12

The third male glister - the last one of this particular family had he but known it - was feeding with the female upon a turbul the size of a rowing boat. It sensed that something was very wrong, just before a hawser of a tentacle wormed into view, coiled and crushed the female, then snatched her backwards, squealing, through the murk. This last remaining male fled as fast as his flat tail and paddle legs could propel him. Another tentacle whipped out and slapped his side, cracking his armour, but driving him beyond the predator’s reach. The monstrous whelk was unconcerned about this escape, as it crunched down the female glister, then turned its attention to the plenitude of turbul corpses and their concomitant crop of leeches and prill. Perhaps it should have been more concerned about the heirodont, irate at having been deprived of the giant whelk it had been pursuing, and now ascending through the waterfall of organic detritus in the hope that its source might quell the grumbling of its gargantuan stomach.

With so many eyes keeping watch for it in so many places, the Warden did not feel any guilt in allowing its attention to stray beyond Spatterjay to observe such momentous events. In this particular observation it was not possible to easily maintain a direct link, so it created a submind ghost of itself that it sent hopping for lightyears: from runcible to runcible and onwards to AI ships and ship’s drones, until it reached its destination. Here, as just one of many thousands cramming together to view one scene, it watched through the eyes of a Golem - linked by virtual fingernails - while the essence of the ghost ran itself in the huge processing spaces of the thinly disguised AI battleships poised above the Prador world. It recorded the momentous events, the AI reactions and net-space discussions, and relayed them back to itself every few seconds - a veritable age in AI terms.

A hundred Prador transports were parked along the edge of the flat, and salt dust glittered in the eddies of air disturbed by the cooling of their engine cowlings. Grand Prador adults, with their retinues, were gathered in protective groups on the cracked and pinkish hardpan: trusting each other less than they trusted the ECS monitors and the sector AI which, in the form of this Golem, had come to negotiate and hopefully agree terms.

‘There can be no meaningful dialogue between us while this continues,’ said the sector AI. ‘Would you ever consider trade with us if it was our habit to use Prador carapaces as receptacles in which to take our ablutions?’

The concerted reply from the gathered Prador was both amused and angry. The Warden noted an open message sent by one of its fellow AIs to its homeworld, informing certain high-ranking humans to ‘lose the decorative bathroom suites’, and the brief discussion that followed would perhaps have shocked some humans who considered AIs to be without humour.

They settled down, though, when the speaker standing out in front of the Prador addressed the sector AI. ‘Would you deprive us of our hands?’ asked the male human blank on their behalf.

‘You had hands before you encountered humankind,’ replied the Golem, ‘and your own cyber technologies could provide you with hands more efficient than those of human blanks. In truth it has become only a matter of status amongst you.’

After a long pause came the concerted reply through their speaker. ‘We must discuss this.’

Humans, Golem and AIs together watched while Prador shifted about like huge draughts on some unseen board. A couple of shimmering fields flickered into existence and there came the stuttering crackle of a single railgun. One Prador, surrounded by its children, and attended by more blanks than most of its contemporaries, hissed out a bubbling scream and crashed to the hardpan as its AG cut out. Control units on its outer carapace detonated, and that carapace deformed and cracked, flinging fine sprays of dark fluid across the salt.

Railguns now opened up again, and blanks and second-children exploded into a mess of shell, flesh and numerous legs. By now the humans where hazed behind projected fields, and autoguns were spidering out of the heavy-lifter and up its sides to get an open field of fire on the assembled Prador. A single first-child ran gibbering towards these screens, until a missile hit it from behind and the explosion separated upper carapace from lower. Its lower half ran on for a little while longer, perhaps not yet realizing it was dead, then it keeled over like an unbalanced pedestal table. Before the human side could feel sufficiently threatened by this violence, the speaker blank held up a hand and spoke, his voice amplified all around.

‘The discussion is ended. We now feel we can negotiate,’ he said.

* * * *

Erlin kept Ambel unconscious while she worked on his wounds. She didn’t need to work to save his life, only to prevent the formation of ugly scar tissue, and to do this she had to cut again and again in a race with the rapid healing of his fibre-filled body. Had Keech managed a headshot, the Ambel she knew would have been dead and what remained of him would not have been human. Sprine would have then been administered, and the corpse buried at sea with all due ceremony. As it was, the Captain was bound to recover. Even with these wounds, Erlin reckoned on the healing process normally taking about a day and a night. But Ambel had obviously suffered other injuries recently, as his body weight was down and there was an excessive blue tinge to his skin. She allowed him to wake just after she finished repositioning the flesh of his shoulder and as the wound there closed like a startled mollusc.

‘Erlin . . . who is he?’ he asked.

‘Goes by the name of Sable Keech. He claims to be an ECS monitor over seven hundred years old. He was a reification until only a few days ago, so that might be true. The bastard. I saved his life and he goes and does this. His brain must still be rotten - probably thought you were Hoop or something.’ As she spoke, Erlin searched Ambel’s expression with a kind of desperation.

‘He isn’t Hoop,’ said Captain Ron behind her.

Erlin turned to see the Captain and Forlam entering the room. Forlam held a length of black cord she recognized as something used in ship wedding ceremonies and divorces. Ron nodded and Forlam stepped up beside her. He reached down and tied one end of the cord around Ambel’s wrist.

‘What the hell!’ Erlin yelled.

She moved to stop him tying the cord, but Ron caught hold of her shoulders and gently pulled her away. Ambel watched impassively as Forlam bound his wrists together. Erlin tried to understand what was going on. Surely they knew that nothing less than a steel hawser would hold Ambel. Forlam stepped back after he had tied the final knot.

‘By my right as member and captain,’ said Ron formally, ‘I call you before Convocation, Captain Ambel. I want your parole until the time of the Convocation. Do you give it?’

‘I do,’ said Ambel.

Ron made a cutting motion with the edge of his hand. Ambel snapped the cords binding him. Ron turned back to the door, with Forlam following him.

‘Do you know, then, Ron?’ Ambel asked.

‘I know,’ said Ron, without turning.

‘I’m not him any more. It was five years, Ron.’

Captain Ron turned and stared at him. Erlin thought she had never witnessed such an expression of horror on an Old Captain’s face. She thought there was little in the world that could produce such an effect on such a man.

‘You’ll tell it, then,’ said Ron.

‘Now?’

‘No, the monitor must hear it as well. He’s owed that.’

Ron went on his way. Erlin noted that Forlam appeared as confused as she herself felt.

* * * *

The rope stretched just enough for Keech to slide his hand free, but it only slid because he had lubricated it with his blood. As he held it up before his face to inspect the damage he had done to himself, the sounds from the sea-chest became more audible. Keech then worked on the knots tying his other wrist to the chair. His lack of fingernails made the task a lot more difficult than it should have been. Small nubs of nails were already growing from the quick of his fingers, but they were of no use as yet. He also found that his skin was too soft. It was like a baby’s skin and - yet to thicken and acquire the calluses of age - it was easy to tear. He swore quietly as he persevered.

Keech had almost worked his left hand free when he noticed how the noises from the sea-chest had ceased. With his skin crawling, he slowly looked up and peered across the room. The lid of the chest was partly raised, and two evil black eyes were watching him. As the lid rose higher, Keech tried not to believe what he was seeing. His chest felt constricted and painful and that tightness was only relieved by a hiccuping hysterical giggle.

The thing crawled out of the chest and landed with a heavy thump on the floor. It made a snorting sound, then rolled over on to the six spatulate limbs it had grown. Keech felt the urge to giggle again, but the giggle dried up in his throat when the thing rolled its lips back from jagged blades of teeth that it licked with an obscene black tongue.

Then it hissed, and Keech started yelling.

* * * *

Frisk occupied her time by luring leeches to the side of the ship with lumps of the sail’s feed, then hitting them with her pulse-gun. When she eventually got bored with this game, she dropped a weighted line overboard and, after a number of tries in which she caught only boxies, she managed to hook a frog whelk from the seabottom. This she pulled up and swung on to the lower deck, to see how her pet mercenaries would react to it.

Tors saw it first and laughed at it, as it tracked him with its stalked eyes. He pointed it out to Shib who laughed too, until it jumped the entire length of the deck to land next to him, then leapt again to take off a couple of his fingers. Shib yelled, swung his weapon to bear one-handed, and blew the whelk to pieces just as it jumped again. Later, as Shib stomped about the deck with a dressing on his hand, Frisk wondered how, some time soon, she might lure in a prill or two. That would make things more interesting.

‘We have something,’ said Svan, coming up the ladder.

Frisk turned from the rail with her gun still in her hand. Tors had been giving her some funny looks lately, and she didn’t like it when people came up behind her so quietly. For a moment, she aimed the weapon at Svan’s chest, then she gave a flat smile and holstered it.

‘What do you mean, you “have something”?’

‘All the equipment we brought along, we also brought a spare for,’ said Svan, keeping her expression blank. ‘So we brought a spare biomech detector - to replace the one you trashed.’

Frisk considered killing her right then, but decided that would be wasteful. Anyway, she could later do the job at her leisure, when Svan was no longer of any use to her. Perhaps just an injury for now . . . ? Then she comprehended what Svan was telling her.

‘What have you detected?’ she asked.

‘Somebody is using cyber-joint motors about two hundred kilometres north-west of here. We had an intermittent signal for some time, but we couldn’t pin it down. It has since become constant.’

‘Show me,’ said Frisk, tempted to berate Svan for not informing her earlier.

Svan pulled from her pocket the twin of the detector Frisk had smashed and flipped out its screen. She turned it round to show to Frisk. On the screen was a definite trace, with slowly drifting coordinates. Their source was not a ship under sail then, and if they were quick, they could reach it today. Frisk swivelled to face Drum’s back.

‘Turn the ship to the north-east and increase speed,’ she ordered.

Drum swung the helm and pushed forward the throttle lever. The ship began to drone as the newly installed motor opened up. It left a foaming wake behind it and the wind pushed the sail back against the spars, belling rearwards.

‘Is this as fast as it can go?’ Frisk demanded. When Svan did not answer right away, Frisk turned to glare at her.

Quickly Svan said, ‘This is about half speed, but go any faster and the ship might break up. It’s not made for this kind of treatment.’

‘Might?’ asked Frisk.

‘There’s no way to—’

‘Full speed ahead!’ Frisk yelled.

There was no action from Drum, so she pulled her pulse-gun and put a shot in his back. He lurched forwards then straightened back up into position.

‘I said “Full speed”,’ Frisk hissed viciously.

Svan stepped up beside Drum and pushed the lever all the way forward. She cast Drum a speculative look before leaving the cabin-deck and going to find something to occupy herself with, preferably something well away from Frisk. Drum continued staring ahead, seemingly unaware of the recent damage done to him. Frisk walked round to look him in the face.

‘I know it hurts,’ she said with relish. She nodded towards the mercenaries below. ‘They think it was a full coring, but you and I know better, don’t we? How is it, I wonder, to be utterly under the control of that nasty little spider thrall, yet able to see, hear, and feel everything? How much does that hurt?’

She stared at him for a long moment as she tried to discern a reaction in his expression. But nothing - just like the blank on Ebulan’s ship. Pressing her gun against his side, she fired off another pulse. Drum whoomphed, moved sideways, but just straightened up yet again. Something that time? No, still nothing. Frisk shook her head, suddenly bored with this game, and strode to the ladder. Behind her, Drum’s eyes tracked her progress for a second, before flicking back to the fore as she turned to climb down. His wounds wept for a while, before slowly closing.

* * * *

Janer stopped by the hatch to help Erlin out. She gave him an annoyed glance, before the two of them rushed to the forecabin, trailing behind Forlam and Ron.

‘I thought you had the key,’ said Ron.

Forlam searched his pockets, then gave Ron an apologetic look. Inside the cabin, they could hear Keech yelling, and then there was a crash. Ron swore as he straight-armed the door. This was the first chance Janer had to observe how strong the Old Captain really was, for Ron’s hand went straight through the door, rather than bursting it open - as had been his intention. He swore again, and reached inside to tear the door off its hinges, then stood for a moment with the door hanging from his arm before shaking it to the deck.

Forlam ducked into the cabin ahead of him, but quickly backed out again. Janer stepped up behind Ron and peered around him.

‘What the fuck is that?’ he asked, turning to Erlin. She was backing away, shaking her head - her eyes fixed on the thing on the cabin floor.

In his struggles Keech had tipped his chair over. The Skinner creature turned like a bull terrier from savaging his arm and hissed at the spectators. Ron tore a length of wood from the doorjamb on his way in, swinging at the creature and striking it hard. The monstrosity slammed back against the cabin wall, then dropped to the floor while Ron discarded his now shattered club. But the creature merely rolled back on to its feet, shook itself, spat out a couple of teeth, then shot between Ron’s legs and out of the door. Janer aimed a kick at it, but it darted out of his way before pausing to snarl at him.

‘Skinner’s out!’ Forlam yelled.

Crewmen converged from every part of the ship. Goss threw a harpoon head that opened a wound on the Skinner before it ran again. Janer was only thankful it did run.

‘Skinner?’ he queried, but everyone was too busy to reply.

Next the Skinner aimed itself at Peck who yelled and threw a bait box at it. The lid flew off the box, and the bait leapt out and scuttled away in every direction to make its escape. One of the trumpet creatures came at Janer who, remembering Erlin’s warning, stamped on it before it sought refuge in his trouser leg. It let out a pitiful squeaking as he ground it into the deck.

‘Get the bugger!’ Peck shrieked.

A gun went off with a staccato cracking. Janer glanced round to see Anne opening up on the Skinner with an ancient automatic pistol. Her first shot knocked it over. The next two shots splintered the deck - as it got upright again and scuttled towards the mast. A junior swiped at it with a panga but missed, then it stumbled over backwards, reared up and hissed at him. Someone else threw a club and knocked it tumbling. The Skinner again landed on its feet and glared from side to side as the whole crew closed in. Abruptly it turned and leapt for the mast, where it started scrabbling its way up. A knife thudded into the woodwork below it and it accelerated. The crew dispersed to lockers and cabins in search of further weapons, as the evil creature climbed outwards along one of the spars. The spar it chose was a movable one, and turned when it was halfway out so the Skinner ended hanging upside-down like a dislodged caterpillar, its spatulate legs detatching, one after another, from the wood. The crew closed in below, eager to take it apart once it hit the deck.

Just then the Skinner lost its grip and plummeted. There was a sudden soggy snapping sound as it opened out ears grown into stunted wings. It glided out over the sea, jerking each time Anne managed to hit it with her automatic. When Boris opened up with the deck cannon, bits of the Skinner fell away, and the thing dropped ten metres before correcting. But it glided on, in a steadily descending course, and penetrated the surface of the sea a hundred metres from the ship. The crew silently watched the place where it had gone under.

It did not resurface.

* * * *

Janer no longer knew how he felt about Keech, now he had seen him try to kill someone. It gave one a very different perspective when you saw someone behave like that. You realized how, on an emotional level, they amounted to more than the sum of what you had previously seen, that they had connections and commitments to a life of their own in which you played just a bit part. As for the monitor, Erlin was tending to him: sealing up his arm with a portable cell-welder, closing a wound that reached right down to the bone.

‘Janer, my boy.’ Ron came up to stand at the rail beside him.

Janer eyed him, this jolly hey-ho bit seeming a bit contrived. ‘Not the happy ending we were aiming for,’ he commented.

‘No,’ said Ron, ‘we’ve just discovered some endings long overdue.’

Janer studied him more closely. ‘You mean Ambel?’

Ron shook his head. ‘I don’t mean endings in the terminal sense - at least not for him, but for the Skinner, yes.’ He paused, studying Janer’s puzzled expression, then continued, ‘It’s not dead, you know, and we know where it’ll go.’

Janer pursed his lips to keep his immediate retort reined in. He’d just seen a disembodied head sprout wings and fly right into the sea, so he wasn’t going to argue about its likelihood of being alive.

Ambel had now come out on deck and was looking about himself with a guarded expression. Janer noted that some of the crew were deliberately facing away from the Old Captain, and the cold way that Keech was staring at the man.

‘So what now?’ Janer asked, as Ambel approached them.

‘We go to the Skinner’s Island,’ said Ambel.

‘And there we hold Convocation too,’ Ron said.

Ambel nodded slowly. ‘I’ll be wanting to sail there as a captain, not as a prisoner. Might be the last journey I make.’

Ron nodded. ‘I’ll leave any who don’t want to come with us on the Ahab, and I’ll send the sail across here.’

‘Thank you,’ said Ambel, then, ‘How you going to call it. . . the Convocation?’

Ron turned to Janer. ‘Your link? Through it you can communicate with the Warden?’

‘You getting this?’ Janer asked the Hive mind.

After a brief buzz the mind replied, ‘All of it - and very interesting it is.’

‘Will you contact the Warden?’

‘I can, but nothing is for free,’ said the mind, which puzzled Janer until it went on.

‘OK, I’ll consider it,’ he said, once the mind had finished. He turned to Ron and Ambel. ‘What do you want of the Warden?’

‘The Warden can call the Convocation for us,’ said Ron. ‘Some of the Captains possess transceivers, so word can be spread quickly enough.’

Janer nodded, and again listened to the dull flat buzzing, which went on for a little while before being interrupted by another voice. ‘A Convocation has already been called on another matter,’ said the Warden. ‘It is little enough trouble to have them relocate it. I will inform Sprage immediately. The Captains should be with you at the Skinner’s Island within days.’

Janer informed the two Old Captains of this latest news, then watched them exchange a look before turning back to him.

‘Why was this first one called?’ asked Ron.

Janer waited for an explanation, but all he got from his link was the flat buzzing. He shrugged. ‘Didn’t say.’

Ron sighed. ‘Best we get things moving.’

* * * *

There were ten ships now moored beyond the reefs, with two more coming over the horizon, and yet another sweeping round from the other side of the island. Tay climbed aboard, then turned her attention to the creaking winch being used to haul up her precious cargo. That Sprage had even agreed to let her bring aboard this empty coffin-case was indicative of the fact that he had been one of Hoop’s original captives. For all such men agreed that no punishment was excessive when it concerned the Eight. Sprage moved to her side as the case swung over and was lowered. It was too big to drop through into the hold, so some crewmen worked to secure it to the main deck with straps and rope.

‘Old Cojan was an imaginative fella,’ observed Sprage.

‘He was that, and I think it was imagination that finished him in the end. He could never forget, and that’s why he committed suicide,’ said Tay.

‘He didn’t kill himself,’ argued Sprage.

‘No, he did not. He did suicide though, by allowing himself to be killed. It’s the same way a lot of people in the Polity go. When they’re very old they look for more and more danger, thinking this is intended to relieve them of boredom, when in truth it is to relieve them of life.’

Sprage only grunted noncommittally. Tay noticed the Old Captain was peering beyond her towards the forecabin. Turning her attention in that direction, she saw Lember carrying the Captain’s rocker down to the main deck. The crewman positioned the chair by the mast, directly facing Windcheater’s crocodilian head.

‘I take it you’ve yet to cut a deal with the sail?’ she asked.

‘Thought I’d wait for you,’ said Sprage. ‘It’s history.’

As Tay stared at Windcheater, she wondered if having to hold its head in that position - its neck curving back on itself - was a physical strain for the sail. She grimaced at the thought of its discomfort. Sprage’s crew were now gathering round the mast. These Hoopers wore bemused expressions, but there was almost a party air about the gathering. This was something different; few of them had ever before encountered a sail like this.

Tay pulled out her holocorder unit, tapped instructions into it, then detached the holocorder itself and tossed it into the air. It stabilized immediately, then panned around, before Tay had it focusing in on the mast area as Sprage moved to his rocker and sat down.

‘So,’ said the Captain, taking out his pipe and starting to fill it. ‘You told me that you do the work of five crewmen and a fabric mainsail, so should earn an equivalent percentage of the ship’s profits.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Windcheater.

‘Let me see then . . . Most captains, being the owners, take the first twenty per cent, and the rest is equally divided - in the case of this ship, amongst ten crew. So you consider yourself worth five of my crew. By my calculation that’s the remaining eighty per cent divided into fifteen, of which you take five shares, one-third. Am I right?’

‘Yes, I get five shares,’ said Windcheater, but the sail now sounded a little less sure of itself.

‘So you are telling me you deserve twenty-six and two-thirds per cent, which is even more than a captain’s percentage? I don’t think so. The sail you scared off earlier was quite prepared to work just for the meat we provided. Why should we deal with you?’

‘Because you have to - just as all captains will have to deal with other sails in the future.’

‘Ah, so you speak for all sails now?’ said Sprage. He put his pipe in his mouth, flicked at his lighter for a while, then swore quietly and gave up. Taking his pipe from his mouth he studied Windcheater.

The sail went slightly cross-eyed for a moment. ‘Yes ... I will be speaking for all sails,’ he explained.

Sprage frowned and shot a look at some of his crewmen.

‘In that case,’ he said, ‘it’d be best we get the bargain struck now, though it’ll have to be ratified at this coming Convocation. But I’m prepared to offer any sail the same amount as is given to crew. Eight per cent of the journey’s net take, and the same contractual obligations apply.’

‘What obligations?’ asked Windcheater.

‘Well, I think the one that mostly applies here is that if you go AWOL you forfeit your percentage. Too often we’ve been left without a sail, because the one we had got bored and flew off.’

‘Twenty-five per cent, and I want to see the contract.’

Sprage turned to Lember. ‘In my desk - you’ll find a sheaf of them,’ he said.

A dark-skinned and lanky individual clad in canvas trousers and a sleeveless leather shirt, Lember shook his head in amazement and moved off.

‘I guess I could go as high as twelve per cent,’ continued Sprage.

‘You’re a robber and a thief!’ said Windcheater, and this statement seemed to dispel some of the crew’s bemusement, as they now felt back on familiar ground. ‘I’ll not go below twenty, and you know you’re getting a good deal.’

‘Twenty - are you mad?’ Sprage asked. He flicked hard at his lighter, but still had no luck. Tay took pity on him and reached into her belt pouch, removed a burnished metal cylinder and passed it to him. He took the object, studied it for a moment, then held it over the bowl of his pipe. When he pressed the button on one end, red light flickered and his tobacco was soon glowing. He puffed out a cloud of smoke and grinned with delight, and then, holding up the cylinder, he looked questioningly at Tay. She waved for him to keep it.

With satisfaction, he dropped the laser igniter into his top pocket and returned his attention to the sail. ‘Perhaps I can go as high as fifteen per cent,’ he suggested.

‘How would all your ships fare if not a single sail came in to land on them?’ asked Windcheater.

Sprage eyed him, but since getting his pipe lit, seemed less inclined to argue.

‘All right, seventeen per cent.’

‘Eighteen and we have a deal,’ said Windcheater.

Sprage was silent for a moment. Then he nodded.

Just then, Lember returned with a printed contract and a pen. He held these out midway between Sprage and the sail, then seemed at a loss as to what to do next. Sprage grabbed both pen and contract and scribbled in his signature and the percentage.

‘You have an aug, so I presume you can read. But can you write, Sail?’ said the Captain.

In reply, Windcheater reared up in the spars and turned himself so that his foot claws came down to rest on one of them. He then stooped down, extending one long wing, and wriggling the two spider claws at its last joint.

Sprage handed the contract and the pen to Lember, who then handed these two items up to Windcheater. The sail raised the contract up to his demonic eyes and squinted at it.

Tay almost burst out laughing when it held the cap of the pen in its mouth and chewed on it gently. Sprage turned to regard her. ‘History in the making,’ he said.

‘It is that,’ she replied distractedly - another two ships had appeared on the horizon. Returning her attention to the sail, she watched it signing the contract. Once that was done, the sail put contract and pen in its mouth, then up-ended itself on the mast, spread huge its wings, and reassumed its normal working position before depositing pen and contract in Sprage’s lap. The sail had signed its name in block capitals so neat they were almost indistinguishable from the print of the contract.

‘But of course,’ said Sprage, ‘that percentage is of the trip you happen to have signed on for.’

‘Yes,’ said Windcheater. ‘And I do realize this trip is without profit. I am just establishing a precedent.’

Sprage folded the contract and dropped it into his top pocket. He nodded slowly. ‘You’re a wise sail.’

Windcheater tilted his head for a moment and his eyes crossed. When they uncrossed, he said, ‘The Warden tells me that this trip is not yet over.’

Sprage paused in his rising from his chair and stared at the sail questioningly.

The sail went on, ‘Captain Ron has called the Convocation to the Skinner’s Island. The Skinner is out and it has been revealed that Captain Ambel is in fact Gosk Balem.’

There came exclamations of surprise from the crew - but Tay was curious to note how Sprage displayed no surprise at all.

‘That old chestnut,’ he muttered.

* * * *

Disdaining assistance, Keech clambered aboard the Ahab and moved quickly to his hover scooter. One-armed, he began to loosen the ties holding it to the deck. His other arm, though cell-welded and now without gashes, was still bruised and painful. Ron, as soon as he was aboard, walked up to the sail. Behind him, Boris, Goss - and other crew who had not wanted to be part of the coming quest - climbed aboard.

‘There’s fresh meat over there on the Treader. Will you go over there for us?’

‘Might,’ said the sail.

‘How can I persuade you?’ asked Ron.

‘Boxy meat. I like boxy meat,’ said the sail.

‘Well, we can always get that,’ said Ron.

The Captain had heard of the sail called Windcheater, but not how he behaved. Had he heard, he would have been unsurprised, Windcheater was unique, but not that unique. Ron turned from the sail as it furled itself and climbed to the top of the mast, and faced Roach, who had snuck up beside him.

‘What’s happenin’, Cap’n,’ said the little man.

Ron gazed down at him, then at the juniors who gathered beyond him.

‘Ambel is Gosk Balem, and the Skinner’s out, and we’re going to the Skinner’s Island to kill it - and also have a Convocation to decide whether or not we throw Ambel into a fire.’

Roach squinted at him. ‘No, but really, what’s happenin’?’

Ron gestured to Goss and Boris. ‘They’ll tell you all you need to know. Now, can I trust you, Roach?’

‘Of course,’ said Roach, sticking his chest out.

Ron eyed the little man dubiously before going on. ‘OK, I want you to stay here. As soon as another sail comes along, I want you to follow on as fast as you can. No stopping for meets, and no going after turbul. This is important,’ he emphasized.

‘Aye, Captain,’ said Roach trying, but not managing, to not look sneaky.

Ron then turned to Boris. The crewman was sombre, and Goss, who walked at his side, looked annoyed.

‘You might think different when you hear what he’s got to say.’

‘No,’ said Boris. ‘Gosk Balem ran the furnace. My dad went to the furnace.’

Ron nodded then stood, staring pensively out to sea, with his thumbs in his belt, as if unsure of what to say next. After a moment, he freed one thumb and pointed.

‘That,’ he said, ‘is one very persistent molly carp.’

They all gazed out at the humped shape in the sea - between themselves and the nearest atoll.

‘It crossed with us earlier. Had a go at a leech we got. Helped us get the Captain back in when he fell in the sea,’ said Boris. ‘Probably head back to its island in the night - unless there’s good hunting here.’

‘Helped Ambel in?’ asked Ron.

‘Well, we think so,’ said Boris.

Ron turned to Roach. ‘Keep an eye on it. You never know what one of them might do. I’ll be off.’ He turned and walked over to Keech.

‘Ready?’ he asked.

Keech nodded and climbed on to his scooter, Ron climbing on behind him. Keech lifted the scooter from the deck and, one-handed, guided it out over the sea to the Treader, which was already turning into the wind.

‘You’ll hold to your promise?’ Ron asked as Keech slowed the scooter over Ambel’s ship.

‘I’ll not kill him yet,’ said Keech.

‘You may change your mind when you hear what he has to say,’ said Ron.

‘I doubt it,’ said Keech.

* * * *

With the wind blowing through her hair, Rebecca Frisk stared out over the waves, and smiled happily. Come the morning, she would have the pleasure of slowly cutting Sable Keech into pieces and feeding those pieces to the frog whelks. This pleasure would be somewhat marred by the fact that Keech had long been beyond pain - but there would always be others on hand to satisfy that need. She hoped Keech had a partner to whom he had some meaningful attachment. If not, then the crew of his ship would have to do. She smiled again as she contemplated what she might do. The disadvantage in torturing a Hooper was their high resistance to pain: it took huge injury to cause sufficient pain to elicit a scream or two from them, but the advantage was that Hoopers could survive huge injury. Burning was the best method of torture. Over a slow fire, a Hooper could last for days.

Frisk started to mentally recount the many slow fires she and Jay had lit, but her pleasurable contemplation was interrupted.

‘All stop! All stop!’ Svan yelled from the front rail. ‘Hard to port!’ She shot past Frisk to Drum, whose hand was on the control lever, and tried to pull that lever over. With interest, Frisk studied Drum, as Svan tugged at the Captain’s hand. There was a sudden rending crash and the ship shuddered to a halt. Tors yelled as he flew over the front rail. Frisk and Svan fell and slid across the deck to the side as the ship tilted.

Something huge thrashed in the sea in front of the ship. The vessel slewed sideways, and Frisk heard the sound of many hard, scuttling feet. Tors began to scream.

‘Too fucking fast!’ Svan yelled, then looked up as a number of hard disk-shaped creatures leapt up on to the rail, red dots of eyes skating round their rims.

‘Prill!’ Frisk shouted from where she lay. Then laughed, drew her pulse-gun, and began shooting down at them. Svan rose to a crouch and drew her own weapon. After their volley of fire cleared the rail, she leapt to the edge of the cabin’s desk and looked down to one side. Below her, oozing past the side of the ship, a great glistening body heaved, and over its surface swarmed eager prill. On that slick surface, a vaguely human shape thrashed and screamed as the prill tore it apart. One creature made a run that uncoiled intestine. Another three were fighting over an arm that swiftly detached.

‘Tors,’ Svan whispered, then began firing again, but within a moment she did not know where to aim as Tors came apart and the prill fed on pieces of him all over the back of the giant leech. The ship lurched again as the leech itself began ponderously to pull away.

‘We’re flooding!’ Shib yelled up from the lower deck.

Svan, hearing the panic in his voice, knew he was losing control since that damned whelk creature had taken his fingers off. She went over to Frisk and dragged the woman to her feet. ‘We have to use the AG,’ she said.

Frisk laughed in her face, and Svan slapped her. Abruptly Frisk became sober. She backhanded Svan across the chest so Svan crashed through the back rail to the lower deck. There she lay stunned. Augmentation? She wondered, as Shib got to her side and helped her sit up. She leant against him and struggled for breath.

‘We’re sinking,’ said Shib, sweating. He had his handgun drawn.

‘Get to the motor. Turn on the AG. We’ve no choice now,’ Svan gasped.

Shib nodded and ran for the hatch.

Svan tried to stand, but for a moment could not manage. Beside her hand, the deck suddenly burst into flaming splinters. She looked up at Frisk, standing in the gap of the broken rail and waited for the killing shot. It didn’t come. More prill swarmed up on to the deck and instead Frisk started shooting at them.

‘Fucking lunatic,’ muttered Svan, and dragged herself towards the hatch. Once she reached it, she fell through, catching a rung with her hand so she turned and came down on her feet on the tilted floor below.

Shib was waiting for her. ‘Tors?’ he said.

‘Dead,’ she replied.

He nodded and looked up towards where they could hear Frisk still blasting away at prill.

‘She’ll have to pay,’ he said. He held up his hand with its missing fingers. ‘And for this too.’

‘Later,’ said Svan. ‘Four thousand grams of Prador diamond-slate, remember? We complete the contract, collect our payment, then we burn her.’

Shib nodded, but his attention was wandering.

Svan peered down towards the bows of the ship, where water gushed in and timbers were groaning.

‘Let’s get that AG going,’ she said, and the two of them headed up the sloping deck to the motor. Once they reached it, Shib popped the casing, and Svan flipped down a control panel underneath. She hesitated over the controls.

‘There’s no other way,’ urged Shib.

‘Might bring the Warden down on us, and we don’t need that,’ replied Svan.

‘Better that than swimming in this sea,’ said Shib.

Svan nodded and punched a control. The ship juddered, and spillover from the field made her face tingle. The motor now produced an AC hum and the creaking and groaning of the ship increased. Svan watched the fixings bolted into the keel of the ship. If those tore free, the motor would smash through the deck above, before it righted itself. But they wouldn’t tear free: she had done them herself. When the ship heaved again, she regained her balance before making further adjustments to the motor controls. The field tilted, and now the ship was coming level, pivoting at the point of those fixings, which loaded them even more. The gushing of water into the bows ceased for a moment, and then went into reverse. Svan made a final adjustment to the control panel, then closed the cowling over the motor. She stood up as the flooring finally levelled out.

‘I’ve set it to lift us clear by about a metre,’ she said. ‘Let’s go and look at the damage.’

She pulled her weapon and walked to the bows, Shib following a pace behind her, and it irritated her that his breathing sounded heavy with fear. He’d never seemed xenophobic before. Yes, it paid to be cautious around the lethal fauna of this planet, yet the creatures here were nothing compared to an armed human - and he had dealt with plenty of them.

Frisk reluctantly holstered her weapon when it seemed she had disposed of the last of the prill. The ship was level now and the water quite a way below the rail. She stared at it for a long while before she realized what had happened. She thought about why it had happened - thought about some of her decisions over the last few days. She cringed inwardly and pressed a hand to her throat.

‘What’s happening to me, Jay?’ she asked.

But Jay wasn’t there to answer her, nor to back her up, and sometimes she just did not understand why this was so. They had been happy on that Prador world hadn’t they? Why had he felt it necessary to leave, in the end? Why had he been so angry with her? Yes, sometimes she had behaved a bit irrationally, and of course that was to be expected: you couldn’t live together for as long as they had without sometimes encountering something like that. It had been her idea that maybe their crimes could be forgiven and that they could return to Earth which had thrown him into his rage. In retrospect she realized that had been a silly idea, but his reaction had been excessive.

She remembered him sneering at her. ‘Another excellent idea from your superior mind, dear. I would put that on a par with your one about opening a gallery on Circe. Do you think for one second that ECS has stopped searching for us? Do you think for one second we can breeze easily through the Polity avoiding both capture and getting mind-wiped?’

‘But Jay, darling—’

‘I used to enjoy your little whims and sudden enthusiasms. I think I ceased to enjoy them the moment you ceased to be you. Why did you do it? Why the hell did you do it?’

‘Jay, darling.’

‘Don’t touch me. You disgust me.’

There was a taste like iron in her mouth that she tried fruitlessly to spit away. That she had no longer possessed the body he loved, she understood. But, in the end, it had been because she no longer had the same mind. She gave a dry laugh and squeezed tears from her eyes, but, deep inside she knew she was going insane. Because she’d lived too long in a body not her own, she’d seen and caused too much horror, she’d lived too long amongst aliens, and because - in the end - she’d lived too long.

* * * *

Janer stepped over the wreckage of the door and into the cabin. He reached down and righted the chair to which they had tied Keech, then carried it to the desk positioned below the brass-rimmed portal. He sat down and studied the two sealed flasks contained in a rack clamped to the edge of the desk. Each flask contained a number of red rhomboidal crystals resting under a clear fluid. He removed a bung from one of these and sniffed at the pungency released. It reminded him somewhat of old coffee, perhaps with a background of something putrefying.

‘Just one crystal?’ he said.

‘Yes,’ said the mind, and Janer wondered if he was imagining a touch of avidity in its voice.

‘I suppose that if I don’t get it for you, you’ll get hold of it some other way.’

‘Yes,’ said the mind.

‘I’m not going to do this,’ said Janer, reinserting the bung and tapping it home with his forefinger.

‘Why not?’

‘Because I’ve worked out what you’re up to. “Get me a sample of that unusual substance in Ambel’s cabin.” Do you think I’m entirely stupid?’

‘I do not.’

Janer sat back in his chair. ‘Why do you want to go this route?’ he asked.

‘Power,’ explained the mind. ‘It was tried before using curare. That failed, and the hornets in question were wiped out. The mind concerned still hasn’t regained its consciousness. But it is the way.’

‘The same could happen again,’ said Janer.

‘Not here,’ said the mind. ‘This is a primitive society. It will work.’

‘Well, not with my help,’ said Janer. He stood, pulled the small jewelled Hive link from his ear, and dropped it in his pocket. He gazed at the two flasks of fluid out of which pure sprine was crystallizing, shook his head, then left the cabin. Once outside, he climbed up to the cabin-deck - to go and listen to a story.

* * * *

‘Captain Sprage,’ said Ambel looking round at Ron. Ron nodded from where he leant against the rail. Ambel turned to face the sea again. Gathered behind him, on the main deck, were Keech and Erlin, Forlam, Pland, Peck and Anne, and behind them, the rest of the crew. Even the sail had extended its neck so it could turn an ear to what Ambel said.

‘It was him named me Ambel, and I’ve always thought he knew.’

‘We should ask him.’

‘Yes, we should - now. I’ve always been afraid to before.’

‘Is there a point to this?’ asked Keech flatly. He hadn’t taken his eyes off Ambel since mounting the cabin-deck. His right hand rested on the butt of his pulse-gun. In his left hand he held three steel spheres.

Ambel stared at him. ‘Gosk Balem was a slave, then he was slave master. He became like Hoop and his crew because that was the only way to survive here then. Slaves were regularly cored, and had their cored brains and spinal columns thrown into a furnace. It was just like Hoop to put Balem in charge of that furnace,’ he said.

‘You should know,’ said Keech, bitterly.

‘But I don’t,’ said Ambel.

‘Explain,’ said Keech.

‘You came here with the ECS force that freed those slaves that hadn’t already been cored. But you weren’t as prepared as you ought to have been, and Hoop and all his crew escaped. So Hoop, Frisk, Rimsc, the Talsca twins and Grenant escaped off-world. They left Gosk Balem behind to face the consequences of his actions. The surviving slaves hunted him for a hundred years, and he was finally caught out here, by Sprage and Francis Cojan, who later went on to form the Friends of Cojan, whom you yourself knew.’

‘I knew Cojan himself,’ said Keech. ‘He got hold of the Talsca twins and boiled them alive.’

‘I heard that,’ said Ron. ‘What happened to him, then?’

Keech turned and stared at Ron.

‘Batian mercenaries got him with a thermite bomb,’ he said. ‘But only because he allowed it. He was tired of the running and tired of the killing. He told me this only days before his death, when he transferred all his funds to one of my accounts.’

Ambel nodded then continued. ‘When Gosk Balem was caught, the first Convocation was called. All the slaves were by then captains of their own ships, and the population here was swelled by their children, and by off-worlders coming through the gate. The Convocation decided unanimously to carry out the ECS sentence of death on Balem. They didn’t have sprine then, and at Cojan’s instigation they decided against burning. They decided instead to throw him to the leeches that were swarming at the time. On the dawn of the following day, they took him to the rail of Sprage’s ship and threw him into the sea. He screamed for four hours before he went under. The Convocation was broken and the Captains went their separate ways, assuming Balem was dead.’

‘Evidently he wasn’t,’ said Erlin. Janer studied her, wondering what she now thought of her Captain.

Without turning round Ambel said, ‘No, Erlin, he wasn’t. The durability of the older Hoopers was something not fully understood then. The leeches fed on Balem’s skin and outer flesh, whittling him down until he was a stripped fish. He was just like a turbul or a boxy - only a turbul or a boxy that can experience pain. Pain of that intensity drove him insane. I have no doubt he wanted to die, yet having the fibres in him, his body could not die. He fed, on boxies, turbul, whatever. He regrew flesh, nerves, skin - regrew them, and had them eaten off him again and again. This went on for five years. In that time he died in the only way he could die. His mind died.’

Ambel gazed around at them with a haunted expression. ‘My first memory is of Captain Sprage standing over me and asking, “Jesus, is he alive?” I’d been harpooned and hauled out of the sea. I was almost skinless and had very little muscle. In places I was right down to the bone. I was told later that I then had a leech mouth rather than a tongue, and that I took a chunk out of Sprage’s forearm. They tied me to the mast and fed me mashed Rhinoworm steaks and Dome-grown corn. The leech mouth slowly turned back into a tongue. It took only ten minutes or so before my lungs readapted to taking oxygen out of the air rather than out of the sea, but it was a couple of days before I was able to scream again. I screamed for a while, but even that uses too much energy, and apparently I stopped after an hour or so. It was two weeks before I’d regrown all my skin and muscle. Sprage then asked who I was and I had no reply for him. I didn’t even have language - I had nothing. I was an infant who had to be taught not to shit on the deck. Sprage taught me how to speak, taught me how to read, how to learn. I was on his ship for twenty years before I got some intimation of who I might once have been.’

The only sound now was that of the waves slopping against the side of the ship. Peck, Anne and Pland could not look at their Captain; Forlam’s expression displayed a strange avidity; Ron was without expression.

Keech turned to Erlin, who was looking slightly sick. ‘Is this possible?’ he asked.

Erlin nodded.

‘A Hooper of Ambel’s age can’t die unless most of his major organs are destroyed simultaneously. The leech mouth was the result of lack of Earth food. It’s due to the Spatterjay virus. Not only does it infest the body, but also it reprograms the DNA of that body for optimum survival - and keeps on reprogramming. Adrift in the sea, with his muscles eaten away, he needed some way of feeding. The virus grew him a leech mouth so he could attach to other animals that got close to him.’ Erlin shook her head and stared down at the deck.

‘What about his mind?’ asked Keech.

Erlin said, ‘His nerves would have been regrowing all the time. He would have been suffering varying degrees of agony all the time that was happening to him. It would work in much the same way as the overload employed in a mind-wipe, though that’s done by shooting a full sensory overload down every nerve channel, and takes only about ten seconds.’

Keech studied Ambel. ‘Then you’re like the Talsca twins and Rimsc,’ he said, and pocketed the three spheres he had been holding.

Ambel returned his stare and waited.

Keech said, ‘The sentence pronounced upon you has been executed.’

‘Does this mean you won’t try to kill me?’ Ambel asked.

Keech stared at him expressionlessly. ‘Probably not.’ He turned and left the cabin-deck.

* * * *

One after another, the blanks were now walking away from the gathered Prador towards the heavy-lifter. One of the Warden’s fellow AIs was ruminating over the huge possibilities now, perhaps, opening for such corporations as Cybercorp, and wondering if this had been the sector AI’s purpose in coming to the Prador home world in the form of a Golem - Cybercorp could certainly provide the Prador with more efficient hands than those of the human blanks, and perhaps commence trade in Golem and robot technologies. Another AI was observing that trade in such technologies would give AI a foothold in the Prador Third Kingdom, so that it would not be long until it was absorbed into the Polity. The Warden of Spatterjay acknowledged all this and shifted its attention away from the sector AI Golem and to the interior of the heavy-lifter.

The blanks’ control codes were being switched over to the control of subminds that had been briefly initiated by the sector AI, then downloaded into the blanks’ thrall units, and these minds were moving them into cold-storage lockers on the lifter. As each one went into storage, sampling drones the size of flies took snips from their skin, which were instantly taken for analysis.

Joseph Best, ECS monitor, lost in action . . . Erickson Sewel, medical orderly on the obliterated Hounger Station, lost in action . . . Seben Daes, housewife, disappeared . . . and so the list scrolled on and on, as DNA was matched to ancient records and those records then completed and closed down.

The Warden now pulled further back, to get an overview of yet more heavy-lifters landing and taking off on other Prador worlds, as the thousands of essentially dead were taken away for respectful disposal: a transmigration of the undead - a ghoulish chapter that should have closed the Prador war, though that war had ended long ago, but did not.

The final closing words, the Warden knew, would be written on Spatterjay. And so it continued to watch and send information packages back there - to itself.