4

Sail: with the necessity for three males to fertilize one female egg, and that egg then encysted and stuck, in its cocoon, on the side of just one location—the Big Flint—it is no surprise that the sail population remains small. The sail, however, being the largest flying creature on the planet, is not prone to predation, also is intelligent and benefits from viral immortality. It has been proven to the satisfaction of forensic AIs that there are even sails over a thousand years old, some of them remembering the first arrival of humans on Spatterjay. Those same AIs are more cautious about the veracity of claims made by some sails of having witnessed volcanic eruptions known to have taken place ten thousand years ago.

It is perhaps a sign of the sail’s innate intelligence that it never fed on humans (the stories of people disappearing near the Big Flint are apocryphal. . . probably). It is a creature that feeds on the wing, and any native Spatterjay life form is a viable food resource, except leeches, which apparently give them violent flatulence, and those larger deep oceanic creatures which are just too inaccessible or too large. Sails dominate the skies, since there is only one other flying creature known on Spatterjay, and that is rather insignificant: the lung-bird -

Without any transition at all, Vrell was awake and alert. This made no sense to him because anoxia led to gradual physical shutdown, then death. He unfolded his legs and pushed himself up from the floor. Silt spilled from his carapace, but it was the only cloudiness in water which just a seeming moment ago had been murky. Now it was utterly clear and still. He must have been unconscious for longer than he had thought. With his one hand he plucked the mission timer from his weapons harness and studied it.

Impossible.

Vrell discarded the device, sure it must be damaged. Prador could hibernate for long periods, but hardly that long. Anyway, his kind could not hibernate at all unless in an oxygenating atmosphere—to do so underwater would lead to one never waking up. This was madness, surely. Vrell shook himself, spilling more silt from his carapace. He felt a huge pressure inside him, and a tension as if something internal was twisted out of position. He shook himself again, and felt something begin to shift inside his carapace. There abruptly came a crackling noise, jets of ichor squirting from under the claw patch, and a relief of internal pressure. Vrell stared in amazement at the translucent embryonic claw protruding from the now broken patch. Then, underneath him, followed one cracking sound after another. To check, he folded his eye-palp down in time to see pieces of medical porcelain sinking to the bottom. But to look was not even necessary as the incredible sensitivity of his new manipulatory hands told him all he needed to know. He was an adult; this was impossible. Yet another patch broke and a leg folded into view and, while he was studying this with his palp eye, the Prador realized he was now seeing a hazy image through turret eyes that should never have recovered sight after being burnt in an APW blast. Adolescent Prador regrew their limbs, but no Prador ever regrew its secondary eyes. Something quite odd and quite wonderful was happening to his body. But he was still trapped here.

Vrell turned towards the door; he required some new miracle to get him through that. Deciding to try something more prosaic, he drew his rail-gun from his harness, aimed at the door’s edge, and fired. A stream of missiles slammed through the water, leaving white lines, and smashed into the side of the door, then zinged away. Some of the ricochets chipped Vrell’s carapace, but he continued firing until the magazine was empty. He then took his plasma torch to the weakened metal, but only managed to cut a small hole before the torch gave out. Vrell could just about poke his claw through it, but it was still a victory, because now air was bubbling in and the water draining out. He definitely would not suffocate—just starve.

His new limbs were now growing at phenomenal speed, their growth spurt sucking Vrell’s insides empty. His hunger became savage and he scoured his prison for something to eat. There was nothing evident, no living leeches, and no remains of those he had broiled with his water gun. There should have been some in here. It seemed, therefore, that the mission timer had been correct. He knew that leeches could go somnolent for long periods and that it took years for them to die of starvation. He picked the timer back up, studied it for a long moment, then returned it to his harness. What now? What should he do now?

Vrell did have a few options left to try. He detached the rail-gun from its magazine suspended on his harness, then also detached the welding unit. Both of these implements contained laminar batteries—the plasma torch having ceased to function only because he had depleted its gas supply. He disassembled these two devices, removed their batteries, and jammed them into the hole he had made, then scuttled back towards the other blast door. The water level had sunk to the bottom of the hole now. Vrell submerged and pointed his water gun towards the two batteries. Laminar batteries did not respond well to excessive heating. Lowering his eye-palps, Vrell fired.

It took just a minute, in which the air space above him filled with clouds of steam. As the two batteries detonated, the shock wave slammed through the Prador with such force that he reflexively adopted a defensive pose: folding up all his limbs and sinking. When he finally unfolded, the water was hot and acidic, and the air above it unbreathable. Vrell scrambled over to the door to see what damage he had done. The door itself seemed to have shifted back a little way, and after a moment Vrell detected a current—the rest of the water was draining away. He jammed his claw into the buckled corner and, with his feet scrabbling at the floor, shoved as hard as he could. Was he imagining that the door flexed? That was possible, since the door, though armoured, had been constructed in layers of composite, insulation and foamed porcelain so as to absorb rather than deflect shock. Then Vrell remembered the dent he had earlier put in the wall. That too was armoured.

Vrell moved back and watched carefully. The water would constrict his movements, so he must wait. Also, his new limbs had by now attained full growth and were beginning to darken as they hardened. He would need them.

Hours passed as the water level kept on dropping. When it had sunk below his now shrunken and concave belly plates, Vrell once again approached the door. He struck it hard with his old claw, eyed the dent made, hit it testingly with his new claw to find out if that one was strong enough. Seeing it was, he then began to rain blow after blow on the door edge, denting the metal back into the underlayer of foamed porcelain. A gap grew at the edge, wider and wider. All the water rushed out.

You won’t stop me, Father.

Vrell thought of how he had been used, and how he would have been dispensed with. He knew that with the extent of his development he had been close to being considered a dangerous competing adult by his father, and consequently having his limbs stripped off and his shell broken. In presentient times, young Prador, enslaved by their father’s pheromones, would bring food to him. But once one of those youngsters reached adulthood, it would shake off that binding control and kill its father, who by then would be weak and lacking in limbs. Prador technology had changed all that. Fathers stayed strong, enhanced their pheromones, and used thrall technology to enslave other life forms. They killed their young before they reached adulthood, or else sometimes neutered them to keep them loyal, also surgically altered them and linked them into war machines. Meanwhile the fathers just kept on living. Though this was just the Prador way, Vrell was still angry, but he was deliberate in his anger, and it gave him strength.

The door retreated gradually under his blows, the lower corner coming up out of its channel in the floor, and the edge tearing out of the wall. Every time his energy flagged, he thought again about what his father would have done to him, and his strength returned. In his feverish activity, he noticed only subliminally how his shell was much darker now, almost obsidian black. After a wide gap was opened down the side of the door, he flipped sideways and pushed himself into it, to try to lever it open further, and was surprised how far he got before he became jammed. His whole body was now attenuated: the curve of his belly plates replicating the curve of his upper shell with not much bulk between. He levered himself back and forth, getting further through each time. Then something gave, either the door or his shell, he did not know, and he was finally through.

In the dank corridor beyond, Vrell revolved his eye-palps and inspected himself. His body, which had previously borne the shape of a flattened pear, was now concave underneath. His visual turret, at what would have been the apex of the pear, felt loose now, and with an effort he found he could move it. His main shell was also wider, more like the disc-shaped carapace of a prill, his limbs also longer and sharper. Vrell had not allowed himself to think about it closely before, but now what was happening to him seemed quite obvious. The earlier leech bites he had suffered on the island had done nothing, for an inhibitor was included in the broad-spectrum inoculations he had given himself before first leaving this ship. But obviously time and his transformation to adulthood had weakened the effect of those drugs, so they had not been enough to prevent him being infected by the Spatterjay virus from those leeches burrowing under his carapace. Now the virus was changing him. Vrell accepted the fact and shoved it to the back of his mind. Right then he had more important concerns. He went in search of something to eat.

Anything.

* * * *

Taylor Bloc scanned around the inside of the shuttle, tested the air with an anosmic detector, and smelt that recognizable odour as of an open ancient tomb. In the passenger compartment, besides himself, there were twelve reifications—four of which wore the grey enviro-suits and protective breastplates of his Kladites. Aesop and Bones were not present, having gone on ahead to make arrangements for Bloc’s arrival. Of the Hoopers, one was an Old Captain by the name of Ron, whom one of Bloc’s agents here had hired, two were perhaps crewmen, but the fourth—a Hooper in outworld dress who seemed to spend a lot of time talking to a box on his shoulder—looked very familiar. Bloc tried to remember where he had seen that face before, but it kept on escaping him. Obviously he was not anyone of importance. Bloc was about to dismiss such speculation when the Kladite sitting alongside him turned to him.

‘Forgive my intrusion, Taylor Bloc, but I’ve been watching him too. It is destiny,’ said the reif.

Bloc paused for a long moment before replying, just to make sure this Kladite understood his insolence in speaking without first being addressed. ‘Yes, destiny,’ he said, though having no idea what the reif meant.

Obviously encouraged the Kladite continued, ‘A great friend of Keech himself, and he who assisted Erlin in her resurrection of him.’

As Bloc sat mulling that over, his mind seemed slow. Perhaps it was time for him to add some memory space. Perhaps the last fifty years of memories were spilling into the spaces his memcording used to run copies of his organic mental programs. He was about to run a cerebral diagnostic check from other programs, additional to his memcording, when what the Kladite had just told him impacted.

OUTPARAFUNCT: B.P. PRESSURE INCREASE NOT REQ

His fight-or-flight reflex, which in his organic body would have caused a surge of adrenalin and consequent increase in his heart rate, caused his internal balm pump to accelerate. That was not supposed to happen.

INFORM: STABILIZE, he instructed.

His heart would have been thundering, but now, motionless with its valves open and preserving balm flooding round and through it, it just endured.

Janer Cord Anders.

He should have known, since he had long ago formatted his memory so as never to forget a face that might be important to him. Here was the other one they had been searching for—and coming to them of his own free will. It was indeed destiny: further proof that he was the one to lead all reifications to the Little Flint and to resurrection. He felt in that instant the truth of his own status, and knew that in time all reifications would come to understand what he was, and what he was doing for them. Bloc undid his safety straps, jerked himself out of his seat and walked over. As he drew close to Anders, he saw that the box on the man’s shoulder contained hornets.

Epiphany.

‘You are Janer Cord Anders,’ he said, catching hold of the back of the man’s seat.

Anders looked up. ‘I certainly am.’

‘Might I enquire why you are on this flight?’

‘I’m here with Ron.’ Anders gestured to the Old Captain. ‘I was hoping for a place on the ship. My friend here,’ he tapped the hornet box, ‘is not so enamoured of the idea, but my remit does allow for a little travelling.’

‘Of course you will join the Sable Keech; it is inevitable. I did make an offer on the AI nets for your presence, some years ago. I am trying in my modest way to match many aspects of the Arisen One’s original journey, so I would be glad to have you aboard.’

OUTPARAFUNCT: YABBER$@~*

MEMSPACE: 00055

Bloc tilted his head: another one. It had to be caused by his additional hardware and software, as such code corruptions were usually unheard of in reification software. He ran a high-speed diagnostic of the three open channels from his internal control unit. The results did not make a lot of sense. He tried linking through one channel, briefly saw bony hands sharpening a knife. He realized then that the problem was being caused by feedback from the most recently opened channel: a kind of madness, something waking up. After a second he refocused on the man before him.

Anders had tilted his head, listening to his hivelink. He frowned, showed a flash of irritation, and said, ‘Then you have me.’ He paused for a moment. ‘I’m informed that you are Taylor Bloc?’

‘I am,’ Bloc replied, a little peeved that Janer had not instantly recognized him.

‘You’re part owner of the ship?’ Janer asked.

Bloc stared at him, for a moment not understanding the question, then he replied, ‘I am the owner.’ The wash of anger and irritation he felt was immediate, almost seemed to come from outside him, but of course it did not show. He was not truly the owner yet, and that would have to soon change. He nodded to Janer jerkily, turned away, and began running inside himself an error-search program that though not correcting whatever the fault was, would at least clear some of the junk out of his mind. Slowly he returned to his seat.

‘You’ve recruited him?’ the Kladite asked.

‘I. . . have.’

‘He was not already with us?’

Bloc held up a hand. ‘It was destined.’

‘That is good.’

The Kladite faced forwards again, bearing no expression on his frozen and preserved face, but his mere actions told Bloc enough. He realized that whatever was wrong with himself was showing. This too would have to change.

* * * *

The sail finally put Erlin down on top of a small atoll, while its two companions scattered a colony of frog whelks that had been clinging just above the waterline a few metres below her. She could hear the strange squealing of the whelks and the thunderous splashing as they propelled themselves away from the coral face. Glancing aside, she saw one of them smack its fleshy foot down on the water and bounce again. But one of the sails snatched it up on its next bounce. The pair of sails returned with two whelks each, broke open the shells and began to dine on their still living occupants. Erlin eyed their dinner for a moment—not feeling quite the same about whelks any more—then turned her attention to the sail who had carried her. Only then did she finally grasp what some part of her brain had been trying to tell her for some time.

‘You’re Golem?’ she asked.

‘They are insentient so, essentially, neither truly alive nor truly subject to Death,’ the sail replied.

Erlin gazed at the Golem sail, then realized it was staring down at the other two sails as they dined. A Golem sail that was squeamish?

‘I said you’re Golem,’ Erlin suggested.

‘I’m Zephyr,’ the sail replied, its gaze still fixed.

Erlin stood up, stretched her legs and rubbed her aching shoulders. ‘So, Zephyr, I’d have thought it would be easier for you to take me to Olian’s, or else drop me aboard some ship in that area. But it seems you’ve been taking me away from civilization.’

Zephyr turned its head towards her, then tossed a harness onto the stone beside her. ‘Put that on.’

‘Why?’

The sail gave a twisted shrug, as if in pain. ‘I can carry you as before, but you might find the journey uncomfortable. There is no risk to your life. Distance ... is long.’

‘I don’t want to go on a long journey.’

The Golem sail gave that same distorted shrug and began to extend its wings.

‘Wait.’ Erlin stooped and took up the contrivance of plasmesh straps. It was something like a parachute harness but with a grip bar or handle at the back where the parachute should be. She started to don it, but slowly to give herself time.

‘Where are we going?’

‘Mortuary Island.’

‘Why there?’ Erlin asked, not wanting to reveal that she had no idea what or where this place was.

‘Because that is where the dead live and where we have been paid to take you.’

‘You’re kidnapping me?’

Again the shrug, this time with bowed head. ‘Relocating . . . you.’ The head came up again. ‘I saved your life. I beat your Death.’

‘I’m grateful for that. But now you are taking me somewhere I don’t want to go. That’s kidnapping.’

‘There is worse.’

One of the other sails hawked and coughed up a piece of whelk shell. ‘We could always take her back where we found her, if this gets too messy,’ it suggested.

‘Oh, I’ll come,’ Erlin said quickly. ‘I see I haven’t much choice in the matter.’ She finished doing up her straps.

‘Should we feed her?’ asked the third sail, nudging the remains of its dinner with a clawed toe.

‘Do you require food, Erlin Taser Three Indomial?’

Erlin eyed the chewed leftovers. ‘Not right now.’

‘Then we must go.’

The Golem sail launched itself, blasting shell fragments from the top of the atoll with the down-draught of its wings. Erlin turned, and it grabbed the handle at her back and pulled her into the sky.

‘How far to Mortuary Island?’ she shouted as the other two sails then launched with much noise and flurry.

‘It is in the Cable Sea, beyond the Norbic Atolls.’ Erlin swore, and realized that at some point she would need to eat whatever was offered her. That, she knew, was thousands of kilometres away.

* * * *

Ambel gazed through his binoculars at the island, inspecting the damage, looking for any sign of Erlin—or maybe bits of Erlin. Judging by the mess he could see, she was probably dead, but he was not feeling that yet. Actually, accepting someone’s death was not a trait to which Old Captains could grow accustomed—most of their own fellows being so long-lived and indestructible.

‘Lower the boat,’ he instructed Peck, who as ever was hovering at the Captain’s shoulder.

He glanced round at the rest of the crew, but none of them would meet his gaze. Sprout and Pillow unstrapped the rowing boat from the side of the ship and began feeding rope into pulleys to lower it to the sea. Ambel returned to the outer wall of his cabin, and unhooked from it his blunderbuss and bags of powder and stones. He loaded the weapon, tearing off the end of a paper cartridge and feeding it down the barrel, next shoving in wadding and pouring in some stones, then more wadding. He primed it and pulled back the hammer.

‘Let’s see what we’ve got here before we get all morbid,’ he suggested.

He hung the ‘buss across his back by a strap and scrambled down the ladder. While Peck peered over the side at them, Anne and the juniors—Sprout, Sild and Pillow—followed Ambel down. They were also armed: Anne carried a powerful laser carbine she had found on Skinner’s Island—no longer needed by the Batian mercenaries who had gone there with Rebecca Frisk and run afoul of Hooper vengeance; Sprout carried a machete, and the other two lugged heavy clubs. Once they were all seated in the boat, Ambel took up the reinforced oars and began to row.

‘What do you think happened?’ Anne eventually asked.

Staring straight back at the Treader, Ambel replied, ‘Any number of things spring to mind, but by the look of the wreckage I would guess something from the deeps paid a visit. We’ll know soon enough.’

Soon they were into shallows and with a glimpse over the side Ambel noted a lack of whelks in the vicinity. He began to feel a heaviness in his chest; the signs were not good. Beaching the boat he gave a further two heaves on the oars to pull it up onto the sand, then climbed out.

‘We’ll stick together for the moment,’ he said, all practicality. ‘Let’s see what we’ve got here first.’

Eyeing the wreckage of Erlin’s home, the five advanced. They began to search under its deflated walls, to pick through broken equipment and furniture, and turn over anything large enough to conceal human remains.

‘Ambel,’ Anne called him over.

He came to stand next to her and gazed down at whelkish remains driven into the hard ground. He stooped and rubbed away some of the dirt, to reveal the shell pattern.

‘Very well,’ he said heavily. ‘You collect what’s salvageable and take it back to the ship. Me an’ these lads’ll take a look across the island. Tell Boris to bring the Treader round to the other side to pick us up.’

‘Is that such a good plan?’ Anne wondered. ‘Perhaps we should all leave right now.’

Ambel turned to her. ‘Erlin could be injured and holed up somewhere. I know the chances are remote, but I have to look.’ He glanced back at the waves. Maybe what had done this still lurked there below the surface, but that was a risk he was prepared to take. He still hoped to find some sign, some message . . . something.

‘Come on, lads, we’ll spread out and cover as much ground as we can.’ He turned and began trudging inland, bellowing, ‘Erlin! Are you here, woman!’

* * * *

Taylor Bloc eyed the Kladites arrayed in neat ranks before him, unarmed. They all wore cloth or domino masks, grey envirosuits with incorporated breastplates, while skirted helmets hung at their belts. As they raised their hands before them and started chanting ‘Bloc! Bloc! Bloc!’ he strode out onto the ramp waving one hand in greeting. This small army of eighty reifications he had gathered from the remnants of the Cult of Anubis Arisen on Klader, and they had all sworn loyalty to him for his promise to lead them to resurrection. Out of choice they wore a uniform created by one of their number. It was sad, though fortunate for him, Bloc felt, that even amongst the unliving there were those who felt the need to be led.

A few Hoopers stood to one side, watching the show with bemused expressions. Of the rest of the crowd, the largest proportion consisted of unaligned reifications—merely passengers—but there were others here too.

Bloc spotted the mercenary he knew only as Shive—an employee of Lineworld Developments. The catadapt was tall, thickly muscled, boosted and, now grinning, his leonine visage exposing curved fangs. Bloc surveyed the gathering, easily picking out the rest of the mercenaries; they wore black crabskin armour and made no pretence at concealment. He repressed his anger; though he had always expected Lineworld Developments to try to take over, it was doubly insulting that they used Batian mercenaries. These were members of an entire culture of one continent, on an Out-Polity planet, revolving around that frowned-upon profession. They had also, in the employ of the Eight, spent seven hundred years trying to find and destroy Sable Keech himself.

The chanting finally came to a halt and, turning up his volume, Bloc began to speak. ‘Kladites, I thank you for your greeting, and your enthusiasm for our great venture. We have come here to walk in the footsteps of Sable Keech, seeking resurrection. It is—’ There came a guffaw from one of the mercenaries. ‘It is a great thing we do, but I will save the speeches for later. Right now there is much work to be done.’

Spying Aesop and Bones walking up through the ranks, easily recognizable by their hooded green flak jackets, Bloc walked down to join them. His internal search program now nearly clearing the clutter from his mind, he could link to them easily, but chose instead to speak.

‘How did they get here?’ he immediately asked.

‘They came in the first shuttle, directly from orbit, disguised as reifications,’ Aesop hissed in reply.

‘As expected,’ murmured Bloc. ‘And the weapons.’

‘They were under guard before we got here. We of course demanded that the chief mercenary, Shive, release them to us, but he refused. He said it was his job to ensure the safety of all, and that a bunch of amateurs running around with laser carbines was something he didn’t consider safe.’

‘No matter. How many mercenaries?’

‘Only eighteen, but they are all heavily armed.’

‘Weapons?’

‘As required for their mission: projectile weapons that can destroy reifications and kill Hoopers,’ Aesop replied.

Bloc nodded creakily. ‘Not nearly enough, then.’

Eighteen mercenaries so armed was plenty enough against eighty unarmed Kladites. The rest in this crowd were all free citizens, pilgrims come here with one hope. Some of them might have had military or criminal or security backgrounds, but he had no idea of their loyalties, and so for the present discounted them. Unlike Aesop and Bones, they did not belong to him. However, it was all moot.

‘It doesn’t matter, I have prepared for this. We have the means ...’ he said, more confidently than he felt. He glanced around to find six Kladites had moved into a rank behind him, and the rest of the crowd was dispersing. ‘Tell me the rest.’

‘The Golem are hard at work and will complete the ship on schedule,’ Aesop replied. ‘All but ten reifs have paid their reservation fees, rental agreements on accommodation and initial bids on tickets for the first voyage. As expected, a lot of them did not bring supplies of an Intertox inhibitor that works in reification balm. Of course, with the journey’s distance and time now extended, those who miss the first voyage will require further supplies and will also have to pay for extended rental agreements. Even before the Sable Keech reaches its destination, Lineworld will already be in profit.’

‘Yes, as was always their intention, but all profits are allocated as investment in future voyages, and stand separate from initial investment costs,’ said Bloc. ‘How are we now with that?’

‘The cost of transporting materials and passengers has pushed us near to the limit,’ Aesop replied.

‘That the mercenaries have made no further move means Lineworld is waiting for us to go over that limit, then they can legally take over. Because they work from within the Polity, their actions here on the Line must have at least the gloss of legality.’ Bloc felt the situation was perhaps the best he could have hoped for. He had expected Lineworld to find some way of pushing up costs, and there were many ways they could have done that. By relocating the enterprise they had untied his hands. There were things he could do now he would not have dared on Chel Island. ‘Take me to the ship now. I want to see.’

Aesop turned and led the way through the sprawl of Polity accommodation units and a buzz of activity. Bloc noted the fences erected to keep the denizens of the dingle at bay, and some guard towers occupied by Batians. A few stalls and kiosks here were selling food and drink, but most sold various items of Polity technology that reifications might require. This too was part of the enterprise—a hugely profitable part for Lineworld. That organization was also raking in a profit from the currency exchange system he had arranged with Olian’s. Contractually that made no difference to the initial investment, but then Lineworld’s contracts served one purpose: they were the tip of a wedge into profitable enterprises started by others on the edge of the Polity. They invested, then took over—that was their whole ethos.

They came to a gate leading out of the temporary town warded by two more mercenaries who smilingly opened it for them. The Kladites now drew in closer around Bloc and keenly eyed the dingle either side of the path winding downslope.

‘There’s a good view from over here, unless you want to go down?’ Aesop pointed to a narrow side path.

Bloc waved him on.

Soon they emerged on an outcrop above a drop, and gazed down at the Sable Keech.

Only the keel and ribs of the ship were yet in place, resting on the ramp leading down to the sea. Those working on it gleamed brightly, and were as skeletal as what they were constructing. Either side of the construction site, and reaching back to below where Bloc was standing, just about every tree had been felled. A sawmill, open to the air, was in constant operation; clouds of wood dust boiling out from it and turning its surroundings into powdery desert. He observed where the masts were being assembled from bubble-metal sections. He noted stacked crates, some of them the size of houses. These contained bubble-metal gears and trains, electric motors, laminar batteries and solar cells, bearings and all the paraphernalia that would allow three living sails to control the mass of other monofabric sails the masts would carry. The ship, when finished, would be nearly a kilometre long, carry nine huge masts, five hundred kilometres of rigging, square kilometres of sail, and seven hundred passengers and crew (one for each year Sable Keech had been dead). It would be enormous, a triumph and, most importantly for Lineworld, very expensive to travel on.

‘I am happy to see this,’ said Bloc flatly. ‘Now, to my quarters, where we must finalize plans.’ He nodded slowly. ‘I will not lose what is mine.’

Bones sniggered in his hood at this.

Bloc gazed at the reif for a moment, and in response Bones jerked upright as if a lead attached to him had been snapped taut. Bloc turned back to Aesop. ‘We move tonight—ahead of plan.’

‘I’ll have to check that the . . . item is ready,’ Aesop replied.

‘No need. Can’t you feel it?’

Reif or not, the way Aesop then reacted looked something like a shudder.

‘It bothers you?’ Bloc asked.

‘A gun is so much more reliable,’ Aesop replied.

‘Guns are not a luxury we have at the moment, but we do have something better,’ said Bloc, moving on.

* * * *

Tarsic damned the fault in his cleansing unit that drove him to take on any job on offer so as to remain a viable reification. There were cleansing units available here, but renting time on them was expensive. The five times he had used them had made a severe dent in his funds, which were already depleted by paying for his reservation, ticket bid and the steep accommodation costs. Anywhere else, he might have been able to forgo having his own small dwelling, but here that meant you stayed outside the compound. Some reifs were attempting that, and he heard that one of them had been swallowed whole by a giant leech. The woman had remained in contact via her aug as the leech digested her corpse. Then the contact broke when the leech, it was surmised, went into the sea. Others were losing portions of their precious flesh to leeches all the time, while the Spatterjay virus was rapidly eating away the rest of their preserved bodies. But now there was some hope for himself, and also his companions Beric and Sline.

After he was killed in an AGC accident on Klader, his grieving wife had cryo-stored Tarsic’s body. Her conversion to what was then the Cult of Anubis Arisen occurred some years later. She then paid for a download from his frozen brain to crystal, and subsequently his reification. Her own reification, after death by suicide—her being anxious to become a full member of the Cult—had proved unsuccessful. Tarsic then immediately looked into getting himself installed in a Golem chassis, but discovered just how much of a bitch his wife had been. A deferred debt was awaiting him, and the moment he ceased to be a reification that debt became due and would result in his utter bankruptcy. So in his Golem chassis he would have ended up indentured to the Cult for years—a group which had since come to look upon him with contempt, for he was perhaps unique in remaining a reification out of financial motives. It surprised him when Aesop, assistant to Taylor Bloc himself, who had bought out the Cult when it effectively collapsed as a going concern, had approached him.

Tarsic turned, as he proceeded, to check that Beric and Sline were still with him. Just about all the reifs here regularly went down to see the ship being built, just as worshippers would have once ventured forth to observe the construction of a cathedral—the feeling was much the same. Tarsic and his companions had already been there a couple of times. However, it was not so usual for reifs to venture out during the night, as that was when the big leeches were most active. The guards would be suspicious, as they were of any unusual activity. As the three approached the gates, one of the two Batian guards stepped forwards.

‘Strange to see you out after dark. Shouldn’t you be in shutdown mode or’—the female guard paused to say the next word with distaste—‘cleansing?’

‘Our night vision is good,’ Tarsic replied. ‘And we’ve concluded that we prefer to view the construction in a less religious atmosphere.’

The woman smiled. ‘Not a Kladite then?’

Tarsic held his hands out from his sides, ‘Do I look like one of those fanatics? Where’s my Kervox breastplate and skirted helmet, and my permanent link to the wise words of Taylor Bloc?’

‘Well, you might be in disguise,’ she suggested.

‘You’re auged.’ Tarsic raised a shaky finger and pointed to the white bone-effect aug behind her right ear. ‘They’ll certainly have some kind of record on me. My name is Tarsic Alleas Smith . . .’

The woman tilted her head. After a moment she nodded. ‘I see. Years working off a debt to the Cult, then to Taylor Bloc . . . and you’re known as a troublemaker amongst reifs. You’ll do.’ She signalled to her companion to open the gate for them.

When the three were some distance from the compound, heading down the path leading to the ship’s construction site, Beric opined, ‘She’d think differently if she knew precisely where we are going.’

Tarsic agreed. It was all about the balance of power here. With the Batians being armed, Taylor Bloc could not augment his own forces without the mercenaries finding out and perhaps doing something drastic. But Bloc had prepared. Apparently the Kladites here, and the weapons Shive had put under guard, were merely a decoy. Down there, in a crate to which Tarsic now held the computerized key, were fifty armed reifs awaiting their moment.

Soon they came in sight of the sailing ship and the glinting movement of Golem working in the moonlight. There was no electric lighting—the Golem needed none. It would be nice, Tarsic thought, if Bloc could get them on his side. They were neutral however; here under contract from Cybercorp to perform their singular task. Tarsic led the way to the left, away from the ship, through the ankle-deep sawdust. Soon the crates loomed out of the dark, like an infant city with its power cut. He followed a map lit on the small screen of the key and eventually came to the crate indicated. He eyed the looming bubble-metal wall before him and tracked round, locating the seal clips.

‘Let’s get it open,’ he said.

Beric and Sline moved forwards, taking crowbars from under their jackets. Beric began levering off the clips down one edge, while Sline used them on the other edge as a ladder to the crate’s top. The pieces of sprung metal cracked and spanged out into the night. These had been pressed into place on the end of the crate to keep up the pressure on its seals while it was in transit in a lower-cost unpressurized cargo hold. Every time a clip went, Tarsic expected someone to come running. No one came.

‘All done?’ he asked, when his two companions stepped away from the crate.

‘They’re moving about in there,’ said Beric.

‘I thought they’d be in shutdown,’ added Sline.

‘They were shut down, so Aesop told me, but they recently woke. That’s why we are here now.’ Tarsic pointed the key at the crate and sent over the unlocking code.

‘Hang on a minute,’ said Sline. ‘Why lock them in a crate with no way of getting themselves out?’

With a hiss of equalizing pressures, the end of the crate jerked open and began to come down like a ramp. It was utterly dark inside. Tarsic had expected light. He considered Sline’s question and realized he possessed no easy answers. But, being so happy over the promise of new cleansing units for the three of them and a confirmed reservation on the ship’s first voyage, he had not thought to question.

The crate end settled on the ground with a dull whump, stirring up a small storm of sawdust. The darkness within it seemed packed with thick loops of something that shifted with a sound as of rocks grinding together. He realized he was seeing something segmented, maybe two metres thick, crammed into this box in coils. One loop of it began to unravel out of shadow, then something horrible exploded out then up into the night like a demonic jack-in-a-box. Tarsic gazed up into an open cowl of armour plates containing two vertical rows of hot red eyes. Glassy limbs and other sharp appendages ground and clattered together before those eyes like scythes being sharpened. Tarsic stumbled backwards, not comprehending what he was seeing. Sline made a strange keening sound as the terrible hood drenched him in its shadow, then came down like a cupped hand, slamming him to the earth and trapping him underneath. A ripping tearing sucking and disgorging ensued.

‘That hooder must be very hungry,’ said Beric, his tone utterly flat. ‘They normally feed a lot slower than that.’

‘Hooder?’ said Tarsic, still backing up.

Beric turned to him wearily. ‘There’s no point running—and we’re lucky that we feel no pain.’

The creature reared again, dripping reif balm and scattering the now clean bones and various metallic additions that had enabled Sline to survive long after his own death. Beric bowed his head as it slid above him, the rest of the long armoured body uncoiling from its prison, then came down on him like an immense fly swat. Tarsic turned and ran, trying not to hear the horrible gobbling sounds, but he too was quickly smashed down and trapped in hot red shadow, surrounded by a thousand ever-shifting knives. As they closed on him and began cutting, error messages started to burn his night vision. He shut the messages off. Eventually, as the hooder severed his power cables, he went into shutdown knowing now that all hope of the resurrection of his human body was gone. He had just watched it disappear piece by piece into a thousand hungry little mouths.