The Most Terrible Beast

A story by Khristo Poshtakov

It was a regular bar, one of those found near null terminals or spaceports in any point of the intelligent universe. Nickeled holders for the consumption of various gas mixtures occupied the counter, their sterilized inhaling mouthpieces sticking out from the consumption sockets. Any patron of the place would be thoroughly familiar with the selection of cocktails; nevertheless their numbers were engraved in a dozen galactic languages. Four members of humankind were sitting on the comfortable stools in front of the counter. Three of them already knew one another, and the fourth one had just joined their company. They had been drawn together by their common need to kill some spare time between flights.

"I had a terrific adventure last week," Ivashkevic began, a burly youth of modest space experience. "We’d landed on some unknown planet, air fit to breathe and all, and we’d just gone out to stretch our legs when a bunch of incredibly nasty beasts came at us. They looked like a mixture of chameleon, horned frog and scorpion, and their tongues shot out some twenty meters grabbing at their prey. Their mouths were so big they could easily swallow a whole man. They came at us, we started killing them, and that went on for half an hour. But they kept swarming in. In the end, our weapons ran out of charge, and we had to fall back to the ship. I’ve never seen such terrible, dangerous brutes. Just thinking of them makes me retch."

"That’s nothing. The most terrible animals live on Crypt," said Captain Furimoto authoritatively and inhaled through his mouthpiece intoxicating gas No 8. "Had we not killed one of them, it would have gobbled up capsule."

"You’re lying," said Bradley, his colleague from Section D, which explored exclusively gas giants. "I’ve seen tapes from that planet, ain’t no such beastie."

"I belong to a people of honor," the Japanese puffed out his athletic chest and went on: "We always speak the truth."

"What’s so terrible about them?" Ivashkevic asked ingenuously and brushed away a non-existent speck of dust from his snow-white uniform. "Barman, please change my bottle with No 6," he called to the anthropoid from Revonia, who nimbly served the customers with his four arms.

Furimoto seemed shocked by the question, but once he switched the pipe of his mouthpiece to the faucet of gas No 5 and drew a great gulp, certain condescension lit up his face. His altered mental state apparently made him vouchsafe a question of his own:

"Have you ever seen a giantocyplex? Listen carefully, rookie, this is the most hideous creature in the galaxy. It weighs about a hundred tons, devours whatever crosses its path, smells disgusting, burps every five steps, and the sound of that is like a thunder striking. Its brain is the size of a pin, and if it has nothing left to eat, it attacks its own kind. That’s why we found just some hundred specimens on the planet, raging with hunger. There’s no point adding that the armor of those beasts is made up of sort of ceramic plates, which make even laser weapons useless, or that their teeth look like steel pillars."

"How did you do away with it, then?" said the dark-skinned stranger from the end of the bar.

"With a belly bomb," the shapely captain replied. "It’s a small thermonuclear device, and the dumb thing just wolfed it down. In short, we ridded the universe of one very big nasty."

"What about the radiation? The shock and the heat wave?"

"Elementary questions. When we saw the bomb going down that gullet, we naturally hid inside the nearest cave. Besides, our suits were sufficiently protected against any sort of radiation."

"But you didn’t record it and cannot prove it," the dark man kept taunting him.

"There was no time, it all happened too fast," Furimoto retorted.

"It ain’t such a big deal," Bradley put in, the skin of his face changing color. "It’s quite another story killing a plasma medusa, as we did once on Jupiter III. Imagine a pale mass as big as a city, pierced by millions of electric discharges each second, waving around a million tentacles. Such a beastie only cares how to turn everything along its track into energy, which later goes up in smoke ... well, probably it’s got some use for it. This plasma terror swims inside the dense atmosphere of the planet and assimilates anything and everything – from smaller medusas, storm clouds and hailstorms with stones the size of six-story buildings to the midgets roaming around the yellowish gas mixture of the sky; its main job, after all, is decomposing matter into atoms. It particularly enjoys the meteorites breaking from the rings of Jupiter III and plunging into its atmosphere. Compared to this monster, your giantocyplexes sound like harmless creatures taken from the crèche. If that thing’s an animal at all, there ain’t no beast more terrible nowhere."

"And how did you kill it?" Furimoto asked in a catty voice.

"We wouldn’t have if it hadn’t swallowed our exploration balloon. When it came dangerously close, we escaped with the emergency capsules to the ship waiting for us in orbit. The enormous brute destroyed all of our equipment, and we seethed with desire for revenge. The ship AI computed that the energy capacity of the medusa couldn’t surpass the decomposition of a hundred thousand tons of mass."

The Japanese excitedly inhaled a gulp of exalting gas No 2 and listened quietly.

"What happened next?" the stranger urged Bradley, while Ivashkevic kept modestly silent.

"We killed it using its own greed," Bradley said tersely and scratched at his blond mane. "We jumped to the nearest asteroid belt, took a three-mile-long piece of rock in tow and then hurled it from orbit bang into the center of the medusa. Monster must have almost died from bliss in the beginning, then it probably figured out the bite was too big for it, but it was too late. Its energy tract burst – the explosion bored such a hole into the atmosphere people must have seen from a few light-years away from the Jupiter III system."

"Impressive," Ivashkevic ventured.

"But I bet that wasn’t recorded either," the dark stranger said. "Do you wish to hear a true story making this one pale by comparison? Have you heard of the Planet-eater? I think that’s the most terrible beast in the universe." "Yeah right!" Furimoto chuckled, having just sniffed from exhilarating gas No 7. "And we’re supposed to buy that?" "When the facts speak, even the gods are silent," solemnly replied the stranger, who had been inhaling only soothing gas No 11. "We got away with the destruction of several planetary systems, but it could have been worse."

"I won’t believe it till I see it," the captain said.

"Let him finish," Bradley grinned.

"In the beginning all we had was registration data," the man began. "A few automatic observatories from different points in space reported that something huge periodically dimmed the stars in a certain sector. And once they got their brightness back, they had lost their planetary systems. Our expedition’s goal was to investigate the nature of that phenomenon. Needless to say, we barely saved our skins while we were looking into it. The space beast turned out to be an incredibly vast black substance sweeping up any planet that came along. Mind you, Jupiter III would hardly make a snack for it. Those devoured planets probably turned into feces of some unknown type, disappearing into another dimension – into vacuum or who knows where. The monster just ate them, leaving behind a track of empty space."

"And how did you kill it?" Ivashkevic asked, agape with wonder.

"It was anything but easy. We stalked it for a few parsecs until we spotted it in the vicinity of a blue giant star. We didn’t yet know if we’d be able to kill it, but we had to try. If we’d left it to its hellish deed, that unthinkably large brute would have eaten all the planets in the galaxy, one by one. So we used the newest postulates of theoretical physics and triggered the transformation of the blue giant into a supernova – just as the monster was closest to it. Then we made a null transition, stayed awhile in the nothingness until the supernova inferno cooled down and scanned the area from a safe distance. But, stare as we did, there was no trace of the monster. Without doubt, we had annihilated it. And without doubt, it was the most terrible beast that ever sprang into being."

"Hmm," Furimoto muttered.

"Why should I trust you?" said Bradley.

"It’s documented," the dark man said emphatically. "Galaxy MX 15, core coordinates 145/1230/89. If you don’t believe me, check it out. Now let’s all have a swig of festive gas No 14, my treat."

The gas buddies were silent for a while. Presently Ivashkevic offered uncertainly, "Speaking of the most terrible beast in the universe, I recall a legend now. I’ve heard it from a very old captain on an exploration ship."

"Spill it, now’s your chance," Bradley encouraged him.

"It tells of the mythical Galaxy Destroyer. Despite the counteraction efforts of some supercivilizations, no force has been able to best it so far. It’s as though the galactic monster was spawned by some universal Satan. Legends have it that even a visual contact with it across hundreds of light years proved fatal to the beholder..."

"I knew our young friend would put the cherry on the cake," Furimoto put in solemnly and gave another pull at the mouthpiece of intoxicating gas No 8. "Go on, my boy, I’m going to fall off my chair any minute now."

"The monster likely emerged from another dimension, then very swiftly enclosed a whole galaxy within its tentacles. The first sign of imminent doom was the appearance of an odd green light seeming to come from nowhere. As it gradually turned violet, the stars in the galaxy exploded and created a cosmic fiery hell. When it passed away, that part of space was left utterly void – as if swept by an incredibly colossal vacuum-cleaner. Intelligent life has been, the legend goes on, completely helpless against the Galaxy Destroyer; it seems only the Divine might could stop it, if it wished so. No-one has managed to kill it, for there are no weapons against it."

"A fine one, a very fine one, lad," Bradley praised him mockingly. "Is there another, more terrible beast?" he turned to the others.

"Not likely," the dark man said. "But look what’s going on outside."

The company stared in surprise at the large bar windows. The soft yellow light filtering through their blinds had now taken on a greenish hue and seemed to become darker, almost violet.

"Quick, to the ships!" Furimoto yelled, suddenly sober, and, never bothering to pay his bill, bolted for the exit. Bumping into one another, the others followed him.

© Khristo Poshtakov, 2006
© Translated by Kalin Nenov, 2006