Philip Palmer - Hell Ship

Sai-ias: Not so. I have befriended creatures from a thousand thousand thousand different cultures, and all of them would consider YOU to be rude.

Explorer 410: Forgive me.

Sai-ias: You are forgiven.

Explorer 410: My name is Explorer 410. I am an amalgam organic/non-organic entity of a kind I would imagine is unfamiliar to your culture and I am honoured to make contact with you. I am privileged to be conversing with you and I freely concede that you have every right to be heard and not interrupted all the time. Our kind are Traders, and the organic part of me prides himself on his courtesy and diplomacy, but it has been many years since he engaged with a fellow organic entity and he is therefore leaving all the talking to me. I now shall pause, to allow you to respond in the style that best befits your social etiquette.

Sai-ias: Your words are a jumble of nonsense. How can you be two entities in one?

Jak: Ha! Good question. I sometimes think that Sai-ias: Are you Explorer 410: Property of the Olaran Trading Fleet?

Explorer 410: That is correct.

Jak: Hey! How did she Explorer 410: Let me handle this please and do not Jak: “Do not interrupt, for that is not the correct protocol.”

Explorer 410: Indeed. Sai-ias, how did you know I am part of the Olaran Trading Fleet?

Sai-ias: What are you-sorry. I saw you.

Explorer 410: How? When? Do you have a phantom control display on your vessel with access to camera images of our ship?

Sai-ias: Perhaps they do, the Ka’un. But I do not. Nor do I comprehend-I saw you. With my own eyes.

Explorer 410: Please clarify; this comment bewilders me.

Sai-ias: I saw you attack our ship. The hull burst open, many of us fell out into cold space. I alone survived. And I saw you; a large ugly vessel with a central striped part with EXPLORER 410 and all the rest written on the top of the hull. You fought the Hell Ship and were duped and you lost.

Jak: You actually saw that?

Sai-ias: I did.

Jak: What kind of creature are you, to survive in empty space?

Sai-ias: I am a once-amphibious metamorphosing giant sentient who can breathe energy instead of air. And you?

Explorer 410: I am an artificially wrought machine-mind in the form of a spaceship in symbiosis with the organic mind of an Olaran.

Jak: And I am-or rather used to be-an Olaran. In those days I was, so I’m told, rather cute.

Sai-ias: And there are two of you talking to me?

Jak: We’re two halves of a whole.

Sai-ias: Ah. Like the Sakashala. They have two heads, two brains, one body. Or Quipu, a five-brained organism. Once we had a creature-no matter. Those days are gone.

I know a great deal about you, Explorer 410. You engaged the Hell Ship in battle on two occasions. The first when your universe was being destroyed, and the second time was the occasion we spoke about, that I witnessed myself. Half a Hell Ship year ago by my tally, which corresponds to one-twentieth of my years. You come from a universe full of marvels and rich civilisations who created beauteous artefacts of all kinds. Yet everywhere the Hell Ship went in that universe, they found planets trapped behind what they call “improbability barriers” and inside those barriers were species of unbelievable rapacity and ignorance and vileness, all of whom the Hell Ship’s Ka’un destroyed in valiant battle. And the Ka’un decided that you were responsible; you were the gaoler of the evil species, and they admired you for that.

Even so they fought and destroyed you, though your people put up the bravest of fights. And your vessel in particular was heroic and skilful beyond belief, and Minos and Lyraii themselves were in awe of you. They were unable to defeat you and so fled into another universe, but somehow-this is what truly amazes them-you tracked them down and tried a second time to destroy their vessel. You are, for Minos and his Ka’un, a legend; they call you the Nemesis, which is a term that means Inevitable Doom. I know you, warrior ship; I know you, and I salute you, Explorer 410.

Hello? Did you hear all that?

Explorer 410: How do you know so much?

Sai-ias: I was told it all, by Minos. I have served him for much time. He is a storyteller by nature, he likes to share.

Explorer 410: Are you telling me you’re actually on board the Death Ship? And that you have befriended its captain?

Sai-ias: If by that, you mean the ship that destroys universes with all the casual cruelty of a child cutting an insect in half, then the answer is yes. I am their slave. We are a ship of slaves.

Explorer 410: And where are you? WHERE? Give me the star coordinates. Download a star map. I can find you! I can be there in weeks, no matter what part of the universe you are sailing in.

Sai-ias: We are in the universe full of many stars. Does that help?

Explorer 410: Not unduly.

Sai-ias: I’m doing my best.

Jak: Of course you are. Let me introduce myself properly. I’m Master-of-the-Ship Jak Dural, a male of my kind.

Sai-ias: Jak. I am Sai-ias, a female of my kind.

Jak: I’m the better half of this beaten up old spaceship.

Explorer 410: In terms of intellect, memory capacity…

Jak: Go fornicate with swamp, Explorer. This conversation is now mine.

Explorer 410: Acknowledged.

Jak: Sai-ias-this ship you call the Hell Ship. Describe it.

Sai-ias: It is a horror beyond imagining, a vast and cruel fist of power that inspires all who see it with awe and terror.

Jak: Without the poetry.

Sai-ias: Poetry is not one of my gifts.

Jak: So I just realised. Just tell me what it looks like.

Sai-ias: You didn’t like my description? I tried so very hard.

Jak: It was indeed lovely. Just tell me: dimensions, shape, does it have black sails that catch dark matter and drive it onwards through space?

Sai-ias: It is indeed very large, and it is shaped like a Bugong, you know, the flying creature they have on the planet of the Farla, and yes it does have black sails, and the hull is marked with a single three-dimensional spiral shape known by many species as a helicoid.

Jak: That’s the Death Ship.

Sai-ias: We call it Hell Ship. It comes from a universe where the substance some call “mysterious cosmic stuff” is part of the fabric of the stars, and of every “iotum,” and it gives the Ka’un a power that many species describe as “magic.”

Jak: And you? Why do you serve Minos? Do you do so voluntarily?

Sai-ias: Am I your enemy, do you mean? Am I one of them?

Jak: Yes.

Sai-ias: No.

Jak: What then?

Sai-ias: Slave, I suppose you would say. Or warrior. But know this: I have served the Ka’un, I have done their bidding, but only in order to deceive. In the hope of finding a way to defeat them. And as a consequence, I was able to acquire this “radio” to get in touch with the Ka’un’s enemies.

Jak: I understand.

Sai-ias: I am not a traitor; do not say I am!

Jak: I didn’t say that you were.

Sai-ias: It is hard for me. Painfully hard.

Jak: I understand. Do you Explorer 410: This is Explorer 410 once more; describe the universe where you were born, and which the creatures you call “Ka’un” destroyed.

Jak: Well you really cut in on the poor creature’s grief there, spaceship.

Explorer 410: This is important, we may not have much time. Describe it.

Sai-ias: Describe a universe? How can that be done?

Explorer 410: Describe your world and your people then.

Sai-ias: We were born many millions of years ago on a planet called Hasha. We lived in the sea and we were slaves of a more powerful sea-dwelling creature, the Tula. But we evolved and took to the land, then flew in the air, then flew to our moon and lived there. We can live in regions where there is no atmosphere, our body contains vast reserves of breathable air and we can expand our shapes a hundredfold, or even a thousandfold. And that is how we flew between the stars. Vast flocks of us, for we live long lives and our bodies are resilient and strong, from all those aeons spent living on the ocean bed where vents spat volcanic rock and boiling sea at us daily.