[Danny]

wow. never anticipated that. this only started out as a half-thought-out idea one [slightly drunken] sunday afternoon. i never expected to be compared to Eddie A. Po and the rest. that's slightly weird...

ah well, on i go! 25 chapters and counting! for those who like gruesome stuff, you should look forward to chapter 17 - it's almost as bad as chapter 1 was.

CHAPTER 7

It was that time of day when it is dark, but not dark enough to switch on the streetlights. I don’t suppose you’d understand, but in the cities we have streetlights, which come on when it is dark. There’s a period of twilight, however, after the sun goes down, before the lights come up, when the landscape becomes quite dark, lit only by the lights of the buildings. You’d love it, some of you. I hope one day I can take you to see the city, but it just isn’t possible now. Not for a while.

The Dockland area is a very open area, with not many buildings. For this reason, it was especially dark, and we found it difficult to see where we were going. In a way, it was fortunate, as it was easier to move under the cover of darkness. Despite my cynical nature, I was able to find the advantage of any situation.

The slig had come round. Its name, it said, was Rixx. Ulp had taken it off his shoulders, and untied its legs so it could walk. Despite the protestations of Yan (and Rixx, of course), Ulp refused to untie its hands, so it fell over a lot.

The ship we were heading for, Vint said, was berthed at Dock 8. We found a floodlit signpost by the side of the road, and discovered that Dock 8 was at the other side of the Docklands. We only had about twenty minutes until the ship left port, and the ship would probably be sealed off long before then, so we hurried our step. The change of pace must have awakened our new arrival, because his eyes opened and he began moaning.

Vint looked at me. “He’s coming round.”

I caught the mudokon’s eyes. “Are you okay?”

He attempted to stand straight, and there was a glint of terror in his eyes. “Where-”

“You’re among friends, now, we’re taking you somewhere safe.”

He looked around, manically. “Master! Must return! Punishment-”

“It’s okay, your master isn’t going to get you here. There’re no masters here.”

His body relaxed slightly, but his eyes lost none of their terror. We managed to get him moving again. In an attempt at small talk, Vint asked: “What’s your name?”

The stranger looked at him, unfocused. From his confused expression, we weren’t expecting an answer.

“Quiss.”

Vint looked at me, then back at him. “That’s your name? Quiss?”

Quiss nodded, and we continued in silence for a while. Yan, Ulp, and Rixx had gotten quite far ahead, so we hurried up, to catch up with them. Quiss almost fell asleep again, but kept his feet moving unconsciously, out of habit.

Yan dropped back a little to help. “Is he okay?”

I nodded. “He’s terrified that his master is going to come and find him.”

“Who is his master?”

I realised that I didn’t know, but I didn’t want to wake Quiss unnecessarily, so I called over the slig.

“Hey, Rixx!”

Rixx dropped back to us, followed by Ulp, who was clearly not about to give Rixx a chance to escape. “What?”

“Who was Quiss’s master?”

It looked at me. “Why do you want to know?” The suspicious nature of the sligs was showing through.

“Just so I know he isn’t about to find us and get Quiss back.”

It looked at me again, considering. “A Colonel at the Barracks. Not very high-ranking.”

“A Slig?”

It shook its head. “A Glukk. They never let Sligs achieve high ranks.”

“So not a very powerful Glukkon, then?”

“Not really, no. He doesn’t have many slaves. We were about a quarter of them.”

I was surprised. “You and the other sligs were slaves? Not guards?”

“Well, Crik and Wot were guards, but I was as much a slave as Quiss was.”

“And he entrusted you to escort Quiss to the Detention Centre?”

It shook its head. “No. They were entrusted to escort us. Crik and Wot were his most trusted guards. He treated them well, and they were loyal. I had disobeyed him, just as Quiss had. We were both being sent for punishment. You mistook me for a guard?”

I didn’t realise it was asking a question at first. “Well, we assumed. They weren’t beating you.”

It curled its tentacles into an expression I didn’t recognise. I realised later, living with you, that it was an expression of repressed anger. “Even sligs like Crik have standards. They know that you don’t beat other sligs, even if they have disobeyed their masters. They knew I’d get enough punishment in the Detention Centre. But they weren’t the nicest of guys, and took every opportunity they could to beat up muds.”

There was an embarrassed silence. At least, I was embarrassed. I was embarrassed at thinking that Rixx was a guard. “Ulp?”

“Yeah?”

“Untie those ropes.”

Ulp frowned. “The slig’ll escape.”

“Weren’t you listening? He wasn’t even a guard! He was a fucking slave!”

“Sligs would say anything to save their own lives. It’s not exactly going to admit being a sadistic mud-beating bastard to us, is it?”

I never noticed at the time, but I’d started referring to Rixx as ‘he’, rather than ‘it’. I suppose it was because I thought of him as a person now, rather than some savage animal. “I believe what he says. It rings true.”

I handed Quiss’s arm to Yan, and made to untie the ropes myself.

“If you touch those ropes, I’ll break both your arms.”

I paused, and looked up at Ulp. I never found out if he was serious, but I suspect he was.

“Oh, for Odd’s sake!” We looked up at Vint, who had spoken. “We don’t have time to argue, the boat leaves in ten minutes! Ulp, just untie him, and stop being awkward. He can move faster if he isn’t tied.”

Ulp hesitated, then reached out to untie the ropes. We all hurried up.

CHAPTER 8

The Dock was as dark as the rest of the docklands, but the Ship stood out in the middle, brightly lit. There was lots of activity in and around the ship, as cargo was loaded on. Lots of mudokons and sligs were carrying large boxes onto the ship, as they were shouted at by glukkons and sligs standing at the side. I kept an Ant Farm once, when Flakit was my master. He loved ants, and encouraged us all to take up ant keeping. Sometimes we joked that he would kill us rather than an ant. He was one of my better masters as well. I never felt a need… well, you know. Anyway, I only mention this because the activity in and around the ship reminded me a little of my old ant hive.

We crouched behind a stack of crates, thinking about how we could get on.

“There’s so much activity, we could just walk on and we wouldn’t be noticed.”

Yan looked up at Vint. “What if they do? We’d have a better chance if we carried some boxes with us.”

Rixx spoke up. “I could be ordering you to carry crates onto the ship. You could carry one between two, couldn’t you? So you could carry two crates on board, and no-one would realise that we weren’t real workers.”

“What about Quiss? He’s in no condition to carry anything.”

Rixx and Yan looked at me. I guessed that they hadn’t thought of that.

Ulp hesitated. “He’d be quite safe here…”

It was a second before I realised what he was suggesting. “We can’t leave him! He’d never survive!” I was furious at the suggestion. For some reason, I felt quite close to Quiss, and didn’t want anything to happen to him. I found out why later, of course, but I couldn’t explain it at the time.

Yan put his hand between us, to diffuse any animosity that was developing. “We could lay him in one of the crates we carry in. You two can carry him in, while me and Vint carry an empty crate, okay?”

I paused for a second, still angry, then, without a word, I pulled the lid off one of the crates we were crouched behind. Inside there were reams of fine cloth. I pulled them out and threw them to the ground. When I turned, Ulp held Quiss, ready to lower him into the crate. It seemed to me that he was trying to help, to make up for suggesting leaving him. Between us, we lowered him into the crate, and replaced the lid. I helped Ulp to lift the crate, while Yan and Vint lifted another crate. Rixx stood, and began shouting.

“All right, be careful! Don’t drop it! Watch your corner, mud! Alright, round here now…”

We continued in this fashion across the open ground to the loading ramp, in full view of the genuine dockworkers. I was terrified, and I don’t think the others were any better. When we reached the ramp, I could scarcely believe our luck. I was convinced that any minute now we would hear shouts, and would be pulled back down the ramp and thrown into some cell to rot…

Ulp and me reached the top first, and could see the vast expanse of the cargo hold laid out before us. The Ship was huge. The view from further away didn’t do it justice. To one end of the ship was the Command Deck, with living quarters for the small crew, I guess. To the other was the Boiler Room, and the Engines. But the Cargo Hold took up by far the most space. It had huge doors over the top, which had been opened to let the cranes lower the larger items of cargo in. There was a maze of crates and boxes on the floor. Already the Hold seemed almost full, and there was still more to come. A ramp led down the inside of the Hull, and we walked down this to get to the bottom. I was more relaxed now that we were out of sight of the dockworkers, and was able to think clearly enough to lead the others between the crates to a secluded spot, out of sight. Some of the Boxes were irregular shapes, so we were able to shelter underneath an ‘H’ shaped box, out of sight. We almost totally blocked ourselves in with crates, so that no-one could see us. We pulled the sleeping Quiss from his box, and sat there for a while, not speaking.

We were, I think, quite unable to believe we’d made it. That must be how the mind works. See, it all comes back to the mind in the end. So many bad things had happened to us, that we were unable to accept that something had gone well. I, for one, was convinced that something was about to go wrong, that we were about to be discovered. For some reason, this fevered fear sent me drifting off into an uneasy sleep.