Harry Cavendish Read Free Page A

the one?’
    ‘It is best not to take chances. If word were to get out, it might cause us problems.’
    ‘We must kill him then. But torture him first. Make him talk. Do you think a Prison Whale is really up to the task? They’re such dreadfully slow-witted creatures.’
    ‘You yourself commanded he be eaten, Sire.’
    ‘I did? Well, I’ve changed my mind.’
    ‘To what, Sire?’
    ‘Quite like to torture him myself,’ said the Emperor, floating the suggestion quietly, and it hung in the air for a little while as though it were contained in a soap bubble blown from his mouth, until the hive-mind got a grip and said, ‘But how would we get him out alive, Sire? Nobody has ever been removed from a Prison Whale alive before.’
    ‘Let’s ask the Whale for a favour,’ said the Emperor.

Chapter Five
    ‘I’m not going anywhere without the cow,’ said Cormack.
    ‘You know this is not going to be very pleasant for me either,’ said the Prison Whale. ‘I am almost certain to die from a gastric rupture with you half way down my lower intestine. But orders from the Emperor are one thing, and orders from my organization quite another. And I have confirming orders from my organisation.’
    ‘The cow cannot stay here. If I have to go, she is coming with me.’
    ‘Why, thankee,’ said the cow. ‘We have only met for such a short time, and you does be so pleasant and warm toward me, innit.’
    ‘I have come to think of you as a friend,’ said Cormack. ‘In spite of your udders, and your stupidity, and the other differences between us. I will not leave without you.’
    ‘Why, thankee,’ said the cow again. ‘You does be so pleasant and warm toward me, innit.’
    She started rubbing her pale, bony flank against Cormack’s leg.
    ‘You know, one does one’s level best as a prison whale,’ said the Prison Whale, his voice as loud as ever but now with a tremulous overtone. ‘One ingests and digests, and really one is doing an awful lot of the Zargons’ dirty work for them, and one tries to maintain a positive mental attitude throughout the whole disgusting business, keep the whole act going, you know: the barking out of the commands, the military bearing, the contempt for the clientele. One tries to do it all with a very real conviction, and it really can be a lot to ask, to act in that dignified manner, whilst performing the whole messy, confused and painful process of the actual administration of justice, far removed from your lawyering and your soliciting and your judging; and in spite of it all, being a prison whale can be a rewarding life…and to die like this, like a goat who’s swallowed knicker elastic – damned undignified! A rotten end to a distinguished career!
    ‘However, orders is orders.
     
    ‘I will erupt you, and your friend, the cow, through my lower intestine, explode you from my backside, and suffer the consequences.
    ‘May God spare your insufferable little lives and may He have mercy on my poor, benighted soul.’
    And so saying, the Prison Whale distended its stomach in one almighty flatulation, and Cormack fell to the floor and felt himself being slimed from above and below and the side as well, and there was an roar as though a jetliner were passing close to the side of his head, and then, thankfully, all went black until he woke up on the floor of a vast ice-lake in the Sumerian district of the state of Palanka, Zargon 8, and saw his friend the cow standing strong amidst the ruptured entrails of the dying Prison Whale, which had been dragged onto the ice from its berth in the sea and was howling and moaning and writhing in its agony.

    ***
‘Don’t come at me with no straw,’ said the cow angrily.
    ‘Leave the cow!’ said the largest and closest of the eight Zargonic Guards. ‘In fact, where the hell did the cow come from? It’s him we want,’ he said, pointing at Cormack.
    Cormack was flat on the ice.
    The Prison Whale was still in its death throes, thrashing about on its