Philip Palmer - Hell Ship

My song was greeted by a profound silence.

What just happened? I asked with my thoughts.

You have just committed a gross error of etiquette, it seems, Minos’s voice said in my head. Or perhaps, pray do not take offence, they just hate your singing?

“I come in peace,” I said grumpily, and waited for my meaning to register among their flat floating brains.

“We welcome you in peace,” one of the sails replied.

“Your planet is very beautiful,” I told the sail.

“You are a vile and an ugly beast, you disgust us, and you cannot sing,” the sail replied.

That answered one question; this species knew nothing of flattery, diplomacy or, indeed, good manners.

“I am considered beautiful on my own world. You, by contrast, look utterly ridiculous to my eyes,” I retorted, in the same spirit of offensive candour, and the trilling swelled in what the translator told me was approbation. These creatures appreciated plain talking.

“Are you the masters and conquerors of this universe?” I asked, “Or do you live in peace and accord with your fellow sentients?”

“We live in peace and accord,” said one of the sails.

“Then you do not incur my contempt,” I said.

“We accept your lack of contempt without any trace of contempt,” the sail replied.

“My name is Sai-ias,” I told this particular sail.

“My name is [what came out was gibberish-so I decided to call him Sail],” said Sail.

“We wish,” I said eloquently, slipping into my role of ambassador with remarkable ease, “to find a place in this universe where we can dwell and be happy. We do not wish to take territory from any other sentient creature. We will not threaten this planet or any of your kind. We merely wish to dwell here, in the universe of Many Suns, for all eternity.”

“That cannot be,” said Sail.

“This is an entire universe, there is room for all,” I explained, somewhat irked by the brevity and rudeness of the creature’s response.

“You must return from where you came,” said Sail, “or we will destroy you.”

Stay calm, they’re just trying to provoke you.

“I cannot be threatened,” I explained, in my calmest tones.

“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.