by Massimo Soumaré
Translated by Toshiya Kamei
Stillness.
It wasn’t the sort that called for reflection. But it dug a chasm of immense solitude in the hearts of these slight creatures known as humans – whose vain conceit crumbled as they rapidly morphed into lifeless corpses – in this ailing world covered with toxic sands.
No wind stirred.
Rust gnawed metal.
Ruthless, inexorable rust.
Yet Yareah loved them both – rust and decay – partly because, for now, they hardly concerned her.
At least not yet. Not while she was alive.
Sheltered in the shade of a makeshift parasol, Yareah was lying on her back on the deck of her sister – a metaphorical nickname for the ship-truck. She gazed at the sky for the umpteenth time.
A month had passed since she had been stranded there.
In the distant sky, an alaquadra flapped its wings, circling high above to catch a few small rodents off guard. If it were flying closer, Yareah would have taken care of the pressing problem at hand, but the bastard was out of her reach.
Yareah turned on her side. She was a thirtysomething woman clad in an old, tattered cloak. She had rail-thin legs, a lean, muscular body, and lush, dark hair twisted up in the back. Had she eaten regularly in her adolescence, her figure would have grown fuller, but she might have ended up becoming a prostitute in some port. She wouldn’t have been as free as she was now.
She burst out laughing.
Free?
She stared at the small musical cylinder she held in her right hand. It was the last one she had received before supplies ran out several days ago.
Of course, she was free to die in the sand.
Was her sister asleep? Or maybe she was starting to die?
Yareah’s stomach growled, breaking the silence.
It was hard to deceive hunger. Even if she quelled her mind, her innards were far more honest.
Yes, maybe her sister, too, had an empty stomach.
With the little cylinder in her hand, she struck hard against the dark plate.
“Hey, Kareena, are you there?”
No answer came.
Yareah grunted.
Of the three possibilities she had considered, she liked the last one the least. Had the Kareena come to despair? If so, she still had the option of devouring Yareah. Of course Yareah had no intention of making it easy for her sister. During the years they spent together, Yareah had discovered some weaknesses in the Kareena, but she knew full well who was the stronger of the two. Moreover, Yareah’s flesh and bones would help the Kareena activate her mechanisms and produce eggs to repair herself even after a long time – advantages of the inorganic over the organic. Yareah, on the other hand, couldn’t feed on metal. This irritated her a little. She had always wondered if devouring iron would give her the same sensation when she sank her teeth into soft, bloody flesh and felt it go down her throat and settle in her stomach.
She grinned at the memory of chewing on a bolt as a child. The only things she had got out of it were a chipped tooth and a resounding slap from her mother. Then, for the first time, she realized the woman possessed considerable strength, despite her bony frame.
Yareah calmly stood up. It was no use hurrying. She didn’t want to waste her energy. Approaching the balustrade at the edge of the ship, she looked down through the goggle lenses that protected her from both the sun and the sand.
Most of the many wheels were slashed.
The wheels had become damaged without their noticing, only to give out later at the least opportune moment. Yareah had been imprudent. Success had gone to their heads, making them neglect the most basic checks.
The three pnemoarcs – a fairly recent model, although not the latest – were intact, but she certainly had no desire to use them to get out of this jam.
She knew full well what the pnemoarcs were and how they worked. In short, they were disloyal captives. The Kareena had seized them from the ships she had captured. Her sister was often merciless and had made them understand by force that they owed her absolute obedience.
As humans tortured other humans and deprived them of their freedom little by little, the Kareena had done so with the pneumoarcs. It had been a lengthy process. For two months, what seemed like atrocious moans had echoed through the vessel, uninterrupted.
Yareah had covered her ears with her hands, but it made no difference.
At first, she had nightmares, but she got used to those, too.
You got used to everything.
Even to screaming gears and pistons.
Yareah wasn’t sure if that was true. Still, she attempted to make sense out of a hellscape where reason was merely a crazed sliver in a sea of madness.
Yet her nightmares had a positive effect. She often imagined her sister screaming like that. That thought drove her over into seemingly eternal ecstasies.
At any rate, the Kareena would never let go of her tamed slaves now. If her sister had allowed her to release a pneumoarc, Yareah would be at the mercy of its vengeful instincts. Some believed machines had no feelings, but she knew better. They were quite capable of hate.
The pneumoarcs might head for a port Yareah knew nothing about.
The same was true of the Kareena. Once a pneumorac broke free, she would no longer have any control over it. Once it returned to its place of origin, the pnuemorac could betray the Kareena by revealing her whereabouts and making her traceable. Given the mistreatment it had endured, its betrayal was quite a possibility.
The Kareena had captured them only because she needed them to increase her power.
In short, Yareah and the Kareena had no place they could call home, nor anyone to take care of them. They only had one another.
In a sense, they represented nuisances in Mondo-9. A waste to be purged as soon as possible.
Yareah turned with a sigh, then headed for a door. The dark metal was streaked with rust here and there.
These particular marks made the Kareena distinguishable from other ships.
Reinforced on each side by large panel armor, her 7,000-ton displacement hull, about one hundred and fifty meters long and eighteen meters wide, was entirely painted in a lugubrious black, with streaks of rust. From a distance, those streaks looked like running blood or, worse, throbbing wounds etched deep into her steel flesh. They resembled, in a way, the subtle scars furrowing Yareah’s face. She’d otherwise have been attractive with full lips, a strong nose, and slightly elongated eyes with emerald-green irises.
Many knew the ship.
They had good reasons to fear her.
The door opened with unexpected ease.
The contrast between the exterior, lit by a blinding sun, and the gloomy interior was striking, but the young woman stepped inside without hesitation.
She shivered.
Not out of fear, but because of the temperature drop.
The lights on the ceiling were kept dim, but they allowed her to move forward without a hitch.
She shut the door behind her.
With a sure step, she headed for the dashboard. She moved away from the right wall, greased with lubricating oil, which gave off a pungent odor, and walked close to the opposite wall.
A gooey substance dripped from somewhere in the ceiling, causing soft noises as it landed on the floor. All the metallic sounds, however, had ceased, not to mention the vibrations from the two powerful boilers, one of the elements that made the Kareena so fearful. Dozens of corridors crisscrossed down there. A greenish light flickered at the end.
Her destination.
The gangplank was too large for one person. The ship had been assembled to house a crew of twenty, but she’d been modified to be piloted by a single individual. Many pipes were detached from the walls and connected to a control chair in the middle of the room.
Calling it an “armchair” was a bit of a stretch.
The brown leather parts were padded, though frayed and stained black. It hadn’t originally been a standard feature. The chair came with armrests that allowed you to rest your forearms and use many levers even when your limbs were in the rest position. At the front, various indicators flickered, and at the bottom, numerous pedals gleamed on the linoleum floor. It reminded Yareah of a pipe organ she’d seen long ago in an old picture book.
Despite all those controls, the operator could sit quite comfortably. She and the Kareena had built that command post together, little by little. Perfecting it clash after clash, until the optimal result was achieved.
Yareah went to the three semi-oblique windows that allowed her a 180-degree view. They were made of a thin elastic membrane called “vetrogel.”
Extending her arm, she put her palm on one and then pushed hard. The membrane folded. Several times she withdrew her hand and then pushed again. As often as she repeated that game, she always found it funny. She was amazed at the tricks of light created by the sun’s rays on the surfaces when they curved. Still, not even the membrane had managed to trap some prey to feed on. Useless glass!
Suddenly, she tried to punch it, but it had no effect, except for the backlash against her arm.
The panorama outside didn’t differ from the one on the bridge.
Sand.
Sand spread in every direction.
And two alaquadras.
Two of them?
No, more than that. She ran inside and grabbed her binoculars to get a better look. Now a whole flock was circling above. They seemed rather agitated.
Then a cylinder sprouted out of the wall: Sister, calm down. A deep, female voice reached her ears. It was, in a certain way, sensual. It was the Kareena.
#
A bitter, unpleasant taste filled her mouth. It reminded her of stale water. She stuck her tongue out in disgust. In fact, the taste was worse. Yet it was her own saliva.
Buried in the armchair, her legs crossed, Yareah had her booted feet up on the control panel in front of her. She pressed her feet against the panel rhythmically, making the metal parts anchoring the armchair to the dashboard creak.
“Do something about this noise!” Yareah yelled. “It’s getting on my nerves!”
A small cylinder fell out of a large metal box near the armchair. That was the Kareena’s way of communicating with her: No big deal. Anyhow, I know very well it doesn’t bother you.
Yareah laughed, baring her sharp canine teeth.
“Sure thing …”
Considering all the noises her sister made under normal conditions, this was very little. But in the silence now reigning in the vessel, it seemed to subvert the newly established order.
“Joking aside, do you think it’s a freighter or a warship?”
Another cylinder fell out.
Hard to tell from a distance.
To alarm the whole flock, something huge must have disturbed their nests. The most plausible answer was a ship. The birds, for some time, drew large circles across the sky, flying closer and closer to the Kareena. In all likelihood, they were leading the intruder away from their territory. This meant that the ship had taken a direct route toward the two sisters.
Of course, one could only hope. Assuming this was the case, the intruder could change his route at any time.
In that case, it would be a bitter mockery to delude them, to let them believe they could manage to escape from their situation, and then at the last moment to leave them in trouble.
Yareah gritted her teeth until her jaw hurt. Her sister suddenly let out a hiss that spread throughout the vessel. On that point, they thought the same way. Neither of them liked to rely on chance, which made them furious. Had it been possible, they’d have literally snapped off fate’s neck and fed on its heart.
Still, they were helpless. All they could do was wait.
Launching a distress rocket?
Such an action would have had exactly the opposite effect. Any other vessel would have changed her course to dodge potential trouble. When two unknown ships approached each other, it always posed a risk for those on board. The giants of steel, steam, and rubber could have decided to duke it out. In that case, all the hapless crew members could have done was pray for their survival. Or at least a quick death.
Another cylinder came down.
It was a bit oily. Not a good sign. The Kareena too was at her wits’ end.
“I wish we’d got some sand rats left,” Yareah sighed.
Her stomach rumbled again. She hadn’t eaten anything for three days. Her gaze landed on where the floor met the wall, but there lay only a shadow. Yareah had eaten away all the vermin that had infested the ship. The thought of the stinking flesh of those disgusting rodents made her mouth water. Things were dire.
Her sister’s voice broke her reverie, bringing Yareah back to the urgent reality.
You’d better get dressed.
Yareah was naked under her worn-out cloak. It was scorching hot on the deck, and sweating more than necessary wasn’t a good idea. She needed to conserve precious bodily fluids. So she had only bothered to protect herself with that cloak. Back on the bridge, where the temperature was much lower, she wore the thick blanket she kept there for cold nights over it.
She took her feet off the control panel, got up, and walked to one of the side walls. As she banged her fist against it, a hidden compartment popped open, revealing a large cabinet. She put back her blanket and picked up a jumpsuit as dark as the Kareena. At first glance, the suit seemed to be made up of large straps fused together. Bizarre as it seemed, it was far more efficient and comfortable than the clothes normally worn by crew members. Furthermore, it had been treated with the chemicals of the Poisoners, which assured protection even against the plague.
A fragment of memory flashed through her mind.
A male face. She didn’t find him unpleasant at all.
Then his face twisted in pain. His eyes turned upside down, his cheek marred by an old scar, his mouth wide open letting out a heartrending scream. He should have made her wishes a reality. She was even kind to him. Very kind. In fact, that didn’t require any effort on her part. It was on the contrary. But her kindness failed to convince the Poisoner she had taken prisoners to satisfy her demands. So she decided to resort to more convincing, conclusive means.
She didn’t find that unpleasant either.
In the end, he had satisfied her. He even begged her to let him please her.
She almost felt bad about killing him after she was done with him.
As far as she knew, no other jumpsuit like it existed anywhere else. She and her sister had conceived the principle behind the suit’s function.
She took off her boots and wiggled into the suit. It clung to her bare skin like a fiery lover, reminding her of the deceased Poisoner’s rough embrace. Then she put her boots back on.
The whole operation took her little time. Experience had taught her how to slip into the suit in a matter of minutes.
Behind the vetrogel, an ever-increasing cloud of sand and steam rose in the sky. She couldn’t hold back a shiver of joy. It was heading straight toward them! Luck was often on the side of those who waited for the most favorable moment.
“Come on, bitch. Don’t keep us waiting too long!”
The fact that the Kareena was stuck in a deep pit played to their advantage. She was barely visible from a distance – just a black dot on the horizon that could easily be mistaken for a rock formation.
As they agreed, Yareah headed for the stern battery, the one now in the highest position. The ship would fire sharpened iron and bolts later.
When she reached the turret, she fumbled with various levers.
She cursed.
The levers were stiff with rust and difficult to move, so she had to use a lot of force. The gears finally shifted with a shudder and a screech, replacing the contents of the three cannon’s breeches; instead of throwing razor-sharp metal pieces, which would have torn the enemies’ bodies and perforated the hull, she engaged the mechanisms that would trigger three large harpoons. Then, using a large crank, she slowly rotated the cannons toward the cloud of dust.
Yareah had to do these things manually. In truth, the Kareena could have turned the turret on her own, but she didn’t want to turn on the boilers ahead of time.
She ran her tongue over her chapped lips. She was thirsty, but the water supply had run out the day before. She quenched her thirst by thinking that she would soon have plenty of water.
She fixed her gaze on the horizon. The artillery wasn’t equipped with a telescopic sight but only a simple viewfinder. She observed the position of the target with her binoculars.
After a while, the outline of the ship appeared.
It wasn’t a war ship, but a large-scale commercial vessel, 280 meters long with 18,000 tons displacement. White steam rose from the four chimneys. Its boilers were designed to generate considerable power.
Normally it would have been fairly easy prey. In their current situation, however, the margin for error was nonexistent.
The unwary vessel was close enough for Yareah to see the crew move calmly on the bridge.
It got closer.
She couldn’t make out the name on the sides because the ship was advancing with the bow directly toward them. Suddenly, the crew stirred with agitation, panicking when they recognized the Kareena. That turmoil turned into real terror the instant they realized what they were dealing with.
Her mouth twisted into a cruel grin. At times, being “famous” came in handy. She and the Kareena had become protagonists of gloomy ballads in many ports.
The Kareena and Yareah took no prisoners.
A carrion ship and an assassin, a failed hooker.
The freighter tried to deviate from the course it had taken, but it was too late. The bow began to veer just then. The only result was exposing its side.
Big mistake.
Had the ship continued to advance as before, it would have offered less mass as a target. Moreover, the ship would have swooped down on the Kareena, which, stuck and exhausted, would have literally split in two. The cargo ship would have suffered damage, but nothing irreparable.
The merchant ship’s name became legible.
The Namuna.
Written in dark letters, partially faded.
500 meters.
Finally it came within range.
Yareah didn’t miss her chance. She took aim.
The three stern cannons launched the harpoons with a roar. Their ends had sturdy, thick steel cables. The large winches on which they were grafted, one for each cable, swirled, hissing like ominous sirens. A few seconds later, they landed on the target. One centered the stern chimney of the Namuna, while the other two shattered the central part of the side, penetrating deeply. Yareah then moved a large lever to reverse the rotation of the winches connected to the engine room. These came to a sudden halt, and then rotated in the opposite direction.
The Kareena’s boilers turned on suddenly.
The backlash startled the entire hull. Yareah was ready, so she grabbed a clenched support bar. Then, with difficulty, she maneuvered away from the artillery to go back inside and reach the helm station.
It was no easy undertaking. As the steel cables rewound, the Kareena continued to pitch as if in the midst of a sandstorm. At the same time, the panicked Namuna tried to escape by continuing to tack. The friction produced by the effort caused yellowish smoke to rise from the tires, but the merchant ship ended up helping the Kareena move, in spite of her ripped wheels. In a flash, the black ship climbed out of the deep pit, ready to pounce on her opponent.
The two sisters’ plan was to use the enemy’s own strength to attack it. The Kareena had maintained an energy reserve for such an attack – a single, powerful attack.
Yareah finally reached the bridge, slashed decisively toward the control chair, and then tinkered with the various levers while keeping the instruments under control.
“Now leave it to me!” she yelled at her sister.
A small cylinder came down: Move! I haven’t got much energy left. The tone of her voice was musical as usual but devoid of any emotion.
Yareah grimaced. She hardly needed to be reminded. She couldn’t stand being rushed, but she liked it when her sister had to depend on her. “Rather, have you already rotated the turrets toward that bastard?” she scolded her.
They would unleash hell from there.
Again the metallic sound of the cylinder entered its housing: The cannons are ready.
She gritted her teeth. Since they had hooked it using only the stern, piloting the ship in these conditions was complex. She had to pay close attention to keep parallel with the enemy vessel so that, once in contact, they could use the remaining cannons in the most effective way.
Everything vibrated, as if the Kareena was about to fall apart.
The crash was terrible.
The two monster ships clashed against each other, twisting their plates.
The enemy ship was larger and heavier, but the Kareena was built to withstand confrontations with more impressive opponents. The steel cables benefited her by functioning like an elastic sling for a steel ball.
Some crew members rushed from the railing, letting out desperate cries.
Yareah pulled a lever on her left, then immediately another, raising the cannons’ firing angle.
With the Kareena lower, blows would penetrate in an oblique direction piercing the hull and devastating, at the exit, the enemy open deck.
Yareah moistened her lips and slammed her palm against buttons on the console.
Sparks and sharp metal splinters poured from the turrets.
Blazing flames engulfed a large part of the Namuna’s bridge. Here and there the ship’s plates became stained vermillion. They were reminiscent of the rusty streaks on the Kareena’s.
This similarity was no coincidence.
Moans and wails arose from everywhere. The dying crawled across the deck, leaving a dark red trail behind them. Blood spurted from severed limbs like geysers. Those who were still able to walk scrambled to put out fires or attend their injured comrades.
Some, covered in flames, chose to put an end to their excruciating pain by plunging into the void.
Yareah moved the levers to the left again. The turrets rotated a few degrees to the right.
She banged the buttons again. The Kareena’s guns blasted again.
Bits and pieces of the Namuna’s plates rained down over them.
“Now it’s all yours!” Yareah cried.
A mixture of a metallic clang and a mad scream of joy broke out from her sister. By now, Yareah had done her part. Taking possession of the merchant ship was the Kareena’s job.
Metal crashed against metal. A cold shiver ran through Yareah’s spine, but she didn’t find it unpleasant at all. It meant her life had been spared for now.
She savored it, sipping the sensation like a precious liqueur.
#
The day was drawing to a close, the clouds tinting a deep dark red.
A gentle, fresh breeze had started blowing, as if to taunt Yareah who had been panting in the heat, emphasizing once more what true freedom was in Mondo 9.
The ability to be wickedly mocking.
The natural landscape around her was marred by small shards of metal and nearly intact corpses that were quickly covered with sand.
Ultimately, the Namuna, although damaged, had managed to escape.
To be more precise, two-thirds of it had escaped. The rest remained on the battlefield.
An indisputable prize for the winner.
Despite the fact that her two boilers were operating at full capacity, the Kareena stayed put, devouring the war trophy with her nails and teeth. The collected shards crunched inside her internal bulkheads, becoming fused together in strange geometries that strengthened the ship according to her peculiar logic. The fuel she had snatched from the opponent flowed into her large tanks.
Yareah had to hurry. The Kareena could decide to leave at any moment without notice. She knew how to be difficult when she wanted to. Even so, she was giving Yareah enough time to get supplies.
“Thank you, sister, for your generosity,” she whispered through clenched teeth.
Through a winch, she lowered, for the fifth time, cables with various pointed hooks at the ends. They were fixed to a rod that was movable along the hull for about thirty meters horizontally, positioned a little higher than Yareah’s height. The hooks were designed to collect materials left on the ground.
She raked the ground for a few minutes with the hooks before pulling them up.
The cables reeled in, screeching. It seemed to take forever.
Impatience and curiosity burned in her chest.
What “gifts” would she receive?
She was unable to choose what to collect from the ground, but it was better than going down and wandering through the poisonous sands. That prospect held zero appeal.
She leaned out of the balustrade to look down.
Several sacks, some bags, two almost intact bodies, two half-charred ones, and a twisted one reduced to black mass.
Then something stirred.
Yareah frowned.
As the object approached, she could make out its shape more clearly.
It was a girl.
She was about thirteen. The jumpsuit she wore told Yareah that she was an apprentice. Maybe she was on her first ship. Her sullied red bandana barely hid a mass of unruly golden curls, albeit scorched. The hooks had penetrated various points on her left side, red stains seeping through her clothing.
She dangled before Yareah’s face.
They came face to face.
The girl’s hazel eyes opened with difficulty, staring at Yareah in amazement. Her eyes clouded with pain but shone with keen intelligence. Her cheeks were bruised and soot-stained, her mouth partly swollen.
The girl let out a groan.
She had no strength left to speak.
Her eyes, however, held a desperate plea for help. She longed to live.
Yareah looked back at her. Her lips curled into a maternal sneer, prompting the girl to respond in kind.
It happened in that instant.
Yareah’s right arm, holding a heavy steel bar, descended on the girl’s head, and shattered her skull. Blood and brains splattered everywhere.
The light in the girl’s eyes faded as if it had never existed.
“How annoying! Hurry up and die!” Yareah complained.
It was the third time she had picked up someone still alive.
Yareah, without too much concern, tore the girl’s body from the hooks and dragged her towards a small pile of corpses, leaving a trail of blood on the deck. She would later search them and take whatever she needed. Next to it was another pile of bags, bottles containing precious water, and much more.
She hurriedly detached the other corpses and objects from the hooks and placed them on the piles. She threw down the charred body. She had no use for such a thing.
There was no time to waste. She had to hoist as much as possible before her sister decided to move.
#
The cold, miserable night had fallen on the stretch of sand. The three moons rose high in the sky, illuminating the dunes.
The Kareena had replaced or repaired her damaged wheels and was now moving slowly away from the place where she was trapped. Since she kept a straight course, Yareah didn’t need to navigate. Although she hadn’t finished all the repairs, she couldn’t risk being found by some enemy. Staying on the move was the safest way to survive.
She was destined to wander the deserts for eternity.
A faint, lone light shone on the deck.
Yareah sat cross-legged beside a burning brazier. Her back curved, she had untied her hair. In front of her, she had lined up personal artifacts she had stolen from the corpses. She kept what could be useful or intrigued her. She had tossed away the rest.
Hunger pangs stirred afresh in her gut.
Unfortunately, the sacks and bags contained no food.
However, if everything went as planned, the smell of the corpses would attract alaquadras the following day. If she shot down two or three larger ones, she would have enough to eat for a while.
If she failed, she would have to resort to something else.
She glanced absently at the pile of corpses. Her gaze fell on the girl’s inert arm, which was partially lit by the pale flame of the brazier. It had begun to turn dark, but it still didn’t look unpleasant. The girl didn’t seem to have suffered from hunger.
If the damned birds didn’t show up, she would have to feed on the corpses before they started to rot.
It wouldn’t be the first time she devoured human flesh.
Poisoning didn’t worry her. They had been on the toxic sand only for a short time. Besides, she had the Poisoners’ medicines to repel any danger.
The chilly wind blew harder, swaying her mane.
Metallic bangs echoed under her feet several times. It was her sister reminding her that it was time to go back under the deck. She had to get some rest so that she would be in good shape at dawn.
Yareah spat on the deck.
“Yeah, I’ve got it. Shut up!”
She rose, picked up her spoils, and headed toward the interior of the ship while humming an old lullaby her mother had sung to her years ago. Her song merged with the rhythmic hum of her sister’s wheels and pistons, creating a strange sonic illusion that rolled out like a macabre laugh that would make anyone’s skin crawl.
The mirth promised misfortunes and sorrows.
Rust and rot.
Born 1968 in Turin, Italy, Massimo Soumaré is a translator, writer, editor, and independent researcher. His books include Viaggio nel Giappone sconosciuto (2021), Ordelaffi (2022), and Il filo sottile del mare (2022). He has contributed to magazines specializing in Eastern Asian cultures such as Quaderni Asiatici and A Oriente!. He has translated works of numerous Japanese writers, including Osamu Dazai, Kenji Miyazawa, and Yasumi Tsuhara. For more information, visit http://www.massimosoumare.it/.