Part 29 (2/2)
Gila, this girl child, and a tall man with curly hair are bearing my weight, none too steadily, as we progress towards the boats.
'I'm Sam,' says the girl. 'And this is the Doctor.'
I blink at them. In my past life, I was always pleased to meet new faces. I oughtn't let my standards slip. Remember your manners. Manners maketh the genetic freak.
The gangly tall man fixes me with a sudden piercing stare. He gabbles at me excitedly, 'Isn't it exciting to be kidnapped by proper, seafaring pirates!' He's talking to me as if he finds nothing strange in addressing a creature such as I. I can tell he's trying to be worldly and nice, refusing to comment on my hybridised oddity.'Don't you find that remarkable?' he asks me.
For talking too loudly he receives a hefty shove from one of the pirates.
A peculiarly attenuated being, with a scandalously long neck, and a dagger clamped in its pointed beak. Wears an eyepatch too, playing its part to perfection.
Alongside us is a woman being pushed in a wheelchair. She looks somewhat defeated, folded in on herself, her hands clasped firmly in her lap. Her eyes, though, are alive with interest, taking the whole scene in.
'Gila, Gila, my friend,' I call out to the bulkiest, the most scaly of my pallbearers. The one in whom you may imagine I have most in common.
But the Alligator Man just glares and glowers at me as if he isn't really delighting in our reunion at all. Major Angela, naturally, cannot see me.
She is being led by another, swarthy, pirate, and when I call out to her, she ignores me. I can't see the d.u.c.h.ess at all.
Oh, what a relief to breathe air again. My lungs, also, feel quite new and restored. Bliss to waggle my flippers and hooves.
They put us - none too gently, in fact - in a small wooden boat and my compatriots are compelled to row. I lean and listen to the regular suck and slap of the cold, cold, cold waves. And how I've missed being able to listen, to really listen, to things. And maybe I could just - while no one was looking - flop myself over the mildewed lip of the boat, and kick myself off into the delicious freezing water. Never be heard of again.
Temptation s.h.i.+vers me timbers of course, and grips me vitals in a tight swell somewhere beneath my bulky sh.e.l.l. How I would love to slip away now, into the sea.
But I can't I can't I can't leave my blooming friends. Oh no! Not me!
I'm loyal as loyal can be!
Another boat is rowing alongside us.
And here, here at last, is Julia. Standing like a prow in the other humble landing vessel. Head flung back, laughing up her guts and the sea wind swooshes her gorgeous locks about. Proud, daring Julia. The heiress to all of Hyspero. The favourite of the Empress. The most daring and deadly pirate on the many seas of this world. She has the world in her hands already, but how widely it is known and feared, the fact that she would rather be a criminal and common cur, and steal it for herself. Julia clad head to toe in scarlet leather - quite a daring cut of outfit in itself. I note she's put on a little weight, and is squashed into her outfit a few ounces cosier than she would like. Good living does that, of course, and I imagine Julia's living is just fine. She has a golden megaphone in one gloved hand, which she brandishes and then holds in front of her mouth.
She brushes away her streaming, crimson hair and it whips in the salt breeze. Ravis.h.i.+ng pirate princess, hectoring her captives. I try to wave to her, remembering the time we once met, in her mother's palace, but she ignores me, preferring to address us as a group. I sit up and realise that my strength is, little by little, drop by vital drop, returning to me.
Captain Julia of theKristeva is telling us something very simple. Through her megaphone she tells us it repeatedly, and with a certain aplomb.
'You are now prisoners of the Hysperon Empire! You are prisoners of the Scarlet Empress!'
Of course, of course, we already knew that.
Major Angela is muttering filthy swear words in the general direction of Julia's boat. Look at how long the Bearded Lady's beard has grown!
Most distinguished. A proper set of facial hair adorning her n.o.ble jutting jawline. What a pity she cannot look upon her own reflection. She doesn't seem very enchanted by my presence. This isn't at all how I imagined my return to life. Was I expecting parties and a great hullabaloo? Best to expect little, and make the best of what you get. So I will keep quiet.
This human child, Sam, seems rather nice and I shall think about befriending her. Make the Bearded Lady jealous, perhaps. Oh, I'm thawing nicely, with sensation stealing back in lively spurts and fits and starts. I can grind my teeth and stir my flippers and no longer do I s.h.i.+ver.
The crystals of ice on my long, long lashes have melted clear away, and so have those up my bovine nostrils. I give a small, a very small, moo of pleasure, and get a dirty look from the Alligator Man.
'My friends,' I announce cautiously, 'I am returned to life and full working strength!'
I try to stand in the boat, which rocks and makes it quite difficult.
'Much good it will do us,' Gila grunts. He was always very disparaging of my abilities.'We're going to be killed for sure. Either aboard that s.h.i.+p, or by the time we get back to Hyspero.'
'Is that so?' I ask.
He rolls his quite malevolent eyes. Poor Gila, I see, is looking more of a lizard than ever. See how his jaw has stretched into a rictus, a muzzle.
His teeth are dagger-like and protruding, overlapping. Has anyone mentioned to him how much he has reverted, and how much less human he looks? Perhaps they have.
'Is it up to me,' I begin,'to devise a sudden plan of escape?' I flick my eyes around the whole, doleful bunch of them. None of them look too clever and eager. 'Is it my turn now?'
Gila snorts in derision. He was always doing that.
'Have you got any ideas?' Someone leans closer to me. Taking me seriously at last. It is the man that the human child called Doctor.
'I might utilise my low-level telepathic abilities to call up some help.'
”Then, go on!' he urged me.
Already the boats were pulling up close to the gaudy ma.s.s of the mother s.h.i.+p. We could hear the relentless slap of the waves against her prow.
Rope ladders were sent down with a sudden, weighty flourish, unsc rolling and tumbling, their feet hitting the sea with a series of deft splashes.
'Do something,' hissed the Doctor and I close my heavy-lidded eyes and I began to concentrate.
The Captain of theKristeva , Julia, was already clambering up one of the ladders. First aboard as usual, as was correct. Her henchmen drew the two small boats together and they set about manhandling us prisoners and getting us to take our turn in climbing up the cold, wet ropes.
And I concentrated. I fixed my tiny mind on the creature only'certain leagues away. The creature who might just help us.
The old woman in her wheelchair moaned disconsolately.'How am I going to get up there in this thing? I can't climb!' She set her face defiantly.'What are you going to do about it?'
The pirates laughed and kicked her chair overboard. They held on to her and rocked with mirth as she watched her chair glug and sink.
Gila, oddly enough, leapt to the old lady's defence. He struck the one with the long neck and the dagger in its beak and knocked it off balance.
It fell backwards into the water. Pandemonium, suddenly, as the prisoners jostled and made both boats rock and sway in the water and the pirates struggled to take control and fish their shrieking, heron-like compatriot out of the chilling sea. An ape creature pounded at Gila's back and the two of them wrestled, threatening to capsize all of us.
Everyone was shouting. Loudest of all was the bellowing of Captain Julia, as she hauled herself aboard her s.h.i.+p, and looked down in disgust at the fracas below.
Major Angela had set her thick hands about the neck of a man-sized rodent. Sam was being squashed into the hull of our boat by the struggle and the Doctor rushed to free her.
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