Piranha - Chapter 14, Part 4b

PIRANHA
Chapter 14:  The Black Hole, Part 4b:

While living cargo was being offloaded in the front part of the bottom level, in the rear an immense auditorium had been put together, where most of the Insurrection’s population had gathered for the show.  The metal wall separating the two events was so thick and solid that even with less noise going on in the auditorium, no one would ever have heard a sound from the vast room on the other side.  There was no direct way to get from one to the other, and in order to reach the back part of the intake level, Piranha had had to climb back up the stairs to take an elevator from two levels above.  That elevator, along with several others, opened on a crude lobby, deserted now except for a few irritable robot guards.  They were stationed before some large double doors punctuating an alarmingly wide wall.  Given the quantity of noise emanating from behind that wall, Piranha might well be the last pirate on the ship to arrive.

He glanced at the nearest guard (who sullenly returned his look) but didn’t enter.  


What would happen if he simply turned around and went back to his cabin?  


Right, very funny.  Piranha cinched his belt tighter, unbuttoned then re-buttoned a fastener on his vest, adjusted the energy gun under his jacket, pulled up his gloves.  Then, leaning forward a little and with one hand shoving his hat forward at a belligerent angle, he pushed through the nearest door and into the auditorium.

***

He had experienced mob scenes on the Insurrection before: his battle with Blargh, the banquet after an invasion, the invasion itself, the massive return of booty onto the ship, even the slave quarters themselves.  But never had he been in such an enormous space so overflooded with pirates all in such a hyperexcited state.

The room itself, by sheer size, was physically stunning.  Once again it brought home to him the immensity of the ship.  This space, marred only by a few thick columns, with a ceiling that could have contained trees, would easily have swallowed the entire village that – a village that could have existed on any small primitive planet.  He could hardly see all the way across it.  Of course, the alcoholic haze in the air didn’t help visibility.

At the far end of the room, raised somewhat above robot height, he could make out an enormously wide stage with even wider covered wings on both sides, together stretching the entire width of the hall.  In the space between that stage and the entrance where he now stood, was the population of the Insurrection, both robot and human.  

Only a skeleton crew of pirates was left to patrol the empty ship, along with a contingent of slaves working furiously in the kitchens.  Piranha knew that, having arranged it himself.  But even knowing that, even seeing the sight, hearing the deafening noise, and inhaling the distinctive odor of piracy in the aggregate, it was hard to take in the sheer volume of humanity carousing before him.  


Piranha hesitated just inside the door before plunging into that writhing mass.  The lighting was low, but everything was visible.  On both sides of the hall huge viewscreens had been put up, presumably to give the audience a closer look at the distant stage.  At the moment they were blank.  There were no seats or rows or organization of any sort.  The hall was simply a flat floor awash with pirates – thousands of pirates standing, sitting, sprawling, caroming off each other, trampling each other underfoot, objecting in various ways, auditory and physical, to being trampled on...  He saw mostly human pirates, but there were also scattered clumps of robots, whose angular shapes rose in tight, rather still groups above the crazy motion of the crowd.

He ventured forward and immediately lost all view of the stage in the riot of giants.  A few kicks and a warning jab or two with a sheathed dagger quickly cleared him some space, however, and the word began to spread that the First Mate had arrived.

“Y’r late, better hurry to the officers’ box,” a human pirate, lying collapsed in a pool of rum with his head conveniently close to Piranha’s level, told him.  

“The officers’ what?”

The pirate, grinning cheerfully despite the two black eyes and fine assortment of bruises decorating his face, pointed in the direction of the stage.  “See it?  Big high metal thing,” he drawled.  “If you can get there.”  And lapsed happily into unconsciousness.

So that’s what that thing was.  Piranha headed for the large rectangular metal box not far from the stage.  In fact, at very first glance he had thought it was the stage, but the fact that he could see it at all indicated that it was raised up off the floor, very high so as not to block the view of the groundlings milling around, behind, and even below it.  As he worked his way closer, peering through the alcoholic murk and between momentary gaps in the masses of large bodies seething round him, he caught glimpses of its supporting cross-hatched metal pylons, with numbers of pirates perched in amongst the struts to get a better view.

He was distracted for a moment by raucous laughter somewhere near him.  In fact, there was quite a bit of it, laughter and sarcastic shouts spurting out of the crowd –  all around him, but nowhere specific that he could pin down.

“Whoo!  Piranha!  You put Hacker in the brig yet?”

“He’s coming back for a return match!”

“Five to one on Hacker!”

“Nah, three to two on Piranha, he wins if he’ll just fight!”

“Go humans!”

“Go robots!”

“To hell with them all, start the show!”

There was mocking applause that grew and shifted, eventually falling into a kind of rhythm with Piranha’s movements.  Piranha glanced around sourly, stomped grimly on.  At least this way he didn’t have to fight his way through – now they cleared a path ahead of him and cheered as though he were a parade, tossing the occasional bit of food into the air or spraying something alcoholic across his path.  They didn’t quite throw anything at him, however.  And when the diminutive First Mate glowered in any direction, the edge of the mob bulged away from his glare as though his eyes shoved them back physically.

So he knew, despite his embarrassment at Hacker’s “trial” that morning, despite all the jeering now, that he was still First Mate.  That was fortunate, as he would prefer not to have to start a war just now with the whole pirate population.  He had enough to deal with already.

In particular, of course, Anaconda.  


Reaching the metal frame, he saw the cross-hatching was eight sturdy pairs of cross-beamed girders supporting a very large rectangular metal box.  The bottom of the box was about thirty feet up.  Piranha ignored the circular stairways on either side and leaped directly onto the cross-braces of the nearest girders – incidentally setting loose from the neighbouring spectators a chorus of howls and cheers.  The cheers were more or less genuine; if nothing else, Piranha was always good for a show.

(Though he wasn’t doing it for show.  He just hated the monotony of going round and round a narrow staircase; for him it was easier to take the direct route.  And living in the dreary dimness and confinement of the ship, his body continually craved action.)  Rapidly, agile as a squirrel, he scrambled up the metal braces.


Arriving at the side of the box, he could see it was surrounded by glasslike windows on three sides and contained some eight steeply sloped tiers of benches – very large benches suitable for twelve-foot-tall robots – with several tiers of more human-sized theatre-style seats at the rear.   As his head popped up in no place a head should be, he almost got himself stabbed through the open window by a startled pirate.

“Stop!” Piranha shouted.  The pirate – it was Luga, one of Hacker’s dirty-bronze metal thugs – gaped at him in confusion, his dagger still upraised.

“It’s just the First Mate,” snorted another robot nearby.  “You know his stunts.  Move over and let him in.”

“Bo-oss...” A singsong whine came from the very front bench.  Unmistakably the voice, indeed emanating from the very large body, of the second mate, Hacker.  His small rolling brass eyeballs slid away from Piranha’s derisive gaze.  “He’s finally arrived.  Your First Mate.”

Luga moved sullenly aside, pushing the clear panel further open, and Piranha clambered in.  He slid down onto the metal bench.  Immediately he was boxed in – dwarfed by Luga next to him, he could see nothing but the bulk of another metal carcass in the seat in front.  

He had only had a moment to take a breath when another voice from the very back of the room boomed out.  “Well!  It’s that little toy dwarf of yours, finally!  Hey, Watsyername, Tinypop, get over here!”

Piranha didn’t stir.  But then came the inevitable, the expected voice; just now mellow and sardonic.

“Piranha.  So at last you deign to join us.”  

“Deign tootin’,” snickered Grouper, his voice thick with glee at his own wit.

Piranha turned to see, in the center of the highest tier of seats, enthroned on a padded, comfortable chair, the Boss himself, Anaconda.  To his left was a small table with jugs of rum, cups, and a plate of food; and next to that, embedded in almost as broad and comfortable a seat as Anaconda’s (if slightly too narrow for him), was the expansive shape of Grouper.  

At the slaver’s comment, Anaconda shot him a sideways glance radioactive enough to have congealed the jollity out of any organism that still retained a soul; but the human only chuckled and leaned back, smiling beatifically.  The Boss turned his yellow glare in Piranha’s direction.  “Sit here,” he said.  He pointed to an empty seat just in front of and below his own.

Piranha clambered over and around several benches of irritated robots, and sat there.  The row of theatre seats he sat in, and the similar row in front of it, were empty, so he now had an excellent view of the inside of the box and out onto the stage.

“Grinding gears, Luga, close that window!  Sparks, what a stinking racket out there,” Anaconda snapped.  “Stink and racket.  Piranha, I warned you to be on time – now you’ve waded through that filthy mob and brought half the rum in the room along in your clothes.”  He paused, then, snatching off Piranha’s hat, peered at him intently.  Piranha half-turned to blandly meet his gaze.  

Anaconda dropped the heavy hat back onto his first mate’s head.  “From the look of you,” he said, acidly, “it would seem you had to brawl your way through the mob.  Contending, it appears, with every single pirate on board.  Are you losing dominance over the crew, First Mate?  Very unwise.”

Piranha shrugged.  “Well, I can always pick a fight with Hacker.  Instant fix for my popularity.”

Hacker twitched and turned to glance at Piranha, then turned away before those cool, mildly amused black eyes met his.  “You can’t fight me, First Mate,” he whimpered.  “I pledged myself your man, remember?”

“I do remember.  I thought you’d forgotten.”

“Enough, you two,” Anaconda said tartly.  “Leave the brawls to the groundlings.  The show’s starting, pay attention.”


Although the room lights did not dim any further, the big viewscreens now flickered and lit up, displaying in enormous magnification the figures and equipment being wheeled and dragged out onto the stage.  Four heavy wooden stands were fixed in place, and the slave stagehands scurried off.  Securely attached to each stand was a human form.  Piranha stared at them.

There was a pause – either an attempt to maximize drama or the byproduct of simple incompetence.

All of those men on the stage were pirates.  In closeups on the viewscreens, although their faces were turned away, Piranha recognized each of them.

And now, looking mountainous on the viewscreens, out of the wings strode a tall, long-haired, powerfully muscled human.  He paused under a searing blue spotlight that made his half-naked, apparently oiled body gleam like metal.  His arms were crossed stiffly over his chest; held up in each hand and flowing down over each shoulder was a long, knotted, barbed cat-o’-nine-tails.  A tsunami of boos and cheers arose from the audience.  The man showed no sign of hearing any of it.  Slowly, heavily, indeed majestically, he stalked onto the stage.  

Piranha squinted at him.  Who was this?  Not a pirate.  A slave?  Would Anaconda seriously want a slave to —  Pirates were inured to punishment, certainly, they didn’t even consider it a disgrace, but for a slave to —

His eyes narrowed, black and glittering, as the action began.  Of course punishment on the ship was hardly unusual.  This was just being done with rather more – flair.  And technique.  And thoroughness.  Quite a lot more thoroughness.

Turning away from the stage, he ran his gaze over the elite company around him.  Spread across the first several rows of the box, nearest the front glass panel, were some thirty of the top-ranking robots of the Insurrection – Anaconda’s main henchmen, bodyguards, spies, and their immediate underlings.  No human pirates were present.  Right behind Piranha, the Boss sat at the centre of the back row, along with the guest of honour, Grouper.  Directly in front of Piranha were two mostly empty rows.  On the left side of the box was a cluster of ten or twelve men, obviously Grouper’s contingent; all massive, muscular, and rotund, though none came close to the perfect globular form of the Slaver himself.  Unlike the monk-like Grouper, these were grandly, flowingly bearded, finely garbed in elaborate multicoloured robes glittering with bright metals and jewels, and crowned with towering, wildly ornate headdresses.  Each of them echoed the Slaver’s ponderous, grandiloquent manner of speech and movement.  They sat murmuring and chuckling confidentially together, occasionally glancing or gesturing derisively at the robots or the mob outside.  The robots, ostentatiously oblivious, snickered among themselves and shot only the rare contemptuous glance back at the intruding humans.

Counting over the various pirate officers in the box, Piranha realized that the only high-ranking robot missing was his own lieutenant, Tulik.  A flash of panic hit him – was he supposed to have ordered Tulik to come, had he gotten himself or the robot into trouble?  No, no, surely not – most likely, Tulik was quite aware of the occasion, but simply didn’t care to attend.  Piranha could guess – now, with the new perspective he had gained on the relationship between Tulik and Anaconda – that the silver robot wasn’t much missed if he didn’t show up.  


The noise from the stage was audible even over the roar of the crowd outside, not to mention the growling of the pirate officers and the decorous murmurs of the Slaver’s company.  Grumpily, Piranha slouched back into the seat, which was nearly large enough for his small body to lie flat, and pulled the wide brim of his black hat down over his face.  In this position, the backs of the seats in front of him blocked what little he could see past the hat.

Nothing, however, blocked his hearing.  The piped-in noises of the performance blared out of speakers all around the officers’ box.  

To avoid listening to that he put his attention on the conversation behind him.  That wasn’t much of an improvement.


“And here he is at last, Lord Gripper, my latest and most – unaccountable protégé.  As you can see, I’m deep in the process of attempting to domesticate him.  He’s got the violence part down perfectly, but – it’s been a struggle to instill in him some awareness of the more refined side of pirate life.”

There was a pause while Grouper studied the ragged hat below him and the little he could see of the sprawled body beneath it.  “Do you really think it’s worth the effort?”

“Oh, to give up merely because the odds are against one, Slaver?  I disdain such cowardice.”

“Quite right.  A noble attitude, a ringing tribute to the selfless dedication you have always shown towards your crew.”

“I admit I love a challenge, my friend.  Take the performers tonight, for example.  You can’t believe how hard I labored over them.  How about that mangler onstage?  Look at that stroke!  Smooth as oil and hard as titanium!”

“Not bad, Captain, not bad.  That was pretty good just now when he took on all four subjects at once, with two whips in each hand.  Nice flourish, good follow-through, shows real potential.”

“Only potential?”

“Well, friend automaton, don’t take it personally, but I’ve seen better.”

“Ah well.  How could a mere robot ship with eons of piracy and torture behind it ever hope to rival the endlessly renewing ingenuities of humans?  Still, even so, I thought we could, in our modest way, present something at least – a little fresh – a little uncultivated, a little naïve perhaps, but —”

“Oh, don’t be offended, old boy.  The fellow has talent, nobody can deny that.”

“Alas, like so many overly pampered artists, he’s become lazy, all ego, no inspiration, no ignition.  Why, my first mate here might do better.”

“What! That?  Comedy is fine in its place, but—”

“Uh-uh.  Don’t underestimate him.”

“Come now, tin man, he doesn’t even reach up to a normal pirate’s knees!  What good is he?”

“What good?  If I let you, you wouldn’t hesitate an instant to snatch him for yourself.”

“Oh, well, that’s different.  There’s always a market for the grotesque.  Thinking of changing your mind?”

“Oh, no, no.  Hardly.  But...  Well, just for curiosity’s sake, if I did let you buy him, what would you offer?  What’s a specimen like that worth?”

“Uh-uh, I’m not playing that game.  Besides, you said he was violent – though of course you were pulling my leg.  Look at him snoring away there!  When he’s not being insolent, he’s barely alive.”

“Don’t let that fool you.  I told you he single-handedly converted Blargh into barely reusable spare parts.  Didn’t he, Hacker?” Anaconda’s languid voice raised a notch or two to be heard by the gigantic white robot, whose bulk obscured a third of the front row in the middle of the grandstand.  “Hacker, back me up here.”

Declining to turn his attention from the stage, the Second Mate emitted an irritable grunt.  “Huh?”

“Oh, never mind.  Piranha, am I not telling the truth?”

Piranha yawned, very audibly under his hat, and slouched back even further in his seat.  “You, telling the truth?  Why, Anaconda, you can’t want me to embarrass you like that.  Think of our pirate honour!”

The slaver let out a snort of a chuckle which he tried to smother with a cough that collapsed into a belch.  There was a pause.  Then the robot smiled – always a disconcerting effect.  “I should know better,” he drawled, “than to expect anything today from this rabble.  – Seriously, though, Slaver, I find myself becoming interested.  Just what would you offer for that overconfident little piece of smugness down there?”

“Oh, well, hmm...  Well, as I say, weird freaks can bring in quite a price in the right market.  But if he really is vicious, that’s another matter.  He’d have to be modified – you know, crippled a bit.  I can’t start getting a reputation for peddling dangerous merchandise.”

“Any modifications you want you’ll have to do yourself.  That’s not my business.”

“It’ll reduce my offer, then.”

“Fine.  Merchandise as-is.  How much?”

The slaver eyed the indifferent Piranha.  “Mmm...  I’d say thirty goldbiks.”

“Thirty goldbiks?”

“Thirty-five.”

“Thirty goldbiks!  First Mate, are you going to let this fellow insult you like that?  Not to mention the insult to me?”

Piranha, motionless in his chair, didn’t open his eyes.  “Anaconda, after all these months of your finely detailed explanations of what I’m worth, I’d be gratified to bring in even one goldbik.”

Anaconda snorted.  “Listen to him lie, the little hair-sprouter.  As if I didn’t already pay a whole planet for him.  Admittedly, too steep a price, even if it wasn’t much of a planet.”

“A planet?”  Grouper chuckled, tentatively – evidently hoping in that a moment he would get the joke.  

“Yes; an uncultivated, soggy, rust-inducing swamp, but nevertheless a planet.  Surely you think that was worth something more than one goldbik, Piranha?”

Piranha sat up, stretched, yawned.  “To be honest,” he said placidly, “If it were me on that stage, I would not have made that clumsy double thrust.  Did you see that?  He almost fell on his face.  And he’s the best you could come up with?”  Piranha yawned once more.  “Then the victims.  Pathetic!  Couldn’t you have found a few that didn’t have laryngitis?  Where’s the care, the planning in this debacle?”

Grouper chuckled.  “Now for once the little hair-sprouter has a point, Captain.  You could at least try a rougher floor surface, wouldn’t get so slippery —”

“And so repetitive!”  Piranha added.  “So monotonous!  Not bad moves, but the same ones over and over, no variation, no style —”

Behind him, a metallic crash. “DAMN your worthless hide!”  Lying almost flat, hidden by his hatbrim, Piranha tensed, ready.

The scream came again, with even greater force.  Anaconda’s voice could range anywhere from deep bass to high tenor, and it was pitched at the top of its register now. “SCUM!”

Gently Piranha’s hands gathered into fists.  Then he blinked.  Beyond the officers’ stand, the Boss’s words could be heard reverberating throughout the auditorium, fractionally behind each one as it emerged directly over Piranha’s head. “Rust-eater! Illubricant!  This is supposed to be the big finish, you sluggardly, creaking lout!  Put some arm into it!  Or you’ll switch places with one of your victims!  With all of them!”

Piranha held his breath a moment; then exhaled.  His fists relaxed.  

Under his hat he grinned, just a little.


On the stage, the performer had reacted much like Piranha, freezing in mid-thrash.  Now he set to again at triple speed, his bulky arms almost blurring.  Around the hall, fresh cheers, some enthusiastic, some perhaps ironic, swelled in the rum-laden air.

Anaconda, having surged to his feet, thumped back into his chair.  Irritably he jabbed the tiny built-in microphone in his arm to turn it off, and snapped his long arms together across his chest like the blades of a pair of shears.  Grouper chuckled.

“The insolence, the disobedience, the incompetence, it never ends – does it, my dear robocommander?  Heh-heh.”  He buried another chuckle in his mug of rum.

Anaconda fixed his glare on Piranha’s hat.  Once again he snatched it off his head.

“As for you,” he growled, clearly struggling to contain his irritation, “are you going to just lie there and take the insults of a flabby civilian?”

Eyes half-shuttered, as if surprised out of sleep, Piranha gazed up at him.  “Eh?  What?  Who am I supposed to fight?”

The Slaver’s globular form congealed suddenly into something resembling rigidity.  A thin smile twitched Anaconda’s metal lips.  

“Oh,” Anaconda murmured, “I didn’t say that.  But – you brought up the honour of a pirate!  Show him what you’re made of!”

“I can fight him,” murmured Piranha, losing interest, “but it doesn’t seem sporting.”

“Not necessary.  Just be a real pirate!  Show him how much rum you can chug in one swallow!”

Piranha took back his hat and collapsed again under it.  “I don’t care for rum.”

Helpfully Anaconda snatched the hat again.  “Eh?  Couldn’t hear you.  Grounder, you see, he’s better than you think.  It seems he might actually have tried rum at some point.  You will come with us and get drunk after the show, of course, First Mate.”

“It doesn’t make me drunk.  Just slightly nauseous.”

“That will do for a start.”

Piranha looked at him without any expression.  He took his hat back but did not put it on.

“So...” he said, consideringly.  He turned and sank back into his chair, staring at the back of the seat in front of him.  

“So?” repeated Anaconda, bristling a little again.

“So,” Piranha murmured, as languid as Anaconda himself at his best, “Is that the point, then?  To kill them?”

“What?  Who?” said the Boss.

“Those – onstage there.”

“Oh, them.  Why bring that up, Piranha?  Some objection?”  

Piranha covered himself again with his hat.  He mused.  “Objection?  Well, let’s see.  Sinkta, there – Yes, he does deserve punishment.  I put him in chains just last week for stealing a gold piece from Farknashout.  But then, Farknashout stole three jewels from him two weeks before that.  Not that it matters, but—”  

“That’s just the point, First Mate.  It doesn’t matter.  I wouldn’t even use the word ‘punished.’  Who said these men were being punished?  In any case, there’s no particular necessity for them to be beaten to death.  They might not.”

“Oh,” Piranha said.  “That doesn’t matter either?”

From the front row came a derisive grunt.  Piranha sat up sufficiently to see Hacker’s massive head turned to peer back at him.   So he was listening.

“No, master, it don’t matter,” Hacker said.  The mixture of fawning, abasement, and sneer in his voice was remarkable.  “It’s no matter if he don’t die now.  Any pirate that the Boss has it in for, doesn’t have much time left, one way or the other.”

Luga, Hacker’s big bronze underling, let out a short screech of a laugh, like sheet metal tearing.  “One way or another, that’s for sure,” he said.  “Something’ll happen somehow.  It always does.  Eh, Hacker?”

“Shut up,” Hacker growled.  Luga emitted another grating metallic whirr, like a circular saw, and turned back to the show.

“Something happens somehow, Hacker?” Piranha said, casually.  “Just happens to happen somehow because of somebody?”

“Oh, now, First Mate, you’re not being sarcastic at your devoted henchman, are you?  What kind of boss would that make you?”  Hacker glanced directly at him, a glance so brief that by the time Piranha’s eyes met his he had already turned away, leaving only a shimmer of pure malevolence burning on Piranha’s retinas.

And Piranha had had enough.  Vertically he launched from his seat, teeth bared, ready to abandon sarcasm for direct discussion.  

But abruptly and painfully he was halted in mid-air as a hard metal pincer clamped onto his shoulder area.  He gasped.

Anaconda hauled him up to his own level and held him dangling for an instant.  Their eyes met without expression.  Then the robot dropped him into the empty seat on his own right.  

“First Mate,” he said, “You pick the oddest times to impose discipline.  Now sit.”

Piranha slouched back down under his hat.  After a few moments, however, he murmured, “Is it true?”

“That you are hopelessly gauche?  Certainly.”

“What that laminated fool said.  About the surviving torture victims all being killed anyway?”

“Victims?  What?  Oh, that.  Oh yes, I expect so, something will happen to them.”  Anaconda leaned back, took a lengthy pull at his cup of rum.  “The crew knows who’s unpopular with me.  They always do.”  He swung the cup for a moment, lazily, thoughtfully.  “Even if the unpopular person himself hasn’t caught on yet.”


Out in the auditorium the catcalls and cheering swelled into a roar.  It swept back and forth through the thousands of voices in enormous room; like a tidal wave it smashed even into the officer’s box, Grouper’s humans and the robot officers leaping to their feet, bellowing and waving wildly.

“Ah,” said Anaconda.  “I think the fellow’s finally hit his stride.”

***

The act over – it looked as though half the participants were still alive – Piranha stood up, unkinking his back.

“Well,” he said.  “Very nice.  Certainly an experience.  Now I must—”

“No you mustn’t,” Anaconda said flatly.  “We’ve hardly begun.  Sit down.  The next act will start in a moment.”

“What, again?  Don’t you get bored?”

“You found that boring?  Dear me, Piranha, you are demanding.  But you won’t be bored by the next act.  It’s specially tailored for the biological taste.”

Oh, gods.  “Anaconda –  Unfortunately – as the First Mate, with so much going on, so many unsupervised strangers on board, I really must —”

“Sit.  Down.”

Piranha sat down.  

“Have a cup of rum,” added the Captain, generous in victory.  

Piranha, settling his chin into his hand, merely rolled his eyes.  Anaconda grinned.


The “mangler” had bowed – glancing a little nervously at the officers’ grandstand – and stalked off the stage, still regally if a trifle hastily.  The four stands and their contents had been dragged away; the floor had been rapidly scrubbed by a team of frantic slaves.  Piranha watched, a frown settling into his brow, as the stage filled up with large, obscure objects – some like couches, some like easels, some forebodingly like more torture racks.  Around him, a tension was settling in, a sort of subdued yet agitated murmur, both inside the officers’ box and out in the hall.  

At last, some fifteen human slaves, male and female, of a variety of sizes and physical types but all of them naked, filed onto the stage.  They formed a line across the front and bowed to the immense and raucous cheer that erupted from the audience.  Then they began their act.  


Piranha stayed slumped low in his chair, but that didn’t prevent him hearing the noises piped in from the stage, nor the hoarse cries of the mob outside.  The robed humans in the box, Grouper’s companions, sat up straighter, gradually stopped whispering together, watched with intense concentration.  He felt the heavy, turgid emotion of the humans:  thick as glue, hot as burning fuel; his immersion in it, as though he were slowly sinking into a tar pit, was making him nauseous.  

The metal pirates, on the other hand, though they watched with quite as intense a fascination, gave off none of that turbid, stifling sensation.  They rolled their eyes, nudged one another, snickered, chortled, sometimes collapsed back off their benches and (greatly to the irritation of Grouper’s men) bellowed with laughter –  much as if they were watching clowns throw pies, fall on their faces, and smack one another over the head with rubber mallets.

Anaconda, all detached dignity, leaned back in his chair and negligently dangled his cup from one hand.  Grouper, his small drab eyes alternately puffing into squints and bulging open, had become uncharacteristically quiet – except for his breathing, which after a time began to chug like an asthmatic steam engine.

At which point, Anaconda piped up.  “Skilled, aren’t they, Grounder?  Don’t you think?”

The slaver glanced at him grudgingly.  “Yes, quite, quite,” he muttered, his eyes swivelling anxiously back to the stage.

“They are the best, if I do say so.  I worked with them for months and months, just for this occasion, all the time with you in mind, Ampulla.  They do please you, I hope?”

Irritably, the slaver said, “Of course, Captain, of course.  And it would be rude not to give full attention—”

“I’m so glad.  Why, Emmerdeus, the mere selection of such beauties took weeks —”

Now the human turned to him full face.  “That’s Amadeus.  And you trained them?  You always say that.  You train them all by yourself?”

“Whom else could I entrust with the task?  Poor little Piranha?”

Grouper snorted.  “Him?  Can he even understand what they’re doing?  But I am impressed, Anaconda.  I wouldn’t think that a – synthetic gentleman like yourself would have such a nuanced understanding of biological... physiology...”  His eyes drifted back towards the stage, but were recalled by Anaconda’s sharp laugh.

“Ah, human ego!  You gene-buckets greatly overestimate the difficulty of comprehending your few reproductive permutations.  There’s not so many of them, after all – don’t you think, Piranha?”

Still slumped under his hat, Piranha stirred.  “Me?  No, no, Anaconda, I’m not falling for that. You’re the one who does the thinking around here.”

Anaconda snatched him up, this time by the side, taking in shirt, vest, and a fair amount of flesh.

“First Mate, old fellow,” he said.  “Even after I went to vast trouble to ensure you got the best view of the festivities, I’m afraid you might not be fully taking it in.  And that would be a shame.  I wouldn’t want you to have to regret later missing all the fun.  Right?”

Grouper, eyes still riveted on the stage, snorted.  “Don’t waste your time trying to get a reaction out of that creature.  This show goes way, way over his head.”

“Oh?  What do you want to bet, my fine connoisseur of carnality, that he —”

“No, no, Captain.  I can hardly take a bet against you on one of your own men.  Anyway – are you sure he’s an adult?  Are you sure he’s even male?  Ever check?”  He laughed, a short bark, wiped his reddened face.  “Now please.  All this talk when we should be glorying in the exquisite artistry being offered to us!”  And he turned emphatically back to the stage.

Anaconda smiled thinly but did not object.  For a few moments he too sat watching the performance in silence.  Then he turned and gave Piranha – still in his grip – a slight shake.

“Wake up,” he said.

“I am awake,” Piranha said mildly, as though not being painfully clenched by his commander’s metal fingers.

“Good,” replied the robot.  “Now, while I have this chance – since you are a biological (er, you are, aren’t you?) – and since the slaver man, admittedly an expert, informs that as a non-biological I must have gaps in my knowledge – do enlighten me.  What was that he just did to her?  Oh, and that!  What was that for?”

Piranha smiled, a smile quite as cold, and almost as metallic, as any of Anaconda’s.  “What? The master pirate for thousands of years, planet-crusher, abductor and trainer of slaves, asking a poor little ignorant bumpkin like me?  Why, I’m—”

“Oh, heavenly universal Emanation of Light!” burst abruptly from the slaver.  His blubbery face, intent on the stage, was shining with sweat.

The look of suppressed distaste on Piranha’s face was rather closely matched by that on Anaconda’s.

***

Only when the last of the debris left on the stage was being cleared away did Anaconda finally let Piranha drop.  Piranha at once subsided into the depths of his chair, though without haste; as if his only reason all along for coming to the spectacle was to take a restful nap.

Grouper, several shades purpler than usual, paused in mopping his broad face with a handkerchief to glance at the small black figure.  He shook his head.  

“You see, Anaconda,” he sighed.  “After witnessing that truly spectacular performance – that absolute work of genius – not a word out of him, not a hint of gratitude.  Pearls before swine.  Pearls before swine.”

Anaconda eyed the small motionless form for a moment.  “Well,” he said.  “Which of us won the bet?  Did we even make it?  I confess I’m not quite sure.”

“Which bet now?”

“About my little bit of merchandise here.  Is he a man, or isn’t he?”

Piranha sat up.  “I,” he said, with grim precision, “am sick to death of being lumped in with men.  I am not human.  Don’t stick that label on me.”  He lurched back under his hat.

The two looked at him quizzically.  

“Obviously not,” Grouper said, while at the same time Anaconda snorted, “Not human?  You idiot!”

They looked at each other.  

“Clearly he isn’t a humanoid type,” Grouper said.

“Clearly he isn’t a robot,” Anaconda said.

“But—”

“Don’t quibble.  Not a robot.”

“Ah, well,” Grouper said, with a shrug.  “But does he appreciate human – performances?  That is the question I believe you were referring to. Did you appreciate the performance, little man?”

“I don’t think anybody could have appreciated it the way you did.”

“I do admit to a partiality for the arts,” Grouper said loftily.  “The human form – begging the pardon of any non-humans present – partakes nearly of the divine.”

Piranha took in a breath, but failed to say whatever was on his mind.  Instead he just let the air out again, as though no amount of breath could possibly be enough to express his opinion.  Then, so sharply he almost choked, he gasped in another.

“Now what are they doing?” he said.  His voice cracked slightly.  

Anaconda’s metallic smile.  “Oh, just a little comedy interlude,” he said.  “While they prepare backstage for the main act of the night.”

“Comedy?”


It must have been.  As the act gathered momentum, waves of laughter swept back and forth through the huge hall.  It wasn’t just the robots this time.

“Comedy,” Piranha whispered.  “By the Twins, comedy.”

“Of course, poppet.  Rather well done too, don’t you think?”

Piranha sat motionless. “Those men onstage are pirates,” he said.  “I’ve seen them before.”

“Yes, the lucky winners for this year.  We select the hundred best physical specimens, and out of that group, ten are picked by lottery.”

“That’s what that lottery was about last month?”  Piranha actually was unable to turn away now.  His fingers gripped the chair arms convulsively.  “But those two young women are —”

“Captives from your recent very successful landing, yes.  Nice ones, aren’t they?”

“Exquisite...” Grouper let out a low, grunting moan much like some large sea mammal, perhaps a walrus.  “By the Eternal Light, superb...”

The comedy apparently came from the fact that the two female performers evidently had no idea that they were performers, and ignoring the audience were screaming and fleeing, each darting separately back and forth across the broad stage.  Their multiple male pursuers bunched and scattered around them, feinting and dodging, blocking their path, toying with them, laughing along with the hoots and roars of the audience.  One female did manage to reach the wings, to be promptly halted by the sudden appearance of a gigantic weapon-bearing robot.  For a moment Piranha thought she was going into a convulsion.  But, he thought queasily, she might have been better off with that robot than with the humans coming after her.

He knew Anaconda was surreptitiously watching him.  He held himself motionless, his eyes half-shut, leaning back lazily in his seat.  But his gloved fingers gripped the chair arms with such force that the metal began just slightly to indent.

Anaconda bent closer to him.

“It must have been some tough work capturing these creatures.  Not only handsome but athletic!  I’ve rarely seen females resist with such tenacity.  Look, that one actually punched him in the face!  Bravo!  Piranha, I don’t see you laughing.”

The females were now pressed back to back, surrounded, making their last desperate stand together.

Piranha said nothing.  Anaconda poured out a cup of rum, with some effort detached one of Piranha’s hands from the chair, and placed the cup in his hand.  

“There,” he said smoothly.  “Perhaps that will loosen up your sense of fun.”

Slowly Piranha turned to meet his gaze.  Anaconda smiled slightly.  Piranha’s black eyes fastened on him.  He still said nothing.

The robot held his gaze.  They stared at each other; Piranha with eyes turning whitehot, liquid silver like mercury; Anaconda with his cool yellow gaze, unblinking and unmoved.  

It was Piranha who at last turned away.  He sank back into position, motionless as stone.

“Don’t fall asleep, Piranha.  This is for your edification, even if you are a humorless little yokel.  Some day you’ll get the joke.”

“Oh,” whispered Piranha, harshly, “I do.  I get the joke.”

Anaconda grinned.

***

The comedy over, the stage emptied completely.  Piranha did not stir.  One hand still clutched the chair arm, the other still held the cup Anaconda had forced into it.  But he did allow his eyes to close, his attention to drift, as he waited for his painful, enraged breathing to slow.  It didn’t seem to want to.

Why not?  Who the hell was he to object to what he had just seen?  After everything he himself had done?  After being responsible for bringing those pathetic creatures on board?  Who the hell did he think he was?


He felt Anaconda’s sardonic gaze on him.  He knew he wasn’t hiding anything anymore, if he ever had.  


Groups of slaves were darting through the auditorium, hurriedly flinging around huge baskets of cups and bottles and hundreds of trays of food.  In a more decorous fashion they also renewed the supply in the officer’s box.  The pirates out in the main audience were laughing, punching and shoving each other, arguing, counting out bets, singing in small discordant groups; in short, relaxing after the excitement and in anticipation of more excitement to come.  Grouper and Anaconda were conferring, passing coins back and forth for various bets, as a slave silently refilled their trays and mugs.  

Piranha stood up.  Somewhat to his own surprise; his body had risen of its own volition.  He looked towards the exit.

“Oh no you don’t.”  Anaconda smoothly reinserted Piranha’s distracted body into the chair next to him.  “You can’t miss the grand finale.”

“Gods and goddesses, what can possibly top that last act?”  

“Glad you liked it.  But that was just the sweet.  The savoury’s coming up.  Far more – piquant.  Now drink your rum.”


Numbly, Piranha sat.  He waited.