Tropic of Skorpeo

by Morrissey, Michael

  “Where is Rhameo?” Zoah demanded.

  “I expect you will find him in one of the unspeakable dungeons these Punkoids have constructed,” Teleporteus said with a laugh. “I saw him not too long ago and he was filthy – the slovenly boy has forgotten basic hygiene. I guess it was something to do with his upbringing.”

  “Get to the point, you Judas,” Zoah spoke through clenched teeth. “You’ve tricked me – there must be a reason.”

  “Reason?” Teleporteus gave a mirthless snort. “Yes, there is a reason. An empire-sized reason, Father.”

  “Don’t call me ‘Father’,” snarled Zoah. “You are no longer a son of mine. Quite simply, you are a bastard.”

  “You have one thousand seven hundred and eighty-five sons. And unless you cooperate, you’ll have only one thousand seven hundred and eighty-four, for Rhameo will be fed to the Octopus.”

  “My true sons have no fear of mollusca.”

  “I assure you, the Octopus is no ordinary cephalopod. Rhameo has already had a taste of its charms. He was cunning enough to have a vomit pistol strapped to his foot, but next time he will be weaponless. The Octopus should enjoy itself.”

  “Bring Rhameo to me at once,” ordered Zoah.

  “Let’s get a few things straight – you don’t give orders around here, for you are no longer in charge. You have been demoted from emperor to Punkoid’s apprentice. I am also de-fathering you.”

  At that moment, a Punkoid emissary came stamping in and whispered in Teleporteus’s ear. The prince nodded, eyes glowing like sinister lanterns.

  “I have good news, Zoah. The best of news.” He paused, clearly relishing the moment. “Rhameo is dead. Apparently, he was caught trying to escape from the dungeon with his fellow conspirators, consisting of a misshapen and ugly dwarf, a sexually perverted unicorn, a giant with body odour, a hideous Gorgon with delusions of grandeur –”

  Teleporteus’s words were interrupted by a strange noise emitting from Zoah. Low and moaning, it sounded like grief – a lamentation that crescendoed in a roar of anger.

  What happened next is still spoken of with awe throughout the galaxy.

  Emperor Zoah of Skorpeo underwent a transformation. Bright blue sparks shot forth from all over his body, his limbs swelled, and he grew to seven, eight, ten feet tall. His eyes, normally green, became red-hot coals. Revealed now in all its terrible splendour, like one of the giant fire dragons of Jupiter, was the Wrath of Zoah. It came to be written that when Zoah is in his wrath, he fears nothing, but he is – above any other living being – to be feared.

  Unarmed, he advanced upon Teleporteus. Dozens of Punkoids ran to intervene – Zoah took them out six or even ten at a time, first with bare fists, then with great strokes of a sword that he plucked from the hand of a hapless mutant. Twitching limbs soon littered the floor, and Zoah trailed the bodies of demented guards and their bleeding entrails as he approached his son. Teleporteus took one fearful look at his father and made to flee, but as he spun towards the exit, a lean form appeared in his path – Rhameo!

  Behind him came the dwarf, the giant, the unicorn, Astroburger, the gorgon, and of course, Juraletta. Rhameo seized Teleporteus in a vice-like grip, and twisted his shoulder in a stolka lock.

  “What shall I do with him?” Rhameo asked, and when he heard his favourite son’s voice, Zoah’s wrath subsided.

  “Feed him to the Octopus!” yelled the unicorn and the giant in unison.

  “I know,” said the dwarf, “shave his head and turn him into a Punkoid!”

  “And banish him into the deepest Sargasso, a place which he so obviously loves!” cried Rhameo. “Let him be a warning to other traitors of the humiliation they face.”

  Everyone turned as Queen Beia entered the room, surprise written all over her face as she saw the prisoners escaped, and her erstwhile partner now captive.

  She darted over to Astroburger. “Darling! Are you hurt?”

  “Don’t ‘darling’ me!”

  “I was cruelly misled by this schemer!” Queen Beia pointed a contemptuous finger at the fettered Teleporteus. “I never meant you any harm. Not my faithful Astroburger! My zealous watcher of the skies! My ever-alert guardian of Simulacra! Never!”

  “Beia – the only disaster around here is you,” said Astroburger coldly.

  “Can’t you find it in your heart to forgive your poor queen, for I was hoodwinked by my own foolishly aberrated desire for greatness. Now I see where true greatness lies – in the courage of good people like yourself!”

  “Ignore this hypocritical harpy,” said the dwarf. “She is nothing but a no-good space trollop!”

  “Enough,” Zoah said. “I must deal to the Octopus at once. We will seal the fates of these unfortunates when I return.”

  “Maledor – once again you have failed me,” said Lostifar, slit eyes filled with cold contempt.

  “Mercy, oh Great One,” pleaded the craven figure. “The fates were against me.”

  “Do not blame others for your own deficiencies,” said Lostifar. “As a result of your bungling, the war against the sickly spread of goodness has been set back millennia in this sector of the galaxy.”

  “Please, I beg –”

  “It is no good asking for mercy,” Lostifar growled. “You had your chance, and you failed. Evil is a stern master. It must be served loyally and competently – otherwise it is not served at all! Evil’s failed foot soldiers may as well join the mediocre and non-challenging forces of goodness.”

  “Master, what will you do with me?”

  Lostifar blew two sharply honed razors of fire from his nostrils. “You will find out in due course, you miserable wastrel. How did you ever get to be called ‘Lord’, anyway? You are no aristocrat, you are a commoner – as common as cosmic filth!”

  “I agree, oh Great One – cosmic filth!”

  “Except that cosmic filth can aspire to be bad, whereas you cannot. You are more like cosmic cleanth.”

  “I agree, oh Mighty One – cosmic cleanth!”

  “And another thing, Maledor – evil ones aren’t quite so pathetically obsequious.”

  “I agree, oh Exalted One – not so obsequious.”

  “Nevertheless, your mention of filth has given me an idea, Maledor. A brilliant idea! There may be some bad in you after all!”

  With quick but sure steps Zoah approached the Octopus’s vat, but when he peered over the edge he saw nothing but a thick slick of slime. The evil mollusc was either hidden in an undulating bath of mist or had fled deeper into its lair.

  The world’s great mollusc is yellow, Zoah thought. As yellow as a Neptunian dung beetle.

  “Where do you think the cowardly fish-bait is hiding?” Zoah asked Rhameo, who had just reached his father’s side.

  They saw nothing in the moiling murk, and heard only the quiet plink, plink of slime dripping from above… then oozy silence. But suddenly, long tentacles as thick as an Amazonian anaconda whipped down and coiled around their necks. Quick as light stabbing the gloom of a Uranian moon, two more tentacles encircled their waists. The monstrous creature was hanging from the ceiling! Zoah roared and cut them free with two great slices of his sword. Stinking Octopoidal blood spurted, as thick as molasses.

  The Octopus silently screamed as Rhameo stolka-jumped, gripping the two sides of the monster’s legendary genital cavity, then with a phenomenal burst of strength began pulling the ten-ton blob towards the floor, folding the body over on itself like a titanic sandwich. Zoah’s battle-frenzied blade transformed into a whirl of light as the Octopus was shredded into dozens of pieces. The screams, audible now – of pleasure or pain, Rhameo could not be sure – gradually subsided. And whether those severed hunks of Octopoidal flesh continued to spasm with the shock of the blows or whether, like sinister globs of mercury, they were slowly and surreptitiously pooling together again, it was hard to say.

  “Vanquished,” said Zoah, wiping the sword clean on his robe.

  “Thank you, Father. Never had a so
n such a father as you were today. “

  Not yet. A mutant half-Octopus had reformed out of the severed remnants. What was previously almost shapeless was now disjointed like a jigsaw put together by a moody lunatic. Malformed tentacles shuddered toward them with frightening speed and gripped Zoah and Rhameo. The mutant monstrosity had redoubled its strength; stronger and stronger was the grip of the oily mollusc. A tentacle seized Zoah’s sword from his grasp and began to wave it at him in series of fever-delirious slices.

  Zoah cried out in anger, raging as his neurotransmitters fired like liquid uranium pulse jets and poured a fresh frenzy of battle into his mighty arms, driving the monarch to new heights of fury. He knocked the sword aside and gripped the edge of the Octopus’s vat, then came a scream of tearing meta-alloy as he wrenched a strip of durametal from its side and wielded it like a blade, a metre across its gleaming arc. He whirled the makeshift weapon over his head to gain momentum then brought it crashing through the tentacle that held his son captive. The creature shuddered and exuded a nostril-biting, skunkish gruel, but even as Rhameo stumbled backward in retreat, retching as he fell to the floor, Zoah hacked off the creature’s head and held it aloft in black-bloody triumph.

  Rhameo and his father shared a manly smile, and then they left the carnage and returned to the others.

  “Sssshall we hire himmm?” asked Hedrone as he glared at his chief lackey. They stood near the two-mile-long series of hives, curled in the shape of Queen Beia’s locks, and spangled bright yellow in the thinly filtered purple sunshine that nourished their world.

  “He comes with excellent credentials, Your Droneness.”

  “Very well, ssssend him innn,” said Hedrone, muttering and hissing to himself. He had interviewed several candidates who all shared the illusion that tending the time tortoises would give them immortality – as indeed it could, though not of the type they might appreciate.

  “Well now, mmmmy good fellowww,” said Hedrone, eyeing the bedraggled applicant with distaste bordering on contempt, “why issss it that you want to tennnnd the time tortoissssesss?”

  “Because I love reptiles – particularly horny reptiles,” intoned the man as he scratched his bald head.

  “They are verrrry fussy, you know. Verrry clean animalsssss, in theirrr ownnn way.”

  “I know, sir,” said the applicant eagerly. “Totally hygienic. And I have a way with tortoises, turtles, and terrapins.”

  “Thesssse are neither turtlessss nor terrapinsssss, but tiiiime tortoisssesssss. Do you know what that meanssss?”

  “They wear wrist watches?” the applicant asked hopefully.

  “Very drollllll,” said Hedrone. “I see we have a wit onnnn our handsssss.”

  “It’s good to see the lighter side of life.”

  Hedrone didn’t hesitate. “I don’t think you’re ssssuitable.”

  “I don’t think you’re being fair,” the applicant replied. “You haven’t seen me in action.”

  “No, but you have annnn undessssirably flippant attitude. Tiiiime tortoisesss are very sssserious creaturessss. They do not carrrre to be laughed at. If they don’t liiike you, they will give you a nnnip – and that, I can assssssure you, is not an experiencccce I would wish on anyonnne.”

  “I have no fear of a little nip in the line of duty.”

  “I don’t think you undersssstand, my good fellowwww. These are time tortoisessss. One nnnip and you’ll be frozzzzen for what feelsssss like a thousand yearsssss, though outwardly only half an hourrrr will have passsssed.”

  “I do not fear time. When can I start?”

  “All rrrright,” said Hedrone. “If you’re thissss eager, we’ll put you onnnn a trial period of fiffffty yearssss. Acceptable?”

  “Most.”

  “Good. And what issss your nammme?”

  “Lord Mal – Lawrence Malleable.”

  Grasping his broom, the newly appointed time tortoise attendant followed the ponderous gait of the slow-moving chelonians, ever alert to their particular needs.

  “Oh Maledor – I forgot to tell you one thing,” said Lostifar in his ear.

  “What’s that?” asked the demoted evil one.

  This was a moment that he had dreaded, though no amount of dread would stop it from unfolding as surely as the coils of the Octopus had taken him into its slithery embrace. He braced himself.

  “You have been turned into a Replicoid, whereas Simulacra and all its people have been made real. That means that the time tortoises you are working with are real, and their bite is guaranteed. I would be very attentive to them if I were you. Look – one of them is doing a number two right now. Get your broom, Maledor! You know how fussy they are! I’ll look in on you again fifty years from now.”

  With a heavy heart, Lord Maledor picked up the broom and checked that none of the tortoises were baring down on him, then proceeded to sweep up the pile of steaming tortoise turds.

  The situation looked hopeless, yet he was already planning his escape. If only he could conjure up a new reality…

  “Teleporteus, you are unworthy to be called a Skorpean,” said Zoah, his voice like sky-splitting thunder. “You are henceforth banished to the Sargasso – among those Punkoid barbarians where you belong. Do not, I command you, ever show your countenance in the realms of Skorpeo again, for that would incur my wrath. And if you ever sire anything it will be some orange-tufted brat of a Punkoid bastard.”

  “Enjoy your sickly, banal goodness, sibling,” said Teleporteus, his face a mask of hate.

  “I shall,” said Rhameo. “And I will have the princess to enjoy it with.”

  “Let us depart from this hellhole,” said Zoah as he turned to the treacherous Queen Beia, who was alternately scowling and trying to resemble a salacious space vamp. “And you, oh two-timing monarch… you must return to your people.”

  “What about me?” asked Astroburger.

  “You must carry on with your astroburgery,” Zoah said not unkindly. “The cosmos is full of potential catastrophe. Now, let us be gone from this evil place.”

  “And what of the princess and her companions?” asked Rhameo.

  “Is there any question? They’re invited back to Skorpeo to celebrate,” Zoah said. “I assume you’re marrying this mauve miss, aren’t you?”

  “Father, I was intending to seek your approval.”

  “You have my blessing, my boy. I can see that she is of sound mettle. I must warn you – it’s your mother’s approval that may be harder to win than mine.”

  “So, Queen Beia, you are returning to the world of Simulacra,” said Astroburger. His voice bordered on smug, for when he looked at her he saw nothing but an opportunistic tramp, and was puzzled as to why he had ever considered her to be worthy of his notice.

  “As are you,” she replied as their sleek ship gently touched down on their catastrophe-threatened planet. “Astroburger, you have saved my life, and I intend to reward you.”

  “That is kind,” he said with carefully faked appreciation. “May I enquire as to what this reward might be? If I recall correctly, you once rewarded a particularly talented chef by throwing him into his own blender so that you could clone a thousand more like him.”

  With stubborn hope, he looked out the portal at the city before him and tried to spy his laboratory. He pictured an improved facility with extra telescopes, monitoring devices, and computers. Perhaps he would receive more funding for his important disaster research. He could find danger throughout the galaxy and warn those in peril years in advance of its arrival. The galaxy would reward him with immeasurable gratitude. Fame would be his!

  “Yes, you may,” Queen Beia said. “Your reward is to be… the Celestial Union of Hive!”

  “A great honour, my queen,” said Astroburger as calmly as he was able. “Doesn’t that seem a fine species of irony? My life being taken for saving yours?”

  “What is irony?” asked Queen Beia. “A type of honey?”

  “I can only categorise your reply as a speci
es of unconscious irony,” said Astroburger with resignation as the hatch opened and they stepped out into the royal hangar.

  “You sound overeducated, Astroburger,” sneered Queen Beia. “The Celestial Union of Hive will purge your mind of higher learning.”

  “Beia, have you learnt nothing?”

  “Yes, I have,” replied the queen in a silky tone as Hedrone approached, a thousand workers standing in ranks behind him. “I have realised how much I have missed the Celestial Union of Hive! Hedrone – see to it!”

  “No, ma’am,” replied Hedrone. “I declinnnne.”

  “Insolent insect! I shall have you stung!” She slapped his face. Hard.

  “Therrre have been sssome changessss in your absenssce,” said Hedrone defiantly. “You have been de-queeeeened.”

  “Once a queen, always a queen,” shrieked Queen Beia.

  Hedrone shook his head. “That isss for the workerssss to decide.”

  Humming in unison, the human hive advanced.

  “They won’t hurt me!” she cried. “My workers love their queen!”

  Eagerly, the workers approached, stings extended.

  “Get back!” screamed Beia, “or I’ll…” She hesitated – what could she do? “I’ll have your wings pulled off!”

  The hive closed in on their prey, and within seconds the de-queened Beia was stung into oblivion. As she lay on the ground, dying as a hundred poison stings coursed through her blood, she met Astroburger’s gaze.

  “I shall hum in heaven!”

  Hedrone nodded to himself. “Take her to the asssspic worksss,” he instructed. “Preserve her for all to ssssee, so that Beia can be a lessssson to any future queenssss who overrrreach their ambition and trrry to rule the workersss too tyrannicallyyyyy.”

  That night, Astroburger scanned the heavens, just as he had always done. Yes, there was a comet on the way – it had a long tail and could prove quite… disastrous.