Philip Palmer - Hell Ship

Cuzco laughed at me. And the crowd laughed. Even Sharrock laughed.

And in that terrible moment, I felt humiliated.

For I was, I realised, considered by all present to be a gullible fool who believed that make-believe work was better than real work. I was the one, the only one, who did not understand that glory is to be found in heroic defeat, not in meek surrender! I understood at that moment the depth and sincerity of their scorn, and of their contempt. And I found myself consumed by self-hate. Was I really this wretched creature they despised so much?

“Sharrock, ignore them. Do not laugh at me. You and I know better about what is right,” I said wretchedly. But he grinned at me too, tauntingly.

However, I stood my ground. “Cuzco, you are banished,” I said, as firmly as I was able. “That is my irrevocable decision.”

The mob began to howl and shout, drowning out my words. I continued desperately: “You must dwell on the mountain crags, but you cannot speak to anyone or be spoken to by anyone. When you are gone, all will return to normal. Our Rhythm of Days will return.”

Few could hear me for all the baying and roaring, but still I continued: “Fighting will once more be forbidden. I do not ask this, I do not beg for it, I demand it!”

“You fucking turd-sucking bog-fucking slack-cunted bitch,” said Cuzco. “Why don’t you fuck-”

My tentacle lashed out, and unfolded in an instant to double its usual length; and I swung it in a huge loop to create momentum; then I smote Cuzco with it.

The blow was powerful and as fast as thought itself, and he was knocked across the ground like a ball struck with a bat in one of the biped’s wretched games.

There was a startled silence.

Cuzco got back on his feet. He puffed up his chest again, and showed me his face; there was glee in his expression. “I’ve been waiting,” said Cuzco, “for this for a long-”

I struck again but this time Cuzco was expecting it and he rolled out of the way. And when he came out of the roll his wings unfurled and he beat them and he was in the air and he pounced down at I wasn’t there. I used my tentacles to grip the ground and fling myself upwards. And as I flew my quills emerged and I skimmed Cuzco’s body and my quills crashed against his body armour, and we both fell to the ground.

I flipped over again and narrowly avoided a funnel of flame from Cuzco’s head. Then I fired a fusillade of quills at him from my stomach hole and he was shocked as these brutal arrows smashed against his hide. He buckled up his breast armour, burying his soft face away, so his bodies were now just two vast horned carapaces covered in impregnable scales.

He paced towards me. I slithered towards him. A quill stuck out from his hide, close to one of his heavily shielded eyes. His tread was light. He was sizing me up.

We faced each other in the field of green, and all around us a myriad alien species watched; furred, feathered, scaled, covered in hide, small, large, brightly coloured, drably coloured; a whole menagerie of strangeness, rapt in joy at the sight of this, the second great fight in two days.

I felt the ground shudder and I knew that Fray had arrived, to watch his two “friends” fight.

But then I realised, with a terrible and sudden clarity, that she and I weren’t truly friends at all. We were merely companions, and fellow captives. But she cared nothing for me, not really; not did she have any concept of who I truly am, of the real Sai-ias.

Fray and Cuzco also were bound together by sheer force of circumstance; their friendship here was a matter of convenience, no more. They were large; and savage; and heavily armoured; that was all they had in common!

And what’s more, it now seemed obvious that despite our seeming friendship, Cuzco and I had always harboured a deep loathing of each other. He, a savage flesh-eating monster, I a cultured vegetarian; what could connect two such different beasts? The answer was clear: nothing.

Oh, now I could see it all so plainly. All was lies and cruelty and hate! Nothing on this world had any value! These truths came crashing down upon me.

But even so, I felt obliged to fight.

A funnel of flame billowed out of Cuzco’s skull and I did not move. My skin ignited and I was enveloped in a fireball and still I did not move. My flesh melted, and the burning smell of my body filled the air and still I did not move.

When the flames died down, my soft outer skin had been burned away and what remained was the jet-black diamond-hard carapace of my inner body. My tentacles were sheathed; my eyes were protected; my skin would grow back in a matter of days, and would have done so even if I had still been on my home planet.

And all could now see the remarkable truth: that the inner Sai-ias is a warrior born.

I pounced.

My tentacles unfurled, I gripped the ground, I flung myself up and at Cuzco, and I caught his scaly hide with my tentacle tips and swung him round and crashed him to the ground. As he lay dazed I flipped into the air and flew downwards, my central quill extended, and I stabbed him in the fleshy skin of his stomach.

He recovered and swept at me with his powerful paws and knocked me aside, but I rolled and threw myself upright and launched again.

Cuzco took to the air but I was just as fast and I threw myself upwards and as I did my tentacle tips retracted and my inner claws were exposed and I used these claws to grip and rip his flesh in mid-air. His wings beat, he struggled to keep his flight, as I ripped away his hide and blood gouted from his body on to the field of grass below.

Cuzco came crashing to the ground, and I beat him again and again with my tentacles. He fired his flames again but they could do no harm to my chitinous body and armoured tentacles; and my eyes, too, were made of hard scales not soft flesh and could not be burned or stabbed or gouged.

I played with him for a while, smashing him with my tentacles, and mockingly absorbing his flames as if they were sunshine on a warm day. Then finally I spat, and an unfolding matrix of web embraced his body and trapped him.

Victory was mine.

“He is banished,” I told the crowd. “Take the body to the mountain top and leave it there. Fill a container with water of life and leave it beside his body. Cuzco will not be of our family until ten years have elapsed, and he has earned my forgiveness.”

No one demurred.

Sharrock was staring at me, astonished; and he smiled with open joy.

I recoiled at his approval; I was revolted by the love of the crowd.

For before, I had been right, and yet I had been mocked. And now-now I had proved I was nothing but a violent thug, with more flair for war than even the powerful Cuzco- now, the mob would follow me anywhere.

This was the quintessential predator-prey mindset; the belief that only power endorsed by violence should command respect.

And I despised them all for it.

And, in all candour, I despised myself too, for playing their pathetic game. For I believe in love and not war; yet to save my world, I have to be a monster.

And so a monster I have become.

I went to the storm zones and let a hurricane bombard my hard carapace. A few times I thought I would be swept away and smashed against the icy clouds.

I roared with rage into the hurricane’s open mouth, and felt anguish and guilt that hurt me more than the wind’s sharp knives.

My outer skin grew back. The Rhythm of our Days returned. The Temple was demolished; and then we began to rebuild it. Stories were told. Science was discussed.

And Cuzco was now a memory; he lived in solitude on a mountain-top eyrie, the very emblem of the way we should not be. And my world was safe; and, to such degree as it was possible to be content in such a place, my people were indeed content.