The Dark Ship

by Phillip P. Peterson

  He shrugged and began to stride along after Green down the long corridor. Some distance in front of them, the corridor was illuminated by a pale red light. But it was still too far away for them to know if it came from a lamp or had some other source.

  “Joanne?”

  “The corridor leads straight to the cavity.”

  “And what are we going to find there?” Shorty asked.

  “Probably the same as in the last cavity,” Mac said. “Lousy air, rocks, mass graves, and an atmosphere that will drive one of us to commit suicide.”

  “Zip it,” Jeff growled. He’d had enough of Mac’s griping.

  “You know it’s true,” Mac spat back, but quietly.

  They marched on in silence. The light didn’t seem to get any closer. Jeff frowned. “I thought it was just a few hundred feet away.”

  Joanne looked down at her handheld. “By now we should be inside the cavity.”

  “Maybe that hologram wasn’t up to date,” Green conjectured.

  “But it’s been completely accurate up to now,” Joanne was confused.

  “There’s something up ahead,” Castle said.

  Jeff could see it, too. The corridor seemed to be leading into a room. The structure of the walls was also changing. The craggy rocks gave way to smoother ones, which in turn were replaced by light sandstone. Strange symbols, different from the ones further up in the ship, were carved into the rocks. The writing they had encountered before was cuneiform, these resembled Egyptian hieroglyphs.

  Finally, they entered the room. It was light enough that Jeff could turn off his headlamp. The whole chamber was the size of a small hangar, with walls of light sandstone. In the corners, columns adorned with bizarre curlicues rose up to the ceiling. Every square inch was covered with drawings. Opposite them was a large, double-winged gate out of black metal. Reddish light filtered through a crack in the middle of the gate, casting a thin strip of light on the floor. A brownish mist swirled beneath the ceiling.

  Castle whistled through his teeth. “Look at these drawings!” He was standing in front of one of the walls and gently running a finger across the grooves of the alien symbols carved in the stone.

  Joanne leaned forward and pulled a face. “That’s disgusting,” she said and turned away quickly.

  Jeff swallowed. The drawings were of humanoid creatures that might well be humans. And they were unremittingly violent. Some of the figures were holding huge knives, others were lying on the ground with severed limbs. Some of them were burning at the stake. One of the figures was tied to a cross with its head hanging down and its stomachs ripped open, red coils dangling in front of its face.

  Jeff took a step back, turned around and walked to another part of the wall. The whole room was covered with scenes of violence and torture. But why?

  “We shouldn’t enter the cavity,” Joanne whispered.

  Jeff swallowed. Again he felt that peculiar feeling in his stomach as he looked at the gate opposite them. Next to it was a small square with which they could probably open it. But should they open it? What kind of hell awaited them on the other side? Jeff was afraid to find out.

  Green seemed less concerned and reached for the square next to the gate.

  “Green, wait!” Jeff cried.

  But it was too late. With a horrible scraping noise, the gate slowly swung open. Gloomy, blood-red light filled the room.

  Jeff approached the entrance, but stopped short a few feet in front of it. Beyond it was a kind of terrace. It was bounded to the left and right by a parapet of beige sandstone.

  “There’s no other way to go!” Green said, in response to Jeff’s accusing look. He led the way out, and Jeff and the others followed him.

  A rock wall rose up behind them, disappearing into thick gray and red clouds that swirled across the sky. The outline of the pale sun was only just visible through the haze. Jeff walked up to the edge of the platform. A broad, stone staircase led down to bare rock below, which looked as rugged and inhospitable as in the other cavity. And the landscape was just as bleak and monotonous. The ground was at least 300 feet below them. Fires flickered here and there on the naked rock, as if some kind of natural gas was rising from the earth and being kindled. The stench of decay was so pungent that Jeff gagged several times.

  Castle pointed into the distance. “Do you see that? What is it?”

  A few miles away there appeared to be a group of small buildings. Little black dots were moving around them. Jeff grabbed the binoculars from the equipment sled.

  Something was running along the side of a stone hut. Was it an animal? Jeff adjusted the binoculars, and finally the image came into focus. His heart skipped a beat. That was a … no, it couldn’t be. He lowered the binoculars, wiped his eyes and raised them back up.

  Yes it could! He had seen correctly!

  “You won’t believe it,” he whispered.

  “What is it?” Joanne asked agitatedly. “Tell us!”

  “Humans!” Jeff spoke in a husky voice.

  “What?” Castle blurted out.

  He was sure he wasn’t mistaken. It was a group of people. No, two groups. But Jeff couldn’t see what they were doing exactly. They were wearing only pathetic scraps of cloth. Their skin glistened with dirt.

  “It can’t be,” Joanne whispered.

  “Incredible,” Green added.

  Shorty was more pragmatic. “And what should we do? Shall we go and talk to them?”

  Jeff lowered the binoculars. He chewed his lower lip as he tried to organize his thoughts. Were those really humans? Or were they aliens that just looked like humans? Holograms? He couldn’t get his head around what he was seeing. They had to go and find out. “Yes, we’ll go and talk to them.”

  Mac was dubious. “Might be a trap set by the aliens.”

  “What aliens?” Joanne snapped. “The light aliens?”

  “No,” Mac shot back. “I meant those … over there …” He trailed off.

  “We’ll go and find out if we can communicate with them,” Jeff said. He found it hard to believe it was a trap. What would be the point? He also couldn’t imagine they were extraterrestrials that just happened to look like humans. Well, they would find out soon enough. He began to descend the stairs, the others close on his heels.

  It would take at least a quarter of an hour to reach the bottom. Through the mist, Jeff thought he could see other buildings and groups of people. But was it possible? How could humans possibly have found their way here? Had other spaceships landed on this ship and tried to save themselves by going into the interior?

  Jeff and the others gathered at the foot of the steps and set off.

  Tentatively, they approached the nearest group, which consisted of a good dozen people. Jeff could hear them yelling and shouting. They were running round and round the building, which looked more like a derelict stable than a dwelling. They were running in pairs, each pair was pulling a bundle on two ropes.

  What is that? What are they dragging over the rocks?

  Jeff’s stomach clenched as the bundle in front of him raise an arm.

  That’s a human!

  Yes, they were human bodies, and they were alive.

  Jeff found himself rooted to the spot a few feet away from this grisly scene. His shipmates huddled around to look. Joanne’s eyes were wide. The group appeared to take no notice of them. One of the bodies was dragged right past them by two angry, screaming men. It was a woman. She was naked and moaning softly as she was dragged on her back across the jagged, rocky ground. She was covered in open wounds, and a big one on her left thigh was leaving a trail of blood on the ground. Shorty retched.

  Jeff shook his head. What was going on here? He gripped the butt of his pistol, but left it in the holster. Then he stepped in the path of two more men who were pulling another naked woman behind them. She was whimpering. In horror, Jeff realized the skin on her left leg was completely rubbed off, exposing the muscles underneath.

  “Wait! Stop!” he sa
id loudly.

  The men stopped and stared at him angrily. Joanne grabbed Jeff’s arm. He checked to see that his shipmates were all close by.

  Jeff took a deep breath.

  “Can you understand me?” he asked as casually as he could manage.

  “Move! You’re in our way,” said the man on the left. He looked around fifty years old, was of medium height and had a gray beard. He squinted a little, which made it difficult for Jeff to decide which eye to focus on.

  He felt a chill running down his spine. The man had spoken Cosmocration, the standard language in the Inner Sector. He wasn’t an alien, but a human. Was it possible?

  “What are you doing here?” Jeff asked.

  “What does it look like? Punishing the whores,” the other man answered. He had a huge birthmark under his right ear, and also spoke flawless Cosmocration. He addressed Jeff in a tone that suggested he’d asked the stupidest question of the century.

  Maybe it was smarter not to pursue this line of questioning. “May I ask where you’ve come from and how you ended up here?”

  The two men exchanged glances. The one with the birthmark shook his head as if he couldn’t grasp Jeff’s stupidity. The other one fixed his gaze on Jeff as if were about to tie him to a rope.

  “Are there more people here?” Jeff asked.

  The man on the left burst out laughing. The other man shook his head again, and they continued to drag the moaning woman behind them.

  “Hell is full of people,” the one on the left shouted.

  Jeff watched them for another moment before returning to his shipmates. “What do you make of that?”

  Joanne stared after the men, wide-eyed.

  Green rubbed his forehead and shook his head.

  Castle ran a hand through his sweat-soaked hair. “If we were anywhere else, I’d say they’d lost their minds.”

  “But they’re humans,” Jeff said. “So where are they from? What are they doing on this ship?”

  “What did the guy mean by ‘punishing the whores’?” Mac wondered aloud.

  “Should we talk to them again?” Shorty asked. “Shouldn’t we stop them from dragging those women to death?”

  “Better not,” Jeff said, remembering the murderous gaze of the bearded man. “We don’t know what’s going on here. They could attack us and do the same to us.”

  Joanne sighed. “So what do we do?” she asked finally.

  Jeff rubbed his temples. “I say we keep going. There seem to be more people here. Maybe there are some we can actually talk to.”

  They picked up their belongings and continued walking.

  Joanne was marching alongside Jeff. “I don’t get it. How did those people get here? Did they crash land like we did? Were they taken in like us and then lost their minds? Where do they live? What do they eat?”

  Jeff didn’t have any answers. But he hoped to find some soon.

  They were nearing another group of people. Jeff could hear the screams from afar and swallowed. It was no better than what they’d just left behind. Ten wooden crosses stood on a small hill. On each of them hung naked men, bleeding from multiple wounds. Some were unconscious or dead. Around the crosses stood a crowd of twenty or thirty men and women covered only in tattered loincloths. The women hadn’t bothered to cover their breasts. Some of the men at the front were holding long, lance-like weapons in their hands, and were repeatedly prodding the flesh of the men hanging on the crosses. The rocks below were colored dark red.

  Mouth agape, Jeff stopped about thirty feet away from the scene and watched the angry mob.

  Joanne came up beside him. “What the fuck is going on here?” Her voice was barely more than a whisper. “What is this place?”

  A large woman was in the process of attacking one of the men on the crosses with a lance. The sharp tip plunged deep into his thigh, and blood gushed over the blade and down the man’s leg. His screams turned into whimpers and then stopped altogether as he slumped down on the cross, held up only by the ropes around his arms.

  “I don’t know,” Jeff replied quietly. He wanted to speak to someone, but was scared. Scared of ending up on a cross himself.

  A small, blond woman was standing a little to the side. She looked calmer than the rest of the pack. Jeff beckoned to Castle to follow him and approached her, keeping a tight grip on the butt of his gun. Given the number of potential opponents, it wouldn’t help him much, but the touch of the bare metal gave him some reassurance.

  “Excuse me,” Jeff addressed the woman tentatively.

  She took no notice of him, her gaze was fixed on the nearest cross, on which a bearded man with gaping chest wound hung apathetically. The woman was mumbling something to herself. Jeff thought he heard the words “Bleed, you sinners!”

  “Excuse me?” Jeff spoke a little louder this time, and tapped the woman’s bare shoulder. She briefly turned in his direction. Jeff got goose bumps. The woman was a good head shorter than him. She had a pretty, striking face with narrow, expressive lips and a button nose. But the pupils of her eyes were completely dilated. She looked mad. Jeff was reminded of the look on Owl’s face before he had slashed open his stomach. Then she turned around again and continued with her mumbled litany.

  It was pointless.

  Jeff took a step back. The people here had evidently all lost their minds. They needed to think of something if they were going to get anything out of anyone.

  He looked around. The rest of his shipmates were gathered at the bottom of a small hill, huddled around the equipment sled. Then Jeff had an idea. Maybe they could learn something if they separated one of the people from the rest. The blond woman, perhaps? Yes, it was possible, because the others were so busy watching the men being tortured on the crosses, they weren’t paying attention to anything else.

  Jeff waved Mac and Castle over. They listened to him with strained expressions, while he explained the plan to them.

  “And you reckon that’ll work?” Mac sounded doubtful.

  “They could kill us,” Castle added.

  Jeff sighed. “We have to take a risk if we want to find out what’s going on here. Let’s go.”

  Mac shrugged, crept up behind the blond woman, flung one arm around her chest and covered her mouth with his other hand. Castle grabbed her by the ankles. The woman writhed, but Castle tightened his grip. She didn’t stand a chance. Hurriedly they dragged her behind the little outcrop. Jeff and the others followed, glancing around nervously to check that they hadn’t been seen. It looked like nobody had noticed them.

  “Put her down over there,” Jeff ordered.

  Castle loosened his grip and the woman immediately started kicking. Mac struggled to keep her under control.

  “Looks like she’s gone mad. Like Owl. Is there anything you can do?” Jeff asked Joanne. She was pale but composed and immediately started rummaging in her medical bag. She took out a small pre-filled syringe and injected the clear solution into the woman’s stomach. Immediately the woman began to calm down.

  “What did you give her?” Castle asked.

  “An antihypertensive. But the stuff is also used as an antagonist for various psychoactive substances. Might work.”

  “How long till it has an effect?” Jeff asked.

  Joanne shrugged. “I don’t know if it will work at all.”

  But finally the woman stopped kicking. After a few minutes, Jeff nodded to Mac to take his hand off her mouth.

  “You should be hanging from a cross,” the woman’s voice was slurred. Her pupils were still very dilated.

  “Don’t worry,” Jeff spoke in a reassuring tone. “We just want to talk to you. We have a few questions.”

  “What have you got?” The woman looked at him uncomprehendingly.

  “A few questions. Please don’t worry.”

  “What kind of questions?” the woman asked, as if Jeff had made a stupid joke.

  “What are you doing with the men on the crosses?”

  “Punishing them, obviou
sly. What did you think?” The woman stared at him as if she were dealing with an imbecile.

  “What did they do?”

  “They’re sinners,” the woman said.

  “Sure, but what are they being punished for?”

  “They sinned,” she said firmly.

  “Are you saying you don’t even know?” Joanne asked.

  “It doesn’t matter. Who cares. They’re sinners and must be punished.”

  “Yes, but who says they’re sinners?” Jeff asked.

  “Everyone knows it.”

  Jeff shook his head. They weren’t getting anywhere.

  “How did you get here?” he wanted to know.

  The woman stared at him like a ghost. “What do you mean?”

  Jeff could feel anger welling up inside him. He took a deep, slow breath. “It’s a simple question: How did you get here?”

  The woman regarded him in silence for a moment, then finally opened her mouth. “I died. How else would I have gotten here?”

  Jeff’s draw dropped. The woman must really be mad. There was no other explanation. “Where are you from? I mean, what planet did you live on?”

  “On Deneb-6,” she replied.

  No, that can’t be. Jeff bit his lip until he tasted blood in his mouth.

  “I died when the planet exploded.”

  Dad died when Deneb-6 exploded. Jeff was unable to continue.

  “Where are you now?” Joanne asked quietly.

  “Pfft, where do you think?” The woman replied. “In hell!”

  26.

  “This is all too crazy,” Joanne said. “In hell?”

  It’s beyond me, too, Jeff thought.

  They had been unable to get any more information out of the woman and had finally let her go. She had immediately rejoined the group and cheered on the torturers beneath the crosses. What choice did they have but to continue on their way?

  They had encountered more people. One group had been occupied in chopping off the limbs of “sinners” with long machetes, so that they bled to death. Another group had been lowering people into giant cauldrons of boiling water. With bared teeth, and pure hatred in their eyes. Jeff hadn’t dared to intervene or to speak to any of them. The blond woman had been right: this was hell!