It’s not here.

However, the dictaphone completed its transmission. This implies that the ship’s still somewhere around, if I was right about the ship/dictaphone connection.

Where is it?

[break]

Green and Black are here. They showed up a bit after their usual time. Black looks very agitated, and keeps moving up and down by the window; Green’s much calmer. They’re watching out for the storm.

Myself, I’m looking for the ship. I know that the Hotel can withstand another megastorm, so I should be safe provided I stay indoors. But that ship is my way off this place, damn it.

My window, unfortunately, only faces towards the sea. In order to see what’s happening in the other direction, I have to go down to the foyer. I keep popping up and down, too jittery to stay in one place long. Luckily the transporter closet thing means I don’t have to use the stairs.

Green’s looking at me. What’s happening?

You talk to the talk to not this planet machine?

It’s a habit.

Habit?

I, um, I talk to it today, and yesterday, and the day before yesterday, and so on. I got the machine from the ship that brought me here.

Who listen to the machine?

I don’t know.

You talk and you do not know who listen?

I told you it was a habit.

[untranscribable conversation]

There is a word. A scenario. I will pain and I will dead tomorrow. Today I am this word. What is the word?

Ah. I know that one. Scared.

I am scared and Black is scared. When I am scared I say much. When Black is scared he walk much. When you are scared you talk to machine?

Heh. Yes.

The storm will come today. We have not see the storm. When the storm have come, we have swim under water.

We’ll get a good view of it through that window…

Yes.

[untranscribable conversation]

[break]

The ship!

I saw it down in the foyer. It’s moving overhead again, but much more slowly than before. I’ve opened the Hotel door to stick my head out and look straight up. I think it’s decelerating.

Green’s baffled. Black won’t leave my apartment.

[break]

It’s stopped. It’s hovering directly overhead. What’s it doing?

[break]

It’s rotating. I went up to tell Green, and now I’ve got back I can see that it’s turned about thirty degrees. It’s moving very slowly. I can barely see it as I’m watching. It appears to be pointing the spiked ball away from the ground and the other end towards the ground; that’s towards us.

What is it doing?

[break]

It’s stopped rotating. It’s now completely end-on.

The rear end, for want of a better term, is made up of… twelve… spikes or spines, radiating out from a central core. They move out a little way and turn through ninety degrees to run along the axis of the ship. The end result is that the rear of the ship resembles a hollow, bottomless cage. The spines are now pointed directly at us.

The radial point where the spines meet is glowing with some sort of brilliant scarlet fire, churning slowly. I hope I’m not looking right up it’s engine exhaust. Or up a gun muzzle.

It doesn’t seem to be doing anything.

[break]

Black say the storm comes soon.

Does he know when?

Two or three or four hours.

The ship’s doing something, I don’t know what. I don’t know how affected it’ll be.

I do not know.

Tell Black that the Hotel should be fine when the Storm hits, will you? Last time I could barely even hear it, inside my room.

I will say.

[break]

It’s descending!

The ship is so directly above us that if I open the apartment window, put my head out and look straight up I can see it. And it’s bigger.

It doesn’t look like much; a sort of twelve-pointed star, red flame at its centre. It looks very alien. It’s still very pale against the haze of the sky and hard to make out.

I don’t think it’s moving very fast.

I do not know how much big therefore I do not know how much far.

Yeah. Something about it doesn’t look right.

Yes. It come.

Is it landing? Could a thing that size land?

I do not know.

[break]

We stopped for lunch.

The ship didn’t. Every time I look out it’s just a little bit larger against the sky, although it doesn’t move noticeably. It’s still directly overhead; it must be homing in on the Hotel.

And there is only one thing in the Hotel that I know is transmitting.

[indeterminate noises]

I love you, dictaphone!

[break]

It’s big. It’s very big.

It’s occupying about a quarter of the sky, now. It’s still looking as if it’s being seen through haze; it’s still moving very slowly. It can’t be very high up, and yet… I don’t know. It does not look right.

[break]

Where?

See.

God, yes. Just on the horizon.

The storm will come one hour. Less than one hour.

The ship’s going to touch down… I think… any moment now. The storm’s going to hit it when it’s on the ground.

I do not know if the ship will dead.

I hope not. I really hope not.

You will close the window?

Oh, sorry. There.

We are safe from the storm. We are safe from the storm.

[break]

There’s something seriously wrong about the ship. It’s vast. Over a kilometre wide, at least ten long. It’s occupying over half the sky. The red sun is being blocked out by one of the spines. I can see lines of white cloud, from shockwaves in the air, around all the sharp edges I can see. The churning red flame above us is oppressive.

It can’t be more than a few hundred metres above us and yet I get the impression it’s still far away.

The storm is building. The vast front is racing towards us across the ocean; there’s a solid mass of electric blue lightning running from horizon to horizon.

Black’s cowering in a corner, but unable to take his eyes off the window. Green’s next to him, talking quietly in sealin. I’m leaving them to it, but right now I feel like I could use some comfort as well…

[break]

Oh, my god.

I do not believe this.

I was wrong. Totally wrong. Black was right.

The ship was in orbit.

It’s not a kilometre wide. It’s more like ten kilometres wide. Those black spines are sliding down the sky all around the island. The ship is bigger than the entire island! The short axis of the ship is bigger than the entire island! It must be a hundred kilometres long—at least!

It’s dark. Both suns are hidden behind the stupendous bulk of the thing. The only light is a flickering red glow from the central fire and the horrible blue arcing from the front of the storm. I don’t know what’s going to hit first, the storm or the ship…

The ship’s descending. I can’t see it all, but the spines are descending towards the sea. The storm front is racing towards us…

The ship’s hit! The spines must be three, four hundred metres wide alone! Water’s being flung up thousands of metres from the impact, there are white shockwaves around each impact point… waves racing away… the ship’s still going. I can see marks on the spines, it’s still descending. It’s…

[indeterminate noises]

Aah! What the…

[untranscribable conversation]

What happened? Are you all right?

[untranscribable conversation]

I… yes. I… what…?

The spines must have hit the sea floor… where’s the storm? How far is the…

Good god! What…

The storm! What’s happened to the…

[untranscribable conversation]

What is that?

Not know. Not know…

[untranscribable conversation]

[break]

All right. The ship’s touched down. It seemed to hit the sea bed pretty hard; but thinking of the sheer mass of the thing, it can’t possibly be holding itself up by those spines.

The island is completely encased in that cage thing. I went down to the foyer, not opening the door, and I could see those huge shining columns all around.

Shortly after it touched down, there was a sudden web of orange flame between all the spines. Just for a moment. And then the storm hit the spines and… broke.

It was just deflected off on all sides, as if there was a barrier there. Lightning arced to the spines but there is no wind, no noise, and the sea is still relatively calm. It must be some kind of force barrier. The ship’s defended us from the storm.

Oh, yes; there was a barrage of mini tidal waves from the impact of the spines against the water. But they’ve gone now.

Black’s practically catatonic. Green’s not talking to me; I think she has too much on her mind at the moment. I’m leaving them both be. I told Green that if I could help, I would, but I’m not sure she was up to translating English.

The mass of the ship forms this dark ceiling above the island. Between the spines it’s just dark; the storm, raging outside the shield, is blocking any light from the suns. There’s just that infernal glow. The more I look at that writhing flame directly above us the less I like it.

But it did protect us from the storm.

I can’t get my mind around just how big this thing is. The top end of the ship, that spiked ball, must be well above the atmosphere. Laid horizontally, it would span the English Channel. In orbit it would eclipse the sun. You could fit every man, woman and child on Earth in it and still have room for every artifact ever made by humanity. This ship won’t have a crew, it’ll have a civilisation.

Did I call this?

Can I change my mind?

No, no, I don’t mean that. It’s still a spaceship, even if it is bigger than some moons, and it’s still my best hope off this place. I just hoped for something a little more… accessible.

[break]

Black’s okay.

Green soothed him for a while, to no avail. And then Black suddenly surged into life, reared up—nearly hitting the ceiling, he’s big—shouted incomprehensibly at the storm, the ship, Green and me, and then suddenly collapsed and went docile again. But now he’s talking to us again. He’s subdued, but he’s back.

Green looks relieved. I’m not sure how I can tell this, but I can. I think she was a lot more worried than she was letting on. She was completely unfazed by the storm, or the ship; scared while it was happening, but adjusting quickly. Black’s collapse, however, really affected her.

Is he all right?

Black not is pain. He have much scared. He is less scared.

I was scared, too.

Yes.

Do you want something to eat? It’s been a while.

Yes.

You work the widget, it’ll give me human food. Oh, yuck, what’s that?

I do not know. Fish?

I hope you can eat it, I certainly can’t.

[indeterminate noises]

I can eat it. I can much eat it.

I’ll leave you to it, then.

[indeterminate noises]

Gross. I think that was a mass of fish guts. Still, Green’s tucking into it happily, and Black’s not far behind her.

I hope this place has good air conditioning. I have to sleep here.

[break]

Good grief! I forgot! I completely forgot!

If the ship was homing in on the island because they’d heard the dictaphone’s transmission, it’ll be waiting for a reply! I’ve been talking to this thing all day, but haven’t sent anything!

So I’ll get it to transmit now. It’s late, anyway, and this has been a slightly stressful day. See if anything happens tomorrow.

Do I need a personal message to the ship? Hi, guys. Thanks for coming. Do you have any way for you to talk to me? This machine only sends, it doesn’t receive.

Those fish guts stink.

[transmit]

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