Azathoth's Starship
By Gerald W. Page and Jerry L. Burge

Illustration by Paul McCall

n the millennia after the Black Ship’s creation, it sailed the void resolutely and without the dragging weight of sentient emotion. Yet its existence brought it satisfaction of a form. If it lacked affiliation, it still had purpose; if it lacked joy, there yet was function. The absence of free will could not bother an instrument so geared to mission as the Black Ship was. It served. It served, if not its creators, the minions of its creators; and it served them with the stolid capability of a machine in which the traits of faith and dedication were nothing more than programmed characteristics. And nothing less, as well. Its existence was not marred by the conflicting presence of either life or will.

Any living being who could discern these facts and comprehend the purpose and mission that infused the ship with function, would be an unusual being indeed. To most of the thinking creatures who encountered the Ship, usually to their regret, it was all a mystery, an unanswerable, horrifying puzzle. It had been that way for countless ages. During that time the Ship prowled galaxies, wandered among stars and star systems, through nebulas of scattered dust and gas and energy, through emptiness and cosmic waste, among myriad dimensions, surrounded by the greatest marvels of all the creations ­– yet it never marveled. Nor did it ever think about that. It would have regarded such considerations – to the extent that it could regard them – as pointless and unproductive. Therefore, they did not impinge on its awareness.

Nor did the Ship marvel at its own being, though it well could have. The primary material of which it was constructed had been forged amid the chaotic forces found in the black hole at the center of a galaxy and gathered by none other than Azathoth. The Ship did not know which galaxy that had been, it had traveled through so many since; it could even have been this galaxy, the one it was roaming now. It was not that the Ship lacked that information; the Ship retained every bit of data it came across. But the information was stored somewhere in the vast reservoir of its memory and was not now pertinent. The Black Ship lacked the function of sentimentality about its own origin. Such information could but rarely bear on its ability and mission. It served not its own needs but those impulses of Azathoth and Yog-Sothoth that passed for needs.

Yet it would be a mistake to regard the Ship as simply a machine, however complex, however cold and unfeeling. For one thing it had not been created out of any discernable sentient emotion. Much of the science that had governed its design and creation was instinctive to That which built it. Some of it could only be regarded as a function of those Beings, an element of their nature and personality. Primeval and fundamental such science might be, but it was not science that responded to understanding and study. More basic than the atom, such knowledge was buried where no sentient mind had ever yet found it, where it was hidden from even what passed for consciousness in That which created the ship. Though the Ship had purpose and function, they played small role in its creation. That which created the Black Ship dwelt at the heart of chaos, and the building of the ship was not inspired by the desire to create order out of chaos, but of the need for more chaos.

One

The accessory door opened and Ambroce looked out for the first time at the observation deck of the starship Orchid.

The passengers of Orchid were promised spectacular views of extraordinary spatial phenomena. The observation deck spread above the ship’s passenger levels and directly below the outer hull. It was the size of two football fields, and the ceiling two stories above the deck looked as if it were open to the void. It was not of course. An array of screens overhead pictured space. Ambroce looked up at the Lantern of Lost Stars.

Beside him, Lor Fennel said, “So that’s what the haunted nebula looks like up close.”

“It’s not like you haven’t seen it before.”

“Not this close, however. I’ve never been closer to it than Pasquintain.” There was something intense in the small philologist’s voice that Ambroce had never heard before, a sort of excitement driven by wonder and curiosity, he thought. “You can almost feel the gaze of Azathoth from here; almost smell the breath of Cthulhu.”

Ambroce shuddered at the thought and said nothing.

The great nebula all but filled the overhead screens. It blazed several shades of fiery red, with dark roiling clouds of dust and gas and other matter across it. Through it, faintly, he could see the dense star field of the galactic bar, the shoulder at the galaxy’s center from which the galactic arms sprang. Though it was still a considerable distance away of course, it was close enough to dominate the sky whenever you looked toward the galactic center, and Orchid’s cameras were turned in that direction. But the nebula was between them and the bar.

The light cast by the Lantern of Lost Stars was as red as the nebula itself, bathing the observation deck and its parks, cafes, bars, theatres and seating areas in hues Ambroce thought must be familiar to the denizens of hell. It was nighttime aboard Orchid and only an occasional ship’s light was on here. There were no people, yet. Tomorrow morning the excursion ship’s passengers would come here to have breakfast by the light of the dread nebula; but then few of them would know much, if any of the truth about it. Even in 2248 A.D., the citizens of the civilized planets were, by and large, a sheltered group.

Panag had undoubtedly spent a respectable amount in bribes to get their meeting arranged here, Ambroce thought, but not any amount of money he realized could do that after tonight. After tonight the ship’s schedule would become around-the-clock and there would be crowds here at all hours.

The crimson light that bathed the observation deck helped little with actual visibility so that when someone stepped in front of him, it required an effort on Ambroce’s part to keep from jumping.

“Are you,” said a softly melodious female voice – then she hesitated a moment. “No, you aren’t Mr. Panag.”

She came forward, and the men got a better look at her by the glow of the lamp above the accessory door behind them. She was just a little over five feet tall, even shorter than Lor Fennel. Like them she appeared to be from Earth. She was slender, attractive, and appeared to be in her mid-thirties, as most terrestrial women appeared to be these days, if they did not choose to appear younger. Even with the light behind him it was difficult for Ambroce to be certain about her hair color, but it appeared red. It fell in soft waves to her shoulders. Her face was strong and very, very lovely, and he did not think that was a trick of the light. There was a certain imperiousness about her that impressed him. He suspected she would be a dangerous adversary.

He said, watching her face closely, “My name is Hugh Ambroce. My friend here is Lor Fennel. We were just looking for Panag ourselves.”

Her face gave away little but a sly smile. “Good,” she said. “Then you can help me find him. I’m supposed to meet him here on this deck, but I did not realize how large it is. I suspect –”

“Ah, I see you’ve met,” came a gruff voice that suggested a forced friendliness. Out of the shadows Panag appeared. His weight was camouflaged somewhat by an expensively tailored light blue business suit with some sort of dark piping on it. He pushed past the woman and thrust a hand toward Ambroce. Glancing at Fennel, he said, “And this would be?”

Ambroce introduced them.

“Lor Fennel? The linguist? You instruct at Meletenes University don’t you?”

“Philologist,” Fennel corrected him. “But you’re correct about Meletenes, though I’m on a protracted research sabbatical and don’t teach presently. I’m astonished you know about me.”

“Ah, my business. I deal in acquiring things that are difficult to acquire, Mr. Fennel. It is often necessary for me to know about a variety of things and in the course of my business dealings, I’ve found your books and monographs of momentous help in understanding some of the stranger ones I’ve come across.”

“You mean my Comparative Syllabus of Galactic Languages?” asked Fennel in a tone that suggested he was a bit puzzled.

“No,” said Panag. “I mean your less publicized work. Your translation of Cultes des Ghoules into Galactic Principal for example. I thought it especially insightful.”

“You did?” said Fennel. “That’s never been officially published.”

“Indeed? Come, please, we’re at that café over there. I’ve arranged to have wine and coffee for us.” He started off and they followed. He said, “Don’t be shocked, Dr. Fennel. The sorts of things I deal in, it takes much more ability to acquire them than luck. I assure you that copying a manuscript locked away in even so secure a vault as the one at Meletenes is hardly a challenge to me. Besides, I believe that you have a much more interesting, shall we say unexpurgated translation of it hidden away somewhere I haven’t been able to locate – as yet. But I’m forgetting my manners. The young woman knows your names but you do not know hers. She is Babylonia.”

“Babylonia Sharif,” she said.

“What?” said Panag. “Oh, yes. Sharif. Miss Sharif. She is here to bid against you.”

“Bid against us?” Ambroce said. “Since when did this become an auction?”

“Since she offered me a price of a hundred thousand GC more than you offered, Mr. Ambroce. Unfortunately, that was only a few hours ago so that I did not have the chance to warn you.”

They were approaching a small area of tables surrounded by a low artificial hedge. It was lighted by several lamps on posts placed around the area. In the center a man sat near one of the tables.

“Another bidder?” Fennel asked.

“Only my bodyguard, Lucian,” said Panag. “I told him to wait with the artifact. I wanted to meet you alone, so you can see that I trust everyone here. I am sure we can work out the details of our negotiations.”

Under the lights, Ambroce took a closer look at the man he was dealing with – and the woman he was bidding against. Panag was ordinary seeming and would have been taken for a successful businessman under most circumstances. His smile was broad and warm and might have been reassuring except for the fact that he had the eyes of a shark.

Babylonia Sharif appeared European. She wore a fashionably expensive sari of Italian cut. In this light it was hard to tell if it were cream or pale tan or even yellow. It showcased her rounded, graceful figure without giving the impression of being at all blatant. Her mouth was wide and full and her dark eyes were not the eyes of a shark. But Ambroce thought he detected a predatory glint in them.

The bodyguard, Lucian, was seated a little apart from the table at which the others were. He had a compact muscularity and was watchful, but with an air of uncertainty. Ambroce had seen the type before and automatically judged him worth respecting.

As soon as he was seated, Ambroce said, “I made you an offer, and you agreed to it.”

“You think I did?” he said. His tone was meditative. “I remember it otherwise. Assessor Ambroce, let’s be frank. If this object is worth your being here at all, an auction is not unreasonable. I admit her offer came up suddenly, and it took me by surprise, but in truth, once she spoke with me, I could not resist either her money or her allure.”

He smiled sideways at her as he spoke the last part of that sentence.

“Nor mine, either, I suppose,” said a harsh voice behind Ambroce.

Ambroce recognized the voice at once. He turned to face the newcomer, resisting the urge to draw the energy gun that nestled under his jacket.

The man he saw was slender, almost gaunt. His facial skin was so tight against his skull that it seemed mummified. His eyes were hidden behind dark glasses, but Ambroce had seen them before. They were not the eyes of a shark. It would have been more reassuring if they were. Ambroce said, “Dr. Ashe. How long has it been?”

“Not so long as either of us might have wished,” he said, clipping his words. He stood as still as a statue, his face telling nothing. But the tension in his attitude as he stood there spoke volumes. Ambroce hoped Lucian took Ashe as seriously as he did.

Panag said, “I seem to remember that I rejected your bid.”

“I’m here to make another, much larger one,” Ashe said.

Panag looked around at the others. “I don’t know how he found out about this meeting,” he said.

“It makes no difference,” said Ashe. “I’m here and I’m ready to bid. Is the artifact here?”

Panag said, “I really –”

“I don’t see that it matters what ‘you really,’” Ashe said. “Is it here?”

“Er, yes; of course,” said Panag, with resignation. He gestured toward Lucian. “Show the man.”

Lucian said, “Yes sir.”

His eyes never leaving Ashe, Lucian reached under the table to bring up a box somewhat larger than his head. He put it down on the table in front of Panag.

“I recently acquired a warehouse filled with odd objects from various worlds,” said Panag. “Most of them, as you may imagine, have relatively little value; it was simply a business deal. But when we surveyed what we had, we discovered this. The records on it suggest it had been found quite some distance from here. In fact, I understand objects of this type are seldom found this close to the center of the galaxy. Open it, please, Lucian.”

Lucian began working the combination of the box while Panag continued talking.

“I know from his writing that Professor Fennel knows what a Nova Text fragment is, and I feel absolute assurance the rest of you do, too. I know little about them myself, but the records I found indicate this is one. I understand that these objects were created ages ago by the Elder God Zazarin, though I am hazy as to what their actual purpose is. I also understand one of the Great Old Ones, a fearsome creature called Ezindont tried to destroy Zazarin and his work. As a result of their combat, a dozen stars went Nova all at once. We call the remnant of that catastrophe the Shaddrun Veil, and two centuries ago thousands of these Nova Text objects were found orbiting it. Since then, they’ve been looted, collected and so on and scattered all across this arm of the galaxy. You may remove the lid, Lucian.”

Lucian pressed a small button at the base of the box. He lifted off most of the box leaving only the bottom panel.

The object that rested on the panel might have been a rock. It looked a bit like a squat egg. In the strange light of the Lantern of Lost Stars it seemed mottled, irregularly shaped. Ambroce could just make out the markings on the side.

Ambroce took one quick look at it and then glanced at Fennel. The philologist gave only the barest indication of his reaction to the object but Ambroce knew him well enough to spot the signs of excitement. In itself that was surprising. Ambroce figured a lone fragment of the Nova Texts could hold little importance since most of the chapters of the Text filled a dozen or more of the stones – some chapters actually consisted of hundreds or even thousands of components. And they made no sense until you had them all. That made it both difficult and important to accumulate a complete chapter. But Fennel was staring at this lone component – he referred to them as ‘jars’ – as if it were the Rosetta Stone or the original manuscript of The Necronomicon in Abdul Alhazred’s own handwriting. That, plus the fact that Ashe was here, caused Ambroce to reevaluate the mission. It was obviously more important that he thought.

And more dangerous.

“Fascinating isn’t it?” Panag said. “Of course you know more about that than I do. But I am told that while Zazarin was destroyed along with the several stars, that there is a rumor Ezindont was actually trapped in one of the fragments. We can only hope it isn’t this one, of course, but the odds favor us.” He laughed at his little joke. None of the others joined in.

“Miss Sharif has already offered me a sum larger than your, er, earlier bid,” Panag said, leaning toward Ambroce. “A hundred thousand GC larger, in fact. Therefore, we will begin the auction by giving you the opportunity – ”

The light on the observation deck abruptly dimmed. Astonished, Ambroce looked around, realizing they were in shadow. He saw Lor Fennell looking up.

Something gigantic and impossible blotted the Lantern of Lost Stars. At first Ambroce thought it was a planet or at least a moon, but he instantly realized the shape was wrong. It was like an enormous insect, carapace and grasping legs; but it was dark and there were no true details of it visible. Just an indistinct blotch suddenly black across the crimson brilliance of the nebula.

There was movement beside him, and Ambroce realized Ashe was stepping forward and reaching for the Nova Text shell.

“Dr. Ashe, don’t touch it,” Panag said sharply, rising out of his chair. There was an energy gun in Ashe’s hand. He fired point blank at Panag’s chest.

A look of astonishment spread across Panag’s face more quickly than the blood spread across the breast of his suit. As the dead man dropped, Ashe scooped the Nova Text shell into his arms and, turning, pointed the gun at the woman.

Ambroce yelled Ashe’s name and yanked his own gun out of its holster. Ashe shifted his weapon toward Ambroce, who threw himself aside just in time. There was a flare of yellow light and the blast went past him harmlessly, though he could feel the heat. He rolled over, trying unsuccessfully to aim his gun, and scrambled to his feet.

The air shimmered with a faint violet-tinged agitation a few feet from Ashe.

Ashe ran straight toward the shimmer. Before Ambroce could fire, Ashe threw himself toward it – and disappeared.

Lucian, giving vent to a snarl, pushed past Ambroce and dove after Ashe. Ambroce started after him but Fennel said, “That’s witch space, Hugh.”

Ambroce pulled up. The air still shimmered. It was not a normal shimmer – it had nothing to do with any conventional cause of shimmering that Ambroce knew of; not light, not temperature, not movement of the air. There was a vaguely violet cast to it. Within seconds, Ambroce knew, it would fade and vanish.

“I know what it is,” Ambroce said, sourly. And plunged in anyway.

In that portion of the universe where the myriad dimensions of time, space and matter collided to spread the miasma of order, Azathoth’s starship prowled. Here the grand, vast perfection of the universe was marred with stars, nebulas, black holes, atoms and planets, time and distance, blisters on the face of perfect night. Here spread the scars of conscious life, the grim limits of natural law which were so hideously reliant on ‘perception,’ the flaring, blinding bursts of light, color and ordering mathematics that burned like cosmic pain through the immaterial being of the Primal Chaos.

Here dwelled sanity that affronted and denied its masters and therefore it.

Here the Black Ship pursued its mission. Here the ship appeared and approached the other, lesser ship. Here, to carry out this phase of the Design, the Black Ship cast its dimensional bridge across the intervening void to the feet of its human associate.

And the associate came across the bridge.

But before the bridge could be withrawn, others followed.

That was possibly unfortunate, but it did not create any difficulties that could not be dealt with.

Two

Ambroce felt his ears pop, had a vague perception of violet light, and came out of witch space two inches above the floor – if floor it was. He dropped, hit the hard, gray-black material, slid, stumbled and fell. His left hand hit the floor and kept him from sprawling. His other notable accomplishment was that he did not drop the weapon.

He felt, rather than heard something behind him and rolled left to escape it.

But it was just a false alarm. A false alarm named Lor Fennel.

The short p hilologis t stood in the air two inches above the floor, hands in his pockets, a broad smile on his scholarly face. There was something behind him – a vague blur Ambroce could not make out yet through the shimmer. “Did you fall, Hugh?” asked Fennel and stepped carefully down to solid support. He reached back and offered his hand to Babylonia Sharif and Ambroce realized that she had been represented by that blur. She took the hand and, with majestic grace, stepped down next to him.

“You followed me?” said Ambroce, getting to his feet. His left hand stung.

“I followed the Nova Text jar,” said Fennel, glancing at the woman. “I’m not sure what she followed.”

“Not common sense,” growled Ambroce, stowing his weapon back in its holster. He shook his stinging hand up and down, and looked around. The shimmer in the air vanished.

The room they were in was large. Not as spacious as the observation deck they had just left. Actually, it was probably less than a tenth the size of that room aboard Orchid, and the ceiling, which did not afford them any views of space itself, was only about ten feet above the floor. There was light but no visible source of it, nor any shadows to point them toward one. The air was fresh and breathable. The walls were gray, marked here and there with odd-looking glyphs. Fennel walked over to the nearest wall and examined a group of markings. Ambroce said, “Any idea where we are?”

“Oh, yes,” Fennel said. “These markings are ancient Aihai. I suspect we’re on board the Black Ship.”

“So much for routine assignments,” said Ambroce. “Not to mention safety. Why do you conclude we’re on the Black Ship and not, say, Mars?”

“Because there are other languages also carved into this wall. Over there is Aklo, for example. And Yaddith over there.”

“If that’s where we are, then, where do you suppose Ashe and Lucian are?”

“It’s a big ship.”

Ambroce peered at the wall. “As the foremost linguist of our time, I suppose you – ”

“Can interpret Aihai? Would you like to learn it?”

“Just translate the writing, please.”

“I’d rather not,” said Fennel. “It’s an incantation for bringing about the destruction of whoever recites it. It’s straight out of The Book of Eibon. I don’t suppose you’ve read that, either.”

“Actually, I’ve read the French translation of, what was his name? Gaspard du Nord – ”

“He didn’t include this incantation. Wise man, du Nord. Try the Latin version. All the writings on this wall seem to be the same incantation, by the way, just in different languages. It must be wonderfully handy for sorting out the riff-raff.”

“I think my decision to follow Ashe may have been precipitous,” admitted Ambroce. He produced his communicator and jabbed the call switch. Nothing happened. After a moment he said, “Getting out of here may not be easy. I can’t raise Arthur Jermyn.”

“Arthur Jermyn? That’s one of the Living Ships, isn’t it?” Babylonia said. “Then you are with the Lustrum, no?”

Ambroce put the communicator back in his pocket and looked at the woman. “What are you talking about? For that matter, what’s your interest in the Nova Text shell we were bidding on?” Not to mention how did she know whatever it was she thought she knew about the Lustrum; but he wasn’t about to ask a question like that at least until he had a few answers about her.

“Wouldn’t it be more profitable if we spent our time trying to find a way off this ship than asking questions?" he said. She shrugged, stepped past Ambroce and looked around. “What an odd sort of room this is. Are you sure this is a spaceship?” She could not help smiling as she spoke the words.

“Sure as sure can be,” said Ambroce. “But let’s get back to my question.”

What interrupted them was hardly an ear-splitting scream, though it certainly had a quality to it that could be described as blood curdling. It stopped suddenly. It was from another part of the ship – Ambroce could not even be sure of the direction it came from. Automatically, his hand reached for and produced his gun. He saw an ordinary-looking door across the room and made for it.

It opened easily, and he looked through it cautiously before moving into the corridor beyond.

The passage was lined with doors like the one they had come through. They might as easily have been in the corridor of an office building or hotel as in a spaceship. There was no clue to tell them where the scream came from, so Ambroce picked a direction arbitrarily. He opened the first door they came to and looked in, taking all the called-for precautions or at least as many as he could. The room was both featureless and empty. So were the next three.

The next room, however, was different. It was about the size of the one they had arrived on the ship in. It held several pillars, each with writing carved on it. Fennel examined one of them.

“Another curse?” asked Ambroce.

“You need to work on your languages, Hugh. Ancient Ahai isn’t all that difficult. This is a narative. It’s one of the Commorion myth cycle tales of the Atlantean, Klarkash-Ton. That pillar over there has another one. Over there I see one of the so-called ‘Moral Tales of Haon-Dor’ found in the Grael Saith. Did you read E. Theophilus Saylor’s translation of that? And on the pillar over there…” He peered more closely at one of the pillars. “Good heavens! I’d be almost willing to stay on this blasted ship just to study its walls!”

“I don’t recommend that, Dr. Fennel,” the woman said.

It irritated Ambroce to realize he had momentarily forgotten about her. “You never did tell us who you are.”

“Just a collector. A harmless collector, much like you, Mr. Ambroce.”

“I wish I could believe that,” he said. The problem was he did believe her, in a way. He was a collector all right – of sorts. But he was not harmless and he was starting to believe she wasn’t either. Perhaps he had made a mistake in stopping Ashe from killing her. They went back into the hallway and began searching rooms again.

Two doors down they found the source of the scream.

Ambroce, energy gun ready, tried the door and pushed it open on a medium-sized, well-lighted room. He looked down and found himself staring into the eyes of Lucian.

Well, not the eyes, exactly. They were gone. But he was looking into the sockets. An insect, the color of dried wood and the size of his thumb, crawled out of one of them and moved sluggishly down Lucian’s face. Lucian’s head was sitting upright about two yards inside the room facing the door. Other parts of him were arranged around the room in no discernable order except that they were not close enough to touch each other. Here a hand, there an ear, over there a spleen. There wasn’t a lot of blood, probably because of the way the insects were so enthusiastically going after it. Inroads had been made as well into soft matter and, here and there, flesh. One of the insects seemed to take notice of them, hopped down off a piece of liver it had been devouring, and started toward the door.

Fennel reached past Ambroce and pulled the door shut before the insect could reach it.

Three

Ambroce revved up the setting on his energy gun and wished he were wearing power armor. Not that he believed either the gun or the armor would really be helpful here, but he could use some comfort. He glanced up at the others. “What were those things? Hraish?”

“At least you’ve read your von Juntz,” said Fennel.

“I don’t recall a word in the book about this starship, though.”

“There aren’t many sources of information on the starship of Azathoth,” Fennel said, lightly. “Triknikium has a couple of paragraphs. All he tells us is that the ship seems to change its appearance a lot, at least in regards to shape. The color’s pretty consistently black.”

“That’s not very helpful.”

“No, it isn’t. I think – ”

“You’re wasting time,” said Babylonia Sharif. “The ship is not the immediate problem here. That problem is Dr. Ashe.”

“I agree,” Ambroce said. He clicked the safety on his gun and shoved it back under his jacket. “What do you know about him, Miss Sharif?”

“He seems to be highly dangerous.”

“That’s right. After all he tried to kill you.”

“He tried to kill you also.”

Ambroce nodded. “He and I have met before. It was the third time he’s tried to kill me. I have to admit I gave him plenty of reason to want me dead on two other occasions. And it must make him furious to think he’s failed three times now.”

“He would have killed us all, wouldn’t he?” she said, quietly.

“He killed Panag simply because he was in the way, I suppose. But basically he killed him to get the fragment. Then he chose to try and kill you. Not Lucian, the bodyguard, who was armed. You, sitting there, wearing a sari that certainly displayed all the weapons you brought with you. Considerable weapons, too, but I still find it amazing that he felt you were more immediately dangerous than Lucian. Or me, for that matter. He ignored me until I drew my weapon on him.”

“Dr. Ashe is a man of great arrogance and not much sanity,” she said. “He is nothing if not unpredictable.”

“That sums him up very well,” Ambroce said. “It sounds a lot like an admission that you know him.”

“It does, at that,” said Fennel. “And I suspect she knows more about this ship than either of us. But I think you’ve gotten all you’re going to out of her for now.”

“He’s right,” she said.

He nodded. “I know, I know. So. What do we do?”

There was a mocking quality to her smile. “Here’s an idea. Since you think I know so much more than you do about all this, why not let me make the decisions for a while?”

“And where would that lead us I wonder?” said Fennel.

It was an intriguing thought, but before Ambroce could pursue it, there was a scratching sound from the other side of the closed door. He said, “I think the Hraish are trying to eat their way out.”

“The ship will undoubtedly open that door rather than allow them to do real damage,” Fennel said. “I think we should go somewhere else.”

Ambroce agreed and started off down the passageway.

“No, the other way I think,” said Babylonia Sharif.

Ambroce looked back at her. Without waiting for his comment, she turned and started back the way they came. The scratching from the other side of the door grew louder and more furious.

“Do you think they could have finished poor Lucian this quickly?” said Fennel.

“Let’s follow the woman,” said Ambroce.

She was moving quickly. She reached a door past the room where they had arrived on the ship. She opened it and went inside.

She left the door open. There was a stairwell and from the sound of her footfalls, they could tell she was moving downward. Ambroce glanced upwards and around but saw nothing to prompt special caution. He pulled his gun again anyway. He followed her down the stairs and Fennel came with him.

They saw her go through a door two levels down and followed her through it, finding themselves in a passageway not very different from the one they had been in. Babylonia Sharif was nowhere to be seen.

But in the opposite wall some distance down the passage, Ambroce saw an open door and started toward it.

From the floor above them there came a sound: thousands of small, hideous legs scritching and scratching above their heads. The hraish were still hungry.

Then suddenly there was another sound, sudden and like a trumpet. But no trumpet blown by human lungs.

Ambroce pressed against the wall and stood still a moment while the sound rose and vibrated in the air. He cast a quick glance at Fennel behind him. Fennel nodded in answer to the unspoken question: the sound was made by a Nova Text component. Ambroce moved toward the open door, with as much caution and silence as he could.

In the thousands of components of the Nova Texts were recorded the greatest compilation ever of information about the Great Old Ones – the alien beings that included Cthulhu, Yog-Sothoth, Dagon, Azathoth and Nyarlathotep, among others, and represented the greatest threat possible to the orderly universe. Zazarin composed in a tonal language combined with energy projected as color and all the fragments of a chapter must be together and play their notes and flash their colors together to be completely understood.

AZATHOTH’S STARSHIP by Page and Burge

As he reached it, there was a flash of light and a voice, recognizably Ashe’s, cried out. Ambroce was in time to see the man fall backwards to the floor, though not what had happened to him. On a table close by, the egg-shaped stone howled. The air above it glowed with brilliant light, a kaleidoscope of red, green, white, orange and even gray, in changing shades. The woman turned and looked at them. There was no weapon in her hand. She gave them a deep, sad smile then moved to the table and picked up the egg-shaped component.

Ambroce knelt by the fallen man. There was really no need; he was merely confirming that there was nothing he could do to help him. Ashe was as dead as poor Lucian, though there was more of him left for burial, for now; and then Ambroce saw something out of the corner of his eye that he had not noticed before. Though there was no suitable hole in Ashe’s chest or any other part of him, a human heart, shriveled and unbeating, lay several feet away. Ambroce stood up again and said, “I see now why he thought it so important to kill you before me.”

Illustration by Paul McCall

“Be careful, Hugh Ambroce,” she said. “I owe you my life and I would not like to repay the favor with treachery. I would even save your life, if I had the time. But there is something more important I have to do.”

She made a strange gesture in the air, and it shimmered and glowed faintly violet in front of her.

“Then repay me by answering one question,” Ambroce said. “Who are you?”

The sound of the hraish had ceased above them. But they could hear them on the stairwell now. Their scrabbling movement did not seem to make a loud sound, but it carried well.

“I’m surprised you haven’t guessed. I suspect Lor Fennel has figured it out by now.” She glanced at him, then back to Ambroce.

“I am the Descendant,” she said. And, still holding the fragment, stepped daintily toward witch space.

Hugh Ambroce made no effort to follow her. His guess was correct. She was the Descendant, Meriam Abd Al-Azrad, claimant to the rank and estate of Abdul Alhazred who had compiled The Necronomicon.

She was the High Priestess of Cthulhu.

Ambroce stood there as she stepped into the glowing, shimmering air. She looked back at him. “While my mission is too important to allow me to waste time by saving you personally,” she said, “once I am gone you might care to try your communication device again. We are still not so close to the Nebula as to make rescue impossible – however unlikely it might be. But do hurry. I think I hear the hraish coming.”

And then she was gone.

The air shimmered a moment more and then, with so faint a crackle that Ambroce was not sure it even happened, the dimensional passage disappeared and he and Fennel were alone with the corpse of the oh-so formidable Dr. Ashe.

Ambroce yanked his communicator out of its pocket and snapped it on. He could tell immediately it was working. Moments later he heard the voice of his wife, Li Sheng, who waited for them aboard Arthur Jermyn.

Witch space was simply a form of travel through the dimensions using an esoteric system of mathematics to plot the travel, and an extraordinary arrangement of angles across the curvature of space and time to achieve it. Agents of the Lustrum did not use witch space. It was reserved for the followers of the Great Old Ones, and therefore filled with dangers for them: the Hounds of Tindalos, the Hraish. Nyarlathotep.

But Lustrum agents had their own form of travel through space and time, which they called the step-down system because it was principally used to step down from the orbiting Living Ships to whichever planet they arrived at. It used a related but completely different type of math from witch space, and cut different and therefore safer channels through the dimensions.

The air in front of Hugh Ambroce and Lor Fennel shimmered again, but this time the tint of it was not violet but blue. Quickly, they departed the Black Ship, just as the hraish found the door to the room they were in and began scratching on it.

Four

“So that was Meriam Abd Al-Azrad,” Fennel said, accepting the tall glass of tea which Li Sheng handed him. “That explains a lot.” Fennel never touched alcohol. Ambroce had no such scruples. He took the glass that his wife offered him and tasted it eagerly.

Li Li sat down next to him. She was wearing an orange sari with small green designs on the skirt. He had not seen it befor e, and he appreciated the way it clung to and emphasized her slender shape. Her two hands found his free one and held it tightly. He could not imagine her tearing out a man’s heart and throwing it on the floor. Well, at least not unless she had a very good reason.

“I saw the Descendant once on Pasquintain,” Li Li said. “A beautiful woman, strange and complex.”

“And dangerous,” Ambroce said.

“And dangerous,” his wife agreed and squeezed his hand affectionately. “But honorable in her way. I am grateful to her for letting you come back to me.”

“So am I,” said Ambroce. “There is no place I would rather be, sweetheart. Especially compared to where I just was. Lor, you were saying something about everything being explained. Could you share your insights?”

“You flatter me,” said Fennel. “I suspect you’ve figured it all out by now, too.” He sipped his drink. “Well, we now know why Ashe thought she was more immediately dangerous than you, and the source of their mutual enmity. Ashe was a Templar of the Yellow Sign, you told me once, an agent of Hastur. She is the High Priestess of Cthulhu. Though Hastur and Cthulhu are sometimes held to be closely related, the rivalry between them is fabeled and amounts to a feud.”

“I saw your face when you laid eyes on the component for the first time,” Ambroce said. “You were excited. Why was that?”

“Because, according to the markings on the outside of the shell, it was the twenty-third and last jar of a chapter the other twenty-two parts of which are in my possession back on Meletenes Maridon,” said Fennel. Meletenes Maridon was the fourth and hidden satellite of the University of Meletenes where Fennel conducted his research on the Nova Texts. “It deals with the subject of Cthulhu and once completed, I feel certain the set would have revealed much that we’ve been trying to learn for centuries about that monster. It would give us, for example, the key to R’lyeh that might allow us to drive Cthuhu from the Earth. It might also reveal the location of Vhoorl, Cthulhu’s home world, sometimes said to be within the so-called twenty-third nebula. As you know, I’m one of those who feel that the Lantern of Lost Stars is the twenty-third nebula. But it would have been nice to know for certain. Very nice, indeed.” He sighed. “But perhaps I infer too much from the fact that the set had twenty-three components …”

The hraish scrambled into the room and filled it with their eager brown bodies. If they were disappointed to find that the living beings had escaped them, that disappointment was camouflaged by the enthusiasm with which they went about dealing with the one that remained. Within moments the corpse of Dr. Ashe was disassembled, arranged on the floor for proper eating, and then consumed entirely. The hraish were nothing if not efficient housekeepers.

The ship observed as it observed all things that happened on it, within it or near to it.

It appreciated the hraish; there was an elegance to their ways, a sense that they belonged and had purpose. Its recognition of such things was in no way a concession of Order over Chaos but a grasp of function. It used the minutiae of Order to the ends of Chaos because it functioned in a material universe. Whatever the necessary flaws of its design, above all else the ship served Azathoth.

Those who serve Azathoth most efficiently have no need to judge themselves. The ship did not weigh failure against success. What happened on its decks and within its chambers were things that happened. Judgement was not the function of the ship but of Azathoth. Only time, probably the passage of billions or trillions not of years but of ages would reveal the success or failure of its function.

The Black Ship fell through nothingness toward the rioting coloration of the gases and energies that made up the Lantern of the Lost Stars and experienced the function of contentment.

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