Gilgara joined me after I had broke my fast that morning, and when I went tramping in the mountains, he followed me like a limping shadow. He was pathetically devoted to me now. I had beaten him in combat so I was his “master”; that was the way the Kindred thought.
It was however, I had to concede, an impressively well organised society. Instead of retreating to dismal cabins at night, the Kindred had used hull-metal tools to carve caves out of the smooth rocks of the artificial mountains; and they had installed artificial lights in each of these caves. Stories were told there; private caves were set aside for sexual congress; the larger caves were even decorated with artwork in what I recognised as a naive style; though abstract coloration was also a favoured mode.
The variety of biped species here was dazzling and extraordinary, but the physical similarities between the different species also startled me. The females all had breasts with nipples and haired love-niches (and since I was King, they often flaunted them at me) and loved to discuss the minutest details about the characters of others. Whereas the males all had cocks; and walked with a swagger; and wore groin-hides and capes and boots of hues which almost but did not quite match. The numbers of eyes varied, but all the smaller bipeds, and the Kindred too for that matter, had mouths and tongues and feet and hands and ears. Some creatures however had healed-up holes on their bellies where their mother’s cord had been cut, which I found exceeding strange.
I found many of the females attractive, but did not sleep with any. I found the males highly annoying; they were all so competitive, and whiny. And I realised I was missing the company of the giant sentients. Cuzco was a monster, but he was magnificent nonetheless. And Fray was a brute, but she inspired an awe in me, especially when she ran; that, to me, was true poetry. And Sai-ias-well. She was like no other creature I had ever met before.
But I had chosen my destiny; to teach the Kindred to respect the rights of others. And to forge the smaller bipeds into a proud and free and unified community of individuals loyal to a common cause.
If only the bastards weren’t so irritating.
For the Kindred were by instinct and nature supreme bullies. And the idiot smaller bipeds had actually chosen to enslave themselves! These stupid less-pride-than-a-warrior-who-fucks-his-own-scabbard creatures-how could they have done such a thing?
And yet, I supposed, in some ways the state of slavery simplified matters. For if you are a free spirit like myself, you will be constantly challenging the way things are.
But when the world is intolerable, and life is irrevocably unjust; might it be better, perhaps, to just blindly serve?
I could never pursue such a course myself of course. Nor could I truly condone the actions of these self-deluded fools. But in a curious way, I found I had acquired a sliver of compassion for my fellow bipeds and their frailties.
I was soul-pacing-restless though. I had fought and lost and fought and lost and finally fought and won a glorious battle; and now there were no more battles to fight.
I thought again about the biped slaves still living at the foot of the Further Mountains. I had told Sai-ias I would liberate them, and I resolved to do so; because at least that would give me an excuse to leave the village for a while.
So I said my farewells; icily endured the tears of maidens I had not bedded, and who did not even have the same number of eyes as I did; and spent several hours persuading Gilgara not to follow me, before eventually breaking his stick and leaving him behind.
Then I set out across the mountain trail, alone, except for my newly acquired hull-metal sword and my turbulent thoughts.
The winds were cold as I walked higher up the mountains. I killed a grazer and skinned it and used its hide as my cape. And I carried the flayed body on my shoulder so I could sleep in the carcass during the icy black night when, as I knew, the heating was always switched off.
Thus encumbered, I climbed up to the highest peak, and looked down at the strange unnatural world of the Hell Ship. I was breathing heavily now; my muscles were singing with exertion; I felt happier than I had been for some time.
Then I slept the night inside the grazer upon the peak. And in the morning, I descended, bloody and smelly but pleasingly well rested. And after several hours of searching I found the settlement in the shadow of the Further Mountain ranges, where the nomad Kindred and their biped slaves dwelled.
And then I saw that bitch.
Sai-ias
“Come,” said Lirilla, and I wearily got up, and began flinging myself through the air with my tentacles.
This time I came upon Sharrock before the battle had begun. He had indeed, as he had pledged, journeyed to the bipeds who lived at the foot of the Further Mountains, whose high snowy peaks loomed above our nearer mountain ranges. And now he was engaged in single combat with a mighty Kindred female-twice the size of Sharrock himself and massively muscled, her long red hair streaked with silver, and as skilled at he in combat with a sword.
Her Kindred allies had gathered round to watch, with their biped slaves sulkily stood beside them. All cheered as Sharrock and the female clashed swords, and leaped, and rolled, with grace and speed and awesome energy.
They were well matched; the female warrior was larger and stronger but Sharrock was fast and nimble and able to leap high in the air whilst wielding his sword. Blades clashed so hard together I could see sparks; and the bodies of the two warriors spiralled in the air as they somersaulted around each other; their blades lashing and slashing as they dodged and rolled and stepped back and lunged forward in a coruscating display of martial prowess that would have been beautiful if it weren’t so godsforsakenly childish!
“Enough,” I yelled, and seized each of them in a tentacle.
“Let me down,” screamed Sharrock, and hacked at me with his sword.
“Let me down,” screamed the female and hacked at me with her sword.
I roared; and spat webbing in their faces; and they fell to the ground, bound and helpless.
A killing rage had come upon me; I yearned to smash them into pieces.
The rage passed.
“Let us talk,” I said.
In the shadow of the snowy mountains, the female warrior-who I had by now recognised as Zala, the only female Kindred with such red-and-silver-hair-and Sharrock confronted each other; while I placed my body between them.
“Tell me why you fought this female,” I said to Sharrock.
And Sharrock told the tale:
“As you know,” he said, “I fought the giant Gilgara. Nobly he-”
“Just the facts,” I said.
“I defeated him,” Sharrock synopsised sulkily, “freed my people; and then sought out the renegade Kindred who dwelled at the foot of these mountain. And I gave them my terms; release your slaves and we will live in harmony.”
“He’s insufferable, isn’t he?” I said to Zala.
“He is indeed,” she concurred. “To state my case: we acknowledge no master; we broke free of Gilgara many cycles ago. We are free.”
“But your bipeds are slaves,” pointed out Sharrock.
“Well, yes.”
“And I bested you in combat, therefore-”
“I was winning, you shit-eyed bastard!”
“Sharrock, I’ve heard enough. Zala, tell your tale.”
“I have no tale to tell; I do not answer to monsters such as you.”
“I have said what I must say; the slaves will be freed, I demand it!” roared Sharrock. “And as for this bitch, this evil-I cannot find a word for one so fucking-she has to die! Her presence cannot be tolerated! For she tried to kill me!” Never had I seen Sharrock so dementedly enraged; which was indeed remarkable, since demented enragement had been his commonest mood during his early days on the Hell Ship.
“You shameless liar!” Zala replied, with evident astonishment. “You attacked me! I was merely defending myself!”