Love, Death and Robots. Volumes 2 & 3

Torrin allowed the silence that followed to draw out long and attenuated. When it seemed that something must break at any moment, he stepped up to Deacon and took the belaying pin from him. “Right, these two can go to Cerval. They’ll serve us better in death than they ever did in life.” Noting the anger in Paln’s expression, Torrin continued, “And you, Paln, better get a scrubbing brush to this mess before the stain soaks in. Maril has enough to do over there.”

Paln seemed ready to go for him, but Saparin caught his arm.

“Saparin, shouldn’t you be at the helm?” Torrin enquired.

This last comment dispersed them, because none of them dared risk the captain’s gun, and none of them wanted to negotiate with the thanapod.

* * *

Piles of eggs had been laid in every corner of the hold. The place stank like an abattoir, and pieces of ripped clothing, of human bodies, and of chewed jable skin strewed the floor. Torrin’s deck shoes made a ripping sound with each pace he took as they stuck to the pooled and drying gore. He stepped delicately over a hollowed-out skull which, by a process of elimination, he took to be Melis’s, for the thanapod now swung towards him what remained of Calis. Torrin turned to a hook in the wall, flicked something wet and fleshy from it, and hung his lamp there.

“How long?” the thanapod asked.

“Two days and we should be there,” Torrin replied. He noticed that the creature’s body had grown longer and fatter now, with fleshy areas showing between sections of hard shell. The eggs it had laid in the hold had relieved some of the pressure and the recent bodies had relieved it of some of its egg-laying hunger. But many more eggs were growing inside it, and it was still insatiable. Torrin knew that it had to feed again, and soon, if it was to be prevented from coming out on deck and killing them all. That suited him fine.

“How did you learn to speak?” he asked it.

“Have been on ships before. Many ships,” it replied.

So, others had been through this horror, but of course there had been no story to tell, no survivors to tell it. Torrin knew that every year many jable hunters disappeared. Such ships were said to have had a ‘bad travelling’. How very well he understood that now.

“Tell me about them,” Torrin asked the monster, for he felt starved of conversation. And as the monster spoke, he felt his face twisting in that lopsided smile again. He tried not to let it worry him unduly.

* * *

Deacon’s watch was the last of the night, and as last watchman, like Paln the night before, he was allowed to sleep in until first bell. Torrin stood on the roof of the midship cabin next to Saparin who was again at the helm. He watched as the men moved swiftly to their tasks and saw how they avoided his eye. How many days ago was it that they had nothing for him but contempt? But then he agreed; he had been contemptible. Now he had changed, and these men had changed him. Casually, out of contempt and seeking someone to blame for their own slovenliness, they had given him over to be eaten alive. He studied them individually. All of them had done this. Melis and Deacon had held open the hatch while these had carried him to it. Torrin watched them a while longer before going below.

Deacon snored with a sound like a blunt saw going through a beam. Torrin opened the door to the crew quarters and stared to the man lying in his hammock, then he took the rope he had brought and tied it at one end of the hammock and carefully he coiled it round and round until he was up to Deacon’s neck. Each loop he drew tight, expecting Deacon to wake at any moment, but he had the belaying pin tucked in his belt for that eventuality. Deacon only woke when Torrin stuffed his mouth full of bloody cloth retrieved from the floor of the hold. The crewman bucked and he fought, his eyes wide with terror while Torrin tied the gag in place, and succeeded only in some strange imitation of a large grub.

“You’re a religious man, Deacon, yet you held the hatch open. I’ll tell it to eat you from the feet up,” Torrin said, and cut the hammock down.

The thanapod found the canvas hammock a great hindrance and because of this it took a long time for it to eat Deacon who, of course, was unable to scream.

* * *

As he stood once again behind Saparin, Torrin wondered how long it would take for them to realise Deacon was missing and what they would do when they did find out. He carried the captain’s gun, fully loaded for any eventuality. Saparin, Chantre, Maril and Paln. Four crew remaining; four bullets in the gun. It was midday before Maril came up onto the bridge.

“Sir… Deacon is gone,” he said, his face deliberately devoid of expression.

Torrin stared at him for a long moment. “What do you expect me to do about it?” he asked.

Maril appeared very uncomfortable. “They said I should tell you…”

“Very good,” said Torrin, “now get back to your work.”

Maril hesitated then quickly did as he was bid.