Slave Empire - The Crystal Ship (16 page)

One had
hatched into a male, which had lain acquiescent while he grew, not
triggering the Ship’s defences. By the time he was large enough to
take control, it had been too late to kill him. This was how all
young ships were infected. If they had only avoided infection at
this crucial stage, they could not have been infected as adults.
Their soldier beasts would have slaughtered the parasites before
they became mature.

Rayne shivered as a female brushed past her, heading for the
sea with an awkward paddling gait. They seemed oblivious to her,
and she wondered what they would do if they became aware of
her.
Nothing
, the
ship assured her.
They have little
intelligence and no instinctive reaction to such a
phenomenon
. It did not, however, recommend
waking the Envoy, since his reaction was not so predictable. Rayne
longed for a weapon again.

Scrysalza’s
puzzlement prompted her to explain her need, and the Ship’s mind
recoiled from the thought of an edged weapon capable of penetrating
the Envoy’s soft-looking hide. Nevertheless, it understood the
necessity, if she was to kill the Envoy. Its soldiers, it
explained, carried their own weapons. She asked if it could
transport a laser from her ship, but the notion of such a tiny,
metallic object perplexed it, and finding such a thing in the
confines of her metallic shell daunted it. She had to remind
herself that to the Ship, she was barely large enough to see, and a
thing the size of a laser was too minute for it to sense.

Stepping aside
to let a female paddle past, she pondered the problem. She could
hardly kill the massive Envoy with her bare hands, and even
attacking him with an edged weapon seemed ludicrous and suicidal.
She had no idea where his brain was, or even his head, and nothing
said his brains were in his head. Sticking some sort of spear into
him and hoping he would bleed to death assumed he had blood, which
was not a certainty either.

Struck by a
thought, she asked why there was only one male parasite on the
Ship, for surely it had gathered more than one male egg in its
youth. It had, Scrysalza replied, but when they reached maturity,
the males had fought for domination, and the strongest had killed
the rest. The information depressed her, for if the Envoy was
capable of fighting it must possess weapons such as teeth, claws or
poison. Despite its slug-like appearance, the Envoy was more
dangerous than she had first imagined.

How was she
supposed to kill it? She asked the Ship if one of its soldiers was
capable of killing the Envoy, and it replied that several hundred
would be required. In order to gauge the difficulty of her task,
since the Ship knew more about the Envoy than she did, she asked to
see one of its soldiers. A bulge in the wall that she had thought
was part of Scrysalza’s flesh detached itself and moved forward. So
the soldiers were right here, under her nose, but invisible, she
marvelled as she studied the horse-sized beast.

Compared to
the parasite females, the strange, pinkish-grey creature, tipped
with black on its extremities, had a weird beauty. It walked on
four limbs, and another two were curled close to its chest. It
resembled a centaur, with an upright torso supported by a
horizontal abdomen. Its legs were strangely jointed and its feet
splayed and delicate, suited to walking in slime. It possessed a
small, sleek head with a large mouth and no eyes or ears, and sharp
crystal claws tipped its forelimbs.

Rayne had to
remind herself that it was part of the Ship, and controlled by
Scrysalza’s mind just as she controlled her hands and feet. That
was why its flesh was the same colour as the Ship’s, and it
possessed no sensory organs, since it needed none. Just as she
could send her mind into her flesh to heal it, Scrysalza controlled
all aspects of its body. The soldier stopped in front of her and
waited, turning its head on a short, graceful neck. Somehow it
reminded her of a deer, although she could not really see the
resemblance. She thanked the Ship, and the soldier returned to its
place in the wall.

Rayne
considered the problem once more. The soldier did not appear to be
terribly fearsome, armed only with the crystal claws and perhaps
teeth. The Ship interjected a startling and disquieting thought
into her musings. The soldiers used their claws and teeth on
smaller invaders, but they also possessed potent venom that would
kill just about any life form ever evolved. That was what could
kill the Envoy, if several hundred soldiers injected him with it.
Rayne slumped, dismayed, and shuffled aside to let a groping
parasite past.

The task
seemed impossible without a modern weapon. She asked the Ship if
she could return to her metallic shell for a short while, just long
enough to find a weapon. The Ship pondered this, clearly not
enthusiastic about the idea. It feared that once free, she would
flee in her metallic shell and leave it alone again. Rayne swore
that she would return, because she had to kill the parasite, not
only for Scrysalza’s sake, but for the people on the planet ahead,
whom the Envoy would torture and kill.

The Ship
deliberated for several minutes this time, its thoughts hidden.
What if, it asked, her weapon did not kill the Envoy, but merely
enraged him? Did she have any idea the kind of pain he would
inflict upon it then? She admitted that she did not, but hoped it
would be the last time the Envoy hurt the Ship. Scrysalza did not
find this sentiment particularly comforting, dreading the agony
that would result from its disobedience.

If she could
not kill the Envoy, it said, but succeeded only in enraging him,
the parasite would order it to kill her, and it did not know if it
would be able to disobey. Rayne rubbed her arms to ward off an
imaginary chill, for the Envoy’s chamber was like a sauna. Once the
Envoy awoke, Scrysalza warned, he would be in charge, and he could
even order its soldiers to attack her. The Ship could defy him up
to a point, but not for long; it could not stand the pain.

Rayne searched
for inspiration. Another thought struck her, and she asked the Ship
if it could transport more people into the chamber to help her.
Again Scrysalza pondered, but she sensed its aversion to the
suggestion even before it replied. It did not trust other people,
it explained. They might hurt it as well. It had sensed their
hostility already. Even now, it told her, those outside in their
metallic shells planned to hurt it to stop it reaching the planet
ahead, and if it brought them aboard they would be able to do
grievous harm.

Rayne
explained that the Atlanteans wanted to kill the Envoy, but
Scrysalza pointed out that it would have to import several hundred
aliens, an infection its soldiers might not be able to combat if
the people turned against it. Rayne was unpleasantly surprised to
learn that the Ship thought of people as an infection, but to it
that was exactly how it must seem. The Envoy and his females were
like a sickness she was supposed to cure, but the cure, in too
large a dose, could be more dangerous than the original illness.
The Ship’s refusal dashed her last hope, and she eyed the Envoy,
dejected.

What about one
man, she wondered, armed with a modern weapon? The Ship considered
this, apparently unsure, although not as averse to it as it had
been to an army. It wanted to know more about the weapon, and she
tried to explain a laser to it. The idea of compressed light was a
familiar one, for it used light in all its forms to do many things,
but did not know whether such a weapon could kill the Envoy. This
possibility had not occurred to Rayne, and she experienced
increasing desperation. If it was immune to a laser, how could it
be killed? The Ship could offer no help, since a ship had never
been able to kill an Envoy.

As she stood irresolute, the Envoy shuddered and heaved,
unseating several females that lolled atop him. Rayne stepped back
in alarm, treading on a female’s groping tentacle hand. The
parasite squealed like a pig, unnerving her even more. The Envoy
was waking up, and she still had no solution. How quickly did the
Envoy awake, she wondered, and Scrysalza said,
quickly
. Her heart pounded as the
massive beast rolled and squirmed, sloshing the seething sea.
Several tubular appendages rose from the liquid to suck up blood
beasts while slender tentacles scooped the writhing creatures into
his mouths.

Now that he
was animated, she could make out more of his structure. He
possessed many appendages, some of which spanned the chamber and
vanished into tunnels. Breathing holes opened and closed on his
flanks, and shiny feelers rose to wave like antennae. The
iridescent nature of the feelers warned her, but there was nowhere
to hide and little room to move amongst the knee-deep females. The
Envoy possessed sight, and within moments it became obvious that he
had detected her. The feelers pointed in her direction, and she
backed away, shuffling through the throng. She fought an insane
urge to run, knowing she would trip over a female and sprawl on the
slimy floor. Then, like a splinter of glass thrust into her brain,
the Envoy’s mind touched hers.

Rayne cried
out and covered her ears in a futile bid to block out the thoughts
that tore through her mind. Nothing could defend against them,
however, and her mental shields were, as Tarke had once told her, a
joke. The gentle touch of the Ship’s mind fled the Envoy’s
invasion, barely escaping detection, she sensed. The Envoy’s
thoughts filled her head with a harsh, grinding moan overlaid by a
shrill squealing, an alien language that could not be translated
into anything resembling speech.

His raw, cruel
emotions horrified her, an insatiable bloodlust and a hunger for
pain that made her cringe. She sensed his interest in her as a
source of pain that could bring him some amusement before he
reached the planet and basked in the glory of billions of screaming
minds. He did not even need the Ship to broadcast his torture; he
could do it himself, first hand, a novel experience. Warned by his
thoughts, she waded faster through the females, heading for the
nearest tunnel. Her resolve to face and kill the Envoy shrivelled
before the unimaginable horror of his sadistic plans.

The Envoy
perceived her only as a beast useful to torture, a source of the
mental suffering he craved. To him, she realised as she tried to
swallow the bile that heaved into her throat, she was like a cat
cornered by a bunch of sadistic boys who planned to set it on fire
and watch it die screaming, just for the fun of it. Or perhaps he
was more akin to the laboratory technician who dripped acid into
rabbits’ eyes and listened to their screams with detached, clinical
pleasure. Humans had done to animals what he planned to do to her,
although his pleasure was more of a metabolic necessity. She
deduced his need for pain as a sexual stimulant that aging Envoys
required to keep their procreation levels high.

Rayne
struggled through the females, which squealed and flopped at her
touch. She clawed at them, climbed over them and even stepped on
them in her desperation to get away. No wonder Scrysalza was so
afraid of the Envoy. The first touch of his mind had filled her
with terror, and it only grew worse with prolonged contact. The
tunnel ahead of her pinched shut, and she veered away, heading for
another. A tentacle reached up through the throng and whipped
around her waist, almost squeezing the breath out of her. He lifted
her, his painful grip forcing a wail from her.

The Envoy
raised her almost to the roof, as he basked in the pleasure of her
pain. She clawed at the tough tentacle, trying to tear it with her
nails and prise it away, but it was as strong as a steel hawser.
She sensed Scrysalza hovering on the edge of her mind, too timid to
intrude, cowering from her pain, and cried out to it for help.
Something sharp, she begged, something to cut him with. Her
empathic ability mixed the Envoy’s pleasure with her agony as the
tentacle dug into her, somewhat diluting his enjoyment. The weird
mixture stretched her sanity, making her writhe in a futile attempt
to escape it.

A razor-edged
shard of crystal thrust down from the roof, just within her reach.
She grabbed it, ignoring the stabs of pain as it sliced her palm.
It snapped off easily, and she slashed the tentacle. The Envoy’s
flesh parted like butter, and she plunged into the seething ocean
as the Envoy bellowed. The warm fluid closed over her head, and a
million blood beasts churned around her, pushing against her as she
struggled towards the surface.

Breaking into
air, she sensed the Envoy’s rage. His reaction was that of a lab
technician bitten by the rat he had been torturing, an instant urge
to stamp out the life of the creature that had harmed him. A dozen
massive tentacles flailed the fluid in search of her, sending giant
waves rushing to shore. She dived as one crashed down mere metres
away, wriggling through the blood beasts. She still gripped the
crystal shard, and, as she surfaced again, she raised it. A
tentacle lashed over her head, and she lopped it off.

The Envoy
squealed, writhing as he sought the source of his pain. The
tentacle had ripped the crystal shard from her grasp, and it
splashed into the liquid somewhere off to her right. Her hands were
cut to the bone, but she had no time to heal them. She dived again
as a tentacle lashed at her, trying to swim down to retrieve her
weapon. Another appendage uncoiled in the fluid, whipped around her
ankle and dragged her backwards. She fought to reach the surface as
her air ran out. The tentacle lifted her and whirled her around
like a broken doll, coughing fluid.

It dropped
Rayne back into the ocean with a huge splash, the impact driving
the air from her lungs. Swimming to the surface again, she
spluttered and gasped, wiping her eyes as she turned to find the
Envoy. Several dozen soldiers clambered over him with spindly,
claw-footed legs. Weird fangs protruded from their lower jaws,
which they thrust into him, injecting their venom. Rayne half swam,
half crawled through the roiling blood beasts towards the shore,
touched and gladdened by the Ship’s courageous aid.