He stared at me accusingly. “Did you drug me?” he asked.
“I calmed you.”
“My rage,” said Sharrock, incredulously, “has gone. I feel content.”
“That is good.”
“My rage has gone. I feel content!” He sounded like a child who has had a toy stolen by a sibling.
“You will be happy here.” A silver-furred arboreal dropped from the tree-top and joined us, scamperingly.
“This is Mangan,” I said. “He will be your companion and your mentor now.”
Mangan danced, and snarled; and his eyes flickered hatred.
“Why,” said Mangan, “do we have to put up with this hairless fucking freak?”
“He is my friend,” I said soothingly. “Protect him.”
Mangan cackled, and scratched his balls, and spat green phlegm, and began to-I need describe no more. Mangan truly was the foulest of beasts.
Sharrock looked at the silver arboreal warily, and with an expression of considerable distaste. “ These are the creatures I must live with?”
“Treat him well,” I said to Mangan, who merely cackled, and stared with hate at the fresh meat I had so generously provided him with.
I unfurled my cape, and I seized the ground with my tentacle tips and hurled myself into the air away from them. Sharrock called after me; but I continued to seize and fly, seize and fly, and I did not look back.
Sharrock
I felt an overwhelming sense of relief when the monster departed.
This black-hided brute has pretended to be my friend; but I know that she is no more than the hapless pawn of my gaolers. Her soft words-for her voice is melodious and beautiful without doubt-have been used to lull me and deceive me. She has preached acceptance and forgiveness; but as a warrior, I could never accept, or forgive, those who have wronged me so utterly.
And so to be free of her gave me a great sense of liberation.
I looked about me, and became attuned to the sounds and the sweet smells of the forest. I could hear screeches and howls and clicks and roars and bellows and grating noises. There were very many creatures here, and none of them were familiar to me. The trees also were strange-some with bark as hard as marble, some soft to the touch. The plants which covered the forest ground were equally diverse and bizarre and their leaves and flowers spanned the rainbow of colours, with some shades of green and purple I had never seen before. There were no insects; that was strange. The air was mild, quite warm; the sun cast a steady heat but never moved.
Once Sai-ias had left, Mangan had fled too. As I had suspected, this was a creature who knew nothing about honouring one’s word. But this too filled me with relief; I had no intention of being trapped in a forest, and certainly not in a small cabin, with a bunch of monkeys.
Instead, I resolved I would live alone, in this forest; I was a creature of the desert, but I was sure I could easily adapt. And I found that I liked the colours, and the scents, and the cacophony of sounds of this alien landscape.
For months I had lived in a cage of metal, occasionally released from captivity only to spend hours in the company of garrulous monsters of astonishingly vile aspects.
But now, after all those months of close captivity, I could smell flowers in the air, I could hear creatures crying and howling and singing, my senses were exhilaratedly alive. And I felt-no this could not be!-yet it was-I felt content. Fulfilled.
I could of course never be truly happy on this world. But I did at least relish being alive, in the forest, with all my senses engaged to the full.
And so I walked carefully through the avenues and alleys of trees, treading a path through wild shrubs and knotted ground vines, over mossy carpets of green and scarlet, and past plants with barks that resembled obsidian and others that seemed to be clad in soft velvet, and others stranger still.
And then my instincts flared and I rolled to the ground and turned around, to see that a serpentine creature had dropped from the branches behind me. It was clearly enraged that it had failed to land upon my head; it snarled viciously; its fangs were large and it spat venom that I dodged swiftly. And then it lunged at me. I had no weapon, but I stood my ground, and caught the creature in my hands, and strangled it to death.
Then I ripped the creature to pieces with my teeth and made a weapon out of its hide and fangs.
I moved onwards. It occurred to me I was still wearing the clothes I had on when my planet was attacked-leather tunic, leather trousers, a gold-mail vest, and silver bracelets around my wrists; and I now wondered how that was possible. The lava would have burned all these things off my body, as well as destroying my flesh and organs. So how was I alive? And how could my clothing still be wearable? And what had happened to the space armour I had put on? Why in other words were some of my clothes intact, but not all?
I decided these could not be my actual clothes. They must have stripped the clothing off the corpse of another warrior of similar bulk, cleaned it of blood, and dressed me in his garb. My body was then, or so I speculated, rejuvenated by means unknown to me; but that was hardly difficult to achieve. My own kind have rejuvenation therapies that allow us to restore a broken warrior to full health within months; it was no wonder these technologically advanced aliens could do better.
I sniffed my clothes and my theory was confirmed; these were not Sharrock’s. The leather of the tunic smelled of leather; not of me. I had worn my own garments on a myriad adventures; they were steeped in my stench.
And now a new adventure had begun. My planet was gone; my people were gone; I was alone on a hostile planet, which is actually a ship, surrounded by aliens who are monstrous beyond belief, ruled by unseen devils who all fear but none dare defy.
It was, I resolved, time for Sharrock to show what he could really do!
For I remembered the time A figure dropped to the ground behind me; I interrupted my reverie, and turned in a single easy gesture. It was the silver-skinned monkey, Mangan, glaring at me with his evil eyes.
“Greetings,” I said.
“You are to be our cabin friend, I gather,” said Mangan.
“That was the stated intention of the monster Sai-ias,” I said. “But I am happy to live alone.”
“That is not an option, cock-brain,” said Mangan, cackling.
“I will live alone,” I said calmly.
“You will do as Sai-ias requires,” Mangan insisted.
“I think not,” I said smiling.
Mangan cackled again. He was a vile creature. And then, to my shock and dismay, he hunched down and he shat, like the most vulgar of beasts. Then he captured his column of shit in one hand, and squeezed it into a tight compact ball.
And then he threw it at me. It was so fast I did not have time to dodge; and the shit-ball was remarkably hard, harder than any stone. I felt the dampness of my own blood trickle down my cheek.
But I ignored the provocation.
“My people were killed, I will take revenge somehow, I will live alone,” I explained patiently.
Three other monkeys dropped to the ground beside Mangan. One of them had a sharpened stick, and I relaxed, hefting the home-made fang-weapon in my hand.
I sensed another home-made missile about to hit me from behind, and this time I was ready; I rolled easily to the ground; the shit-ball flew past me, but a second ball of excrement from an assailant I hadn’t spotted hit me on the side of the head.
I cursed; the months of captivity had sapped my warrior reflexes.
Fortunately, however, this particular ball had been inadequately compacted; it was soft, not hard; thus, I had sustained no damage. My head however, felt damp and sticky and I touched it with a finger. The smell overwhelmed me.
However, I laughed uproariously, to show I could take a joke.
“Do you have a hole where you ought to have a cock?” asked Mangan, provocatively.