Philip Palmer - Hell Ship

“Save this mad gibbering beast? What would be achieved?”

“Nothing,” Sharrock admitted.

“Then nothing is what we can do.”

Sharrock thought about my words.

“So be it,” said Sharrock.

The beast was gone; the cell was empty. I looked at the uninhabited room and wondered what kind of creature it had been, before grief had ripped away its sanity.

Our world recovered; we never learned any more of the apocalypse in which our warriors had played a role.

Sharrock asked me once about it; about what might have happened in the battles on the world of the four-legged two-headed sentient, and how the Ka’un had prevailed. I had no answer to give. We did not know. We simply did not know. So to speculate was futile.

And so time passed, as time always does. We grew no older, no younger, no wiser. We merely were.

Sharrock became my constant companion over the following many cycles; and a joyful time it was, often and for prolonged periods, insofar as “joyful” could exist in our world.

We took part in the Day of Races; with Sharrock sprinting against the grazers and the pack predators and winning. However, he also rashly challenged Quipu to a test of mathematical acumen and lost, shamingly. Then he fought with sticks against Mangan and all the other arboreals; and won, triumphantly, without anyone sustaining any serious injuries.

Sharrock debated science avidly each Day the Last; and I could tell he was humbled at the intellectual greatness to be found on the ship. And I showed him too the lower decks where Quipu had supervised the building of forges and electrical generators, using minerals and cannibalised hull metal and reconstituted doors complete with electronic locks and hydraulics.

With these limited means at his disposal, Quipu had built electrical lights, torches, sound recording devices and books made up out of the barks of tree branches pulped and shaped and dried. And in these books, using ink taken from the blood of sea creatures and sessiles, Quipus One, Two, Three and Five had transcribed many of the great works of fiction of our varied species. Any sentient being who loved to read could peruse these tales of strange worlds and fantastical creatures. The Quipus wrote down their own tales about a variety of one headed monsters; Cuzco’s civilisation had myths about peace-loving philosopher kings; my own people wrote novels about creatures that burrow deep under the earth, for this is a thing we ourselves never did.

Thus for a while-a long joyous while!-Sharrock was content.

Then that familiar impatience settled upon him.

And I began to fear the worst. For Sharrock was starting to brood and fester and-worst of all- hope. And my fear was that he would drive himself to the brink and beyond of madness. Or even, as had happened to Cuzco, into the pit of Despair.

“Why,” Sharrock asked me, “the Tower?”

His face bore the “curiosity” expression that I found so charming, and yet so worry-inducing.

“It is a symbol set to taunt us,” I said patiently.

“Fair answer. But why so visible? They could make their home in a mountain, and we would never know.”

“That wouldn’t be sufficiently taunting.”

“True, true. Except-” Sharrock’s mind was racing again.

“We could be happy now,” I pointed out. “We don’t need to fight, or worry, or scheme. We could simply accept our lot, and lives our days in peace and relative contentment.”

“A fine philosophy,” Sharrock conceded.

“But?”

“But that is not a satisfactory way to live, for one such as I,” Sharrock admitted, almost sheepishly.

Sharrock was already remarkably fit and strong, at least by biped standards; but every day from that moment on he swam in the lake for twelve hours or more.

He slept; he swam; he consumed gloop and drank the water of life. He did nothing else. He was clearly building up his strength for his next great adventure; but he would tell me nothing of his plans.

I have to admit that I missed Sharrock during this period. I missed his companionship, his wit, his unexpected shafts of humour, his sensual love of life that leached the pleasure from every moment, and his excessive energy that made all the other creatures on the ship seem like sun-basking idlers. Sharrock annoyed me constantly and deeply, but he invigorated me also.

But as the Rhythm of Days continued in its usual steady and pleasingly predictable way, Sharrock spent all his time swimming, until his body was puckered and white and his shoulders and arms and legs were even more disproportionately large than before.

I knew of course what was going to happen next; it was hardly a challenge to my acumen to guess what Sharrock had in mind.

Day the Fourth: a terrible storm raged, and most of the creatures on the ship huddled in their cabins. I however stood by the side of the lake, drenched and buffeted, staring out across the water.

The storm continued for three days and three nights and then ceased.

And, several hours after the rains stopped, Lirilla appeared in front of me as I was attempting to bask in sunlight, feeling my moist black skin drying up in the sun’s steady heat.

Her wings beat against my face, and I blinked her into focus. “Come,” said Lirilla,

“What is it, sweet bird?” I said, grumpily.

“Sharrock,” Lirilla said.

It was the news I had been expecting. Even so, dread consumed me.

“How is he?” I asked.

“Dead,” Lirilla trilled.

My soul lurched, and I got up and followed the bird; flinging myself through air as fast as I could until I reached the lake.

The fish had found Sharrock’s body in the lake, and had summoned the arboreals, who had dragged him to shore. His flesh was puffy, and he was covered in blood. He wasn’t breathing. He had been dead, the arboreals told me, for about twelve hours.

“How did it happen?” I asked, though I already knew.

“He tried,” said Mangan, “to swim to the Tower.”

Oh Sharrock! I raged inwardly. How could you do this to me! I cannot lose you, not so soon after losing Cuzco! And indeed, not at all.

But I showed no trace of my turbulent emotions; for no one on this world expected me to have any such intense and tragic feelings; and I preferred it so.

“I’ll stay with him,” I said, calmly.

After five days of lying fully immersed in a brook fed by the well of the water of life, Sharrock came back to life.

His eyes flickered and he coughed. I sprayed him with spirit-calming moisture from my tentacle tips, and forced well-water along a tube into his mouth. It would take a while for his broken bones to mend, but his skin was already back to normal and there were no signs of major brain damage.

I hated the black nights on the interior planet but I was determined to stay with Sharrock until he was fully revived. I could imagine his fear at waking in the darkness and being alone.

Even though he was still unconscious most of the time, I began to talk to him. I told him my innermost thoughts and fears. I told him of my love for Cuzco, and our single night of passion that had led to his stony death. I told him my fantasies of achieving liberation and of finding true love again; though I knew that such dreams could never come true.

No one else had heard these words from me; and Sharrock was too groggy to understand. But I needed to tell someone.

“Sai-ias.” His voice was a croak, but it filled me with relief.

“I’m here,” I said.

I dribbled moisture on his lips. He breathed slowly, and forced himself to talk:

“I reached it, Sai-ias!” he told me. “I reached the Tower.”

“I know.”

“I-” He coughed and spluttered.

“You stayed too long there; the longer you stay, the worse the storms,” I said, rather primly perhaps.