Hell Ship

by Philip Palmer

  “We have travelled to every planet in this universe,” Sail explained. “We know who belongs here, and we treasure them all. You do not belong. Who are you and where do you come from?” Oh come on! What an arrogant thing to say! These people are starting to annoy me, Minos thought.

  Hush! I thought back at him. Leave this to me!

  Theirs was a small universe after all, I mused; and it was no wonder these people were insular to the point of bigotry.

  “We come from elsewhere,” I said to the ShiBo. “Another universe. But we have travelled here, and we wish to leave in peace.”

  A trilling came in response; they were shocked at my words.

  “Another universe?” said the ShiBo, sceptically.

  “Yours is not the only universe,” I clarified. “There are countless other universes,” I explained.

  “Then go to them. There is no space for you here,” said Sail.

  “There is,” I said testily, “plenty of space-many planets are-”

  And then my spaceship exploded.

  The blast threw me off my feet, but the Sails merely rippled in the hurricane-force gale.

  When I rolled back on to my segments and stood up on my twelve feet, I realised my breathing apparatus had been ripped off in the explosion. And my landing craft was a wreck that burned brightly at the bottom of a deep crater.

  What happened? I asked Minos with my thoughts.

  They must have ambushed you! Minos replied with outrage. We cannot tolerate this!

  I agree, I thought, full of anger at this slight to our dignity.

  And then the Sails slowly retreated, and they were joined by hundreds more floating creatures, except these ones were encased in armour and had what looked like guns mounted on their sides and heads.

  I was alone except for my illusory selves on a planet full of creatures that aimed to kill me.

  I braced myself.

  And the Sails fired their weapons; and energy beams struck us-all the Sai-iases-and we were engulfed in flame, and my illusory selves dissolved in the blinding heat, leaving behind nothing.

  I shook the flames off myself and ripped away the last remnants of the breathing apparatus. I didn’t need it. Fire couldn’t hurt me. And I was, by now, good and mad.

  Fear not, Sai-ias, said Minos. For help is on its way.

  And then all hell broke loose.

  The ground beneath us shook, then hundreds of missiles from the Hell Ship materialised out of the sky. Most exploded in mid-air, sending clouds of flame downwards which engulfed the floating Sails. And some exploded on the ground, ripping apart the grass and hurling soil high into the air; the wail of dying vegetation deafened me.

  Then multiple pillars of cloud wove through the sky towards us; a second fusillade of missiles had been teleported from the Hell Ship into the planet’s upper atmosphere and was now hurtling downwards.

  I was in a field encircled by pillars of flames, beneath a sky of fire and ash, as the surviving Sails confronted me in panic and mayhem.

  And I roared my rage at the Sails: “You betrayed me, you lied to me, you tried to kill me!”

  “What is happening?” said Sail, bewilderedly.

  “Guess!” I crowed.

  And my body sacs engorged and I grew, and I grew, until I was larger than the landing craft had been before its destruction. I was a black giant with wings that did not flap and who in this gravity could float in mid-air. And so I floated up, and seized the Sails in my tentacles; and I crushed them and I smashed them!

  And as I fought, Ka’un missiles picked off the other Sail warriors one by one, until the ground was littered with sundered Sails.

  There was no blood; the Sails died uncomplainingly; it was a rout.

  And for the first time I understood what Minos had said to me; we had sought only peace, and in return we had received betrayal and violence.

  Who could blame us, then, for striking out and smiting our enemies?

  We captured one Sail; and forced it to watch the planet-buster missile do its work on its planet. The creature said nothing; its trills were silenced.

  That night I raged at the duplicity of the Sails! How could they have deceived me like that! Minos was right, I thought to myself. Such creatures do not deserve to live!

  And I slipped into a dreamless sleep, still angry; but soothed by the kindness of Minos towards me. For I had come to admire him so much. Despite all his faults, there was something magnificent about this valiant yet spiritually tormented being.

  And then in the middle of the night I woke from my dreamless sleep and marvelled at my own utter stupidity.

  For it was obvious now that the Sails had not attacked us; we attacked them. If a missile had been fired by them at my spaceship, I would have seen it; no, the landing craft must have been detonated from within, on Minos’s orders.

  Such was Minos’s trickery.

  The next day, that thought was with me still.

  And I realised that Minos had for many weeks been seducing me, with his gentle and deceptive words murmured directly into my brain. That was Minos’s gift; to make you believe in his own skewed and utterly false version of the world.

  All his promises were, when I considered them for even a moment, preposterous. His lies were blatant. His corruption was total. But I had believed him-why? Because I wanted to? Or because Minos had a power of persuasion that no mind could resist?

  Perhaps both.

  But I could not deny that I had been fooled utterly. Like the Kindred, I had become a willing pawn, rather than a mere unwilling puppet.

  And I was ashamed of myself, beyond all measure.

  These were a beautiful people.

  Their hide was the colour of a rainbow; their heads were fanged with tongues that spat as they spoke; and they could walk, but also crawl, and also fly and swim. And I suppose that’s why I found them so attractive. All of us, every species, have our own ideal of beauty, do we not? And I love creatures that can adapt, and metamorphose.

  And so I was mightily fond of the Krakzios, as Minos had named them. They were large horned creatures made of soft purple flesh that could harden and expand and double them in size at a thought. They had no eyes, but could see with every part of their domed heads. They had many limbs-fifty or more-that could sink into their bodies, then emerge in an instant. And the had remarkable powers. They could turn earth into a building material of remarkable strength by swallowing it, digesting it, then vomiting it forth; and by this means they became space travellers in tiny boats of transmuted soil that somehow, Minos didn’t know how, defied gravity.

  I had hoped that the Krakzios could be our allies; but at our very first meeting, the Krakzios ambassador had admitted they were close friends and allies of the ShiBo, who we had so recently exterminated.

  And in consequence, Minos patiently explained to me, they had to go. For all it took was one sentient species spreading sedition and hate and our survival in this universe would be in jeopardy.

  You promised we would seek peace, I implored him.

  We have no choice, my dearest Sai-ias, said Minos’s voice in my head.

  And I knew I could not defy him on this. For if I dared to do so, he would revoke my freedom, and control my limbs again; and the outcome would be the same.

  So I descended to the planet; and the Krakzios greeted me warmly. They talked about their world; we discussed the wonderful variety of nature here. And I explained that my people had the power to fly through space without need of a spaceship, and they were impressed at that.

  And after two days’ discussion, they agreed to all my terms. They did not at any point try to ambush me or intimidate me or double-cross me.

  But, once I was back on board the Hell Ship, Minos told me we would still have to destroy these creatures, despite their seeming acquiescence. His voice was full of regret; and I told him that I fully sympathised with his dilemma.

  Trust me, his voice in my head whispered. They have to die.

  O
f course I trust you! I said fervently. Minos, you are an inspiration to me!

  The rest was familiar: hails of fire; interstellar war; the planet-buster missile.

  But when Minos was gone from my head I raged at his infernal treachery towards these blessed and harmless creatures.

  “ Minos you are an inspiration” I had thought at him, with one part of my mind.

  But with the other part of my mind I had thought: “ Minos, I hate you, and I shall kill you, you destroyer-of worlds! ”

  For I can do this: I can think two thoughts at once. Few species can, but my kind are masters of this kind of inner deceit.

  Minos thought I was just a foolish dupe; but now it was I who was deceiving him.

  I have a fresh mission for you, said Minos.

  Where? Which planet? I thought at him.

  I need you to return to the interior world.

  I slept, and when I woke I was in the Great Plain, looking up at the interior sky. I could see aerials flying above.

  I felt a pang of terrible homesickness for this world, which for so long had been my world.

  I loped across the fields until I arrived at the amphitheatre of grass. There I was to greet a new arrival, a slave Krakzios. It was, Minos had informed me, out of control and in an appalling rage.

  The Krakzios was being contained by invisible beams in a pit dug in the ground. I walked towards it, past the grazers and the sessiles. And I saw Quipu and Fray and Lirilla, and felt a surge of delight; but I ignored them. For I had work to do.

  Release the prisoner please, I said to Minos.

  Are you able to do this?

  I am.

  Do you want time to talk to your friends? The grey beast died, did it not, after our ship was attacked? And now it is returned, and does not know you?

  I have nothing to say to Fray; you are my friend now, I told Minos.

  Ah Sai-ias, you gladden my heart.

  The Krakzios in the pit was suddenly free of its invisible bonds. It paced around, eying the height of the hole at the bottom of which it resided.

  “What the fuck,” said Fray, “do you want?”

  “Sai-ias, missed, you,” said Lirilla.

  “You will be quiet,” I informed them all. “I am here in the service of the Ka’un.”

  Quipu’s five heads were all ashen.

  A snarling, howling sound filled the air, as the Krakzios sensed my presence.

  “Sai-ias, what are you doing?” I heard someone mutter.

  The Krakzios leaped and was out of the pit in a single bound. Its head bobbed around as it stared up at the bright light of our artificial sun. Its soft purple flesh had lost its lustre and its colour. And it seemed to me to be amazed at the sheer size of the interior planet in which it now stood.

  Then the Krakzios moved. It was fast. So fast, I did not even see it. Its arms emerged from its body and claws slashed at my hide, and its horns gouged my flesh, and its tail looped around and jabbed my eyes like a spear.

  I was bowled over and came up without seven of my eyes, and with a bloody hole in my black hide. I was astonished. My body was virtually impregnable. And my eyes are made of a thick gelatine that can withstand not just Cuzco’s fire but also projectile bullets and energy beams fired at point blank range.

  This creature, I realised, was made of some kind of substance unknown in my universe.

  “You betrayed us!” the Krakzios said, as its remarkable metamorphosis began.

  Its soft flesh now turned into hard ridged armour; it grew in size, until it was as large as I am; and vicious spikes shot out of every part of its hide, transforming it into a weapon with legs. Strangely, the mouth of the Krakzios in this new form was invisible until it spoke, then it appeared as a snarl across the front of its domed head; the effect was scarily disconcerting.

  “Yes I did,” I said calmly, remembering the promises I had made, on which I had utterly reneged.

  “You promised us peace.”

  “We feared you, so we destroyed you,” I explained.

  “Die!” And the creature lunged again in its new and vaster and even more terrible form; and I lashed it with my tentacles.

  A savage struggle ensued-I shall not describe it-and at the end of it, the Krakzios was ripped apart. Its body lay in two pieces. It whined and groaned.

  “Your body will heal,” I explained to the Krakzios. “The pieces will rejoin. You will be as good as new. And then you will surrender your will to the Ka’un. Resistance is futile. You are defeated. We are all defeated. Our role is to endure our failure.”

  “The Ka’un?” gasped the Krakzios.

  “They are my masters, I am their willing servant,” I explained.

  “If you had any pride,” gasped the Krakzios, lying in a pool of its own blood, watching the shit pour out of its sundered guts, “you would refuse to thus serve.”

  “You speak well; she is a traitor to us all,” said a voice, and I recognised it as the voice of Fray, and I realised she was referring to me.

  “Resistance,” I explained again to the bleeding beast, “merely prolongs the agony.”

  I could remember vividly, oh so vividly, the day my beloved friend Fray first arrived on the Hell Ship.

  She hated me of course. She tried to gore me with her tusks, but was trapped behind force fields that could barely contain her powerful bulk. So instead, she vented her rage upon me with bitter angry words. Words I had heard before so many times from other new ones; and which I readily forgave.

  Fray already knew that she was the last of her kind. And although she was a brutal predator, whose people loved to eat their own young, her kind were also sophisticated and clever, and had developed a beautiful philosophy that treasured the harmony of the natural world.

  The Frayskind had sent colony ships to the stars, at sub-luminal speeds; and there were two hundred billion of Fray’s people alive when the Hell Ship had come to their universe. A long war had taken place between the Ka’un and an aggressive species of sentients called the Mala. Fray’s kind had taken no part in this war.

  The Mala had been exterminated by means of a virus seeded by the Ka’un on all their planets. The Mala had died, and yet all the other life on these planets had survived. It had then come down to a space battle to the death between the Mala fleet and the Hell Ship.

  The Hell Ship had triumphed.

  And after the extermination of the Mala, Fray’s kind had opened negotiations with the Hell Ship. A long contract of peace had been drafted. And Fray, who was a leader to a large section of the Frayskind, had been involved in writing it. (Frayskind were meticulous about legal matters, and although they had no hands they could use their tongues with great dexterity.)

  When the final document had been drafted, the Hell Ship spewed out yet another planet-buster missile and fled, taking the stunned Fray as captive and slave. She blamed herself for her people’s demise of course; and came to believe they should have fought, and not sought peace.

  And, in all honesty, she was correct in her belief.

  Thus Fray had not been an easy creature to pacify, back then. She had tried to kill me; then she had tried to manipulate me with her subtle logic, and charismatic personality. Then she discovered she could dominate some of the smaller sentients on the ship, and used her power over them to foment a mutiny which, thankfully, I was able to thwart.

  I explained to her, again and again, that resistance was futile. But Fray did not believe me.

  So I had told her tales of my home world. I painted a picture in words of the great waterspout of Jragnall, and the joy of swimming in the depths of the ocean with the Kasdif and the Qauy.

  And Fray told me her stories too. She talked of her homeland, a planet orbiting a double sun. It was a wild and windy and mountainous desert world and many of the animals were, like the Frayskind, huge, because they carried huge stores of water in their bodies which they replenished every two years when the rains came. They were in effect living oases.

  And thus
, over the space of a year, we became friends. She was in many ways my dearest and closest friend. I bathed her body with moisture squirted from my tentacles on a monthly basis; which for her kind, betokens the closest fondness possible outside of a sexual relationship.

  Fray was my friend; and now my friend had called me traitor.

  You did well, Sai-ias.

  Thank you.

  I am proud of you. But I fear What do you fear Minos?

  That you are not so very proud of me.

  Of course I am.

  You lie, Sai-ias.

  No!

  Of course you do. You’d be a fool not to. I’m your evil oppressor, remember?

  I don’t think of it that way, I protested with my thoughts.

  I hope you don’t. For what I have told you is true. My kind are not the aggressors, we are the victims. Our only sin is hope; hope that one day we will find a species worthy of our respect.

  We were such a species. We did not seek war with you.

  For a moment Minos was silent; and I wondered if I had been too frank with him. But then he spoke, in gentle and humble tones:

  Perhaps then we were wrong about your kind. Forgive me Sai-ias-no, of course you can’t forgive me. What we did was unforgivable!

  Understand me then Sai-ias. If I could travel back in time I would save your entire planet and all your peoples. For now that I have met you I understand how wise and kind you are. You are truly worthy of our respect; the finest and the most honourable sentient creature we have ever encountered.

  Sai-ias, will you not answer me? I have bared my soul after all.

  I hear your apology, Minos. And I accept that things that are done cannot be undone.

  A staggering cliche, my child; but true. Do you hate me?

  No.

  You’re lying again. Tell the truth. Do you hate me?

  No.

  Try one more time.

  No. I did, once, I hated you with all my soul. But no longer.

  That gladdens my heart, dear creature.

  Minos Yes Sai-ias? What did you want to say?

  Just this-if I may-forgive my candour Whatever is on your mind, Sai-ias, merely expectorate it forth.

  Minos, thank you. From the depths of my heart, thank you! For I have at times been close to Despair. I have been lonely and desperate, in danger of losing my will to live.