Hell Ship

by Philip Palmer

  Two days later Sharrock’s body was gone.

  Sharrock died a hero’s death; that I will avow.

  BOOK 8

  Jak/Explorer

  This place terrifies me.

  You made that comment sixty years ago.

  It’s been a long wait.

  Our patience will be rewarded.

  When?

  Soon. I hope it will be soon.

  Sharrock

  They came to mock me.

  A female and a male; bipeds both, of my approximate height. The male, I guessed, was the leader. For he stood with arrogant confidence and stared at me with cruelty; and fire spat from his fingertips. Whereas she-well. An evil bitch without a doubt, for she took the deepest joy in witnessing my downfall, and stared at me with old eyes that were full of lust; a lust for pain.

  I am in a room somewhere on the ship, I know not where. For I fell into a dreamless sleep and when I awoke I was no longer tied to a stake near the lake, I was terrifyingly elsewhere. Grey walls surrounded me. I could hear nothing of the rest of the ship; my room was bare apart from the magnetic plate on the ceiling, from which they had dangled me by the metal shackles on my wrists.

  After I had been left hanging like this for several days, some Kindred arrived with knives. They taunted me, though I could not understand their words, then they flayed my skin off me a piece at a time. They left me raw and bleeding, a glistening body of bare muscle and exposed ligaments and bulging eyes.

  The pain was intense, worse than anything I had ever known before; and I assumed I was going to die.

  But I am not dead. And my skin is already starting to grow back. My guess is that once I am restored and whole, they will flay me, one piece at a time, all over again.

  Water from the ceiling bathes me constantly; I assume this is water from the well of life and it is helping to keep me alive despite my appalling injuries and my lack of covering skin. The aim I suppose is to torture me for all eternity.

  Let them.

  For the pain-Ah! The pain!

  Cling to that Sharrock. Cling to the pain!

  You are not defeated. Not yet. Not defeated.

  Never defeated!

  The pain is my ally, not my enemy.

  Embrace the pain, Sharrock! For while I feel pain that rends the soul and rips every nerve ending and fills my head with an agonising howl I know I am

  Still alive.

  I wondered a great deal about those two who came to mock me, just a few days after the Kindred had done their vile work. For I knew them to be Ka’un. They were dressed in rich robes in a style I did not recognise. Their faces were black and withered. Their eyes stared as if they were looking across to the other end of the universe. Their features were entirely expressionless. Was that a consequence of great age?

  How old are these godsforsaken monsters anyway? And why do they do what they do. Boredom?

  Perhaps, I speculate, age corrodes the emotions. Perhaps the smaller emotions like irritation and amusement and delight rot away, and all that are left are the huge and richly coloured emotions: like hate, and rage. That might explain why these creatures do what they do.

  The male had stared at me for a long time before departing, as if studying me. Why? Had he never seen a flayed warrior before?

  I lose consciousness from time to time and I know that this is the prelude to death; but each time the healing sprays revive me.

  It is Day the First on the interior world; I know that for certain, for I keep a mental tally. Today Sai-ias will be exploring her world.

  I try to-Ah! Agonising blinding pain! Embrace it, Sharrock! Embrace it!

  I wonder about what Sai-ias is feeling and doing. Right now. Perhaps she is swimming in the lake?

  And perhaps Lirilla is singing as she hovers in the air, her tiny wings beating?

  And perhaps Fray is galloping on the savannah; while Quipu bickers with himselves?

  And perhaps Sai-ias can feel the sunshine on her moist black hide?

  Perhaps.

  Explorer/Jak

  So many lost civilisations; too many.

  This has become my duty, and my obsession; as we travel, I fish for scraps of information about lost worlds and collate it and archive it all.

  I am a machine and hence I take great relish in the meticulous storing and cataloguing and cross-referencing of this data; for as far as the computing part of me is concerned, it is merely data.

  My machine-mind is however merged with the mind of an Olaran who is clearly filled with horror at the scale of these tragic losses; and his anguish perturbs me.

  Sometimes the information I garner is random, the noises and imprints left by any technological culture, though such echoes in space-broadcast dramas and poems and factual films and radio messages between spaceships or planets-can be highly illuminating. Other times, however, the information is found in the form of compressed datacaches intended to be last messages from dying civilisations desperate to be remembered somehow. Such data may be technical or astronomical or military or historical or all of these; but sometimes more personal messages are also inscribed in this way.

  The collation of these archives keeps my mind active. I am lonely much of the time. Jak is not such very good company. Not compared to Albinia.

  He is better than he was. For after our departure from that second universe, Jak fell into despair. And then came the madness. And after the madness, came despair again. Now he is merely sad; and occasionally he even talks to me.

  I have made a list of the universes which we have travelled through, both the live ones and the dead ones. Jak refuses to let me tell him how many there are. But he does, obsessively, read through my archives of lost civilisations. Occasionally we discuss what he finds there; not often though. Not often enough.

  There is now, in my opinion, no doubt about the validity of my theory that the dead universes we encounter are the trail left by the Death Ship; corpses scattered in its bloody wake. No other explanation will suffice; and datacaches have been found in all but a very few of these wasted universes.

  There are very many of them; I have had to rebuild my archive in order to accommodate all the data.

  How long has the Death Ship been destroying realities in this way? I can make no estimate.

  What weapon is it using? I do not know.

  Will we ever find the Death Ship, and defeat it? I can make no prediction.

  But for a period of time that is larger than the lifespan of any Olaran, we have hunted this rogue vessel. We have journeyed onwards through the many living universes, searching each, one by one, with painstaking care, in the vain hope of stumbling upon our prey.

  After one thousand years had elapsed, I explained to Jak that we were wasting our time; there were far too many universes. He agreed. And yet still we continued.

  But finally I spotted a pattern; and it dawned on me that the Dreaded were observing a loose chronological cycle. Every ninety-three years by our calendar-though occasionally a hundred and ten and sometimes a hundred and fifty years-the Death Ship would return to the sector in space where we first encountered them. And then it would use the weapon that enables the Dreaded to destroy a universe as easily as an Olaran kills a dangerous and reluctant-to-trade alien. And then they would pass into the next universe.

  Their pattern betrayed them. And it encouraged me to formulate a cosmological hypothesis. For it is clear there is only one place connecting the many universes; and my belief is that this was the point of origin of all the universes. And so I call it the Source.

  Yet knowing this was no help, not at first anyway. For when we rift, we have no means of ascertaining how far we have travelled, or in which direction. So finding the Source again in a new and strange universe is no easy task; it can take two hundred years or more of mapping stars, until our point of origin is reached once more.

  The only certain test is that when the rest of the universe has evaporated-well, then the Source is all that is left. We find it by f
leeing the onset of nothingness.

  But by then, of course, it is too late.

  And even when we have located it, the Source can move; that was a shock also.

  Or perhaps it’s the universe that moves, and the Source that remains; no matter. The point is we have wasted many years seeking and pursuing the Death Ship through the multiverses. And we have wasted just as many years staying put and waiting at the Source for its return. Neither strategy has worked for us.

  But I think I have now devised a star-mapping methodology that allows us to find the Source in good time, and remain there. And I am sure that I can detect it if the Source moves; and then we will move with it.

  It took me approximately ninety thousand years to devise and perfect this approach. And we are now concealed behind a gas giant close to the Source in a universe with many recent traces of the Dreaded. Each fresh datacache I intercept confirms me in the belief that they are here. And, sooner of later, they will want to make their escape from this universe. And instead, they will encounter our wrath.

  We have waited almost sixty years in this place for the ship to appear. On four separate occasions, the Source has moved, and we have moved with it. And each time it moves, the gas giant and its star also move with it. They are wrapped up, somehow, in the coils of this gateway to the universes.

  There is life on the gas giant; not sentient, but life nonetheless. How strange it is for life to be evolving in such a place; rifting through space at the whim of the cosmological origin. This region of space is a speck of dust in the storm of all realities; and yet life still births here!

  I cannot help but think: How stubborn is life! And how mysterious. For as a creature who knows its own artificer, I always marvel at the existence of organic life. From a purely technical point of view, it is incompetently engineered and badly designed and, in its sentient forms, all too often annoying. And yet-it awes me.

  I have sent robots to explore the gas giant. I have mapped the geography of its roving clouds, and analysed the chemistry of its atmosphere, which merges at its lower levels with the fluid interior of the planet. I have studied the biology of its many microscopic life forms. And I have even named the planet-I call it Kraxos. I have named the sun too-I call it Albinia. Yes, a sentimental touch, but I allow myself a few. I have counted all the atoms in the sun. I have named all the microbes who are the dominant life form on Kraxos; and continue to do so, even though they have a two month life span and new microbes are constantly being formed from a process of cell fission.

  It has indeed been a long and tedious wait; and Jak has, without question, been a poor companion, devoid of conversational artistry and even basic courtesy. Hence my obsessive data-analysing.

  But we are, thanks to my careful preparations, ready in every way for the battle to come.

  Jak, however, cannot endure very much longer. He is not cut out to be the human half of a machine/mind symbiosis. My thoughts overwhelm him; he drowns daily on data. I hope his wait will soon be over.

  Furthermore Jak!

  What is it?

  Are you sane and functional?

  Just about.

  We have work to do. A ship approaches.

  Is it the one?

  It is an interstellar ship that flies with black sails powered by the invisible matter between the stars, and a helicoid marking on its hull.

  So it’s the one.

  We may not survive this encounter.

  I truly hope we do not.

  One hundred thousand years it has been, since Albinia possessed me. We have lived together in one body all this time and Is this a soliloquy? Get ready for battle, spaceship! Prime the missiles. Prepare the un-matter bombs. Check all the I have done all that. We have been here for approximately sixty years; what do you think I have been doing with my time?

  We’re ready?

  We’re ready. The ship approaches. We will destroy it this time. Our lives will end. I just have this one thing I wanted to say.

  What?

  That despite your long brooding silences and ceaseless melancholy, your company has not been entirely unendurable.

  I love you too metal-brain.

  I didn’t say-wait! It’s closing in. No more talking!

  The battle will soon commence.

  Sai-ias

  The new one was angry and resentful.

  “You must accept,” I told her, “the way things are.”

  “I accept nothing!” she screamed. She was a four legged predator of the plain, with sharp teeth and a tail like a whisk that was larger than her body. She had ugly, barnacled skin, and her voice was a rasping obscenity. She was, I could easily guess, accustomed to being the dominant species, and she treated me as if I were one of her anal parasites.

  “Fight! Fight those grass-eating scum! Rip our enemies to pieces! Eat their poisoned flesh! That’s what I shall do, when I have the chance!” she ranted.

  “You will never have the chance,” I told her.

  “Don’t be so sure. I’m not like the rest of you shameful cowards! I will fight, and I will win!” she raged.

  “No,” I said. “Acceptance is all. The Ka’un cannot be defeated.

  “Believe me,” I added, bitterly, “we have tried.”

  Jak/Explorer

  I am ready. My mind is now fully merged once more with the mind of Explorer. I exist in many places; in the missiles we carry, in the concealed flying-bombs that orbit these planets, in our drone craft, in the matter traps that cordon off the entire stellar system. I am no longer Olaran; I am a killing machine.

  Less talk, please Jak. Let’s commence to kill this parent-fucker.

  First missiles have been fired.

  Feel them fly. Ah! Feel them fly!

  Sai-ias

  “I could bathe you,” I said to Fray, as she paced by the borders of the yellow savannah. “You might enjoy that.”

  Fray glared at me. “Why in all fuckery,” she said angrily, “would I allow you to do such a thing?”

  “In the past you-”

  “There is no past! Stop your fantasies, you vile creature! I have only just been captured, my world has been destroyed. And it happened just a few months ago. You talk as if-no, we do not know each other! You are simply some strange alien monster with whom I am trapped!”

  “You remember nothing?” I said, sadly.

  “There is nothing to remember!” Fray roared. “Don’t lie! Don’t tell these lies!”

  Lirilla too had no past memories of me; nor did Lardoi, or Miaris, or Raoild, or Biark, Sahashs, Loramas, Thugor, Amur, Kairi, Wapax, Fiymean, or Krakkka; nor many others of those who had fought that day and died at Sharrock’s behest. Only Quipu and I and a sprinkling of others could bear witness to the events of the day. The rest had been resurrected as the creatures they were when their worlds were first lost.

  And so I was living with utter strangers who had been my intimate companions for centuries.

  Jak/Explorer

  Our missiles have lost velocity. No damage has been caused to their hull.

  Their shields were fully charged; they were ready for us.

  Of course they were. This is a game to them.

  Again, missiles fly!

  And so we fight.

  We, this computer brain and I, have been preparing for this battle for so many years. And yet now it’s happening, I feel totally un prepared. Panic consumes me. Each small setback disheartens me. I am convinced in my soul that we will lose, and all will be for naught.

  Explorer, fortunately, is not so temperamental; she fights with a savagery and a guile that awes me.

  And so, once again, our missiles fire and rift through space and then strike the forceshields of the Death Ship; and instantly lose momentum and drift aimlessly. But this time, before they can be destroyed, we trigger the detonators and all the missiles erupt as one, creating a halo of energy the size of a star around the black-sailed ship. Nothing can survive this.

  But a moment later we realise the black
-sailed ship is behind us. It has rifted to safety. And our forceshields are overheating, as it bathes us in sheets of energy and then

  We, too, rift to safety.

  Sai-ias

  I felt a tingle of anxiety down my central spine.

  I was walking through the grasslands near the savannah, to join Quipu and Lirilla. And as I approached Quipu, I saw his heads flick uncontrollably, for a just a moment. And I noticed an excited light in his five pairs of eyes.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, puzzled.

  “Something’s happening-” said Quipu One.

  “-with the ship,” said Quipu Two.

  “How can you tell?” I asked.

  The heads replied, babblingly:

  “The engine noise.”

  “The force of artificial gravity.”

  “The clarity of the light.”

  “The density of [Quipu used a word I could not fathom].”

  “You can detect all that?” I asked.

  “Perhaps we have collided,” said Quipu One, “with an object in space-”

  “Or been attacked by,” said Quipu Three.

  “Some other vessel,” said Quipu Four.

  “The light is degrading; the power sources are being diverted. The Hell Ship is in trouble. One way or another, it is experiencing some kind of appalling catastrophe,” said Quipu Five triumphantly.

  Jak/Explorer

  The battle rages, if space battles can actually rage; for the explosions are eerily silent. And, despite the use of rift weapons, the pace of the action is often stately. It is a dance of light and power and confusion, to the music of an imaginary band; the sleek and black-sailed Death Ship and the now vast and ugly and ungainly Explorer craft flicker frantically through rift space leaving missiles scattered and exploding in all the places where they are absent.