Philip Palmer - Hell Ship

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.

Of 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.