“Can’t you?” I said, mockingly, and took out my ray gun and fired it, a flech to the right of the FanTang leader’s skull-protrusion.
A chunk of the marble column behind the monster vaporised, with a sharp hiss. I fired again, and the rock-table vanished. I fired a third time, at the feet of the FanTang leader’s monsterly advisors, and a hole appeared in the ground beneath them and they leaped for safety.
(“Good shooting,” murmured Cantrell.)
“If we fought a war,” I explained gently to the FanTang leader, “you would lose.”
“Yeah! You parent-fucking bastards!” added Cantrell, viciously.
The FanTang leader emitted a sad, pathetic howl. He looked around helplessly. “I am humiliated,” he said, feebly.
“Not so,” I said calmly, and handed the monster the ray gun. “Look. A gesture of trust. We come in peace. Here is my magic weapon. I give it to you to show that I trust you. We come in peace, which is not-war, which is better than war, which is-”
(“Quit while you’re ahead,” murmured Cantrell.)
“All we want to do, you see,” I said patiently, to this savage green-hided brute with skin like lava and no control whatsoever of its salivary glands, “is trade.”
“You give me your weapon!” said the FanTang leader, marvelling, holding the ray gun as if it were a-well, as if it were a deadly weapon of extra-FanTangian origin that had just been given to him as an unexpected present. “That shows much respect! And trust. And-”
He pressed the button on the side, and the gun fired.
“And folly!” the FanTang leader roared, delighted by his own rhetoric.
The blast ripped me into pieces; I flew through the air and landed in fragments, and my blood gushed on to the floor messily.
Then the monster pointed the ray gun at Cantrell, and fired again.
[I woke, in agony again. I took a moment to recover my wits. All was going according to plan.]
I returned into my shadow body. It was a perfect simulacrum of my real body, accessible to all the senses including touch. But it was, at the end of the day, no more than a computer simulation, which I could easily control with the power of my thought.
And so this time I allowed my pools of blood to coagulate and merge until they stood upright and formed a human silhouette. My severed limbs slicked across the floor and reformed and rejoined, and my arms then placed my head back on my body, until I stood before the monsters as a flaccid blood-emptied sac of skin. Then I opened my mouth…
… and I drank my own blood-silhouette, like a squelched fruit travelling backwards in time; and resumed my normal shape.
Beside me Cantrell did the same. The two of us tottered on wobbly legs, regaining our balance, then stared as terrifyingly as we could at the FanTang leader and his associates.
“We ask you to surrender,” I said, using the only relevant term this creature seemed to grasp.
The FanTang leader gaped; the flow of saliva became a flood; and I screamed: “SURRENDER PARENT-FUCKER OR YOU DIE!” while beside me, Cantrell grinned approvingly.
“I surrender, o mighty one,” said the FanTang leader humbly, and cravenly.
“We ask for your sword, you defeated and abject, um, defeated creature,” I demanded; and the FanTang leader took his sword from his belt, and shook it until the blade grew and gleamed, then handed it to me, hilt uppermost.
I hefted the sword. It was light, but powerful. I guessed that small-worlds technology was involved. This was, despite the aliens’ brutality and grotesque salivation, a pretty sophisticated culture.
“We ask for, nay, we demand, your life,” I said, with what I felt was considerable aplomb; and I swung the sword and lopped off the FanTang leader’s head.
The creature roared, and fell to the ground and died in evident agony, green blood spouting from its head-less torso; while the head itself rolled slowly across the cavern floor until it hit a wall.
“We now offer the hand of friendship,” I said, icily, to the surviving FanTangs. “Rebuff us again, and you will all die.” The FanTang advisers bowed their heads, in a clear gesture of submission, clearly reassured that I was finally talking their language.
“How do we,” one of the advisers said humbly, “trade?”
[Back in my simulacrum-tank, I grinned.]
My shadow-self, stained with splashed blood, bent and twisted where my body hadn’t properly reformed, still managed to retain its customary dignified demeanour.
“I shall,” I said coolly, “explain.”
“Come on, stretch,” said Averil sternly.
After five days in the simulacrum tank, I was stiff and muscle-wasted and yearned to lie down and die. But I pushed myself hard, stretching my leg muscles, shaking out my shoulder muscles, and turning my head-with a satisfying crack of my neck vertebrae-in a perfect circle, to get it nicely limber.
“Swivel those hips,” Averil ordered, and I swivelled my hips so that my groin exchanged places with my arse, and vice versa.
“And back!”
I swivelled my hips swiftly back to their normal position, and blinked, seeing stars.
“Floor jumps!” I dropped to the ground, pushed up and down, jumped into the air, and made an X shape with my arms and legs.
“Hold!”
I held my position, hovering in mid-air, breathing through my diaphragm to keep my air-sacs inflated.
“And land.”
I landed.
Sweat bathed my muscular body now, and I could see that there was a sparkle in Averil’s eyes. She was an exhilaratingly intelligent woman, squat and powerful, with a shrewdness in her features that made my heart skip.
“Run on the spot.”
I began running on the spot, my legs arcing high with each pace, and Averil followed suit. We ran side by side to nowhere, with an effortless stride.
I could see the dampness of her strong shoulders. I could see her muscles moving beneath her smooth skin as she ran. I knew her game, and I was enjoying it.
“Okay, stop,” said Averil, “and rub down.”
I grabbed her, and touched her all over with my hands.
“Rub yourself down, I meant!” she said laughing.
I kissed her lips. My tongue flicked into her mouth.
“Not here, there are cameras,” she protested, mildly, kissing back.
“I disconnected them.”
“You disconnected them huh?”
“On the offchance.”
“On the offchance of what?”
“On the offchance of this.”
I fumbled with her leotard, slipped the catch, and it fell away from her body. She was naked, her body was hot and flushed and soft. I kissed her breasts, then put my hand between her legs and touched her sex, its hardness and softness, and its pulsing heart. I slipped out of my own leotard and stood before her naked; and with her gentle fingers and warm palm she caressed both of my erect cocks.
“Yes!” she moaned as I entered her, and then she screamed, and her body gripped me, and her muscles squeezed me, and her kisses dampened my cheeks.
“I love you,” I murmured, gently, as her passion grew, and she screamed, and swore, and her body bucked and spasmed until finally she came, with adorable violence.
Averil lay panting in my arms. And I savoured the pleasure, the unique joy, of being able to liberate her joy.
“That was fabulous,” she conceded.
I smiled. I had made my female happy.
I was content.
“Let me see,” said Chief Trader Mohun, and I opened the casket.
“Jewels,” I said, passing over an elaborate chain embedded with precious stones and tiny golden ingots carved with complex shapes and soft white things that looked to me like the teeth of FanTang infants, though I chose not to enquire too deeply.
“Fabrics,” I added, and passed over a sheet of softest silk, made from the webs of Blaga-sized creatures called Shibbols who were kept in underground FanTang farms where they wallowed
in excrement and never saw the light of day.
“Weapons,” I concluded, and showed Mohun a selection of swords, axes, knives, bolas, hurlable metal spikes and throwing darts, all moulded and carved with impeccable artistry.
“We can sell these to the Kala,” Mohun said, beaming, for avarice was the candle that lit his soul. “They love weaponry of all of the sharp, nasty and stabby varieties. And body parts, too of course.”
“I know,” I said, smiling nostalgically. “I’ve seen-”
“You’ve seen their diamond eyes?”
“I’ve sold their diamond eyes. Wrested from the corpses of slaughtered Banzoi. They are, indeed, beautiful artefacts; eyeballs that can be worn as jewellery.”
“I like the Kala,” said Mohun, thoughtfully.
“They are indeed,” I concurred, “easily duped, and often overpay by huge margins.”
“And what’s this?” Mohun said, inspecting the air-image of an evil-looking body-ridged monster with hundreds of dead staring eyes and skin like food that had been hidden and forgotten about centuries ago.
“The FanTang mummify their dead.”
“Ah,” said Mohun delightedly, as if I had bathed him in Magola oil with soft hands that had never known a hard day’s work.
“They use a kind of resin that turns decaying flesh into, well, decaying flesh that doesn’t actually smell. The effect is striking. A perfect ornament for the hallway or courtyard.”
“Perfect! They’ll sell their mummies to us?”
“Not willingly.”
“But we have small print that will cover it?”
“Our print,” I assured him, “is so small that microbes can make necklaces of our Os.”
“And what do they want in return?”
“Wealth, power, and the ability to smite their enemies and conquer the universe.”
Mohun roared with laughter. “Predictable. What can we actually give them?”
“I think they’ll settle for technology that will allow them to geo-engineer the other planets in their system.”
“We can offer that,” Mohun conceded.
“And they also want access to our shadow-self technology.”
“Also not a problem.”
“And they’ve guessed we have a way of travelling instantly through space. They want us to teach their scholars the essence of rift theory.”
“Out of the question.”
“That’s what I thought. How about showing them how to teleport?”
“Yeah, I guess we can do that,” said Trader Mohun, with a sly smile.
“Good,” I said, riffling mentally through my notes. “Their animals are edible to Type 430s. Their plants are delicious, apparently, if you have a second stomach.”
“All very satisfying,” said Mohun. “We’ll set up a trading post. Have you signed the contracts with them?”
I shook my head. “Not yet; give me a few days more.”
“I have every faith in you, Trader Jak. A drink?” said Mohun.
“Always,” I avowed. Mohun poured two thimbles of rich-juice. We sniffed, then swallowed, then slammed; and I felt a familiar pin-prick in my eyes and a pounding in my brain.
We each took a deep breath, as the rich-juice entered our brains and sent our thoughts into violent paroxysm.
And then tranquillity descended upon us. Our moods became mellow. And we engaged, for a quarter hour or more, in chit-chat about our favourite colours and textures and smells; and reminisced about the soft touch of Madyouran silk upon one’s body, and the tenderness of the Laumarax star-flower, and other such memories.
“They are, the FanTangs I mean, an appalling species in many ways,” I told Mohun. “Violent. Warmongering. Scornful of other species. And yet all the indications are that they will honour a deal; and, with sufficient intimidation from us, will refrain from trespassing on other planets in the Olaran Trading Zone.”
“And if they don’t?”
“Oh the usual precautions,” I said. “One cannot be too careful.”
The celebration banquet was, as one would expect from a Trading Fleet as sophisticated and cultured as our own, magnificent.
It was held in the Banqueting Dome of the Court Ship, a glass-shelled room which offered a spectacular view of the stars around us.
I wore my Fogan life robe, made of silk from the finest queen Fogan-spiderbirds. The robe had once been a shawl that was wrapped around the new-born me; at which time it bonded with my spirit so it would always be perfectly attuned to my moods.
Tonight the robe was cheerfully scarlet and blue and bejewelled and dazzling, and swept behind me as I walked. I wore a tight tunic over my muscled torso and my legs and arms were wrapped in wool plucked from young Mantrian Shaals.
“You look wonderful,” said Averil, who wore a rich pure-white Drax-hide gown, her hair pinned back to highlight the smoothness of her high forehead. Slyly I ogled her acuity; she was indeed sublime.
“Kiss my lips,” I requested, and she did; my lips were lightly coated in electrically-charged jewel dust and sent sparks into her tongue. Beneath my robe, my entire body was coated in the same dust, which kept me in a permanent state of sensual excitation.
“A good day’s trading,” said Chief Trader Mohun, as he ushered me to my seat at the banquet table. I admired the arrangement of the dishes-a thousand tiny portions in a pyramid that hovered above the table. As each course was eaten, the pyramid would re-form into ever more appealing new shapes.
I sat, and looked around, admiring the beauty of my fellow Traders and the majesty and understated authority of the assembled Mistresses of the Fleet.
However to my dismay I saw that there were-seated directly opposite me, like black thunderclouds in a clear blue sky-two grim-faced Space Explorers. Dressed in drab grey synthetic-fabric tunics with no bodily or facial adornments and not a trace of, well, finesse. The younger one was pretty enough-though hardly beautiful by the standards of the Court Ship-but his companion was old and bald with eyes like black holes. This wizened old spacefarer had skin like withered hide, and a scowl that made me shudder. I conjured up my most charming smile, and vowed to never let myself become so decrepit.
“I am Trader Jak Dural,” I said to the Space Explorers, “and it is an honour to encounter such famed adventurers; I’ve read so much of your exploits.”
The old one glared; the younger one beamed.
“Do you even know,” the older one said, “who we are?”
“It’s on the tip of my tongue,” I said sweetly, checking my factology via murmur-link.
“I am Morval, once I was Assistant Chief Trader to the Empress,” said the one whose name, I now knew, was Morval.
“I recall your name; the honour is all mine,” I replied.
Morval! One of the most legendary arseholes in the history of the Olaran Home Court!
“My name is Phylas,” said his young companion, and flicked his tongue so I could see he did at least have a jewelled stud embedded in it.
“You have, I take it, been many years in the wastelands of space?” I asked.
“That’s what we do,” said Morval grimly.
“I’m hoping,” added Phylas, “for advancement into the Trader Fleet one day.”
“Once your suspended sentence has lapsed,” added Morval, cattily, though it was hardly a surprise to me; only the old and the criminally disgraced would serve with the Explorers.
“Is it a crime I would have heard of?” I asked brightly.
Phylas scowled, and his youthful good looks were marred. “Forgery of alien artefacts.”
“Skilfully executed?”
“Apparently not.”
“Then you deserve,” I said, uncharitably, “everything you got.”
“I gather,” said Morval, “that the negotiations with wretched FanTang have been successful?” He had, I noted approvingly, changed the conversation with some degree of tact.
“Early days,” I said modestly. And Morval grunted, with open scorn.
“They boiled us alive,” Morval informed me. “Or rather, our simulacras. It was a test of course. When we survived, they agreed to meet our trading team.”
“They’re a monstrous species,” I agreed.
“Cruel,” said Morval.
“Treacherous,” added Phylas.
“Vicious,” clarified Morval.
“Barbaric,” muttered Phylas, further clarifying what did not need to be further clarified; I realised these two had spent a great deal of time together in deep space.
“Bloodthirsty,” Morval countered.
“How,” Phylas burst out, “can you do business with monsters like these?”
I was amused at his naivety. “What would you rather do?”
“Isolate them!”
“Then they’ll never,” I pointed out, “improve.”
“Ah,” said Phylas, the light of insight in his eyes. “So we’re really using trade as a way of making barbaric civilisations more… civilised.”
“Define civilised,” I said coolly.
“Not eating your young, or enslaving a rival sentient species.”
“Fair definition,” I conceded. “But our job is not to conquer, or to manipulate societies.”
I sipped my wine, and felt a glow as it slid down my inner throat, then entered my outer throat, and then proceeded downwards into my stomach where I tasted and savoured it again.
“Our job,” I explained, “is to make the universe a better place, through the fairer distribution of its treasures and its artefacts of sentient-created beauty.”
And I showed them the jewel that hung around my neck; a diamond the size of a Toowit’s egg; a gem of the rarest beauty.
“Jewels,” said Phylas. “It’s all about jewels?”
“Pretty much,” I admitted. “Plus fabrics, objects of artistic merit, music, novels, films-mainly, though, jewels.”
And I selected and ate my first morsel of food from the aerial display; a crustacean paste spread upon the liver of a snowbird. It was, as I had anticipated, sublime.
The second bottle of wine surpassed the first; it had a rich tang like the bass notes of a stringed larura mingled with the promise of sunshine on a cloudy day.
Hell Ship Page 3