At long, long last, the penultimate part of Chapter 14, "The Black Hole." (I've split it into two parts since it's so long. The last bit will be uploaded shortly - I'm still wrestling with it.) I was hoping to have it done sooner, but have been running into recurrent health problems that slow down my progress. But I can't seem to do anything more with this part, so here it is.
Once again I should state that this is part of a fanfiction ultimately based around the character Rayman, belonging to Ubisoft and invented by Michel Ancel. Not the current incarnation of the character, but the guy from the first game, "Rayman," and to a greater extent the game "Rayman 2: The Great Escape." (Except that you can imagine him with something closer to actual hair.) That character came across as quite a bit more serious than the current 2D versions of the game. Then on top of that I wanted to make him more "realistic." I'm just mentioning this as an explanation to anyone wondering how on earth I got from that crazy grinning sprite in the current games to this poor ponderous creature weighed down with responsibilities.
This chapter still wouldn't be finished if it weren't for the support and detailed beta reading of my friend Mewitti, whom I cannot thank enough. She also contributed another great illustration for this which you can see on my Deviantart page. (Under the same name, Rayfan.)
Rayman © Michel Ancel/Ubisoft
Story and non-Rayman characters © me
PIRANHA
Chapter 14 – The Black Hole, Part 5b:
"Not only that, you can see it's all been redone! Everything's brand new! Not to mention the incredible expansion of cargo capacity!"
Following the well-dressed, prosperous-looking slave, Grouper's major-domo, both Anaconda and Piranha found themselves gaping around at the white-walled, ostentatiously ornamented corridor – in particular, at the heavy gilded cornices along the walls and large, elaborately framed paintings ranged under them. Half of those depicted semi- to unclothed females of various humanlike species, voluptuously laid out on extravagant backgrounds. (A catalogue, perhaps? Piranha thought sourly.) These alternated with paintings of the Master of the Black Hole himself, in a variety of colourful planetary-native costumes, sometimes holding corresponding ritual objects, all in poses of majestic, self-conscious modesty.
"I suppose this is that old sybarite's idea of culture," muttered the Captain of the Insurrection. It was unclear if he was directing the comment at anyone in particular, but their guide eagerly took it up.
"Magnificent, isn't it? The Master had all these portraits done specially for the new ship, to dress the place up like. Everyone who's visited here has been wonderfully impressed. Now we have just one more corridor to go through, and a few more checkpoints, then I'll be able to show you the main body of the ship. I promise you'll not have seen anything like it before!"
"That should be fascinating," the robot said dryly. "Your master seems to be scraping along all right, the way he's piled on all this luxury."
"Oh, goodness yes," said the major-domo. "Demand just grows and grows, you know. There's always been a market for quality slaves, and my master certainly knows how to pick the product – and how to boost the market – and the profits are something gorgeousཀ There's nobody more brilliant in the business, as I'm sure you know, Lord Anaconda."
Anaconda turned towards Piranha with a unsettling grin. "Ah yes, what a nose for quality that human does have," he said. "Nothing gets past him."
Piranha was even more unsettled to have the distinct impression that Anaconda's flat, backlit yellow eye had just winked at him.
The major-domo shepherded them deferentially through various narrowings in the hallway where they were closely peered at and probably recorded (likely down to their molecular structures) by teams of gaudily-costumed guards, as well as a complex sequence of automated security points where he himself deactivated each alarm, reactivating each after his guests passed through. He then brought them triumphantly into an enormous, high-domed rotunda, all of white marble, with several ornate open entrances to more corridors branching from each side. Upon entering the rotunda, the attention was instantly seized by a gigantic double door directly ahead, at the far side of the room. More specifically, the attention was seized by the two immense statues flanking the doors, at least triple life size – massive but perfectly scaled images of the owner of the Black Hole, every undulation of his bulbous form rendered in preternaturally lifelike colour, his austere draperies appearing to sway in a light breeze; the outer arm of each colossus upraised in formal yet gentle benediction, to usher the astonished visitor into his exalted realm.
Anaconda halted for a moment. A faint percussive sound took place somewhere around his throat.
"The old fool's finally cracked all the way through," he muttered.
The major-domo sent him an edgewise glance whose utter blankness was surely the nearest he dared show to outrage. However, he pulled himself together and in severe silence began to lead them across the great marble floor towards the portal.
(All the same, Piranha grinned to himself, hadn't there had been just the faintest little trace of something in the Boss's voice? Admiration? Regret? Wistfulness perhaps? Envy at not having had the idea himself?)
Traversing that opulent space, Piranha examined his surroundings more closely. There was a little greyness to the marble floor and walls; a little scuffing and tarnish of the gilded cornices around the side exits and even the golden lines crossing the domed ceiling; and the potted palm-like plants set between the columns along the walls could only be described as spindly, some a bit canted over in their elaborately embossed white ceramic pots. Luxury, perhaps, but incipiently crumbling.
Maybe because he was a pirate, he took some satisfaction in that.
As they reached the huge doorway between the statues, the major-domo paused. "Don't go in until I tell you," he told them. He clicked a button on his wristpad and the massive doors swung outwards.
And both Piranha and Anaconda involuntarily took a step back, before hastily taking another one forward. And then halting again, as involuntarily as before.
They were teetering on a thin shell of solidity beyond which – above, below, and straight out – yawned emptiness. Nothing. Yet indefinably something – colourless, neither light nor dark, pearlescent and nearly opaque, obscurely moving, shifting, curling; indefinably merging, recreating, fading into unimaginable depths like galactic space.
No. Interstellar space was a cozy chair by the fireplace in comparison. This – negation tendrilled in and permeated the mind, insinuated into the veins, petrified the spirit with a numinous, paralyzing horror.
Piranha, with effort yanking loose his feet from where they had affixed themselves, inched closer to the doorway.
This was the inside of a ship? Could this be inside anything? Was it a portal into another universe? No universe?
He realized he was gripping the metal doorframe with all his strength, as if – whatever that was, might decide to slurp him up whole like an oyster.
"Ain't it something?" grinned the major-domo, with patronizing pity. "Cost a fortune. Well, what would be a fortune to anybody but my master. The very latest technology! Now let's take it up to the main control level."
"We – we're going into that?" There was a discreetly strained note in Anaconda's voice.
"Why, of course! It's a shame the Master's so tied up with the cargo settlement and the final count and couldn't be here to take you on the tour himself – he would have loved to see what you think of it!"
"I expect so," Anaconda snorted. "I expect also you're recording the experience so he won't have to miss it."
"Just stay close," went on the slave, loftily ignoring this remark. "The elevator's quite safe, as long as you don't move more than a couple of steps from me. Now, this won't take any time at all —"
"Time – doesn't exist in there either?" Piranha croaked, freshly appalled.
The major-domo chuckled. "Oh, yes, in parts," he said.
Piranha and Anaconda both looked over the edge. Nothing whatsoever was discernible.
"You aren't scared, I hope?" grinned the guide as he swept through the door.
Not very happily, they bunched in behind him, stepped through the doorway, and dropped.
With an abruptness as viscerally impressive as it was no doubt intended to be, all three of them plummeted straight down, then rocketed straight upwards at a velocity that took the breath right out of them, possibly for good.
As his interior began gingerly to come to terms with the pancake-inducing acceleration, Piranha couldn't help attempting to peer a little further into the surrounding void.
"Hey!" said the major-domo, "don't lean forward like that – if you slip out of the containment field, that'll be it."
Piranha huddled hastily back.
"This elevator bubble is safe, but step past the defined standing area – No air. No gravity. No space that we can understand. I can't even explain it." The major-domo appeared quite pleased at his superior ignorance.
Piranha considered for a few moments, his gaze wandering in and out of the folds of shifting, textured, uncanny profounds of nothing around them. "So," he said. "This is magic."
Oddly, he didn't hear from Anaconda the usual contemptuous snort. ("Magic? Technology, bumpkin!") As immobile as if all his joints had rusted, the Boss had forgotten to close his jaw.
Ejected from the nonexistent elevator as unceremoniously as they'd been picked up, back on thankfully solid ground in a recognizably physical universe, they trailed after the guide along the gently arched chromium-like metal walkway. It branched off in octopus fashion in many directions, some leading to large open areas packed with row upon row of what appeared to be clerks busy at their desks, some leading high up to other open-sided, visibly populated levels. They were on the ground floor of a bright, silvery atrium that curved high above them like the interior of a gigantic metal egg, storey after storey after storey of a hive bustling with humanoid activity. It made even the most enormous areas in the Insurrection feel chokingly dark and claustrophobic. Here and there strolled armed guards, all of them tall, bulky, and somewhat lizard-like.
Below them and beside them, extending up past their level and fading into foggy indefiniteness, the void faintly pulsed, as if in weird synchronization with the prosaic rhythms of the Black Hole accounting section on the other, non-trancendent side of the walkway.
The major-domo chattered blithely away, overflowing with complacent pride in what he clearly considered his own domain.
"You can't get better security," he was saying. "Absolutely revolt-proof. No way the stock can unite in a rebellion, you see. No crossing those gaps, no transportation unless we direct it to them. And it holds, well, virtually infinite capacity. Far more than we can actually keep track of, to be honest. The stock is kept on – we call them islands, you can almost make out a group of them – see that darker, misty shape in the undefined space, there? Here, from this spot you can almost see it. We can set up as many of those as we want. The stock live in colonies where they mostly take care of themselves. Cuts down on maintenance fantastically. Except that it has required a big increase in guards, you know, to prevent suicides – the devils will find ways around even the best barriers, mechanical or forcefield, and once they manage to jump out into that, you know – well, you can imagine."
Piranha didn't have any great desire to imagine, but images came to him nevertheless. "What does happen to them if they – fall?"
"Well, there isn't exactly anything to fall into. It's not clear if they even continue to exist." The major-domo swung out an expansive arm. "Fantastic security, but it's true it can make for some administrative conundrums. We've discovered colonies on islands that got mislaid for a while, which over generations had developed new civilizations – and a couple of times the little bastards have come up with some pretty sophisticated defense systems. Took some work to get them under control, I can tell you. So we don't let them grow their own food or have their own natural resources anymore – have to keep those islands pretty much desert. Hurts the survival rate a bit, but it saves trouble in the long run."
"Generations? I – I thought this was a new ship?" Piranha ventured.
"Yep. Still a few space-time bugs to work out, you know. Absolutely cutting-edge technology."
Pausing to squint into the disorienting depths, Piranha thought he could make out shifting darker patches which might indeed be more solid. At moments they seemed at nearly star-like distances, and at moments almost close enough to touch, looking both misty with distance and at brief instants large, sharp, and clear. Most disturbingly, like dreams their shapes vanished from his memory the instant he shifted his gaze.
As he stood still, it crept into his awareness that for some time now, in fact since he arrived on this level, he had been unconsciously tensing; faintly bristling at a nearly imperceptible, subliminal level of odour in the powerfully recirculated air. He couldn't tell where it was coming from... Surely not from out in that?
Despite the gleaming brightness of the metal structures around him, the appearance of solidity and spaciousness, despite the industriousness and casual unconcern of the hundreds of workers trotting up and down the walkways as though they were surrounded by nothing like an infinite chasm, the place was deeply oppressive.
Piranha glanced again into the void. There was a low, sub-audible rumbling of agony permeating the place, indefinable, unlocatable. And, as he breathed it in, gradually familiar.
It felt like the "coffins" on the Insurrection. That was it.
That was what was down there. Invisible, unrememberable containment chambers. Simultaneous life support and torture devices.
Never until this moment had he completely grasped what it would have meant to the people of that – that planet, if they had come to this. Loss of freedom, loss of home, loss of life – terrible enough, but this? No one in that joyous, innocent place could ever have conceived of such a fate; couldn't have conceived of anyone who would force another living creature into such a fate.
And he'd thought the Insurrection was Hell. It was only the gangway – the feeding chute – to hell. This was the real thing, the gravitational centre of it.
He turned away from the railing and plodded drearily after the others.
"Now," the guide was burbling, "if you'll come this way I'll show you around our offices, the absolute pinnacle of self-maintaining stock management —"
"Impressive, no doubt," Anaconda drawled, "but I don't care. Enough sightseeing. Point me towards your stock of personal attendants. The better class of them."
"Excuse me?"
"You know what I'm here for."
The major-domo dithered a little. "We were terribly flattered that you couldn't wait to come visit the Black Hole," he pleaded. "The Master barely had time to send a message that you were arriving. He was truly desolate that he couldn't be here to escort you —"
"That was the idea," Anaconda said. "Can't take any more of the monologuing blob." He glared at his first mate. "Need to be able to think."
"But he should be here in less than an hour and would surely prefer to present the merchandise to you in person. However, Lord Anaconda, if you insist, I can take you myself —"
"No. You'll direct me. And you'll stay here. You know your merchandise is perfectly secure, with all the monitors you've got everywhere. Which way?"
The major-domo hesitated again, then, with a resigned sigh, pointed. "Up that walkway. You see the corridors branching off? Take the second one on the right. The first is for the hyper-class units, exotic and highly specialized, mostly for ultraquadrillionaires who've become jaded with anything, er, normal, and probably far more than you're looking to spend; the third and beyond are more run-of-the-mill models – not up to your standards, Lord Anaconda. I think you'll be pleased with the second set. You won't find daintier creatures anywhere."
"Sounds suitable," Anaconda said. He glared again at Piranha. "Come. Now. Be quiet."
"And, Lord Anaconda, when you leave, there are several elevators within the corridors. Normal physical elevators. They'll take you back down to the rotunda. I'll meet you there and escort you out. If you wish to buy, simply press the white button beside any display and we'll take care of the details before you depart. Oh, and as you cross the threshold to the display area, don't be concerned at the blinding flash of light that goes off. That's just for identification."
Wheeling away from him, Anaconda took hold of Piranha's back, firmly though without overt anger, and swept him along the walkway towards the corridors. Glancing back, Piranha saw the major-domo speaking quietly into the device on his wrist.
Trotting to keep up with Anaconda's strides, Piranha tried a preliminary cough. He opened his mouth, only to be met with "Quiet!" from the Boss. So he closed it again.
There were hundreds of them, on both sides of the corridor, laid out in individual glassed-in display compartments like diamonds in velvet cases. The cases themselves were quite beautiful – gleaming, elegant, gently glowing with clear light.
Though the smell he'd perceived in the atrium was stronger here, layered beneath the cloying stink of mingled heavy perfumes; an insinuation of sweat, blood, dirt, exhaustion, despair.
Anaconda was lounging down the corridor, lazily swinging his thin white switch, contemplating each glowing box with a detached but alert interest. He glanced at Piranha, grinning.
"I have to admit, quite an upgrade! especially for that gold-fondling skinflint. And after all his talk of 'Oh but Captain, you've no idea how the slave business is falling off these days, what with more and more civilizations using robots!'" He snickered. "Robots? The idea! Still, it is remarkable how he's streamlined his operations. I could learn a thing or two. I let slaves on the Insurrection get away with murder ... not to mention the human pirates. Sheer laziness on my part."
He stopped, turning to face Piranha directly. Again he grinned, more widely. "But every time I come here, I have to laugh. The pitiful absurdity of it. Slaves making each other slaves. The striving of inferior beings to label others, precisely like themselves, as even more inferior. Amusing, isn't it, Piranha? Though I suppose, being one of them yourself... Ah well, it's pointless expecting you to have any sense of humour."
Piranha declined to respond. They walked on, pausing briefly at each display.
"I rather like that one, what do you think?" Anaconda murmured, gesturing at a slender being with elegantly mottled reptilian-like skin of gold, black, and brown, her sinuous body twined over and around a velvety white couch, her six short limbs articulated among the cushions with artistic negligence. Her two coppery, slit-pupilled eyes fixated Piranha as he stood admiring her, uneasy, feeling rude at staring, yet fascinated. Anaconda gave him a brief, sharp glance.
"She's beautiful," Piranha said. "I didn't know there were people like that."
"Of course you didn't," said Anaconda dryly.
"Can they hear us talking about them?"
"How would I know? All right, keep moving."
They walked down the rather dim corridor, illuminated mostly by the gleaming display cases. Piranha trudged after Anaconda, his gaze mainly on the floor. Anaconda strolled along at a slow pace, examining the merchandise on offer with a judicious air.
"I have to hand it to that old lecher, he knows how to pick them. And how to show them off. Did you ever see such a cornucopia? These are, you know, far superior to his Class I specimens – calling those 'specialized' is putting it mildly. A bunch of scarecrows and horrors – though, I gather, highly trained and of some unusual proclivities. But I don't suppose you'd know anything about that. "
"I don't suppose I would," agreed Piranha, indifferently.
Anaconda chuckled. "But he certainly does. In fact, it's an absolute mania with him, his impeccable judgement of slaveflesh. That's the beauty of it. The perfection of the joke."
Piranha glanced at him without interest. Anaconda turned a glittering grin on him.
"The joke, my little First Mate, being that the old sot can't see any further than the skin. Did you know, by the way, that I can see right through you? Literally? My sonar vision is quite good! In any case, the fat grocer finally coaxed me out of an extra 200 topnotch slaves in exchange for tipping me off to a prime target, a lush planet open and yearning for invasion. Oh, he tried to play hard to get at first, but in the end he had to wheedle till I reluctantly let myself get talked into giving them up, my last precious special trainees, male and female." He gave Piranha a startlingly unexpected shove of good-fellowship. "You look tense, First Mate. Not worrying about the bugs in here, are you? In deference to the delicate sensibilities of extremely wealthy clients, they only track body motions in this corridor, not conversations. Assuming that hasn't been changed." Still grinning, he went on, "Just wait till the Man of Illustrious Penetration finds out how special those slaves really are." He chuckled again, then, to Piranha's physical shock, laughed outright. "They are beautiful specimens, every one of them. Absolutely gorgeous. And might stay that way as long as two or three months."
He certainly had Piranha's attention now. "What does that mean? Who are they?"
"Why, just a bunch of useless old superfluities pumped up by my medical human. His Pompous Gloriosity inspected them himself, never suspected a thing. Truly, Piranha, it is a sobering thing to behold the profundity of greed that can be expressed by a human face. If only I could see that mug of his when those slaves start to deflate into the decrepit bonebags they actually are! I did think of planting an eye-camera in one or two of them, but it was just too risky. Ah well." He chuckled again. "That'll pay him back for last time. Meanwhile, I have a planet bursting with ripe, healthy primitives."
"Ancient – You – you sold him a bunch of old slaves?"
"Old slaves; sick, damaged, and otherwise useless and unsalable slaves, yes. And a handful of over-the-hill human pirates – those always make terrible slaves if kept on board the Insurrection. No end of trouble. This way they're of some use."
"You – sold him your own men?" For a moment Piranha could not get past that thought, but then the more frantic one pushed it aside. "And old slaves? There aren't that many old ones on board, and most of them are my —"
"Oh, yes, you had been coddling some of them, hadn't you? Feeding them up and putting them on soft duty? That worked out well actually, they plumped up much more quickly than they would have otherwise."
"Coddling? They were my administrators! They were full of knowledge about the ship! The pirates! Pay! Everything! They kept track of —"
"Well, you had them to play with for a while, but they serve a better cause now – putting that flesh-peddler in his place."
"But – What will happen to them when he finds out?"
"As long as they're no longer encumbering my ship, I don't see how that matters."
Piranha took a harsh breath. "... That human doctor ..."
"Yes, he's a straight-up genius with cosmetic surgery and hormonal alteration. Probably the best I've ever had on board. Remind me to give the fellow a little something – in so many ways, I could hardly run the ship without him."
Piranha said nothing. Affably, still basking a little, Anaconda continued, "Now get on with it, Piranha, make up your mind. Which of these excellent ladies do you want?"
"Want? Me?"
"What do you think we're here for?"
"I thought you were —" Piranha halted; took a sharp breath. Last night. In all the day's turmoil, it had completely slipped his mind. "You want one of these for me? But what for?"
"Oh, come on, Piranha, and after I had almost convinced that blubber tub you actually understand such things."
Piranha had had enough witty remarks on that subject. "I understand 'such things,' Anaconda. But I already have a female slave. Remember this afternoon?"
"You're joking, I take it? Or else I really don't believe you have any concept of what's in front of you. That shabby little thing? I'd forgotten how absurd she was. She can't even comb her hair! Any of these females is worth thousands of her. Look at that one!"
That one – was exquisite. Slender, supple, as tall as Anaconda, with short, sleek, silkily gleaming white fur that lengthened into a soft crest at her head and down her back, culminating in a sinuous tail. Tiny bright jewels glittered here and there in that fur, as though she were made of stars. The skin that showed at her head, around her eyes, and her hands, feet and angular cheeks was indeed as black as space. The eyes too were jet black, all pupil, bright as a small animal's, though langourously half-shuttered as she lay draped across her black couch. They aimed in Piranha's direction with unfocused indifference as he turned to look at her. But his breath caught as he felt that gaze momentarily brush his.
The brief but startling power of that touch; physically, her long, lithe lankiness; her air of constrained repose, as though, unconcerned as she appeared, she might at the first opportunity launch into careless but devastatingly violent attack; her pure, spare, imperious animality and evident intelligence; all brought another image – forcibly, unwillingly, painfully – before his eyes. Involuntarily, his face averted, his whole body.
"Now," Anaconda said, "You can't deny that one's attractive. And, I hope, mammalian enough for you? She looks horribly spoiled and willful, but I have a notion you enjoy that sort of thing. Anyway, temperament can be dealt with easily enough if you want to do it. What do you say? She's not cheap, but she's yours if you want her."
Piranha could not keep his glance from flicking once again towards her. Those languid, pitiless eyes, aloof and dispassionate, did not deign to meet his again; and a hot stab of anguish ran him through like molten metal. Deeply submerged behind her air of austere unconcern, her uncaring, automatic seductiveness, her repressed ferocity – something had seen him, hoped, pleaded, despaired, spurned. That stoic gaze flicked once more towards him, away from him; and he stood still, slightly tremulous. The walls were suddenly distant from him, the room around him cavernous, hollow, vast, swiftly retreating...
Never in his life had he refused a direct, deliberate plea for help. Never in his life.
He had a vision of – that distant other, a captive, in the exact place and pose as this slave, as fierce and as helpless; and then of Elly – somewhat comically and entirely pathetically – polished, buffed, coiffed, ornamented, and decorated; awkwardly splayed half-smothered among those oversized cushions.
Was there no way to —
He couldn't. He mustn't.
She had turned away, coldly, scarring him with cynicism. And she was right.
Hundreds of them around him, all desperate, all suffocating in bitterness, anguish, desolation.
All of them imagining he wasn't as much a slave, wasn't as powerless to change anything, as they were.
Couldn't he rescue one?
Rescue? A being like that of barely-contained ferocity, of infinite torment and rage and grief, what would she do to Elly? What would she do to the ship? ... What would the ship do to her?
If he could take one of these savagely hurt creatures someplace sane to recover – but to the madness of the Insurrection? Where she – any of them – would be yet another unpredictable vector of chaos in a bundle that daily was writhing further beyond his control.
He had never refused. He couldn't refuse. What would it do to him to refuse?
He took a shuddering breath. And a spasm of rage welled in him.
He mustn't. This was what he had made. He mustn't. He had to calculate, evaluate. He had to decide to commit evil, dispassionately. Or not dispassionately, what difference did that make?
Whatever it was, it came to the simple fact that he had to deliberately choose not to help a being in desperate need. A being who had, however covertly and unadmittedly, implored him for help. Was still, savage and unaware, imploring him.
All the fury, all the anguish of the last two days poured over him like hot lava. This was his doing, no one else's. He had created it and there was no way out of it. The lava would congeal into rock.
In utter weariness, his body sagged a little, turned away. Though there was nowhere to turn. There was no away. His eyes closed, he forced them open.
"No," he muttered.
"What?"
"No."
"Great grinding gears, even this one isn't good enough? What in the name of arc-light are you looking for?"
Piranha took in a long, long breath, and let it out hard. "Nothing, Anaconda," he said. "I'm not looking. Now if I could get back to the ship, there's —"
Anaconda straightened to his full height, took a step back as if to glare at him more thoroughly. "May I inquire what more you want, you sulky brat? Would you prefer another dozen cleaning slaves perhaps? I didn't think you had that kind of interest, but maybe we should be looking at males? Animals? Plants?"
Piranha, shaken out of his hot misery, stared at him.
"This is not the gratitude that is owed to me, Piranha."
Piranha spread out his hands. "One slave is enough, I don't need two! Anaconda, it's not that I don't appreciate —"
The robot stepped abruptly closer, towering over him.
"No, you do not. You don't appreciate in the least what is happening, you little fool. Now listen. I am making you an offer. Are you listening?"
Piranha's gaze wandered to the series of display cases and back. "I'm not asking you to —"
"Shut up. Listen. Piranha, I'm making you an offer. Now, keep that drab little thing if you think she's useful for cleaning or whatnot. But you have the status of a high-ranking pirate in a position of extreme power, and you are fumbling at fully becoming that. Do you understand me? It's important for you to take the proper attitude towards your subordinates. They need to fear you, of course. And they should also envy you, which magnifies your power. Understand? Now, I'm going to buy you one of these slaves. Do you realize what that will do for your status on board? You will be envied, obviously. But even more, you will be feared. Because I gave her to you! Can you get that through that scatterbrained, dewy-eyed, fairy-logged, implacably simple processor of yours?"
Piranha was gaping at him. "I see. I didn't realize this was so important. – But —"
Anaconda whipped his stick through the air with a crack. "More excuses?"
"Anaconda, I just don't – I can't —"
"Are you refusing?"
A bolt of terror flashed up and down Piranha's spine. He froze.
An endless moment; then, unhurriedly, Anaconda reached down and plucked Piranha's hat from his head. With cold, deliberate force, he flung it away. From his great height he glared down at the small figure.
"Piranha. Your memory needs refreshing. I think you'd better swear your loyalty to me."
Piranha, still paralyzed, didn't stir.
Coolly, with no change of expression, Anaconda raised his arm and slashed the thin whip across Piranha's face. Piranha staggered back a step. A red line flushed across his cheek and nose, where the stick had narrowly missed an eye. Piranha continued to stare up at him, his chest rising slowly with visible breaths.
Quietly, Anaconda said again, "Swear your loyalty to me."
Piranha said, just as quietly, "I swear to obey you as my captain."
"And as your master."
"And as my master."
"To do my bidding, rational or irrational."
"To do your bidding, rational or irrational."
"Whatever the cost to yourself, for the greater glory of the Insurrection."
"Whatever the cost to myself, for the greater glory of the Insurrection." Piranha repeated the words without expression.
"And never," Anaconda added, smiling glacially, "to forget the actual significance of your little moment in the vast history of that eternal ship."
Piranha eyes stayed on him as he spoke, flatly. "And never to forget the actual significance of my little moment in the vast history of that eternal ship."
Anaconda smiled again with metallic satisfaction. He straightened up. "Very well. Now, you pitiful hick, I think I'll let you off this time. Forget the female. If you're so dead-set on making things difficult for yourself, why should I interfere? Go on now and play at being first mate. And don't go moping around this blimp in one of your moods and get caught here – I'd hate to let that jiggling giggler get you for free.
"Meet me in the Insurrection control room around 2600 hours, after the undocking. I'll have orders.
"Now get going. I'm going to look around here a little longer."
With that, he turned away from Piranha and sauntered on down the hall, smacking the long switch absently against his leg.
It took a moment or two. Then Piranha was able to inhale, pick up his hat, and walk a trifle shakily away in the opposite direction, towards one of the exit elevators.