Toxicity (3 page)

Svool strode forward, waving his
hands in mock humility whilst at the same time nodding in knowing approval at
the recognition of the greatness of his genius. His dark brooding eyes surveyed
the best of the best arraigned before him, paying worship and accolade to,
hell,
him,
the best of the best, the elite of the elite. The God of
Literature, no less.

“Behold,” came the deep voice
once again, “Svoolzard Koolimax XXIV, Third Earl of Apobos, poet, swashbuckler”
- Svool placed a hand on the hilt of his dazzling jewelled sword, grinning at
this introduction - “and
bon viveur,
here for your delectation and
appreciation as Guest of Honour on this wonderful Masters Cruise to end all
cruises. In the future, ladies and gentlemen, people will look back at this
moment in history and
weep
that they were not here present. Svoolzard
is, as I am sure you are aware, a legend in the hallowed halls of poetic
creation, in the art of verse and alliteration, in the dazzling creation of
metaphor and pun; in terms of creating ‘the novel,’ he has been cited as main
hero and inspiration for their own works by all
thousand
New York
Times-bestselling authors across the entirety of the Manna Galaxy Bubble! If
that isn’t enough, Steven Speilberger, himself a galaxy-wide phenomenon and
director of the unparalleled movie franchise
Space Hero With A Gun
has
expressed an interest in making a movie of Svoolzard’s life story so far - and
is in the process of commissioning scripts from the finest script writers from
across Manna (including Svool himself, of course, a-ha-haha). I give you:
sexual athlete, comedy chef, genius extraordinaire, Svoolzard Koolimax XXIV!”

Tennyson Hall erupted in cheers
and clapping, and Svool, one hand still draped casually over his jewelled sword,
flapped his other hand as if holding a lace kerchief, and smiled, and winked,
and bowed, and the noise rose and rose, bouncing and echoing around the massive
hall as the gathered literati showed their massive appreciation.

Svool allowed the noise to
continue, then gradually subside; after all, he had an ego to massage. Then he
gave a little cough, and took a few steps forward in his black high-heeled
glitter boots, which clacked on the ruby-marble stage.

“Hello, darlings,” he crooned,
and there came whistles from many voluptuous ladies at the back, and several
voluptuous gentlemen at the front. “As you are aware, I have written the paper
On
Literature,
which is to be the, shall we say, main event for the evening -
as long as you don’t factor in the awards ceremony, a-ha-ha.” The audience
laughed along with him, mesmerised by his genius and charm.

“But first, I would like to begin
with a piece of poetry I composed this very morn’.”

Svool coughed. He made a great
show of waving his hands and settling himself into comfortable posture, ready
for dramatic recital. He coughed again, a double cough with an over-the-top
theatrical clearing of mucus. Then he fluttered eyelashes, which sparkled with
diamond dust under cleverly placed spotlights; and in lilting voice dripping
gilt, began to croon:

“Barefoot,
she strolls through petals green,

And
though I look, no doubt it seems

My
eyes do stray to her

Bosom,

And
petall’d bottom cheeks.

“However,
I confess. Though clit

Did
poke and peep

Betwixt
lacy thong and

Sweating
thigh,

She
caught my eye,

And
I did sigh,

And ‘magined
what a

Night
would pass if only my

Face

Was
buried in her

Ass.”

The roar echoed around Tennyson
Hall, a violent standing ovation filled with cheers and grunts and the clapping
of trotters - as Svoolzard beamed around like a village idiot, and the noise
masked the first of the sounds of shell impact.

Boom.

Boom
boom.

Then came an unmistakable, and
terrifying, deafening, rending tearing of twisted wrenching steel. More screams
followed - this time, suddenly, of people - and there was a
whoosh
of
superheated air pumped into Tennyson Hall with such violence that Svoolzard and
half the audience were picked up and tossed like socks of wet mud across the
stage, where they hit the wall in quick succession with a rat-a-tat-tat of
breaking bones, like machine-gun fire. Svoolzard connected with a
krump,
folded,
and on his way down hit a table and stools, breaking them into glass splinters
with his body weight.

“What the
fu
-”

There came a crashing, smashing,
thumping sound, and the world tipped suddenly upside down as gravity generators
died. The lights went out, and in the darkness, surrounded by unconscious
bodies, Svoolzard lay trembling, his burst lips leaking blood into his fear-dry
mouth. Then he was thrown again, and in the chaos was struck many times by
tumbling bodies. He screamed, screamed like a girl, and then back-up generators
kicked in and sirens screamed as emergency injecto-units buzzed and hissed. The
room was slammed full of expanding foam as
The Literati
lurched into
emergency mode.

Externally, the great donut was
spinning. Flames gushed silently to starboard as
The Literati
spun,
propelled by the missile strike which had taken out its bulbous belly. And as
the ship rolled like a harpooned whale, a dark ship could be seen beyond; long,
and narrow, and sleek, the black of a collapsed star, no lights, no signs of
life. And even as
The Literati
did one more belly roll, the dark ship
lowered more missiles, which flared suddenly, fire scorching the ship’s flanks
as they ejected across the arched vaults of space... hitting
The Literati
again,
and again, and again.

The dying, rolling Titan-Class
Culture Cruiser, trailing kilometre-high walls of fire, dropped, and staggered,
and dropped again until it was caught by the massive green planet’s
gravitational pull.
The Literati
was tugged closer, and with more
engines failing, more power lost, the fight was suddenly lost and in a trail of
fire and fumes and unburnt solar fuel,
The Literati
plummeted towards
the unfolding green abyss of Amaranth far far below...

~ * ~

A
TINY OLD man sat on a beach of crushed green bottles, cross-legged, chin on his
steepled fingers. The ocean lapped at his feet. His eyes were darker than a pit
full of serial killing souls, and he wore nothing but rags, rags stitched
together from rags, a myriad of filthy merging colours and patterns, as if his
entire wardrobe had been stitched from the tattered remnants of a shredded rat
nest.

Above, the sky was dark. Stars
glittered, reflected in the surging, rolling ocean. A moon hung in the sky,
tinged green across part of its circumference.

Then there came a
flash,
bright
fire flaring like some distant orange and blue firework burst. The flare died,
but something was gleaming, moving fast, and
falling...

The old man watched, eyes stoic,
and shifted a little to the sounds of grinding, crunching glass. That his legs
were not spaghetti strings of meat was a miracle. He fixed on the falling
object, noting tiny bursts of flame as ancillary jets tried to correct its
erratic descent. Parts of the ship glowed, and the old man narrowed his eyes as
he realised the donut-shaped ship was, in fact, completely missing a huge
section.

More flames burst free of the
arcing ship, leaving bright patterns in the sky.

A distant, beautiful whining sang
across the black oil ocean like the lovesong of a Siren.

And with an almighty
CRASH,
the
old man watched the ship disappear into the midst of a rearing volcanic
archipelago. A mushroom of fire and smoke erupted from among the rearing black
mountains, and
booms
sang across the ocean, bouncing between walls of
rock, singing back and forwards like the mating calls of a school of crazed
whales.

The old man sat, watching,
enjoying the breeze coming in off the ocean which, at length, brought with it a
stench of fire. Gradually the flames died down and the night returned to some
form of serenity.

He watched the thick, rising
column of smoke, one edge spookily green from the reflected light of the Toxic
World’s distant, drifting sun.

~ * ~

SVOOLZARD
GROANED AND did a slow, treacle-filled internal diagnostic check. Everything
hurt.
Shit.
Everything hurt
bad.
And for Svool, the worst thing
about pain was that
it usually happened to somebody else.

What happened? What hit me?

The last time he’d felt so rough
was when he’d been bottled in a bar for being
The Most Sexy Man Who’d Ever
Lived.
The jealousy of others was a constant in Svool’s life, and he
begrudgingly supposed he couldn’t blame them. You know.
Them.
Commoners.
Normal people. Scrotes. Peasants.

After all, Svool was so damned
perfect.

Barefoot, she strolls through
petals green,

And though I look...

Shit. Was the party
that
good?

He coughed, and spat out a lump
of foam. Then he opened his eyes and everything was black, and he panicked, and
questing fingers pushed into his own mouth as he scooped out more blobs of
crash foam, and choked, and coughed and spat, and then reached up and scraped
wads of sticky shit from his eyes. It trailed like gooey toffee in long
umbilicals, and light flooded in.

Starlight, against a pink green
horizon.

It was dawn...

Svool was lying on his belly, and
his feet were wet.

How odd? Is it Champagne? Vajinga
Juice? Or just the sexual effluvia from a hundred thankfully satiated women?

Svool rolled to his side,
groaned, and pushed himself upright, groggy, coughing up more foam and phlegm,
all mixed in with lumps of vomit and drug-slag.

“Oh, man,” he groaned. He held
his head in his hands, and then realised the entire world was filled with a
weird hissing silence; a background of white noise that was far from normal. “That
was some fucking party!” His own words sounded funny, incredibly distant,
muffled, and he realised his ears were also full of foam.

Foam?

He dug a finger into each orifice
and did his best to pull out the sticky gunk.

Foam?

The sound of ocean came to him,
hissing and surging against a black rock beach. And redoubled pain hit Svool,
pain in every limb and joint and bone and organ. He opened his mouth in silent
shock as waves of pain rushed over him, pummelling him with fists of battering
iron.

“Ow,” he managed, finally, and
huddled into a crouch, coughing and choking, eyes streaming, ears throbbing,
and fighting for a moment with the awkwardness of his sword in its scabbard.

He could see the sea, a dark
ocean, and across its rolling expanse, other islands rearing from the inky
glass waves. He frowned, brow creasing under curled golden locks.

What’s this? Some VR simulation
room in the back of a sexy lady’s boudoir? Some game instigated by remote
electron wires inserted directly into my skull?
He reached down, fingers touching
brine-slick rock.
After all, it feels like I’m here. Smells like the ocean.
The breeze is fresh on the flesh of my cheeks... I could write a poem about
this experience, write a poem which I can deliver during my...

He blinked.

Crash foam. His brain did a quick
rewind. He remembered alarms. And being thrown across the Culture Cruiser’s
interior like a sack of useless shit.

“Oh.” He blinked. “Oh, no.”

Svoolzard scrambled to his feet,
wincing as broken shards from his glass and diamond suit cut into him. “Ouch.
Ouch. Oh, you little bastards!” A fresh ocean breeze wafted past, hot with salt
and stinging his eyes, and he stared across the vastness of the ocean platter
sitting before him.