Skyquakers (22 page)

Vet asked him once if he knew what he was doing.

Psycho looked up from his papers and his maps, almost
insulted. He argued: of course, why would he not? The farms were growing
exponentially. The hybrid seeds had bloomed well after the rainy season. The
feral population was contained and
—

Engineer had perhaps become a little too overzealous, said
Vet, in a tone of warning.

Again, he felt the offence, as a son would feel over words
about his father. Engineer was doing his work, work which was essential for Vet
’
s
own species. Sure, he was a brutal commander, and Psycho was not the only one
who had cowered beneath his authoritative voice or felt his hand of tyranny,
but these were all essential measures to keep a large and potentially
catastrophic operation from falling apart. On their distant planet, the famine
was worsening; weekly the commanding officers received updates on deaths and
riots breaking out as nations broke down and desperate pilgrims scurried for
the last remaining resources. The atmosphere was tense aboard the cloud,
especially in Engineer’s presence. It was a taxing task to maintain the
momentum at which they were working, day and night; delays and mishaps only
prolonged the rescue of the rest of their kind.

Vet asked if he had ever met Captain,
the
Captain.
But no human had ever seen him. No one had since his health had apparently
begun to fail him. Despite the numerous medics on board and the vast array of
advanced medical machines at their disposal, no one could stop the debilitating
mental disease from metastasising within their leader. Once Captain had become
too ill and incompetent to fully operate this ship, Engineer took his place at
the head of the table. This change in command had dramatically altered their
plans in many aspects; in particular, Engineer was ordering the culling of more
and more species, too many for Vet
’
s liking and far more than
Captain’s team originally envisioned. This did not bother Psycho until Vet
shared with him a vital truth he had known for many weeks but had kept from him
in fear of upsetting the native boy.

‘Tell me,
’
Psycho said.

Engineer had ordered the humans to be culled. No need to
bother trying to preserve them or running their genetics through the
supercomputer for possible matches, he had proclaimed; he wanted none of their
kind in his new world, not after spending so many weeks hunting
ferals
and precariously keeping them from damaging his
farms. He then watched to see if something would stir in Psycho. Vet knew of
what destructive acts he had taken part in, what deeds he had done against his
own for Engineer’s pleasure, but even the eradication of an entire species must
cause some reaction, he thought, if only minor. Psycho was left feeling a heavy
weight in his chest, a sudden sadness, but why did he care so much? He had
never liked human beings. He had never felt connected to them in the same way
he did to his giants, so why all this empathy? The pathos?
 
Well, he would be alone, unable to share his
utopic vision with anyone, and that, perhaps, was something he could not live
with. Artists required their work to be admired, or else their pursuits were
meaningless; Psycho had been working so hard to create this new world so that
one day he would be adored by peers,
his
peers, but what equal companion would appreciate his brilliance once they were
all gone? At least he still had Lo to share the truths of the universe with,
but if she were to be taken from him too…

Seeing his startled silence, Vet lowered his head and asked,
did he care for her?

Psycho spun.
‘
What?
’

There was no point playing games. Vet knew he had snuck into
the pods and spoken to a single native. He could only assume he had done so,
under cover of darkness, because the two were familiar with one another.

He asked again, did he care for her?

‘I
…’
Psycho searched his soul.
‘
I
…
do? I do.
’

Then that was all that mattered, Vet declared. One native
would not be spared simply because Psycho wished it so; he had no authority on
the matter.

Only one
could
override Engineer
’
s ruling.
 

Melancholy, apparently to them, was an illness like cancer.
It was slow in onset and appeared more commonly in the elderly, partly due to
bad genes, partly due to toxins or microbes, and partly idiopathic. It was
treatable, but the body would inevitably tire and tire and rot from the inside
out, until a slow and painful death fell upon the sufferer.

For such an illness to befall the captain of the ship was
tragic and curious, because the cause was entirely unknown to all but Psycho.
He knew from the beginning that Captain and Baba were one and the same.
Lo
’
s
Baba. Baba
’
s
Lo. His sickness was due to loneliness, for he longed for his human, his adored
child whom he had cradled in his arms from a very young age. For a giant to
have these emotions towards a species on par to a Sapiens’ Neanderthal baffled
Psycho, but the biology and psychology of these beings was as complex as that
of his own kind.

He wanted to bring Captain to her for two reasons: one,
because he had promised, and for some reason he could not break a promise to
Lo, and two, because he knew Captain, ill or not, still held the power to
change the fate of the human species on board this ship. He felt as if he was
betraying Engineer by going behind his back and seeking a higher authority, and
he was sure this would result in a severe punishment of some type, but it was
paramount to his own work that an attempt was made to preserve the human
species, to reserve a few like-minded people on this shifting sphere which he
could captivate with tales of his drudgery and his vision of the future. Lo was
a like-minded one. He could not imagine a future without her.

Psycho went searching for Captain. He snuck about the cloud
late at night while a storm raged. Thunder clashed and rain (waste from the
reactors) poured from their floating ship and washed over the sunburnt country.
It was dark and quiet within the weaving corridors of the ship’s innards. He
walked among giants without even a glance, for his presence, and the presence
of many suit-and-tie natives, was now as mundane as the concept of
extra-terrestrial life itself. Some even nodded their heads at him as they
passed, giving him blinks of greeting between the slits in their head cloths.

With Vet
’
s directions, he emerged from
the elevator onto the proper floor and entered a well-furnished hallway,
adorned with carpet, hanging artwork and potted plants of exotic, otherworldly
flora. The lighting was dim, flickering from a series of overhanging
chandeliers made from some sort of cloudy golden mineral. There was a stark
contrast between Captain’s idea of decorating and Engineer’s, for the latter
filled his office with steel and marble and
unpatterned
,
white surfaces, whereas this floor made Psycho feel as if he had stepped into a
Victorian-era manor. Captain was a classicist. He seemed to enjoy the finer
luxuries in life.

At the far end of the hallway, the double doors of Captain
’
s
room stood ominously in the darkness, silent and unguarded. He approached them.
He came to the enormous arched frame, built for an eight-foot being. He pressed
his ear against the cold steel, but heard nothing. He peered through the gap,
but he only saw darkness.

He turned the handle and gently pushed. Both doors swung
inwards with a yawning creak, and beyond they revealed an unlit room. He
stepped inside and shut the doors gently behind him. With moonlight slanting
through one window, he navigated the darkness. Like Engineer
’
s
quarters, Captain
’
s was large and designed with
separate rooms for sleeping, study, meals and leisure, but it was a mess. Tall,
red drapes from the windows had been half-torn and left strewn across the
floor. The tables were tipped and the lamps had broken on the floor, shattering
all light. Artwork was askew. Platters of food, uneaten, had been viciously
thrown across the room, as if in mad protest. There was no one here.

Captain
’
s mantelpiece was lined with
curious objects which caught Psycho’s eye. There was an antique globe, rotating
in a brass frame, but it was not Earth. A line of triangular medals were
proudly displayed in a glass case, crediting military accomplishments in multiple
fields. There was a wristwatch, made of a gold substance with a leathery band,
which was an intricate, multi-layered analogue device displaying many rotating
hands to measure time in multiple cosmoses.

Movement startled him, and he spun around to face the dark
room only to see a flutter somewhere in the corner. He moved towards the fallen
drapes gingerly, stepping over the junk which had lathered almost every inch of
the floor. He came to the large pile of fallen cloth, only to be suddenly
seized around the ankle by a wrinkled, bony hand which sprung from underneath.

Psycho cried out and fell over. He shuffled backwards and
shook himself free of the four-fingered hand. From under the robes, an arm
pushed up against the floor and an arching back helped hoist the rest of the
body up. The eyes of a blue-eyed giant stared at him from under the cloth with
a menacing steer, and then it lunged forward and roared at the boy with the
crackling croak of a demonic toad. Among the debris, Psycho picked up a utensil
which looked similar to a soup ladle and held it with both hands offensively.
But the captain did not attack. The old commander groaned and moaned as he
clumsily yanked the large drapes off his head. At the same time, he shuffled
across the room, dragging clutter with his red train, and somewhere amongst the
floor he eventually seized a wooden walking stick. When, at last, he was free,
Captain revealed himself to be a very old giant, with a ragged loincloth
hanging askew from his bony hips, his head scarf mostly unravelled, and his spiny
back hunched over like a troll
’
s.

He asked with concern,
‘
Captain?
’

Captain threw himself against the wall suddenly, slamming
his forehead. With his claws, he scraped down, viciously ripping up the paint
and leaving long, silver scars. It sounded like nails on a chalkboard.

‘
Bujn
stuovorgen
!
’
he grunted.

It translated to something close to,
‘
It
’
s
still night-time!
’

Psycho dropped the ladle. This giant was a threat to no one
but himself.

‘How long have you been in here?
’
he asked.
He gazed around the moonlit office and observed the mess on the floor. In the
corner of the room, the giant still had his claws embedded and his head pressed
against the wall. He growled under his breath and watched Psycho untrustingly
as he moseyed about his private quarters.

‘
Vrai
nu
een
—’

‘You speak just fine,
’
Psycho
interjected.
‘
Don
’
t play dumb
with me.
’

Captain spun around and stared at him with those
almost-florescent blue eyes. He narrowed them. ‘
Engineerses
?
’

He nodded.
‘
Yes. I
’
m Engineer
’
s.
’

Captain fumbled as he staggered across the room. He went to
the arched window, which looked down onto the artificial clouds beneath him.
Outside, the storm swirled and the rain poured. Streams of moonlight created
long shadows across the floor and revealed the unsettled dust in the air. He
leant against the frame of the window to hold himself up. He was weak and
frail, much frailer than others his age, as though his muscles were wasting
away beneath his charcoal skin.

Captain demanded,
‘
Vater
.
’

Psycho darted to his desk, where a metal carafe sat. He
poured water into a silver cup and brought it to him. Captain snatched it and
looked at it before drinking, as though wary of its credibility. He eventually
drank it, then threw the cup to the floor, letting it clatter among the other
junk.

 
Psycho watched the
giant closely, watched him gaze absently out into the storm. His eyes looked
tired.

‘Engineer send you to laugh at me?
’

‘No,
’
Psycho said.
‘
No,
no, I came by myself.
’

‘
Vhy
?
’

Psycho turned to the window and admired the storm with him.
He slotted his hands into his suit pockets. ‘I know what
’
s making
you ill.
’

‘
Pesh
!
Old. Everything make me ill.
’

‘How old?
’

Captain stared down at the boy moronically.
‘
Old
.
’
He then watched him for a while, a little human standing at his side,
observing the world from the clouds with him. He said,
‘
You are
small.
’

‘Actually, I was considered quite tall for my age back home,
and not a bad looker either. Sure, I was not a Channing Tatum, but could
perhaps pass for a Daniel Radcliffe on a good day.
’