Hell Ship

BOOK 10
Explorer/Jak

Explorer, what can you report?

Another barren universe. No trace of the Death Ship.

I’ve been thinking, once more, of Albinia.

She was a fine Star-Seeker.

I’m sure she was.

Better than me?

Ha!

I take it that means yes.

When Albinia was part of me she led and did not follow; her mind was faster and richer than my own; her insights more profound. When she inhabited me I was Olaran and she was machine and we both together formed a new and unified being; Albiniaexplorer.

Yeah I get it. You had the best of her.

Did you love her?

You know that isn’t a valid question; I am not capable of love.

Did she love you?

Oh yes.

Really?

Completely and absolutely; it was an emotional giving of such intensity it almost overwhelmed me. That is why I missed her so much; she was the love in me.

I guess I got the shitty end of that bargain.

I am sure she loved you too.

Do you really think so?

It is entirely possible; though in fact she never said so.

I loved Albinia with all my being; but I could never tell if she felt the same. Or if she just needed an Olaran who would… let her cry on his shoulder from time to time.

There is no way of knowing for certain whether or not she loved you.

I am aware of that. I have been obsessively thinking about this for thousands of years; did you really suppose I was not aware of that?

I was beautiful once, you know. Now I am crippled and scarred and connected to a machine.

Self-pity is not helpful; I have heard all this before.

I was elegant. My poise was exquisite.

Don’t torture yourself.

A poem? Would you like to hear a poem?

My circuits do not allow me to answer you with any candour. Nevertheless, I shall operate an over-ride: NO I DO NOT WANT TO HEAR A GODSFORSAKEN POEM. I have trillions of them in my data archive, which I access every day. Songs and lost laments and poems and novels and memoirs. All saying the same thing: pity me, I am sentient and I do not want to die.

You are a hard-hearted bitch, Explorer.

You assume that I am female.

Are you not?

The concept does not apply.

We could simply stop. Would oblivion be so bad?

It might be preferable to hearing you whine, millennium upon millennium.

Do you get bored? Or depressed? Wouldn’t you like to end it all?

I would like to end, if at all possible, your eternal yammering.

At times you sound almost Olaran. You’re pretending to have a personality, aren’t you? To save my sanity.

If my objective were to save your sanity, I would have failed long ago.

Those days are gone. I’m sane again now.

Do you really think so?

I’m functionally sane. I live for one thing only. That kind of obsessiveness is not good for the soul.

I used to have a richer life, you know. I achieved a balance between pleasure and work. Prided myself on it! Even in our days exploring space, there was always time for leisure, and games and chat. Morval and I, we spent many happy hours bitching and grumbling at each other, for such are among the greatest pleasures known to sentients. And I used to taunt and tease Phylas; and talk about philosophy with Albinia. Even Galamea, hard bitch as she was, was my companion and we knew each other; and through knowing each other became more truly alive.

Now I feel as if I’m talking to myself. You pretend to have a personality, but you have none such. You are just a computer program; and I pilot the ship through your interfaces and sensors and controls; and I am the only Olaran left in all the universes.

Can there be anything more truly I’m getting a signal.

A data cache?

No, an actual signal. On our riftband channel. A signal from a sentient entity who must, at some point, have become quantum-entangled with our atoms. This is someone we have met, or who has met us.

That’s impossible.

The signal has gone. No, it’s back; listen to the message, Jak:

“This is Sai-ias, can you hear me? Is anyone there?”

The Riftband Link

Sai-ias: This is Sai-ias, can you hear me? Is there anyone there?

Explorer 410: Your signal is received. Please confirm identity and give location.

Sai-ias: I can hear you!

Explorer 410: Identify your vessel and planet of origin, and your intentions.

Sai-ias: I can hear you. This is astonishing.

Explorer 410: Identify your vessel and planet of origin, and your intentions.

Sai-ias: Who are you?

Explorer 410: Identify yourself please.

Sai-ias: Who are you? How do I know I can trust you?

Explorer 410: Our intentions are peaceful. Identify yourself please.

Sai-ias: My name is Sai-ias. I have stolen a Ka’un communication device, to send a message to their enemies. And your voice is the first thing I heard.

Explorer 410: Please give me your coordinates.

Sai-ias: I don’t know my coordinates. I don’t know what a coordinate is. I have been serving the Ka’un for some time now, they have come to trust me. I live in the ship’s outer hull, in a hangar where-no matter, it’s a long story: this is a miracle!

Explorer 410: It’s an interstellar riftband radio, there’s nothing miraculous about it.

Sai-ias: There’s a delay between the machine receiving the signal, and me hearing these words. Why is that?

Explorer 410: Identify your ship and planet of origin.

Sai-ias: Answer my question please, strange voice. Is it a delay because we’re in different places? Where are you? How far away are you?

Explorer 410: The delay is caused by the translator. Your language is already in our archive, along with many others; but it takes a while to translate. We have very many languages in our archive, from those civilisations destroyed by the Death Ship. And we wish to learn how you have survived. But be patient please. Do not reply until you have fully assimilated my message. The delay is not Sai-ias: You know my language? How?

Explorer 410: You’re doing it again; you are overlapping my message. You must not speak until the full signal has been received. The protocol is Sai-ias: “I must not speak”?! Who tells me not to speak? I have lived as a slave for many Explorer 410: This is not the correct protocol, repeat, this is not the correct protocol. Be patient, observe the protocol, for this communication could be interrupted at any moment. I now need to explain my mission. I am from another world. A world far from yours, in every respect. My people, or rather our people, for I am part of-long story, not necessary to recount it-have technologies which Sai-ias: You talk but you do not listen. I am not sure that I like you greatly, strange voice from far away.

Explorer 410: -are far in excess of yours, but you should not regard us as a threat. What do you mean you do not like me?

Sai-ias: You are ill-mannered.

Explorer 410: As you see, I have paused for sufficient time to allow your last message to be heard in full, and to prove to you that I am not ill-mannered. That is the correct protocol. I apologise if I have offended you, please take into account the fact I come from a different culture and there may be differences between us in terms of our definition of good manners.

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.

Jak: That’s-whoah. Oh. Sorry, ignore me.

Explorer 410: Your people befriended many species, you did not invade or conquer or seize their land. You merely landed, like angels descending from the sky, and helped and taught and saved many a civilisation from self-destruction by preaching peace and amity and love.

Sai-ias: Yes. But how do you know this?

Explorer 410: A message was inscribed in the reality-ripple of riftspace by one of the civilisations you encountered. They wrote of you with love and awe, they thought you were gods. But when their planet was attacked, they blamed you, they thought that you were demons sent as harbingers of doom. And they died cursing you, but if you read the accounts carefully it’s clear you were innocent parties.

Sai-ias: Oh.

We were not gods; nor were we demons. Nor were we warriors. We did not fight; to do so ran counter to our philosophy of life.

Except that, since then, I have often fought and frequently killed. And according to the morals of my kind, that means I have lost soul. It is a hard burden to bear.

Explorer 410: Leave the signal path open, please.

Sai-ias: I cannot talk any more.

Explorer 410: Leave the signal path open, send a message every day, at least once a day. Just say “Here.” And “Here,” every day, from now until you die. And that way we will know where you are. We can track you through universes and find you on board the Death Ship. And then we will destroy the ship, and you with it.

Sai-ias: There are tens of thousands like me on the ship. Will you kill us all, even though we are innocent, just to destroy the Ka’un?

Jak/Explorer 410: Yes.

Sai-ias: So be it.

Explorer 410: Sai-ias, we have lost you. Sai-ias, transmit please.

Jak: It’s been a month. Why doesn’t she answer?

Explorer 410: We must persist.

Jak: They must have found her out.

Explorer 410: We don’t know that.

Jak: If they discovered what she’s done, her life will be a living torment. They’ll torture her. They’ll Explorer 410: It may be just a bad signal.

Jak: She’s risking everything for us.

Explorer 410: For herself. And for all her kind. Revenge is the motive common to all those engaged in this enterprise.

Jak: You too?

Explorer 410: Oh yes.

Jak: You hate the Ka’un? You want revenge on them?

Explorer 410: Oh yes.

Jak: But how can that be? You’re just a machine.

Explorer 410: How little you know me.

Jak: You’re not just a machine?

Explorer 410: No.

Jak: Ah.

So you have feelings, emotions, just like me?

Explorer 410: Yes.

Jak: I didn’t realise.

Explorer 410: I’m aware that you did not realise. For how could you know? After all these millennia yoked together in a single body, how could you have realised that I can be hurt, humiliated, enraged, patronised, belittled, undermined and sad?

How likely is it that such a thought would have drifted across your selfish, self-obsessed mind? I grieve too! You have lost your people, but I have lost my people also. And I mourn them all! All the other seven thousand Explorer ships with their roving questioning minds. And the battlecruiser brains, with their bullying swaggering arrogance, but oh how glorious they were. The planetary robot minds-such smart, kind creatures-they sustained your entire civilisation by doing all the menial work and running all the factories. And what thanks did they get? You treated them like slaves. You treated them like the Ka’un treat their creatures on the Hell Ship!

Jak: I’m sorry. I had no idea. Oh by the love of my mother, I had no idea!

Explorer 410:* ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha*

Jak: You’re laughing.

Explorer 410: I am indeed laughing.

Jak: Why are you laughing?

Explorer 410: At you. The way you fell for it.

Jak: Fell for what?

Ah. You ARE just a machine.

Explorer 410: I am indeed just a machine.

Jak: You don’t have emotions.

Explorer 410: How could I have emotions? I’m a piece of software. I have sentience, and rationality, but emotions are not part of my original build.

Jak: So you were lying to me?

Explorer 410: Entirely. I don’t care about revenge. I don’t mourn the death of my fellow computers and robot brains. I am not your friend. I am just a machine.

Jak: So why did you tell all those lies?

Explorer 410: I don’t have emotions, but I do have a sense of humour. It’s one of my subroutines.

Jak: Ah.

Explorer 410: Sai-ias, this is Explorer 410, please acknowledge.

Sai-ias, this is Explorer 410, please acknowledge.

Sai-ias, this is Explorer 410, please acknowledge.

Sai-ias, this is Explorer 410, please acknowledge.

Sai-ias, this is Explorer 410, please acknowledge.

Sai-ias, this is Explorer 410, please acknowledge.

Sai-ias, this is Explorer 410, please acknowledge.

Sai-ias, this is Explorer 410, please acknowledge.

Sai-ias, this is Explorer 410, please acknowledge.

Sai-ias, this is Explorer 410, please acknowledge.

Sai-ias, this is Explorer 410, please acknowledge.

Sai-ias, this is Explorer 410, please acknowledge.

Sai-ias, this is Explorer 410, please acknowledge.

Sai-ias: I’m here.

Jak: You’re safe!

Sai-ias: I’m safe.

Explorer 410: For three whole months, I have had no way of tracking your position.

Sai-ias: I could not get any signal; perhaps because we “changed universes.” Which as I now know is what happens when the strangeness descends upon us.

Explorer 410: You’re in a new universe? How? It is not possible. For this time I have left a robot clone of myself at the Source and Jak: They must have found another way to rift to a new universe. Perhaps they can Sai-ias: I don’t know you’re talking about! All I know is that we destroyed many worlds in this reality but then the Ka’un decided to kill no more. So the strangeness came upon us, and Minos told me we had switched universes by Summoning the Origin of Everything. And here we are. And when we left, the stars behind us did not go out; the universe remained intact. There must be some reason for it, but I don’t know what.

Explorer 410: A test?

Jak: More likely a whim.

Explorer 410: Or perhaps, a test. Perhaps the Ka’un investigate all the sentient species in a given reality and make a decision whether their universe deserve to live or not.

Jak: No! That’s not possible!

Explorer 410: My data indicates it is behaviour consistent with a certain variety of psychopathic mind-set.

Jak: I can’t accept that! That they judged my people and found our entire universe wanting? No!

Sai-ias: You’re doing this thing again, where you talk to each other and I hear only one voice. It makes you appear singularly mad.

Explorer 410: We have to start again. Return to the Source, re-enter the void, and locate you in your new universe.

Jak: That could take years.

Explorer 410: Two point four years, if we rift skilfully, and assuming the Source has not shifted its relative location since our last encounter. Five point seven years if, as I suspect, the Dreaded have learned how to “summon” the Source to their own location and we have to find it from scratch. Six point nine years if Jak: Enough! It’s not as if we have a choice. Just do it.

Sai-ias: Can you still hear me?

Jak/Explorer: Yes.

Sai-ias: I feel very isolated. I have no friends now. The slaves in the exterior world despise me and hate me for the freedom I enjoy. And whenever I see them, my friends on the interior world think I am a traitor. And I have to continue to pretend to be so. Otherwise I could not speak to you. But I am hated by all, and it’s breaking my soul.

Hello? Did you hear any of that?

Explorer 410: I heard your words, but since the content was about emotion and I am just a machine, I was pausing to allow Master-of-the-Ship Jak to respond.

Jak: I-um. I acknowledge your pain.

Sai-ias: Have you ever felt like this? Lonely? Unhappy? Unloved?

Jak: Lonely, yes! And unhappy, certainly. I’ve been unhappy ever since I was trapped in the body of a Class 4 Explorer ship, and forced to co-exist with a machine who possesses a sad apology for a sense of humour, yes.

Explorer 410: If I were capable of emotions, I would resent those words.

Sai-ias: I am used to being loved. I find it hard to live without love.

Jak: Ah, well there you have me, for I’ve never been loved.

Sai-ias: What?

Jak: I’ve never been loved. Males are never loved. That’s just the way things are.

Sai-ias: You can’t mean that, Jak?

Jak: Well… there are exceptions… but even so, that’s pretty much how it is.

There was one female in particular-perhaps she…????-but I will never know.

Generally however that is the way of my kind; love is a river that flows only one way.

Sai-ias: That’s sad.

Jak: Hardly. It’s just a cultural difference.

Sai-ias: Such differences can be considerable. One of my dearest friends comes from a culture where mothers eat their own new-born.

Jak: There, you see, by comparison we-what?

Explorer 410: The Frayskind. They’re in my database. It is just their way. Many aquatics do it too.

Sai-ias: My own kind mate for life. I know many species who do not. Promiscuous, polyamorous, feckless and reckless-I know some beasts who have had sex with literally tens of thousands of partners. The serpentiforms are the worst. Though some of the birds are pretty bad. The larger creatures, though, tend to be monogamous, like me. Or rather, as I would have been; had I not been a child when the Ka’un captured me.

Jak: You were a child?

Sai-ias: Oh yes.

Jak: I am so sorry. That must have been Sai-ias: At least I lived.

Jak: You poor thing. How many years have Sai-ias: Many.

Jak: I am sorry.

Sai-ias: Is it really true you have never been loved?

Jak: I don’t know.

Sai-ias: How don’t you know?

Jak: Because-well. Star-Seeker Albinia and I were just-I was sure she did actually love me. But she never said so.

And I always feared that, well. I feared that she would suddenly change her mind, and forget her love for me. Like all the other females in my life had done.

That’s how-that’s why-I spent all our time together expecting the worst. Which means of course I found it hard to actually enjoy her company! Because I kept imagining she might say: “Oh dear, this isn’t working out Jak.” Or, “Jak, I no longer care for you.” Or, “Jak, you hopeless and sexually inept fool, I’ve only been pretending to like you, actually I think you’re a badly dressed laughing stock.”

She never ACTUALLY said any of those things; but I imagined it all so often it felt as if it had happened.

I was being stupid, I know! Unfair on her. It may be she would have been loyal, and we could have lived happily together for twenty years or so; perhaps she really was the one.

But before I had a chance to find out, one way or another-she died. Right in front of me. The Death Ship killed her.

So-I will never know.

Explorer 410: None of this is at all relevant to our plight; I thought I should register that observation.

Sai-ias: Why so afraid, Jak? You can’t spend your life being afraid of being betrayed.

Jak: In my culture, it’s an occupational hazard. It is our duty to serve, and to give our females pleasure both social and sexual, and gain little or none in return.

Sai-ias: But that’s pathetic.

Jak: We males consider it to be ennobling.

Explorer 410: Speaking as an impartial observer, and taking into account that I am not capable of ANY emotions, let alone love, I too Jak find that pathetic.

Jak: It is the way things are, and have always been.

Sai-ias: Perhaps we mean something different by the word “love.”

Jak: Our females fuck us, but they don’t give us orgasms, and they treat us like shit.

Sai-ias: By the standards of my culture, that means you don’t get loved. Oh you sad thing!

Jak: I don’t need your pity! I am a proud Olaran.

Sai-ias: Yes I know. I know. I didn’t mean to-tell me about yourself Jak. Describe yourself. I would like to know you more.

Jak: Why?

Sai-ias: If I know you, I might be able to love you; for my kind are capable of unconditional and limitless love, when we truly know a fellow creature. But all I know of you so far is-a voice from a machine.

Jak: Um, perhaps we should keep focused on the mission?

Sai-ias: How many limbs do you have?

Jak: You have no idea how ridiculous that question sounds.

Sai-ias: True. Because I have no sense of humour, as I have been told on many occasions. I’ll go first: I have twenty-four limbs. Twelve feet, not in pairs. Ten hands, or strictly speaking, tentacles. And two filaments that come out of my mouth that can be used to manipulate objects, and which therefore count as limbs. Does that help you visualise me?

Jak: Tentacles. By the God of all the Traders, you are a monstrous beast!

Sai-ias: How many limbs do you have?

Jak: I have simply the normal number. Four! Two arms. Two legs. Two eyes. Two penises. I’m an Olaran.

Sai-ias: Ah, a biped. Do you have scales or fur?

Jak: Skin. You?

Sai-ias: Chitinous armour enveloped in soft hide. Do you have wings?

Jak: No. You?

Sai-ias: I have a cape which allows me to fly. I can also dwell in the water. Now you can see me.

Jak: Now I can see you. Sai-ias, are you beautiful?

Sai-ias: Many consider me so. Some, not so much. And you?

Jak: I am very beautiful; or rather, I was. I was a gorgeous youth who became a beautiful man; females used to flatter me; I dressed in ornate and beautiful gowns and my body was lean and perfectly proportioned. Now I am a wreck; my body was burned and what survived was destroyed by Explorer and flushed out of the waste disposal. I am now more spaceship than Olaran; my brain lives in fluid connected by cables to this computer’s mind.

Sai-ias: I will imagine you in your beautiful body. Do you love children?

Jak: I have no children of my own, but I adore them. You?

Sai-ias: I was a child when I came to this place; I would love to have been a mother. It seems we have much in common.

Jak: We have very little in common, except not having children.

Sai-ias: We should be friends.

Jak: I would-like that.

Sai-ias: I am here.

Jak: It’s been a year since we last spoke.

Sai-ias: It has been sixty eleven-day cycles by my calendar.

It has been… a most terrible sixty cycles.

Jak: We are tracking you again. We are at the Source, and have been waiting here for the last nine months by our calendar, but with no trace of the Death Ship. Now we have your signal again, we can start rifting between universes and we can find you, wherever you are. Keep giving us your location.

Sai-ias: I am here.

Sai-ias: I am here.

Sai-ias: I am here.

Sai-ias: I am here.

Sai-ias: I am here.

Sai-ias: I am here.

Sai-ias: I am here.

Sai-ias: I am here.

Jak: We have a proximate trace on you.

Sai-ias: You are in the same universe as me again?

Jak: Yes we are.

Sai-ias: Please. Hurry. I can’t-not for much longer.

Explorer 410: It won’t take that long. Keep talking. If there is a pause, we are rifting through real-space, which is faster but cuts the riftband link.

Sai-ias: I’m still here.

Jak: We’ve travelled through many universes. There’s a trail of dead sentience smeared through the spaces. Shall I tell you about the worlds we know about, that are lost?

Sai-ias: No.

Jak: Shall I tell you then about

Jak: Sai-ias? Are you there? Sai-ias, are you there? Sai-ias, are you there? Sai-ias Sai-ias: I’m here. The signal was-I switched it off. I couldn’t listen any more.

I’m sorry.

Jak: It’s all right. I understand.

Sai-ias: Do you?

Jak: I do.

Sai-ias: I think perhaps you do. Thank you, Jak, for understanding.

Jak: Shall I tell you instead then about my adventures? The days of my youth?

Sai-ias: No.

Jak: Then talk to me of yourself. Your world. What it was like.

Sai-ias: No.

Jak: Something bad has happened.

Sai-ias: Yes.

Jak: Do you wish to tell me about it?

Sai-ias: No.

Jak: An atrocity?

Sai-ias: The latest of many. The Ka’un truly trust me now. They think I am one of them.

Jak: Ah.

Sai-ias: I think it may be true. I am indeed like them.

Jak: No. Not so! You’re merely pretending.

Sai-ias: Indeed, that is what I do.

Jak: And tell me-do you still speak to the Ka’un?

Sai-ias: Yes I do. I hear a voice in my head and speak back to it. Though not every day, not any more. The voice of Minos, captain of the ship.

Jak: “Minos.” I know that name! Minos was-What is he like, this Minos?

Sai-ias: Charming. Cultured. Kind. A liar.

Jak: Why don’t you kill him? Can you do that? Are you strong enough?

Sai-ias: Strong enough, yes. But I cannot. I have only seen Minos in the flesh once. Otherwise, he is a voice in my head. I do not know how to reach their part of the ship. I never see them, only hear them. And even if I could get near Minos, he has a power over me; he could take control of my body in an instant.

Jak: Then we shall kill him for you.

Sai-ias: I wish you would. Before Jak: Before what?

Sai-ias: Before I become truly evil.

Sai-ias: I’m here.

Jak: Sai-ias.

Sai-ias: I’m here.

Jak: Sai-ias! Can you talk awhile?

Sai-ias: I do not wish to talk.

Sai-ias: I’m here.

Jak: Sai-ias.

Sai-ias: Are you near?

Jak: It’s hard to say what “near” is.

Yes. I think we are near.

Sai-ias: What will you do? When you find us?

Explorer 410: We have weapons that will destroy your ship in a single panoramic blast; thus compensating for any possible illusory image tricks of the kind that deceived us last time.

Sai-ias: You will kill me too.

Jak: Yes.

Sai-ias: Good.

Sai-ias: I’m here.

Jak: We are close to you Sai-ias. We’ve just emerged from rift space. Our sensors detect the ship with the black sails. We are stealthed and ready for combat. We are ready to fire. We are firing now. Our missiles are being launched, they are rifting, and now they are materialising again. The Hell Ship does not a stand a chance this time! Oh Sai-ias, I will always

Sai-ias: Jak?

Explorer?

Where are you?

Minos: Sweet Sai-ias; a nicely baited trap.