Jan Maszczyszyn

The Contemplar of Artysion

The giant spaceship glided along the planet’s orbit.

The window that fulfilled the front part of the ship with a graceful arc revealed the continents below. The land masses where enveloped in a white shroud of clouds that curled up tightly defining the edge of the planet’s atmosphere. Chryor’s yellow eyes were gleaming from behind the thick glass. He was a curious creature– possessing typical characteristics of an ilk. No more than a minute ago he finished programming an atmospheric composition upon the ship’s board so that it was ready to welcome the invited visitors. It contained as much as twenty-one percent of the poison oxygen. Just in case he stopped breathing one hour ago, his last sip of energized particles could allow him to hold his breath for weeks or in certain conditions, months.

He wondered to himself what would the living beings whose metabolism utilize such rapid burning processes look like? How would they behave? Is ferocity of chemical reaction influence their characters, set up strange morality, create behavioural mess such as wars and unexplained violence; for example?

He supposed that the inhabitants of this planet would be hostile, suspicious, arrogant, impatient, and rush in making decisions. He could imagine bunch of millions beasts and their hunger, their fear, their determination to stay on the top of the competitive oxygen poisoned world.

He was afraid of trouble. At least in the beginning, his job contained high risk factors. The main role of his job was to carry out standardised system to system procedures, whether he was nearby his home planet or in the strange corners of galaxy he always stayed focused on business; worthy of every penny of investments; planetary art!

Chryor twisted his irregular face in aversion. He could imagine millions of possible scenarios, billions of alternative endings for the inhabitants below.

No considering invasion.

Who would invade such rejected world?

The normal intelligent life flourish only in the interstellar space not on the surface of damn planet stuck to the neighbourhood’s insignificant star like a ball on the short chain!

No way to set a foot on such disgusting mud!

The planet below presented to him extreme shocking conditions.

The speed of chemical reactions taking place in the atmosphere means that such creatures don’t have much time to live. They probably do not value it. They rather sacrifice themselves for any good reason. They mock with the destiny. They fuck the reasoning. Cry and swear subsequently. Oxygen consumes them within roughly 788,400,000 breaths taken. Then system halts; expired. It means that after their globe make a mere couple dozen trips around their sun, they gone. So, don’t have many opportunities to contemplate beauty in its innumerable variety of depths. Often they stacked, frozen in the thoughtless blindness for entire life. Unlike Chryor’s species that had individuals lived for hundreds thousands of years.

He rather expected that such sort lived creatures have a bad temper. They have to make swift decisions between the statements; I love, I hate, I like, I don’t like... After all they had such little time for considering wider broad of options. He supposed that if they could be proud of any emotion, it would be the feeling of love; it had to be tempestuous, quick and brief in order to preserve the species in such a dynamic environment.

Obviously, the education of their young had to last for at least half of their lives. Childhood, he supposed, consisted of the deception of the true vision of the world…teaching children about talking, dancing animals and finally deceived young adults about death with stories of winged goodies.

In Artysion, the world from which he came, the young were treated on equal terms as the adults. Simply, with a new generation a fresh perception of reality was born. The young cocoons of Contemplators were enthusiastically absorbing knowledge while their elders were skilfully initiating them into the mysteries of sublime art.

The system was indicating objects of inspiration, expanding the scope of feeling of beauty and most importantly, filling young souls with the call for creativity and damn it, it had been doing so for hundreds of years before these individuals became mature.

Well, he didn’t expect to find understanding in this solar system. It was no different than in other parts of this galaxy. Aggression and the hunter instinct full of hatred.

A tiny object was emerging from beyond the planet’s arc. It glistened in the rays of the sun. The last fifty light-years of the journey were filled with information and invitations that the inhabitants of this planet had sent by radio in all directions. Who was supposed to benefit from this communication? In this case certainly not the race offering a helping hand.

During his journey he had analysed this society carefully; approximately ninety percent of the population was interested in religion, politics and sports. Areas that hold such principles had poor developmental value, they’re thinking could be regarded as almost infantile. A handful of those really creative and capable of revolutionary thoughts remained frightened and silent under the influence of terror.

They called themselves humans.

Now, they were coming, flying. Chryor, with his expert eye, saw all the shortcomings of their space technology. At first glance, it was evident that they had a problem with their oxygen atmosphere. Their ship had wings and was coated with thermal tiles, like callus plaster. He reckoned that if one of them came off, it would cause disaster to the whole unit. Pilots navigating such a wreck had to price their lives very low.

The humans were unprepared for docking. They didn’t know any of the universal links, only an idiotic jib chair. The wing of their ship nearly collided with Chryor’s window. Travelling in the Earthlings’ chair seemed like a stunt feat.

"Our children can fly better with a vacuum” - he thought, observing another of them, balancing on the unfolding end of the rope.

“Oh, just look at them!’’ He shouted when the creature bumped into the surface of his ship. He hissed with delight when it waved its arms pointlessly in the space, awkwardly trying to hitch a sharp hook to the links of crystalline metal. After the tenth attempt, he finally managed.

An hour passed before the man realized where the universal contact hatch was. The first Earthling was quickly followed by the next three. Now, they only had to solve the differential equation and decipher a self-correcting code of the lock. They weren’t doing very well with the latter. They were forced to return to the board of their spaceship several times to get their oxygen tanks. They didn’t trust the mixture prepared by Chryor.

His time has come. He adjusted all the feeders and filled programmers with artistic modules. He sat in his usual place and waited.

The Earthlings finally made ​​it to the hallway. Artificial gravity was the same as on Chryor’s indigenous planet, the triple G. Walking in these conditions cost them a lot of effort, especially after being weightlessness for so long. They waded through the corridor with difficulty. They stopped in the middle of the enormous hall and looked around, not believing what they saw. Canvas’s spread across the massive ceiling, walls and some parts of the floor. Compared to the vastness of the display space above and on the sides they were merely ants. The gas which filled the spaceship was delicately illuminating and emphasizing all the paintings revealing their hidden meanings.

They were alluringly beautiful. They depicted, with extreme precision that was the result of talent, all those worlds in which Chryor had, had the honour of staying and which he immortalized in his artistic expression.

The contact chamber closed noiselessly. There was a rumble and the wave of vibration rolled over the floor. The ship moved.

The Earthlings panicked. They pulled out their hidden guns. They were shooting blindly. The gravity value increased to 5 G nearly flattened them against the crystal floor.

Now he could introduce himself to them.

He danced up to them. He pulled the fabric of their space suits and very slowly, stripped them naked. He didn’t intend to damage their precisely tuned tissues. They trembled under his icy touch. He tried to puncture the skin of their stout commander. Flexible and firm, it didn’t give in easily. Human bodies were exceptionally beautiful in their dynamic contractions and violent screams of pain. He grunted with delight repeatedly. They drew back to the wall and watched him - stricken by panic, overpowered by the gravity, helpless in their nakedness. He pushed each of them to a different feeder niche. They submitted to the movement like lead blocks. He pushed violently. They fell to the ground. Their bodies reddened from internal bleeding. For a long time, he was adjusting the position of their bodies, and then, with his long fingers, he selected the appropriate programs on the control panel of the frame.

With his mouths in the shape of the long funnel, he watched a wonderful mass of idiofalm flooding the face of the first Earthling. He smacked his lips in delight. How beautiful! Wonderful! He grabbed the man's jaw with both his hands and pulled it. What a stubborn bastard! He sent vibrations through his body. Yeah, now the head became soft and white as a hot candle wax. He moulded it into the shape of a terrifying scream. Hmm…The scream suited him. He extended the body even more. It became unnaturally long, flexible, and therefore full of impressionist expression, a colourful entanglement. Then he walked over to the rest of the humans, and, after a quick treatment, went on to the next phase of the process.

A mass of idiofalm slowly filled the feeders. It became as hot as molten metal, and then it shrank and began to crawl back into the frame. The carbon-based process of the priming the material of biological life was always time-consuming. It required incredible precision. Maturing the image will take long, probably most of the way to the next star system.

Chryor went up to his canvas. His legs slightly tightened to the receptors of the feeders. The blank painting above him which he resided in swelled with the preservative substance of idiofalm. At the edge of the frame a hot ball of paint began to form, for a moment it remained thick, glittering, coloured and greasy. Suddenly the hot ball burst and began to ooze downward, quickly covering his ugly head, woody legs and entire short body. More and more the substance poured outward, as if the canvas was a bottomless reservoir of stinking liquid. Suddenly the pouring ceased.

Something rumbled scarily. A device similar to the big mechanical tongue slid out of the frame. It began to slurp the substance, dragging it along with the artist back into its interior frame. Swellings in the painting underwent standardized flattening. Now, master Chryor’s aged face was peeking out from the painting. With his fishy eyes full of pride and his hands as wide as branches of a tree he presented the view behind him. The Milky Way Galaxy, unknown to his race up to now.

It was a modest portrait. Chryor himself was a Contemplator, his race would soon visit this planet. First would come Contemplators, then the Landscapists of Artysion would follow. The Artysion race is usually merciless. They are capable of closing an entire race alive in one gigantic panorama of idiofalm. Finally, the planetary Chisellers transform the empty spaces of the globe into low reliefs and dynamic, mobile engravings in the rocks.

As for the portrait of a group of Earthlings – it pictured

Four screaming figures were reminiscent of those by Ched-vard Chry-munch. One screaming figure resided in the foreground whilst the remaining three disfigured earthlings populated the middle-ground. Their bodies painfully deformed, twisted and devoid of any bones, their melted skin holding them collectively in a heap. They were barely recognisable as human with their faces rotten and sagging as if they were bags of soggy hanging chicken livers, discoloured and barren of any natural pigment.

The main figure in the foreground appeared so fragile that at a mere touch it would crumble, the form appeared less damp then the rest as its skin seemed dry with strips of skin composing a crown on the top of its cracked open skull. The missing splintered bones of the three humans, forming a long title - Artysion spelt out beautifully accentuating particular letters, “Pain”.

There was so much p-a-i-n in it.

The suffering of the human race - the entire planet fulfilled with everyday agony – the world of selfish self-consumption existence.

It will be worth to return here - for more - with the others.

(Entire short story, published in 2013 in the collection "Testimonium", in Polish. Translated from Polish by Elisabeth Kolo)