Voyage

by E M Gale

  I nodded, almost believing him.

  He sighed. “There’s not much left to destroy. It’s already gotten me killed.”

  I nodded again; I’d figured that out.

  “When I died I was supposed to travel to Syzygy–”

  ‘Eh?’

  He noticed my confusion. “The vampire planet.”

  ‘We have a planet? And one with such a weird name? I know that’s not a vampirish word.’

  “But I didn’t. I will probably be in trouble with my clan if I meet them.”

  ‘Will he? Why?’

  “But I don’t care. There’s nothing else in the universe for me other than revenge.”

  ‘Really?’

  I was almost too frightened to ask my next question.

  “And… what if you get your revenge? What will you do then?”

  He looked at me scathingly, yet also sadly. How could anyone be so quixotic?

  “There’s nothing else for me,” he said, his voice heavy and as devoid of emotion as a church bell.

  “Nothing,” I repeated in a small voice.

  He nodded. His face looked like it was carved from stone. I realised that I was crying. He frowned, but he held me close to him, saying nothing. It amazed me, but somehow I was comforted enough by this to fall asleep.

  When I woke up, I was only really aware I’d been asleep because I remembered waking up. Price hadn’t moved or changed position. He was just looking at me.

  “What? What happened?” I asked.

  He smiled, and when he smiled he looked alive, but his eyes were so fierce. “Nothing. You just fell asleep.”

  “How long for?”

  “Only about four hours. Don’t worry, we don’t arrive for another hour or so.”

  ‘Why would I be worrying, Price? I’m looking forward to getting rid of you. Somehow, you really got under my skin and I don’t like it.’

  “Are you leaving as soon as we dock?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  I sighed and looked at the ceiling.

  ‘Why does that upset me? I really ought to have nothing more to do with him.’

  He kissed me and I felt like bursting into tears again.

  “There’s only one thing left to ask you, Florentina.”

  “What?” I whispered, fearful yet again.

  “Are you coming with me?”

  ‘Does he really mean it? Does he really want me to accompany him? I can’t do that. Can I? Do I want to? Surely I don’t want to?’

  “If I did… would you still seek your revenge?”

  “Yes.”

  “And… would you… I mean…” I was pleading with my eyes. “Would you still have nothing to live for other than your revenge?”

  Unaccountably, he smiled, but how, I had no idea. “Yes, Florentina. I can’t live for you, or because of you. My revenge is all that matters to me.”

  I nodded. There was a heavy silence. I felt like I couldn’t breathe, the atmosphere was that thick.

  “Your answer?” he asked.

  I gulped some air. It seemed to burn my throat.

  “Jonathan, I… can’t.” I took another shuddering breath. “I can’t follow you. I can’t help you. I think… that revenge…” I paused. I felt that it wasn’t wise to continue, but I felt that I ought to. I took another calming breath and looked down. “I think that… revenge will destroy you,” I whispered. “And there’d be nothing left for me.”

  A moment passed before I looked up at him. He nodded. He looked almost relieved.

  ‘Was he scared I might say yes? Probably, but why? Because I would stop him from seeking his revenge? Because he doesn’t really want me? Because it will never last?’

  He smiled. “I knew that you wouldn’t.”

  I nodded.

  “And when it’s over and done with…” He looked down for a moment as he gathered his thoughts. “When I’m done with my revenge I”–he searched my face–“may come and find you.”

  I was startled.

  He smiled ruefully. “After all, we do have eternity, don’t we? We’ll meet each other again.”

  “Of course,” I said, my mouth dry.

  ‘I guess we will meet again, at some point. Although we won’t be the same people, will we? So who knows what might happen then. Maybe none of this will matter. Perhaps this will just be remembered as a youthful fling. Who knows, Price might even find something to occupy himself with, or maybe he’ll forget about everything.’

  ‘Either which way, it won’t be the same as it is now.’

  Price got up and dressed in a clean suit. He picked up his discarded clothes and packed them into his suitcase, in which everything else was already packed: all he owned was that one suitcase and the airtight coffin. I just sat and watched him. There was nothing I could think of to say. We had only half an hour left until the ship docked.

  When he was packed I still hadn’t moved. He picked up my clothes and tossed them on the bed in front of me. I shook my head, reattached my knives and got dressed. That done, we just looked at each other.

  “I guess there’s nothing more to say.” He looked awkward for the first time that I’d ever seen.

  I smiled at him, tears in my eyes. “We should say goodbye then.”

  He came over and hugged me. We kissed deeply. I felt the ship coming to a mostly inertia-damped stop: we had arrived. Price walked me to the door.

  “Goodbye,” I said, but I thought that my eyes were saying something else.

  “I’m sorry, Florentina.”

  I nodded, the unspilled tears still in my eyes, but I managed to smile somehow. Then I misted and reformed on the other side of the door. I knew that he was there, a few inches away, just standing there. I turned round to look at the door. It was a few inches, but a hundred miles. I turned away and walked up the corridor to my quarters.

  Rob and Anna stood outside knocking on my door.

  ‘Not the time, guys, not the time.’

  I crept up behind them. Had they turned around they would have seen me. I misted and followed the wall, sneaking along and under the door. I reformed once I was in my quarters.

  “Knock again,” said Rob from the other side of the door.

  “She takes ages to wake up,” said Anna. “We could pop back in an hour or so.”

  I just stood there, wiping my eyes and trying to get myself under control.

  ‘OK. Well, I’m not going to sit in a docked spaceship by myself and be morose. No way. And anyway I have a letter to deliver.’

  I pulled the door open. Anna had her hand up to knock and jumped backwards at my sudden appearance.

  “Yes?” I said.

  “We’re going to explore Bec-ree Ay,” said Anna. “Wanna come?”

  “OK.”

  “Uh, are you OK, Clarke?”

  ‘Damn.’

  “Yes. Wait here.” I shut the door.

  “What’s up with her?” said Rob.

  ‘Right, calm down, get it together.’

  First I washed my face, brushed, plaited and pinned up my hair whilst wondering how long Price would take to get off the ship. I didn’t want to meet him when we were disembarking.

  ‘What would I say? ’Take me with you’?’

  I got the letter from within the sofa where I’d left it.

  ‘OK, Clarke. Chill out.’

  I opened the door and even managed to look my friends in the eyes.

  “Sorry, guys, I overslept,” I said with a fake smile.

  ‘Damn you, Price. How did you get under my skin so much?’

  “You OK?” asked Anna. I nodded.

  “I’d only just woken up.” They accepted that.

  ‘I guess that’s the advantage of having a reputation for being grouchy in the mornings.’

  “Come on, then,” said Rob, bouncing up and down with excitement. “Let’s go.”

  I nodded. “Yeah… just warn me if you see any Kreegle drawing swords or anything, yeah?”

  He looked taken aba
ck by this. “You really think they will?”

  ‘Well, I know they don’t like vampires, the question is how much. Still, I guess Price alighted here, and he hardly goes incognito.’

  “Nah,” I said.

  ‘I hope.’

  As we headed out of the cargo bay, I paused to sniff the air.

  ‘Nothing. He has gone then.’

  * * *

  I suspected that I wasn’t the best company, but I distracted myself wandering around the city with my friends. The Kreegle liked buildings that were tall and roughly pointy, like a lot of upside-down kulfi mushed together. Everything was made out of a material from a local quarry, so the buildings were pale grey when they were not painted, not that dissimilar from the pale grey earth visible around the edge of plots. When they were painted they were covered in a riot of brightly coloured designs in red, orange, blue and yellow. The city was absolutely freezing and I had always found it strange to look at bright colours outside when it was so cold: they seemed so unnatural. Kreegle liked bright colours, especially red, which I approved of. All the Kreegle we passed were dressed in technicolour and, according to Anna, they were apathetic about whether it clashed or not. Personally, I liked it, but it wasn’t tasteful enough for Anna. There were few plants in the city–either the Kreegle didn’t design personal gardens into their cities, or this colony was too poor to afford that luxury. The city didn’t look poor though. It seemed to do a lot of trade; there had been many people coming and going through the spaceport when we had arrived.

  We strolled towards the shopping area so we could all get coats. I got a long, black woollen trenchcoat from a place that outfitted space traders, as Kreegle coats came in any colour but black, and they would all have been far too short for me.

  Anna bought another guidebook. I flicked through it and found out exactly where the Blue Flamenco Bar was. She also picked up a Kreeglish phrase book. I nicked it off her and looked up the word ‘vampire’ when she wasn’t looking: ‘Becoo’. Thus, I could keep an ear out for any Kreegle who figured out what I was. None of them had made me as a vampire, so I had no idea how they would react to a vampire, but I supposed not liking them wasn’t the same as taking it upon themselves to stake any they saw.

  We were standing outside the mayoral offices. Like the rest of the colony, the building was relatively new and it looked like the tops of a coniferous forest, if conifers came in fuchsia and vermillion. There were wall paintings that apparently showed great battles from the Kreegles’ mythological past. Anna cooed at these and took a lot of pictures. Rob slouched against a nearby fence, shoved his fingers in his pockets and looked bored.

  “OK, Clarke, we’ve done some touristy stuff, what do you want to do now?” asked Anna, beaming at me and Rob.

  ‘Well, I need to go to the bar, then the library, but first…’

  “Lunch.” I felt exhausted from the lack of sleep and, well… Price. Rob sprang away from the fence and grinned.

  “Great idea, I’m starving.”

  Anna smiled indulgently at him, and then flicked through her guide books. “Right, according to the guide there’s a place with English menus about a block from here,” she said, pointing.

  ‘Great. And that takes us a block nearer to the Blue Flamenco Bar. What a stupid, stupid name for a bar.’

  We strode to the Kreegle restaurant at top speed, since Rob set the pace. The restaurant was populated with about a fifty-fifty mix of Kreegles and non-Kreegles. It was tiny–Kreegles were small–so Rob and I had to fold ourselves up somewhat inelegantly on the little stalls to hunch over the low, circular tables.

  “It’s oddly not that alien here,” said Anna with a smile as she looked around her. The tables and stools were just tables and stools. I supposed that all humanoids were roughly the same design and there were only so many ways that you could design a table.

  “Well,” I said, “according to Cleckley all the humanoids in the galaxy have a common ancestor. So really, they’re not that alien.”

  She nodded at this. I noticed a waitress walking past and craned my neck to follow her progress.

  ‘Hmm, what is that stuff in that big bowl? It smells good, and looks like mussels or something.’

  “But they’re kinda a funny colour,” continued Anna. The Kreegles were an orangey-pink, a brightish orangey-pink, quite unlike human Caucasians who, I guessed, could be described as pale orangey-pink. Other than that they looked just like short humans. The tallest one I’d seen was about five foot tall.

  “We probably look a funny colour to them,” remarked Rob. I was flicking through the menu.

  ‘Ah, this picture looks like the bowl of mussels I smelt. Thank goodness for picture menus. Kuz-Bec Jaj apparently. Right.’

  “Yeah, we probably look oddly pale,” I said.

  He looked at me strangely.

  “They’re pinky-orange, we’re pale pinky-yellow,” I said as I read the menu. The English description of Kuz-Bec Jaj was ‘seasonal Kuz-Bec’. Whatever that was. I wondered what the local alcoholic drink was.

  “Not me,” said Anna brightly. “I have a tan…” She frowned. “Or I did until I spent months on a dark spaceship.”

  I grinned at her.

  ‘I like the dark.’

  “Hey, Anna, how are you getting on with Kreegle-ish?” I asked.

  “They call it Bec-aj actually,” she said.

  “So… what’s their local drink and can you order me some, please?”

  “OK, but are you sure you want to just try it? It could be anything.”

  I shrugged. “Ah, what doesn’t kill me can only delay the inevitable,” I said with a smile. “And anyway, what’s the point of travelling to an alien planet if you don’t try the local beer… or nearest cultural equivalent?”

  “You’re brave,” said Anna, shaking her head and returning her attention to the menu.

  ‘What the hell’s brave about ordering the local foods? It must be edible, otherwise the locals wouldn’t eat it.’

  The waitress came back and Anna ordered the lunch. I got given a pair of chopsticks.

  “Now this is interesting,” I said, waving them at my friends. “Do you think the Kreegle here use chopsticks because they’re close to Japanese colonies or because they invented them separately?”

  Rob looked deep in thought for a moment. “It could be either,” he said with a shrug, effectively dismissing the subject as unworthy of any future consideration.

  “Yes, but if they invented them separately, does that mean that there’s some sort of… culinary evolution going on where implements end up filling the same niches? I wonder if you can look at things like that in a selection way.” I bit my knuckle and pondered.

  Rob was looking confused now, probably because I wasn’t talking about physics.

  ‘Where’s my favourite biology geek when I need him?’

  “Thinking about it, if all the humanoids are roughly human-shaped with two hands, then I guess they would design similar tools…”

  Anna looked bemused.

  “Like swords and stuff,” I explained. “I wonder if they have similar fighting styles?”

  ‘Perhaps I ought to look up some alien sword-fighting styles. Kreegle sword-fighting styles would probably be different to orcish since they are such different heights. I think that orcish fighting styles might be the better choice for me to learn, given I’m rather tall.’

  Rob and Anna’s dinner arrived. Rob had a meaty sauce thing with some sort of local grain. It looked like quinoa to me. Anna had played it safe and ordered a chicken salad from the ‘scared foreigner’ part of the menu. My dinner arrived. I got a big ceramic pot with food swimming in a thin soupy sauce.

  ‘Hmm, smells yummy. Oh, these aren’t muscles, they’re bugs. Well… hold on… these bugs are living!’

  I grabbed the guide-book off Anna, and flicked through.

  ‘Kuz-Bec Jaj is a Kreeglish delicacy, a ’salad of live Kuz-Bec’.’

  Perhaps unsurprisingly, the ph
rase book informed me that Kuz-Bec was the name for a type of insect.

  ‘You eat them live?’

  But I was starving. I cautiously picked one up with my chopsticks. It squirmed slightly.

  ‘Right, then. Bugs for lunch.’

  I ate it, chewing thoughtfully.

  ‘Hmm… crunchy. A nice taste though and… if I’m not mistaken… blood. That’s weird, I thought insects didn’t have blood?’

  I put my hand over my mouth and pretended to cough whilst I forced my teeth back up.

  ‘Now can I eat this without growing my teeth?’

  I frowned at my lunch.

  ‘Well, I have to, I’m starving.’

  When I was satisfied that I had enough self-control to keep my teeth retracted, I tried another bug. This one was purple, tasted slightly of cinnamon and lacked the taste of blood. I tried another one of the first type. I could swear I still tasted blood.

  ‘Teeth, still hidden. OK, I can control the teeth then.’

  I munched my way through a few, looking at the one held in my chopsticks in entomological manner whilst I finished my previous mouthful. I had about four species in the pot. A purplish one that had a slightly spiced taste, a yellowish one with big crunchy wings, a boring-looking brown one that was deliciously piquant and made a noise like popcorn when you ate it, and the largest one was deep green and had the most boring taste to the meat but seemed to contain proper blood. I mused about how similar these bugs were to the ones on Earth: ‘Were their ancestors dumped here with the proto-Kreegle or did they just evolve from something else to look like bugs?’

  ‘Oh, hey, that one’s trying to crawl away. Not a chance, mate! It seems that this is a dish you have to eat quickly. I wonder if they starve these things for a few days, to clean out their guts like you do with snails. Now that’s a gross food. Yuk. Who would want to eat slimy snails?’

  I was pretty hungry and although I had been trying to savour the bugs, I munched my way through them in short order. I took a sip of the local drink to wash it down, and then frowned at it; it tasted like fruity tea to me.

  ‘Maybe it’s not even alcoholic. Next time I won’t let Anna pick my drink.’

  I looked up. Anna and Rob were looking at me with horrified fascination.