“Good,” Sharrock conceded grandly, as though I were his subject; this was I realised an annoying habit of his.
Above us, dumb birds and smart aerials flew. The trees nearest us were purple sentients and were admired by all of us for their extraordinary intellect and wisdom. I warned Sharrock not to eat the berries, for that was tantamount to eating the gonads of a great philosopher. Arboreals of all sizes and colours perched in branches and swung from branches and seized every opportunity to stare curiously at the newcomer. Sharrock looked around at it all, appraising, memorising, undoubtedly awestruck.
“I’d like a swim,” said Doro, and Sharrock looked around, baffled.
I slithered across to the rocks, and picked up Doro-who was, as always, perfectly camouflaged. And I held him in the tips of two tentacles.
“How is he doing?” Doro asked.
“A talking rock?” Sharrock said sceptically.
“You’ve met Doro once before,” I explained. “The night I took you to my cabin.”
Comprehension dawned in his eyes. “The shapeshifter. I encountered another species like that once, while on a mission in the Lexoid Galaxy.”
“That is a tale I would love to hear.”
“And so you shall,” said Sharrock, with charm.
I hurled Doro into the waters of the lake, where he became waves.
Sharrock smiled. He was, I could tell, starting to enjoy himself.
My strategy was working.
“This tastes good,” Sharrock said, a little while later, chewing on the fish I had caught for him.
“It has no nutritional value,” I admitted. “The Ka’un alter the cells of these fish to be non-poisonous to all species, but our physiologies are so different we can’t hope to digest the flesh. It is the gloop we eat daily and the water from the well of life that truly feeds us.”
“The water?”
“It contains foodstuffs and minerals and hormones in solution form, and is able to alter its molecular structure to suit the needs of each of us.”
“Water can do all that?”
“The water and the air are what keep us alive.”
“How so?”
“They just-do,” I explained.
Sharrock laughed; and crinkled his eyes. He was, I realised, using his charm on me again.
“Perhaps, dear Sai-ias, you could explain in just a little more detail?” he said, and there was a courtesy to his tone I had not heard before.
I remembered all I had been told, by the technological sentients like Quipu. “The air,” I told Sharrock, “doesn’t just translate our words, it transforms itself so that we can breathe. It transmutes itself to give oxygen to one species, methane to another, and so forth. Somehow, the air knows how to be the right air for each of us, no matter how different our worlds.”
“The air- knows this?” said Sharrock.
“Yes.”
“That’s-” said Sharrock, and could not find a word for it.
“And it also, so I’m told,” I continued, “carries with it light. The sun is not the sun, it is merely air shaped in a ball. And when the air of the sun grows tired, the light gets redder and we call that sunset.”
“Air can do all that?”
“In this world, yes it can,” I explained.
“Such marvels are-beyond belief,” said Sharrock, and I could tell he was plotting and scheming again. “But this air-the Ka’un created it right? It has, perhaps, micro-particles that carry information? So each molecule of air functions like a miniature artificial mind? Like a… a… data engine, but at a sub-atomic level?”
“Perhaps,” I said, cautiously.
“You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?” said Sharrock.
“No I do not.”
“Amazing.”
“Why is it amazing?”
Sharrock’s mouth made a shape, common to many bipeds; a smile.
“I’m not considered to be a great scientist among my kind. I’m certainly not a Philosopher,” Sharrock explained. “But these are basic concepts, that every sentient creature must be aware of. Surely?”
“Not me,” I admitted.
He was silent for a while. I could tell his spirits were high; he was convinced he had discovered some secret that could be used to destroy the Ka’un. The usual delusion.
And so, as we sat there, I realised that it was time for me to proceed to the next stage of my strategy; to save this poor wretched creature before hope wholly destroyed him.
Thus, once we had eaten and digested, I began to speak to him softly, whilst bathing him in a persuasive spray from my tentacles that would, I knew, render him more pliable and less aggressive.
“This is what will happen,” I explained. “In a while we will walk down to the forest. You will find there a place to live. And there also will be creatures for you to live with. They will teach you the ways of this world; and they will be harsh ways. I will visit you when I can. But I can help you no more; this must be your home now.”
“You’re leaving me?” Sharrock said, drowsily, with only a trace of fear in his voice.
“I will see you as often as I can,” I said. “But though you and I can be friends, we can’t be-close friends. Our bodies are too different.”
“And what do I do, when I’m given this new home?”
“You must learn,” I told him, “to love the little pleasures. You can fish, and forage, and hunt; and bask in the sun; and savour the Rhythm of Days.”
“That is no kind of life,” Sharrock said, through his sleepy haze, “for a warrior!”
“Ah, you warriors, you are so brave,” I said, flatteringly.
“I am,” he said, drugged yet proud, “among the greatest of warriors!”
“You must forget all that,” I said soothingly. “Forget your old ways. Live for the moment.”
“The greatest,” he murmured, “of warriors.”
And I sighed, from each of my tentacle tips, sorrowfully.
I dared not tell Sharrock the truth, not just yet; that there is indeed a place for warriors on the Ka’un’s ship.
For some nights, the night does not end. And a deep dreamless sleep descends upon us.
And when we wake, we find that some of our most fearsome fighters have disappeared. They have been conveyed, in a fashion we do not comprehend, away from their cabins while the rest of us slept. And of these, the Vanished Ones, some never return. And others, like Cuzco on so many occasions, do return after a passage of months or years, but horrendously scarred and battered, or with limbs that are weak and recently regrown.
And these Vanished Warriors have no recollection of what has occurred to them, and no inkling as to how they sustained their injuries.
At first, many of us assumed that the Ka’un were “experimenting” on the Vanished Ones, to advance their knowledge of alien biology; such ruthless behaviour is, I have learned, common among many technological species. Others believed that the Vanished Ones were being tortured for information; though since all of us had lost our worlds, it was hard to say what information the Ka’un might need from us.
But as time went by the truth forced itself upon us all. The Vanished Ones always had one thing in common; they were strong, or armoured, or fierce, or terrifyingly large, or from species which made a religion of the art of war.
Or to put it in bolder terms: those who go missing are the warriors supreme of the Ka’un’s Hell Ship. And it became obvious to all of us what they do.
They fight, and vanquish, and destroy, and capture fresh slaves.
Thus, these warriors unwillingly serve the evil that is the Ka’un. They conquer alien worlds; their memories are swept clean; and they are returned to us.
This, I knew, would be Sharrock’s fate; his warrior skills would make him irresistibly attractive to the Ka’un. I did not warn him, however, of what was in prospect for him; for who could bear to know they were cursed with such a terrible fate?
Lies, sometimes, can be kinder than truth.
“This will be your home now,” I told Sharrock, as we stood in the shadow of the scarlet carola trees that marked the boundary of the forest region.