Philip Palmer - Hell Ship

And I was revered now, and not despised. My smallest request was treated as a command; no one ever interrupted me. I felt like a god.

And I loathed it.

The fields had to be tilled every month. Armies of polypods thundered across the artificial soil, kicking with hooves and ripping with claws, and aerials swooped down and sifted soil. And at the end of this long process, the soil was no more fertile than it had been before.

The trees and bushes needed to be pruned every week. Some of the vegetation ran riot and grew at a terrifying rate, and the arboreals used saws and swords to hack pieces off the runaway shrubs and trees to reduce them to a manageable height.

But what would it have mattered if the trees had grown to the heavens? There would still have been space enough to move in. And though the browsing animals ate the grass, and chewed the tree bark, there was no nourishment to be gained from that. It was a squandering of time to tend this garden, for our bodies were fed by other means.

The ice clouds soaked up moisture from the air and grew daily, and so they had to be regularly milked. To achieve this, the aerials flew inside the jagged clouds-clouds which had once floated in the skies of the icy world where Quipu had lived-and pissed their hot urine downwards, melting the ice. And the urine-tainted rain fell upon the land and the lake; and the ice-clouds shrank. And all of us felt the mixed blessing of being rained upon by water filthily stained with piss.

Thus, every time it rained, bleak irony drenched me as much as did the raindrops.

And so there was always work to be done. And it was always futile, desperate, purposeless work. Such was the rhythm of our days.

It was Day the First and I was climbing a mountain, and I could not resist the urge; I went to see Cuzco.

My claws gripped the cliff face tightly, and I was able to clamber up the steepest slopes, despite my bulk. I enjoyed this kind of physical effort; it invigorated me.

I had no idea where Cuzco was dwelling but I followed my instincts; it would be the highest crag, the most remote spot. I reached the top of the mountain summit and looked for him in vain. Then I hurled myself off and glided to the next summit; and when I found him not, I leaped again, and reached the next summit. And then the next. Then I landed on an icy crag and found myself sliding across a glacier. Strange ice-creatures peered at me, and I marvelled that I had never seen them before.

I called out to Cuzco, again and again, with a shrill whistling noise that I knew he would recognise as my ocean-call.

The day passed, and I found no trace of Cuzco.

It was Day the Second and I was due to be at the Temple to help raise the stones. But instead I returned to the mountain peaks and searched again for Cuzco.

It was Day the Third; my search continued.

At the end of Day the Fourth I was frustrated and weary and I made a wild decision; I would not return to my cabin when the black night fell.

And so I waited, buffeted by cold winds, as the sun set and cast its rosy glow upon our fake and evil world. Then the daylight in the air was switched off; sheer blackness descended. There were no stars, there was no residual light. The entire planet was black and all the land animals sheltered in their cabins; the aquatics in the lake and rivers slowed to a sluggish pace in their swimming; the aerials cowered in their nests. Only a few, just a very few, of the echo-locating species ventured abroad, and even they were wary.

I crouched on the high plateau and listened to the sounds of the night, and at length I heard a sound I recognised: a wild howling. It was Cuzco, baying at the stars, except there were no stars.

I spent twelve cycles on the mountain tops gliding from peak to peak, following the sound of the howls; and then one day I found my friend.

“You’ve changed,” I told Cuzco.

Cuzco snorted, and I felt the heat of his flames on my soft outer skin. There was a wild look in his eyes. He did not speak.

“I’ve missed you,” I said.

Cuzco’s claws scratched the hard rock.

“I had no choice. I had to banish you.” I said. “Otherwise-”

Cuzco roared at me. I’d never heard his roar from so close. It was a scream that possessed his whole body. He was a fierce-looking creature at the best of times-with a hide made of sharp spikes and horns erupting from his skull. And the furnace of his body-the inner heat that allowed him to spit and exhale flame-made the patches of hide that were visible beneath his body armour glow.

And yet I knew that Cuzco, in his best moments, had a generous and a gentle spirit. And, too, as well as his killing claws, he had fingers that were supple and soft and could be used to manipulate tools, or create great art works, or stroke, affectionately, a subordinate being.

“Have you become insane?” I asked Cuzco calmly, and he snorted again, and spat fire over me and I was engulfed in flame.

Once more my soft skin burned away; and I clenched my extremities into my core, and my shell joints instinctively sealed and I allowed the fire to burn down before my head re-emerged.

“You are indeed,” I concluded, “insane.”

Cuzco laughed. “Not so.”

“You murdered Djamrock.”

“We made a bargain.”

“An insane bargain.”

Cuzco snorted again, and acid dripped out of his eye sockets. This body language I knew; he was laughing.

“I’m tired of stories,” said Cuzco, as the sun set, and the blackness descended again.

“Then tell me no stories.”

“I find your company irksome.”

“I love to irk.”

“You succeed triumphantly, you ugly sentimental shittier-than-an-arsehole monstrosity.”

“Now I recall why I’ve missed you; your squalid absence of a personality makes me feel much finer and wiser by comparison.”

A spurt of acid dripped out of Cuzco’s eyeballs; he was laughing again.

We were silent together a while. A long while.

“I should return,” I said. “To my cabin.”

“Why?”

“Because I have a life down there.”

“Then go, you ignorant stealer-of-space-that-might-be-occupied-by-my-shadow.”

“Perhaps I shall.”

“Did you really think I would be glad to see you?”

“Are you?”

“You’re a grotesque viler-than-turds-in-my-eyeballs monstrosity.”

“But are you? Glad?”

“Yes.”

“I did not think you would be glad. After all-”

“You fought a noble fight, and bested me.”

“No fight is noble,” I said derisively.

“I thought you were a coward.”

“I aspire to be so.”

“You’re not a coward.”

I sighed, from my tentacle tips. I rehearsed my speech about pacifism, and why it is preferable to blood-lust, but decided not to waste my breath.

“You fight like a grazing animal whose grotesque teats are the size of a baby Chall’s head,” I informed him.

He snorted; the air burned; acid dripped from his eyes; laughing again.

“Why did you come?” Cuzco asked.

“I was worried about you.”

“You beat me into bloodiness and had me dumped on a high cold mountain top; and you were worried?”

“I thought you might be lonely.”

Cuzco looked out at the view: the world was far below; we were atop a remote icy crag surrounded by sheer cliffs.

“Fair guess,” he conceded.

“Are you lonely?”

“No.”

“Good, I’m glad,” I said.

“And yet,” Cuzco acknowledged grudgingly, “yes.”

“As I suspected.”

“Admit it,” said Cuzco, “The only reason you’re here is-you can’t live without me, can you, you ingratiating slime-fucker?”

I waved my tentacles scornfully, disparaging such a ridiculous idea.

“It’s true!” snorted Cuzco, scalding my cheeks with plumes of hot air from his skull. “You care about me, you actually have feelings for me, don’t you? In that sad pathetic cock-sucking arsehole-kissing clingy way of yours. Admit it, you soft-as-shit-expelled-from-my-bowels worm!”