Philip Palmer - Hell Ship

Fray already knew that she was the last of her kind. And although she was a brutal predator, whose people loved to eat their own young, her kind were also sophisticated and clever, and had developed a beautiful philosophy that treasured the harmony of the natural world.

The Frayskind had sent colony ships to the stars, at sub-luminal speeds; and there were two hundred billion of Fray’s people alive when the Hell Ship had come to their universe. A long war had taken place between the Ka’un and an aggressive species of sentients called the Mala. Fray’s kind had taken no part in this war.

The Mala had been exterminated by means of a virus seeded by the Ka’un on all their planets. The Mala had died, and yet all the other life on these planets had survived. It had then come down to a space battle to the death between the Mala fleet and the Hell Ship.

The Hell Ship had triumphed.

And after the extermination of the Mala, Fray’s kind had opened negotiations with the Hell Ship. A long contract of peace had been drafted. And Fray, who was a leader to a large section of the Frayskind, had been involved in writing it. (Frayskind were meticulous about legal matters, and although they had no hands they could use their tongues with great dexterity.)

When the final document had been drafted, the Hell Ship spewed out yet another planet-buster missile and fled, taking the stunned Fray as captive and slave. She blamed herself for her people’s demise of course; and came to believe they should have fought, and not sought peace.

And, in all honesty, she was correct in her belief.

Thus Fray had not been an easy creature to pacify, back then. She had tried to kill me; then she had tried to manipulate me with her subtle logic, and charismatic personality. Then she discovered she could dominate some of the smaller sentients on the ship, and used her power over them to foment a mutiny which, thankfully, I was able to thwart.

I explained to her, again and again, that resistance was futile. But Fray did not believe me.

So I had told her tales of my home world. I painted a picture in words of the great waterspout of Jragnall, and the joy of swimming in the depths of the ocean with the Kasdif and the Qauy.

And Fray told me her stories too. She talked of her homeland, a planet orbiting a double sun. It was a wild and windy and mountainous desert world and many of the animals were, like the Frayskind, huge, because they carried huge stores of water in their bodies which they replenished every two years when the rains came. They were in effect living oases.

And thus, over the space of a year, we became friends. She was in many ways my dearest and closest friend. I bathed her body with moisture squirted from my tentacles on a monthly basis; which for her kind, betokens the closest fondness possible outside of a sexual relationship.

Fray was my friend; and now my friend had called me traitor.

You did well, Sai-ias.

Thank you.

I am proud of you. But I fear What do you fear Minos?

That you are not so very proud of me.

Of course I am.

You lie, Sai-ias.

No!

Of course you do. You’d be a fool not to. I’m your evil oppressor, remember?

I don’t think of it that way, I protested with my thoughts.

I hope you don’t. For what I have told you is true. My kind are not the aggressors, we are the victims. Our only sin is hope; hope that one day we will find a species worthy of our respect.

We were such a species. We did not seek war with you.

For a moment Minos was silent; and I wondered if I had been too frank with him. But then he spoke, in gentle and humble tones:

Perhaps then we were wrong about your kind. Forgive me Sai-ias-no, of course you can’t forgive me. What we did was unforgivable!

Understand me then Sai-ias. If I could travel back in time I would save your entire planet and all your peoples. For now that I have met you I understand how wise and kind you are. You are truly worthy of our respect; the finest and the most honourable sentient creature we have ever encountered.

Sai-ias, will you not answer me? I have bared my soul after all.

I hear your apology, Minos. And I accept that things that are done cannot be undone.

A staggering cliche, my child; but true. Do you hate me?

No.

You’re lying again. Tell the truth. Do you hate me?

No.

Try one more time.

No. I did, once, I hated you with all my soul. But no longer.

That gladdens my heart, dear creature.

Minos Yes Sai-ias? What did you want to say?

Just this-if I may-forgive my candour Whatever is on your mind, Sai-ias, merely expectorate it forth.

Minos, thank you. From the depths of my heart, thank you! For I have at times been close to Despair. I have been lonely and desperate, in danger of losing my will to live.

But now, my dearest Minos, I have achieved contentment! I have realised that my destiny is to be, as my ancestors once were, the protector of creatures greater than ourselves; and that destiny has finally been fulfilled!

I am, in short, proud to serve you, Captain Minos.

Sai-ias, I am so deeply touched; your friendship exalts me; you are the only creature in all the universes that I can trust.

Ah Minos! You are my master! And, I hope, also my friend.

Minos believed my every thought.

That stupid gullible turds-for-brains fucking fool!

He did not realise that my kind were accustomed to existing in a state of mental duplicity. For centuries we were the symbiotes of the great coral-beasts who bred us, and controlled our very thoughts. And so we learned to hide our real feelings; it is a gift we possess.

“Ah Minos you are my master!” I said with my mind; but my thoughts said: “ Monster-who-deserves-to-die-with-agonising-pain, I will deceive you and defeat you, somehow! ”

“And, I hope, also my friend,” I said with the thoughts of my mind; but at the same time, my mind was saying: “Die a terrible and painful death, you evil fucking murderer! ”

I had learned, from Sharrock, three key principles of warfare: Know your enemy, cheat your enemy, and always fight to win.

And though Sharrock’s rebellion had failed, mine I was sure would succeed. For I planned to make myself trusted by the Ka’un, indispensable to the Ka’un; and then to betray them, as they had betrayed the Sails.

My treachery was total; for I knew how to lie with my mind.

And thus, I began plotting how to overthrow Minos and all his Ka’un kind.

It proved difficult, however-even more difficult than I had expected-to get Minos and his people into a situation where I could slay them.

First, I tried to lure Minos and his people down on to a planet to help the giant sentients in a battle, as they had done against the tuskers. They were vulnerable once they were off the ship and on an alien planet; and I was confident I could destroy them with my quills and tentacles, despite their power of bodily-fire.

But Minos and his crew were growing more cautious. They would not, despite my best deceptions, be lured out into the open. And I still could find no way to access their own and secret part of the ship.

So next I tried to find a way to destroy the ship from within. I explored each and every room that I could access from my cargo bay home. There were ballrooms, bedrooms, banquet rooms; this was a ship equipped for a huge crew who expected to live in luxury.

But I found no bombs, no missiles, nothing I could use to explode the vessel. The Kindred were armed with guns and rifles; but those were no use to me. The Kindred’s fighter craft were equipped with missiles; but I was too large to sit inside their cockpits, and if I picked a missile up in my tentacles I had no way of detonating it.

But I did however manage to locate a box that was used by the Kindred to send messages during their planetary wars. It was a communications device that could transmit signals between planets over vast distances, via “rifts” in space. Quipu had told me of such devices.