Fisher King: Percival's Descent

By Karen A. Morrissey

Percival is an inconsequential lad stuck in the most disgusting, humiliating, and dangerous job on the planet Landis who flees to find a future at sea.

Aboard the Fisher King, a run down, under-crewed, interstellar cargo ship, he learns important lessons such as being in the vacuum of space without a spacesuit makes his tongue itch, how to fend off a pirate attack with a mining tool and make new best friends who poison him and cut his throat (but not without apologizing profusely).

But his old life won’t him go. After being drug home for a murder he didn’t commit—creating a technical state of war between the Fisher King and the governments of Landis—he finds strengths he didn’t know he had. But is the personal cost just too much to save himself and his friends?

About the Author
A software engineer from Denver, Karen A. Morrissey grew up in the 60s not with Nancy Drew, but Tom Swift Jr. Her favorite SF works include Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Darkover series and Orson Scott Card’s Ender tales. For several years, she and her partner of hosted the Thursday Night Writers’ Group. This is her debut novel.

• Language: English
• Publisher: DX Varos Publishing
• Release date: Jan 24, 2023
• ISBN: 9781955065474

Book preview

Fisher King:

Percival’s Descent

Karen A. Morrissey

Copyright © 2022, Karen Morrissey

Published by:

Thursday Night Press

an imprint of

DX Varos Publishing

7665 E. Eastman Ave. #B101

Denver, CO 80231

This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author.

Book cover design and layout by

Thursday Night Press

using artwork ©Gail Barton

ISBN: 978-1-955065-46-7 (paperback)

ISBN: 978-1-955065-47-4 (ebook)

Printed in the United States of America

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

To Elisabeth

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

About the Author

Chapter One

The Fisher King shuddered and rolled violently to port. It would be at least fifteen seconds before the raiders could hit the cargo ship with another gigawatt-second beating.

Perce stumbled through the hall, rushing toward the safety bridge, where he hoped to get some orders. He had abandoned his crewmates, who all seemed to have something to do, whereas he didn’t. His Chief told him, No time. Just stay out of the way. Being on shipboard for only three days, no one had gotten around to telling him what to do when the ship was attacked by pirates.

Again, a voice boomed, Surrender, and you will go free. Resist, and you will die, resonating from the very walls around him. That voice was the worst part of a pirate attack, he decided. It sounded like the voice of a god, which he thought undermined one’s confidence that one’s ship could hold up much longer against four-times-a-minute body blows. Perce needed some orders to take his mind off the poundings, and the voice of god, and his panicky fantasies that the pirates would cut off his toes and stuff them down his throat. Where the hell is the safety bridge? he screamed in his head. And then he sneezed again.

Eighty-five credits a day, plus a way out of his dead-end job in a dead-end world and into an exotic career of wandering the stars, seemed like a trade up in his life circumstances. Of course, it wasn’t hard to beat his previous job: loading composting vessels with sewage and other organic waste, inoculating the filth with the most deadly bacteria on the planet, and then unloading finished compost six days later, ready to be tilled into soil. With five sets of composting vessels in the containment, he was busy almost every day.

He used to imagine that his hazard suit was really a space suit and that when he entered the massive containment room, he was actually stepping out from his starship onto a virgin world that he would explore from its heights to its depths. He found it hard to keep up the fantasy, though, when he left the containment. Once the door closed behind him in the first airlock, he had to stand and slowly turn for three minutes while he was blasted with steam that flushed the filth off his suit. Next came the second airlock, where he was showered with concentrated chlorine bleach for seventeen minutes. Only then would the door to the third airlock open. Once he entered that room and the door closed, the room was flooded with high temperature formaldehyde vapor, reaching three atmospheres of pressure. He had to stand there for another twenty-three minutes.

Four days ago, the suckiest job in the world reached maximum negative pressure when Perce pressed the button to open the door from the containment to the airlock. He saw a red light turn on, off, on, then off, and the door did not open. He called on his suit radio, Hey, the containment hatch won’t open. After ten seconds he called again. I said the containment hatch won’t open. I get a red light that blinks twice and gives a buzz.

Standby, he heard on his suit radio.

Perce raised his arm and stared through the spattered muck at the gauges on his wrist. Forty-six minutes of air left. Noticeably less than usual, but no big deal, he thought. He didn’t have to get worried for a while, and he didn’t expect to be long. All the other times he had had to wait to enter the airlock, he had to dawdle at most fifteen minutes at the airlock hatch. To kill time, the young man examined the airlock hatch as if he hadn’t looked at it before. It was oval, a little rusted, and opened outwards into the containment room. He knew it had large ribs on the other side to reinforce it. The door was locked and unlocked either automatically or from some control room he had never visited. On the dark floor below the hatch, something filth-streaked and vibrant yellow caught his attention. He knelt down to see a piece of plastic-coated fabric. It looked like the same fabric as his suit. He thought it looked like it had been torn away from something. He thought again that it looked like a piece of fabric that had been ripped from a hazard suit just like his. A hole that big, he figured, could leak quite a bit of air over the period of a work shift. It could cause your air remaining to be noticeably lower than usual by the end of a shift. Then his heart raced as he trembled. A flood of adrenaline passed through his body and then homed in on his guts. His bowels cramped and he threw up into his suit.

He continued to vomit for what seemed like forever, falling a limb at a time down to his hands and knees. Then he retched for a while longer. Eventually, still on all fours, he calmed himself with slow, steady breaths. His eyes burned and watered from the now acrid atmosphere. Looking at the floor, he saw a blinking at the edge of his visor. He looked at his wrist gauges. He saw blinking, orange numbers. Forty-three. He had forty-three minutes of air left. Then it dawned on him: it took forty three minutes to make it through the airlocks and into an environment that wouldn’t kill him.

He climbed back onto his feet. His eyes were watering so badly that he couldn’t see. With shaky hands, he felt around for the button to open the airlock. He found it and pressed. He heard a buzz. Guys, I gotta get out of here! he yelled into his suit radio.

Standby, said a deadpan male voice.

Like hell. I gotta get out of here now! I’ve only got forty-three minutes of air.

Standby, said the voice.

Perce hated that voice. He was sure it was either a recording or the real voice of a heartless technician, someone like him whose soul had been worked to death, someone who just didn’t care. Perce hadn’t cared for a long time, but today he learned that he did care whether he lived, even if it was just to go home and then return the next day to a sucky job. Then he heard the airlock door open. He wasted no time climbing in, closing the door, and reaching around for the button that stood atop a post in the center of the room. He smacked it. Beeps counted down five seconds until the jets of steam began. The blasts were deafening, but after the first minute he found them soothing. He felt like he was slowly turning under a nice, hot shower. More importantly, he was on his way out. He looked down at his wrist, where he saw the comforting number forty blinking orange. Then he caught a whiff of sewage.

Throughout his journey through the airlocks, he was sure he smelled sewage mixed in with the puke that covered the front of his body and the inside of his helmet. Sewage meant he might have been exposed to the deadly bacteria he used to infect each batch of compost material. It was a ravenous, unthinking organism that lived for no reason but to digest any organic material it encountered. As if the smell of sewage was not bad enough, he also thought he smelled chlorine and then formaldehyde. It was in the formaldehyde room where he pleaded to unnamed gods to not have a ripped suit, to please let it be a mistake. In return, he pledged to do whatever the gods wanted from him. That’s what it was, he tried to convince himself, a mistake. He didn’t notice the wrist gauge turn red, showing the number minus one. Finally, the last door opened and Perce stepped out into the suit-up room.

Jerry, the suit technician who had helped him suit up at the start of his shift, walked over. Hey, Percy, how’d the shift go?

Don’t call me that. And how did it go? I almost didn’t make it through the showers. Man, the containment hatch wouldn’t open. I almost ran out of air!

Lemme see. Jerry grabbed Perce’s wrist and looked at the numbers. Naw, you’re fine.

Fine? Perce tapped at his wrist gauges. It says I’m at minus three minutes of air.

Yeah, but that doesn’t count the twenty minute reserve.

Reserve? You mean … plenty … sonofa— … Why didn’t you ever tell me there was a twenty minute reserve?

Jerry looked at Perce and shook his head. So you wouldn’t count on it, he said, as if explaining to a small child. The technician removed Perce’s helmet. His head jerked back. Whew! Gods, is that barf? And did you shit yourself? What the hell happened?

Something I ate, I think, Perce lied, and then I overheated. Overheating was common in a hazard suit, and often led to nausea. He wanted to ask the man to check his suit for a tear, but then he reminded himself that there was no tear, thanks to the gods. The scrap he found was not from his suit. He let Jerry methodically unsuit him. He shook his head as the technician unbuckled the straps of his environment pack. Man, this gig is not worth sixty-seven credits a day.

What? asked Jerry.

The young man pursed his lips and glared. I said, it’s not worth sixty-seven credits. Especially today, when the hatch wouldn’t open and I saw— He caught himself before he said what he saw.

Oh, the door not opening? said Jerry. That was Woodhull. He was in the chlorine room for thirty minutes.

That ass. Why couldn’t he hurry up? He is so friggin’ arrogant. I wouldn’t piss on him if he was on fire.

Jerry squinted at Perce. Woodhull couldn’t hurry because he was dead. He died in the chlorine bath. They found a hole in his suit; a patch got torn away somehow. He passed out and died. Pulling him out, they still had to do the formaldehyde. You didn’t see him fall or anything inside the containment, did you?

Perce felt his throat stick. The gods had listened to his pleas. But, did someone else have to die? He shook his head until he could let out a weak no.

Jerry watched the young man strip out of his vomit-, sweat- and diarrhea-soaked underclothes. He sat there while Perce stepped into a doorless shower stall and scrubbed himself practically raw. As Perce toweled himself, Jerry asked, Percy, do you really make sixty-seven a day.

Yeah. Why? And why do you call me that?

Woodhull got a hundred-twenty an hour while in the containment.

Perce dropped his towel. Maybe it’s okay, he thought, when the gods transfer an awful fate to someone rich, fat and arrogant. Or is there some kind of cosmic payback when you don’t accept your destiny?

Still looking for the safety bridge, Perce turned left at the corner and slammed into a tall, stout, black-skinned man in officer’s uniform. His name badge read, Hardman.

Wha’— The man looked down at Perce. Verden, what the hell are you doing here?

Perce sneezed into his sleeve. Trying—achoo!—trying to get some orders, sir.

You what? The man sighed. Follow me. He turned around to walk away just as the Fisher was hammered again. The corridor lights blinked, and the man began to float. Perce, too, lifted off his feet and felt slightly dizzy. Did they turn the gravity off, he wondered?

Both men slammed against the ceiling. Forget everything else, guard your head! yelled the black man. Perce complied, tucking his chin to his chest and wrapping his arms around his head; he drew up his legs, too. The men bounced hard off the walls, floor and ceiling, as if the ship was continually changing direction.

There was a brilliant flash and a loud explosion. Perce felt it squeeze his body. His ears had been plugged for days, ever since he got on the ship, but now they hurt, bad, and they were ringing. The man grabbed Perce and yelled close in his ear, Close your eyes and exhale, now! He did both. The lights went out. There was a rushing of air, and he felt himself fly down the corridor, careening off walls. His hand chanced on what felt like a door handle. He grabbed it and held on as wind blew past him. The wind subsided, then all was silent except for an excruciating throbbing in his ears made worse by a crushing pain in his face. His abdomen was full of knotted spasms. He tried to breathe, but nothing happened. He was suffocating. As seconds ticked along, so did his urge to breathe and to unclench his eyes. He was squeezing his eyes so tight that he was seeing kaleidoscopic sparkles and random flashes. His tongue and the inside of his mouth itched, and his nose burned. He wanted badly to breathe again. What he didn’t want was an ironical death, leaving a deadly job on firm ground for a nice cargo handling job on a freighter, only to asphyxiate in space. The sparkles in his vision faded, as did the pain in his ears and face and the burning in his nose. His hand relaxed, and he slipped away from whatever door handle or other protrusion had anchored him. Dying in space, he thought as he faded from consciousness, was nothing like the pulp fiction he had read as a kid.

Then he felt wind blowing again. Goosebumps popped up on his skin, and he shivered. This wind was frigid. Suddenly, he was no longer weightless. His body slammed against what he presumed was the floor. He faintly heard Hardman wheeze something with the word breathe in it. Perce gasped, then panted. He opened his eyes. His breath was foggy. Hardman’s face was bloody; his nose was bleeding. So were the man’s ears. Perce noticed that the room didn’t sound right and his ears still ached. He touched his ear. There was blood on his fingers. He tasted blood, too. Then he belched. And farted. What happened? he asked.

Hardman spoke, but his voice was muffled. Perce didn’t understand him. What? I can’t hear you. His own voice sounded odd. The officer pointed to his mouth. Perce watched, and saw him slowly enunciate, Decompression. No gravity. Then Hardman beckoned him to follow, turned around and headed down the corridor. Perce looked behind him. The metal wall at the end of the corridor was blown inward, ripped as if by explosion. Through the hole, he could see two more ripped metal walls. Through the ragged hole in them all, he saw stars. As he watched, the ripped metal straightened itself and slowly closed the hole. The ship trembled and the lights flickered, but the gravity stayed on. Perce turned and ran after Hardman.

They passed through a hatch, into part of the ship Perce had seen on his second day aboard. Down a corridor and through another hatch. Left. Up a ladder, through another hatch. Hardman opened a door with a red cross on it. Perce followed him into the sickbay where the doctor had pumped him up just yesterday with an antihistamine, a decongestant and an antiviral. Hardman started opening cabinets, apparently looking for something in particular. Stopping at one, he started rummaging toward the back. He came out with two clear plastic bags with what looked like stereo headphones. He tossed a bag to Perce, then pointed two fingers at his eyes. He lifted his hands and made a tugging motion at the bag. Perce ripped open his bag and then watched to see what Hardman did next. The officer tore his bag open and removed the headphones. He put them on over his ears. Perce copied him. Hardman then gestured for Perce to push in on the right headphone. Perce complied, feeling a button and pushing it.

How does it sound now? said Hardman. His voice was still a bit muffled, but he was understandable now.

Stand down! boomed the walls. Perce felt the vibrations in the floor, too. It was that damned godly voice. I’m losing my patience. Stand down.

This time, Perce did not feel disheartened by the voice. He felt … annoyed. Facing Hardman, he stood erect, saluted and said smartly, Orders, sir?

Hardman looked Perce over. He put his hand on the young man’s shoulder. You’re gonna make one hell of a sailor. Do I remember right that you can operate an F-loader? Can you run one in a suit?

Yes, sir. Perce had used one almost every day for two years inside the containment room.

After making their way out the door and through corridors and hatches, Perce now recognized where they were. The room was lined with racks of vacuum suits, some of the suits tossed carelessly on the floor. They were different from the hazard suit he used to wear in the filthy composting room back on Landis, but some things were familiar. Find one about your size and suit up. Don’t waste time. Put it on over your clothes. Forget the pressure liner, said the officer. The Fisher shuddered.

Perce walked up to a rack labeled 9 and pulled down a suit. The name tag read Barry. He scrambled into it. Walking backward, he pressed his back against the wall. He reached up, pulling heavy straps over his shoulders, then down, for straps to go around his waist. He pushed his back against the wall again and heard the satisfying clicks that said his environment pack was snapped into his suit. He looked at the display panel on his left wrist and saw numbers he recognized: temperature, humidity, air pressure, and minutes of air remaining. Hardman stood next to him, and backed into the wall to fasten his environment pack.

Through an airlock, and they stepped onto the spine of the ship. They approached a shuttle cart lying on its side. The two men quickly righted it and hopped on. Hardman drove them down the cargo hall, steering with one hand, whizzing past what seemed like kilometers of stacked shipping containers. Every fifteen to thirty seconds, the ship shuddered, and the cart threatened to leap from the floor or veer into a container or wall. Finally, the cart slowed. They stopped at frame W-40. Over suit radio, Hardman told him, I’ll get the container. You get the loader.

Perce drove the cart another forty meters down the cargo hall and stopped at an F-loader. It was much larger than the one he was used to, standing over three meters tall. He remembered his planetside tryout on the day he enlisted; they were pleased with how well he controlled the monster. Up he went, climbing the ladder on the side of its leg. At the top, he pulled himself higher still and wriggled into the exoskeleton. He flipped various switches and waited for green lights on the overhead console, then reached for the controls with all four limbs. Satisfied that everything was acceptable, he detached from the wall and began rolling up the hall using wheels in the feet. When the Fisher shuddered again, he stopped and activated the foot magnets. Not a good time to be floating, he thought. The rest of the way he walked in huge, clanking strides. When he arrived at the cargo frame, Hardman had already cycled it so that the eight foot wide by eight foot high by forty foot long cargo container W-47 was at the bottom. Hardman opened the double-doors at the front end of the container using just his right hand. Verden, come closer.

Yes, sir. Perce walked the F-loader up to the opening. The ship trembled again.

Pick up the blue box at the front here. Take very good care of it. I’m getting the outer door. He walked over to a lighted panel on the wall opposite the cargo frames. Lights turned on, off, or flashed as he pressed large buttons and pulled levers sized for manipulation by thickly gloved hands.

As Perce approached the coffin-sized box, he heard some heavy clunks and felt vibration at his feet. At first, he thought it came from the box, but the floor continued to vibrate after he picked the box up with the robotic hands. He turned slowly, keeping a wide berth between the box and anything else. While walking toward the officer, the vibration stopped and he heard several more heavy clunks. Hardman did something else at the control panel, and the wall in front of him slid to the side, revealing a room that seemed familiar. There appeared to be a small cargo frame on the far wall.

Hardman waved him on, and said, Lock the box into the frame with the arrows pointed forward.

Perce stepped into the room, with barely enough head clearance for the three-meter-plus loader. He started to place it in the rack with the arrows pointed toward the front of the ship.

No, turn it the other way, said Hardman.

Perce was confused. You said pointing forward, sir.

I’ll explain later. Point the arrows toward the rear of the ship.

Gently, Perce laid down the box. He lost control of it when the ship was again pounded, and the box flew into the air. It hit the ceiling before he could grab it. Flailing, he bent part of the cargo frame before seizing the box.

Be careful! yelled Hardman.

Heart pounding, Perce inserted the box into the cargo frame and twisted until he felt the box lock in place. He stepped back, and Hardman closed the door.

Now let’s get out of here fast. Get out of the loader, and we’ll get the cart.

No, sir, said Perce. Hop on the ladder. It’ll be faster.

Hardman mounted the leg ladder and gripped tight with his arms and legs. Go! he said.

Perce turned off the feet magnets and started rolling. The loader picked up speed until it looked like a huge robot speed-skating down the cargo hall.

Good thinking, said Hardman. This is as fast as the cart. At the end, get out as quick as you can. Just leave the loader, and hustle to the suit up room.

What’s the deal, sir?

The godly voice spoke again. Captain, it was smart of you to finally join us. The rest of you, stay quiet and you’ll get your skipper back. Drop your front shield and prepare to be towed. Your captain is— The loader jumped off the floor and began to tumble. The cargo hall went dark except for the glow of the men’s helmet lamps and the colored lights on the overhead panel. Hardman let go of the ladder with his left hand. Verden! he yelled. His left hand was bare.

Chapter Two

Without thinking, Perce reached down to his right side and hugged the officer with his metal arms. Hardman let go with his right, still covered, hand and reached for the glove that was stuck in the knee joint. He tugged at it, but it wouldn’t move until Perce straightened the leg. Hardman pulled the glove free. Frantically, he tried to fit it over his swollen, exposed hand. Air blasting out at his wrist made it almost impossible. Then he stopped. Hardman fell limp in the metal arms that hugged him. The glove began to float away. Perce reached for it with a metal hand but missed. Instead of grabbing it, he sent it sailing. He looked at the officer. His arm ceased flopping around. The wrist was no longer blasting air. He knew the officer was moments from death, and it was his fault for making him climb onto the loader. He had to seal Hardman’s suit, but how? He couldn’t reach the wrist, but even if he could, he wouldn’t be able to hold the heavy suit fabric tight enough to seal it. Can’t do it tight enough, even if he could reach.

But he could reach.

He now knew what to do. Perce maneuvered the metal hand that had missed the glove—more of a parallel jaw clamp than a hand—and grabbed Hardman’s suit near the wrist. He gently closed and gripped firmly. No good, not a seal, but he had merely hoped it might work. At best he could only grip in the shape of a U. He knew what would work, but he really didn’t want to do it. But there was also no time or ideas for anything else. Perce squeezed the metal hand closed. He was sure he could feel it through the controls when the unconscious man’s bones snapped. He watched the gauge on Hardman’s other wrist. He couldn’t read it, but he could see it was blinking red. Please let the color change, he begged. The gauge still flashed red. Please, he asked the gods, please let there be air in Hardman’s suit. Please, begged Perce, take him away and not Mr. Hardman. Please take him back to Landis, the awful place he deserved to be, and let the dying man return to life and live it out here in space where he belonged. Perce held his breath and waited. He lasted maybe thirty seconds before he couldn’t help breathing, but Hardman’s wrist gauge was still flashing red. He caught glimpses of a wall they were approaching. He wondered how he should hold himself and Mr. Hardman to best survive a collision. As he approached the wall feet-first, he bent the metal legs slightly, as if preparing to land from a jump. Then, when the feet touched the wall and he bent the metal knees to absorb the impact, he nudged the toe switches that activated the foot magnets. Praying he wouldn’t see red, he looked down at Hardman’s good wrist. It was flashing orange, a sign there was air in the suit, and hopefully a sign the suit was reaching a livable pressure. Perce quickly reached up to the overhead panel with the real hand that had been hugging Hardman, where he tapped a comm button. Calmly and clearly, he said on the bridge circuit, Emergency. Doctor to the cargo hall. Mr. Hardman is dying. Then he cried.

Perce was like a zombie when the doctor and four other men arrived. Two of them extracted him from the loader, which lay on its face. He had no idea how they removed Hardman from the metal hand crushing his wrist or the firm hug the other metal arm held him in. The hug must have protected Hardman when the loader crashed to the ground after gravity returned. He heard mutterings that suggested Hardman was alive and breathing. Thank the gods for that, he thought. At least Perce hadn’t killed him.

No one questioned him about what had happened. Seaman Barry brought a wet towel and wiped his face and ears after removing his helmet and seeing blood. Perce cooperated as Barry removed his vacuum suit, and then his clothes. After Perce was down to his shorts and socks, the doctor moved over to him. You doing okay? he said. Perce just looked at him. The doctor listened to his heart and breathing, and examined several bruises and scrapes. It hurt a little when he took a deep breath, as it did when the doctor pressed on his abdomen. Follow the light with your eyes, said the doctor, who pointed a penlight at his left eye, moving it left, right, up, and down. Then he did the other eye. The doctor looked at Perce’s headphones. Taking them off, the doctor poked an instrument into his ears and looked. The doctor replaced the headphones. They look like they got hit by the explosion and also decompressed briefly before going into the hall. Barry, help him to sickbay. He’s shocky. Carry him if you have to. The doctor returned to caring for the unconscious Hardman.

Barry put his arm around Perce, and they walked slowly to sickbay. The seaman had to carry him over his shoulder up one last flight of stairs. He continued to carry him the rest of the way to sickbay, and didn’t put him down until he laid him onto a gurney. You know, Verden, said the seaman, you’re all right. I’d never have thought to, you know, grab his wrist like that. If it was me out there, Mr. Hardman would have been dead.

Perce wanted to tell him that he had it all wrong. He wanted to say it was his fault that Hardman lost the glove in the