. I did not. I was rescued by agents of this Empire, though they could not recover my saucer craft, or its engine. I was taken to a high-security prison. They said I would be released in a few days. This was not the case. Every morning for decades since, I have been visited by your thugs who have tried to “persuade” me to build a workable RIPS. And now here we are.’

  ‘That is a truly distasteful story. But you must understand, it wasn’t my doing. These things happened well before I was born. Your imprisonment was necessary at the time: to protect the interests of this Empire. But now, as you know, certain things have happened which have changed the game.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Of course, how foolish of me. You would not have been able to subscribe to the Gazette.’ The Man in the Shadows pointed to a stack of newspapers. ‘I put aside some copies for you.’

  ‘I do not have time to read the papers.’

  ‘Oh, I think you’ll want to read these headlines.’

  The old man stooped stiffly to pick up the first paper from the pile.

  WIZARD EMBARKS ON INSANE SAUCER MISSION.

  And then …

  WIZARD RETURNS, CLAIMS ‘THIS IS NOT MY BEAUTIFUL UNIVERSE.’

  And then …

  TRIAL FOR COSMIC HERETIC.

  A DANGEROUS MAN.

  OUT FOR JUSTICE.

  UNDER SIEGE.

  And then …

  WIZARD SENTENCED TO DEATH.

  DREAM OF A QUEEN: THE WIZARD OUR SAVIOUR?

  WIZARD SETS OUT ON QUEST FOR ASTRONOMICAL GLORY.

  ATTACK AT AKROPOLIS: WIZARD’S FLEET BURNS.

  NO SIGN OF WIZARD’S REMAINS. FLIGHT BOX RECOVERED.

  PEOPLE ANGRY. IS THIS THE TIME FOR UWX?

  Each banner made the old man’s eyes widen a little more. ‘What is all this?’

  ‘It’s you. After your failure, an exact duplicate of you arrived in an exact duplicate of your saucer craft. We had his DNA tested. It’s definitely you. Except that your twin’s engine appears to have worked. He too claimed to have come from the next universe. He too claimed it was a near-duplicate universe. They couldn’t just lock him away like they could with you. Too many people were watching.’

  ‘And what has happened to this other me? And the people he travels with?’

  ‘Old man,’ laughed the Man in the Shadows, ‘I have absolutely no idea. But we need you to help us find out. All you need to do is perfect your engine. We need it to be powerful enough to transfer a very large fleet. You’ll be given notes and drawings we stole from your double. You’ll have everything you need: equipment, comfortable accommodation, access to a skilled physician who’ll restore your health, as much money as you –’

  ‘Dark ooze. I need dark ooze.’

  ‘Of course, all you need. We have great resources at our disposal.’

  ‘And what do I get if I help you find him?’

  ‘Anything you want.’

  ‘I just want to rest in peace.’

  The Man in the Shadows smiled. ‘I’m sure that can be arranged.’

  ‘What’s this?’ you say. ‘Another confounding story-thread in the saga of the race to the next universe?’ Not quite. This conversation was pieced together from one scrap of evidence: a transcript of a secret recording given to me by an interested party shortly before she mysteriously vanished. No other record of this conversation, to my knowledge, exists. Given events to come, it is reasonable to assume that this Phantom Fabrigas was successful in his efforts to build an RIPS engine for his captors. But you can rest easy about having to follow the travails of yet another actor. This sorry player’s part was cut short. He was never seen by anyone again.

  THE NIGHT GARDEN

  The moon was hidden behind its dark half, presenting just a sliver of tarnished copper at its edge. There was a world beyond, quite some distance away. This new universe was trembling and dreadful. The moon ripened. Their steering systems were smashed, they had no choice but to fall into her arms, and they did: at around ten miles a second. Their supersonic chute deployed, thankfully. The moon took them tenderly, and winced perhaps as their landing jets fired, and though they hit the surface hard enough to knock down their electrics, they didn’t break apart. They heard the crunch and hiss of dense foliage. Then, silence, punctuated only by faint whispers. They were alone in their nightmare, listing to one side, but safe.

  Soon the bosun and a group of fit slaveys appeared and hung lanterns about the deck. Bruised and bloody faces appeared in the light of the ship’s neon-mercury vapour lamps. In the calm some became frightened. Little J. Diaz, bunk 14, said, ‘I don’t want to do this any more, Bosun, I’m scared!’ and the bosun said, ‘No time to be scared, peach, your friends need your help. Now shhhh, the w
orst is over. You see? We’re safe in the jungle now.’ And it was true, they could see where they were: in a night jungle the leaves and vines were pressed against the reinforced glass of the ship’s dome, vines thicker than the bosun’s arms. They could see gargantuan flowers, some several yards across. There was a yellowy vine studded with long-lashed eyes. The eyes pressed against the windows. Spiky leaves forced scarlet juice into thin gouges along the outside of the glass, and the great flower yawning like a screaming mouth above them could have taken six slaveys into its red throat. There were few among the crew who had ever seen a jungle. There were few who’d even seen a plant. ‘What is this mess?!’ a voice cried from the dimness. But it was peaceful out and audio heard nothing close: no animal life, no jungle drums, just a faint shuffling of leaves. ‘No animal life? How strange,’ said Fabrigas.

  How strange.

  He found his captain on deck. ‘So, here we are after all,’ said the old man as he gazed up at the canopy which hid the rest of this new universe.

  ‘Where are we? You tell me where we are and I’ll agree.’

  ‘Well, we appear to be on some kind of … Yes.’

  ‘You said your magic engine didn’t work. You said you disabled it.’

  ‘Yes, I had disabled it so no one could use it. And I kept it under tight security,’ whispered the old-beard.

  It was true. Fabrigas had stayed up late at night, wondering how he would stop his shipmates from finding and meddling with his device, or, worse, stealing it to sell to the Vangardiks, or the Xo, or any of the other armadas. He’d toyed with all kinds of elaborate locks and counter-measures. In the end, he put his machine in the privy beside his quarters and changed the little sign to ‘OCCUPIED’.

  ‘Then someone must have fixed it,’ said the botanist as she limped to join them. She had very good ears, apparently.

  ‘There were only two people who understood my enhanced engine. I shot one of them into space, and the other is me. No one on this ship except me has the skills to operate it. Unless they were a …’

  The old man looked over to Roberto who was fussing over Lenore. ‘Roberto,’ she said, ‘I am fine un-hurt. Why won’t you annoy some other?’ Then Roberto saw the old-beard looking and fled.

  ‘So it is a mystery,’ said the captain.

  ‘Yes,’ said Fabrigas, with a faint smile. ‘It certainly is.’

  When Lenore stomped past, the old man said, ‘Little girl, I wonder, did you enjoy the soup I sent down?’

  ‘Oh, Roberto and I did not enjoin with your soup,’ she said. ‘It smelled funny to me so we ate one apples per piece. And no bats.’

  She paused, sniffed the air, then wandered off. Fabrigas watched her leave. Then he turned to find a menacing figure emerging from the shadows. ‘So. You were hiding Her Majesty’s treasure, the Vengeance. You meant to smuggle her out of the universe.’

  ‘Not so. She stowed away. She was eating our bats.’

  ‘And why did you not hand her over to me?’

  ‘Well … that is to say …’

  ‘Do you have any idea of the crime you have committed? You are a traitor of the worst kind, old man, and when we are out of danger I will tie the noose for you myself.’

  And then he stalked off.

  But by now the other sailors had begun to circle, wearily, rubbing their bruised heads. ‘How many killed?’ said Fabrigas, and the bosun said, ‘None more, praise heaven, though our bodies have many broken parts.’

  ‘It is her fault!’ said a sailor, a man named Quiggs. ‘It is the Devil Girl’s fault we’re in a crooked state.’

  ‘Well, now then,’ said the Devil herself.

  ‘We’re doomed, we’re doomed,’ murmured someone from the back.

  ‘Very probably,’ said Fabrigas. ‘But we were always doomed. Nothing has changed except that the nature of our doom has become more mysterious. The best we can do is form a small party, and to see if there is anything in our vicinity that may be of use. My instruments have detected the gravity from the world this moon orbits. This moon flies unnaturally close to its mother. If we can repair our ship we can make the crossing and perhaps find civilised tribes to bargain with. Until then we should be thankful that we are safe within this botanical fortress.’

  That’s when Miss Fritzacopple spoke up in her languidly silky voice: ‘We will definitely not be opening the doors to this ship,’ she said. ‘Not if any of us want to survive. If anyone leaves this ship they will be dead in seconds.’ A spasm of panic jagged through the assembled. The Gentrifaction, huddled towards the back, were making low moaning sounds like a ghostly barbershop trio.

  ‘We’re doomed!’ howled someone else.

  ‘Please stop saying that,’ said Fabrigas. ‘Miss Fritzacopple, would you explain?’

  ‘I am not at all familiar with these particular plants,’ said the botanist, whose dark hair shone like brass in the hazy glow of the ship’s lamps, ‘but I am extremely familiar with similar plants in our natural kingdom.’ She held up a lamp to the ship’s glass shell. ‘I know, for example, that the teeth on this plant are designed to tear flesh from bone.’ The assembled inclined their heads. They knew which specimen she meant, for its flower was like a set of full, sensuous lips guarded over by rows of scalpels. ‘This plant is a man-eater, probably a woman-eater, too. This one over here has only two small fangs, but they are designed, by whatever cruel god made it, to drain a body of blood in just a few seconds.’ And then she made a rapid sucking sound from between her sensuous lips: ‘Schwipp.’

  ‘A vampire plant!’

  Panic was raiding the deck of the Necronaut.

  ‘This vine here –’ now the botanist raised her voice above the growing noises of hysteria – ‘has nodules designed to spit a liquid – most likely poison, or an acid. Oh, and this here looks to be some kind of constrictor vine, you can see by the –’

  ‘Oh, for the love of God, please stop!’ cried the voice from the back.

  ‘They’re all asleep now anyway,’ said the botanist. ‘But by the morning, they’ll want us.’

  ‘Sleeping shrubs! What madness is this?!’

  ‘But in conclusion,’ concluded Miss Fritzacopple, ‘whatever devils we have aboard –’ and here she made a delicate gesture towards Lenore – ‘they are nothing compared to the devils we face out there.’

  ‘Yes, so let’s all just stay calm,’ said Fabrigas. ‘There’s no good getting lathered before our bath is run. We must remember our place in the natural order. These plants may have teeth, but we have brains. We can fashion weapons, make fire!’

  ‘Why are we listening to this old fooooool?’ said a voice that everyone immediately picked as the scalpel-sharp drawl of the surgeon. ‘He got us into this mess. It’s because of him we’re in this shape.’ A breeze of agreement rose and fell as Descharge swung his steely eyes towards them.

  ‘That’s enough!’ he barked. ‘There’s nothing to be gained from mob methods.’

  ‘But how,’ continued Shatterhands, ‘are we expected to follow a man who betrayed us, who poisoned us, who was about to throw us into space? As commander of this … “fleeeeeet” … it is your duty to punish mutineers, is it not?’ A louder, angrier murmur passed through, and the men began to push forward, to form a tighter group around Fabrigas, the captain, Descharge, Lenore, Miss Fritzacopple. ‘Stand down, dogs!’ cried the bosun, and Lenore could be heard to say, ‘Things are getting foolish, what?’ The mop-headed Roberto stood to one side, leaning with one arm on a rail and calmly studying the back of his hand. The trim on his jumpsuit shone faintly in the half-light. He had a heavy cargo hook beside him.

  ‘And this girl! This Devil Girl! She surely by her very nature has doomed us to hell!’ As the mob turned their attention to Lenore, Roberto yawned, straightened and languidly moped across to put himself between Lenore and the mob. He held the cargo hook loosely in his left hand.

  ‘And what are you going to do, little boy?’ said Hardcastle, the sailor at the head of the group.
Poke me with your pole?’ He held a lamp above the boy’s shaggy head. Roberto calmly touched the hook to the sailor’s lamp and it exploded in a ball of fire. Hardcastle went reeling madly back into a pile of fire hoses where he lay gently smoking.

  ‘Well, let’s seize the old man first,’ said someone. ‘The girl can wait!’

  ‘Oh, this is unseemly,’ cried Pantagruel. ‘Can’t we execute them in a civilised manner?’ But the mob came forward to seize the traitor, and just as they did, Fabrigas himself, to the surprise of everyone, fell to his knees. ‘It’s true! It’s all true! This is all my fault!’ He began to sob. ‘I took us all aboard this ship of doom, I took us all into this hell, I deserve to be tossed to the weeds! Don’t blame the girl! Don’t blame the fates! Oh toss me to the furious jaws of nature!’

  ‘Hear, hear!’ said the surgeon as he clapped his bony hands together, but he suddenly noticed that the rage that had been building in the crew had died. They were now looking at the old man with great pity. And Fabrigas, whose face shone with tears, had turned his eyes imploringly towards the deathly weeds above.

  ‘Throw me to the ferocious shrubs,’ he whispered, hands clasped before him, ‘I implore you! Hurl me in among the poison roses. Let my frail body nourish the soil! Bring swift mercy to this traitorous old fool!’

  ‘Now look what you’ve done, you beasts!’ said Miss Fritzacopple, and the chins of the assembled dropped. There was a noticeable change of mood upon the deck. Anger dissolved to shame. ‘Honestly, threatening a helpless old man.’

  Then Descharge said, ‘Anyone who lays a hand on this man will answer to me.’

  ‘And me,’ said the bosun.

  ‘Quite so. I am commanding officer and as such I swear that I will make it my duty to bring this traitor to justice. But for now we need every resource at our disposal. His brain could be the only way we’ll make it out alive.’