Hell Ship

by Philip Palmer

  And the streets of the cities and smaller settlements were covered in corpses, and already-whitening skeletons. All the dead were FanTang or Jaimal, and many wore heavy body armour or exo-skeletons.

  The people of this planet were warriors and they had marched into battle against some implacable foe. Billions if not trillions had died; yet our cameras did not see the corpse of a single enemy combatant.

  It was carnage; token of a defeat so absolute it beggared belief.

  “That’s a Trader craft,” said Morval, and the scout ship flew lower and we saw the wreckage of a Trader vessel on the ground, its complex bottle-curves shattered by some hammer blow. There were corpses lying near the wreckage. They were clearly Olaran.

  “Retrieve the bodies,” I said, and the scout ship levitated the corpses and swallowed them in its hull.

  “Who did this?” asked Galamea.

  The image on the screen began to flicker.

  “What’s wrong?” I said.

  Albinia screamed, and screamed, and her eyes snapped out of trance, cutting her link with the metal minds.

  “The planet,” she murmured.

  Phylas changed the sky-eye image, and now we saw hovering in mid-air a more distant view of the blackened smoking globe of the planet of the FanTang.

  “The planet’s going to blow,” said Phylas, taking the readings.

  Pillars of flame started to burst upwards from the planet’s surface. Black clouds gathered and dispersed, then re-gathered. The blue of the seas and the red of the fields slowly vanished; until nothing could be seen except a black haze of smoke that mingled with the mushroom clouds.

  “The sun!” screamed Phylas, and an image of the sun appeared before us.

  The sun was changing colour, and its corona was flaring even more wildly, expelling gobbets of plasma like the vomit of a dying Olaran. I looked at my instruments and saw that we were being drenched in solar radiation.

  “Supernova?” I said.

  “I believe so,” said Phylas.

  Now, the process seems wearily familiar; then, it was a horror like nothing we had ever seen.

  After hours of devastating volcanic activity and earthquakes that ripped the land to shreds, the planet itself shattered -it broke into a million parts, as if struck a terrible blow, and the fragments drifted in space.

  And then, in a ghastly slow ballet, the moons too detonated, one by one; like spools of cable unwinding, leaving sad haloes of light behind where once life had dwelled.

  And finally, the sun of the FanTang turned supernova; an eruption of light like a universe birthing; a vision of nature’s fury such as I had never seen before.

  Ten years previously I had travelled to this stellar system and raged at the ignorance and brutal violence of that wretched species, the FanTang. Now they were a memory; their bodies interstellar debris; and I was chilled at the breathtaking malice of such an act of planetary genocide.

  “The FanTang,” Albinia announced, “left a dying message; they blame us for their downfall.”

  “No one will believe that,” said Albinia.

  “Some may,” conceded Morval.

  “They accused us of betraying them; ambushing them; and destroying their planet,” said Albinia.

  “They were,” I said excusingly, “wild with grief.”

  “The Trader Post was also destroyed; five hundred Olarans dead,” Albinia added.

  Morval made a strange exclamation; more howl than word.

  “How is that possible?” Morval said. “Our space defences are-”

  “The Olaran Court believes there is a aggressive species currently active with technology comparable to our own,” Albinia concluded.

  “That conclusion is inescapable,” said Galamea coldly. She had fought in the war against the Stuxi; she more than anyone knew what was at stake here.

  For our entire culture, our entire civilisation, is founded on one thing: undefeatable military might, based on science far beyond the imaginings of most sentient species. The Stuxi came close; but even they were, ultimately, easily defeated by our astonishingly powerful weapons of destruction.

  It was our military power than ensured that no species could invade us, or defeat us, or threaten our trading links. But now, at a stroke, that had changed. And we were vulnerable.

  I felt dizzy; as though standing on a high cliff top, staring down into an abyss.

  “Whoever did this,” I said, calmly, but with utter conviction-for I knew the ability of our kind to birth a grudge, and to nurture it, and then to wreak the most terrible vengeance-“they shall pay.”

  Sa-ias

  I was travelling fast across the plain, throwing myself upwards and forwards with my tentacles, like a bullet with arms, when I heard a roaring sound above me. I tried to swerve away, but I was too slow and a great weight came crashing into me.

  Cuzco!

  His claws lashed at me, his great jagged tongue jabbed me, his six wings enveloped me and prevented me from propelling myself forward.

  “You fucking cunt-eating cowardly fucking seamonster!” he screamed at me, and his foul words flew on the wind as our bodies encoiled and rolled.

  I screamed at him to stop but he wouldn’t heed me and we continued to tumble along the ground.

  At the last moment Cuzco broke free but I carried on hurtling onwards and gouged a huge trench out of the grey earth with my arse and back segments.

  Cuzco’s assault had knocked the breath out of my lungs. I was dazed. I clambered myself upright on to my twelve feet and I glared at Cuzco.

  “Was that your idea,” I asked, “of a joke?”

  “Oh,” said Cuzco, “yes.”

  And Cuzco bared his face at me; and mocking laughter consumed his features.

  I sighed, from my tentacle tips; I loved Cuzco, but even so, I had to concede that he could be an annoying bully sometimes.

  “That stupid fucking biped of yours,” he said tauntingly, “will never last. He’ll be in Despair and out of the hatch in less than a year.”

  “We’ll see.”

  Cuzco’s features were consumed with hilarity. “He doesn’t stand a swamp-fucking chance!” he crowed, and I raged at his cruel mockery.

  And yet I feared his words were true.

  The Rhythm of Days consumed me, as it always did.

  And then, on a Day the Ninth, just three cycles after leaving Sharrock with the arboreals, I travelled to see him, once again using my tentacles to fling me fast through the air.

  I saw that the camp I had helped him to make in the forest was deserted. I stood by the trees and called his name and saw no trace of him.

  And so I called up to the aerials flying above and they descended, and I asked them courteously for a favour.

  And then I spread my cape and they gripped my carapace in their claws and lifted me up into the air. Up I rose, their sharp talons gripping my soft skin, their wings beating; a hundred aerial creatures with scales and feathers and furs upon their wings, some with double heads, some with none, some as large as clouds, some as tiny as a biped’s skull; and they flew me up, above the tree line; then higher still; and patiently waited until the winds were strong enough to support me.

  Then I thanked them again, and the aerials released me, and flew off, no doubt relieved to be no longer lifting my considerable bulk. I was now gliding on updrafts of air, undulating my cape and extended body to remain stable.

  And from my aerial viewpoint, I peered down at the forest canopy, looking for the haloes of the arboreals who were supposed to be Sharrock’s cabin friends.

  It took me a while to remember the knack of ignoring visual input so that I could focus on the mesh of body heat and personality that defined each sentient’s halo. The four I was looking for had strongly defined haloes-they were angry, spiteful creatures, and that made them easier to find. They were: Mangan, who I had introduced to Sharrock, Tara, Shiiaa, and Daran.

  But there were hundreds of arboreals down there, and it was hard to focus on
haloes as my body bucked and kinked in the wind. But I persevered: and so slowly and carefully, as the black shadow of my body fell upon the green and yellow forest canopy below, my eyes analysed the blurry patterns of hundreds of bodies in motion.

  Eventually I was confident I had found my four. They were travelling fast, running up and down trees and swinging from branch to branch. They were chasing something; and then I saw a fifth halo and recognised it as Sharrock. They were playing with him.

  This was exactly what I’d feared; the foul-mouthed, arrogant, always-angry Sharrock had riled the vicious little bastards.

  I began to glide downwards towards the canopy. I furled my cape to make my body smaller then released my hood so it dangled above and behind me, slowing my fall, allowing me to control my descent.

  Then I tightened into a hard ball and crashed through the canopy, breaking branches and shattering tree trunks until I landed safely on the ground.

  I was now back to my usual size, a moist-skinned jet-black sea creature in a forest; feeling out of place and claustrophobic. But I owed it to Sharrock to rescue him.

  I called out Sharrock’s name; no response.

  I called Sharrock’s name again, but still he did not show himself. So I peered through the trees, looking for his halo, and saw that he was near. He was running along the ground, frenziedly and fast; clearly he was not agile enough to swing from branch to branch.

  He had been doing this, I guessed, for about thirty-four days; and yet his pace was unfaltering and fast.

  I charged forward and crashed a path through the thick forest, towards Sharrock’s fleeing body. I could hear screaming and cackling near him. On I thundered; I was too large to weave between trees so I simply ran at them and pushed the trees over, leaving a trail of destruction behind me.

  And as I ran, I called Sharrock’s name, and his halo moved closer and closer, and I could tell that he was tracking me, trying to reach me. And finally, I emerged into a clearing, and he broke from cover and ran towards me.

  As he ran, projectiles rained down from the trees and crashed into his body, exploding like bombs and coating him from head to toe in a slimy brown slurry. The blows were powerful and I could hear bones breaking, but Sharrock’s run did not falter. He ran towards me, and rolled, and stood up behind me, using me as his shield.

  The projectiles, I realised, were balls of shit; Sharrock was stained with the juice of them, and I was glad I had no olfactory sense.

  “You evil fucking bitch!” Sharrock shouted at me. He was out of breath. His arm was crooked and he favoured one leg; I guessed he had been beaten badly, perhaps several times. One of the arboreals had eaten his nose, and the bloody mess on the front of his face was still damp and unhealed.

  “Oh Sharrock,” I said, “I’m so very sorry.”

  “You fucking should be!” he roared. “These bastards have been chasing me for an entire fucking [unit of measurement on his world]. You treacherous cock-with-contagious-boils! This is all your fucking fault! Get me out of here!”

  I sighed sorrowfully through my tentacle tips; for there was really no cause for such extreme language. I considered myself to be unoffendable, but even I was starting to get annoyed.

  Meanwhile, the arboreals leaped down from the trees and hopped around, elated at the success of their great joke.

  “I cannot,” I said.

  “They tried to fucking kill me!”

  “You must have provoked them,” I said sternly.

  He looked at me, with horror and rage. “No I did not!”

  “Did you tell them,” I asked, “that they are inferior to you, mere ignorant simians without any culture or grasp of sophisticated concepts?”

  He hesitated; no doubt startled that I knew him so well. “Well perhaps,” he said. “But not in those exact words.”

  “What were in fact your exact words?”

  “I told Mangan,” said Sharrock recalling the moment with evident relish, “that he was nothing but a tree-fucking ape, and that on my planet we cook the brains of such ignorant branch-swinging hairy-arsed shit-hurling ignorant fucking savages!”

  I sighed again, and in fairness he had the grace to look abashed at his own misguided eloquence.

  “You insulted them,” I said. “And this is their way of asserting dominance over you.”

  “Over me!?!” roared Sharrock. “On my planet, we feed hairy-cocked beasts like this to our fucking pets! You evil fucking whore-shit! You led me into a trap. You knew what would happen to me!”

  “I knew it was possible. But you should not have not been so discourteously provocative,” I advised him.

  “You should have warned me how vicious these evil fuckers are!”

  “I sedated you,” I pointed out, “prior to leaving you in the forest. Surely that was warning enough?”

  At that moment, Mangan strode towards us, his three legs moving in an odd rhythm, his silver fur matted, his big staring eyes blinking. Mangan’s four arms were huge, and he carried spiked clubs made out of tree branches in each hand.

  “You fled, you hairless foul-tongued coward,” he sneered at Sharrock.

  “I am no coward! However, I would like to try,” said Sharrock, in an unexpected attempt at diplomacy, “to be your friend.”

  Daran threw another shit ball, rather sneakily; and I batted it away with one tentacle.

  “This is wrong,” I told the arboreals. And they cackled and danced on the balls of their feet, entirely unrepentant.

  “I regret my words,” said Sharrock. “I have insulted you, and for this I deserve all you have done to me. For Sharrock is,” and at this moment he literally hung his head in shame, “humbled, and defeated.”

  The arboreals cackled again. Mangan was starting to look mollified. For one exhilarating moment, I began to think that Sharrock was capable of behaving like a sane and civilised sentient.

  And then Sharrock screamed: “Ha! I jest! Sharrock? Defeated? Never!! ” And he pounced.

  And then I realised that for all this time he’d been trying to get the four arboreals to descend to ground level. In the trees, they had the advantage; down here, he had a fighting chance.

  And so he dived forward and rolled, like a bird in flight, and unbalanced Mangan with a foot swipe, and as he did so his elbow connected with the huge arboreal’s ribs. He broke two of Mangan’s arms in moments and then he had one of the clubs in his hand, and as the other three arboreals leaped at him he lashed out and in a series of swings so fast they defied the ability of eyes to see, he smashed their heads into pulp.

  Mangan was back on his feet, and locked one hand around Sharrock’s neck but Sharrock had a knife made of serpent’s fangs concealed and he hacked Mangan’s arm off then buried the knife in his brain.

  Shiiaa recovered from her battering, and got up, and lunged; her skull was caved in but her three knife arms were swinging. However, Sharrock leaped above Shiiaa’s head and landed behind her, then delivered two savage kicks to the arboreal’s twin spines, shattering both, and then broke her neck with a single savage twist.

  But then Tara’s tail whipped up and caught Sharrock by the neck and lifted him in the air.

  “Stop,” I said, but Tara ignored me so I spat at her; the spit congealed and wrapped her body in a tight web. Tara choked and fell to the ground, unable to move, snarled in white congealed spit that was stronger than metal. And Sharrock broke free of the tail and fell to the ground.

  “Nice one, bitch,” he said, when he’d got his breath back.

  “Climb on my back,” I told him.

  I ran out of the forest with Sharrock clinging on to me, ramming through undergrowth and trees, hoping that I was not hurting any sentient plantlife in my clumsy progress. And then we emerged into the light, and I crashed down upon my lower segment on the purple grass of the savannah.

  “I was defending myself,” Sharrock said, angrily.

  “You picked a fight,” I informed him, accusingly.

  “They were treating
me like a slave.”

  “You are a slave, and you should learn to be more polite.”

  “You fucking betrayed me!” he roared, spittle rolling down his jaw again. “You put me with a bunch of fucking apes. Why didn’t you let me go and live with creatures who actually look like Maxoluns? The hairless bipeds. I know they exist. I saw them, the tree-huggers saw them too. They are creatures much like me!”

  “The hairless bipeds,” I said, calmly, “have swords of metal. You would have fared far worse.”

  Sharrock was silenced by my words.

  “You mean, you knew,” he said, in calmer tones, “that I was going to get the fuckhood beaten out of me by those fucking apes?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you still let me go there?”

  “For your own sake,” I explained to him, “For you have to learn to hold your tongue, and be more respectful of your fellow captives.”

  “No fucking way, not ever! I’m a warrior!” he ranted.

  “You’ve made four bitter enemies now. They will hate you for all eternity.”

  “I killed at least two of them,” he bragged.

  By this point I was tempted to give way to anger at his naivety. But I restrained myself. Sharrock was so new; he had so much to learn.

  “No you didn’t,” I explained in my calmest tones.

  “Don’t utter such fuckery! No one could-” he began to say, but I interrupted:

  “Their injuries are survivable. Mangan will grow his arm back, and his brain cells will very likely heal after such a minor fang-stabbing, as will Shiiaa’s broken neck and snapped spines. And when they are all recovered, they will seek you out and batter you to a bloody pulp. But unless they entirely pulverise your brain, you too will heal, after months of agony. And then, consumed with rage, you will take your revenge upon them, and they will be beaten and bloody and in pain. Then they will heal, and-”

  “I’m guessing you don’t approve of all this wretched backing-and-forthing,” he said quietly.