13

Prill: this sickle-legged creature is something of an oddity. Below a saucer-shaped carapace its ten legs are spaced evenly, and all hinge in the same concentric direction. These legs are flat and sharp, and in the water act like some strange cross between propellers and paddles. On land, though it can travel forward at great speed, it is constantly revolving. As a consequence, so it can keep its eyes on its destination—usually something to eat—its red eyeballs are not directly attached to its optic nerve, which lies in a band around its very small brain, but are squeezed around a lubricated channel in its carapace rim, constantly focusing light on the band of nerve tissue behind. The mouth is positioned centrally, underneath.

Prill lay millions of eggs in the ocean currents. Drifting, they hatch out diatomic prill, which make up part of the vicious plankton. Feeding in the ocean currents for some years, until they are about the size of dinner plates, they hitch a ride on larger oceanic carnivores, scavenging scraps from their host’s prey. As they get larger their bodies become more dense, till they eventually sink to the ocean floor, where they continue growing. Eventually internal body growth outpaces carapace growth, so they themselves become prey to the smaller denizens of the deep. Their carapaces and internal chemistry prevent virus infection, so prill will live no longer than a century or so. In this respect their closest relation is the glister—

Four fusion plants were now running. Two others were possibly salvageable, but one was highly radioactive and beyond repair. Through various cameras Vrell watched a dying blank plasma-cutting the supports and pipes around the pill-shaped unrecoverable one. Eventually it was hanging loose, only attached by its S-con cables, with coolant leaking out of a breach in its side. These cables being a nightmare to cut using heat, as they instantly conducted it away, the blank had to cut through with an electric saw, and eventually the two-metre-wide plant dropped to the deck with a crash. Stumbling a little now, the sickly blank attached a cable hook to one of the support lugs on the fallen object’s circumference. Using the electric winch of a rail buggy out in the main corridor, he hauled it out of the fusion room, then up off the floor so that it hung suspended from the buggy, which in turn clung to its ceiling rail. It was a labour-intensive task which would have been greatly simplified by using a mobile gravplate. Except the Warden might detect AG usage and investigate.

From the control room Vrell set the buggy moving, with the blank walking along behind it. After many laborious interchanges and a nightmarish moment when the rail began to tear away from the side of a down-shaft through which it curved, both blank and plant eventually arrived in the drone cache. There, Vrell’s drone unfolded its new armoured claws, took the weight of the plant and snipped the cable holding it aloft. Vrell closed the door into the cache, then opened the hull door. In flooded the ocean, slamming the blank against the back wall. Vrell relinquished control of the human, then watched the cache fill up and the drone take the fusion plant outside to dump it. Some hours later the drone returned, grabbed the still moving blank and shoved him outside too. Finally Vrell closed the hull door again. Despite being a tough Hooper, the human was dying anyway from the huge radiation dose it had received. Vrell concentrated now on other matters.

The remaining human blanks were working very well: all automated repair systems were operating at optimum efficiency and, just as fast as they were supplied with materials, the manufactories were turning out missiles, explosives and other components to restock the armouries. There were now enough gravplates operational to waft the ship into orbit. All the steering thrusters were functional, and their tanks a quarter full of deuterium oxide. The main fusion engine was not yet ready but, at the rate his blanks worked, it would be so in a few days. However, even all this activity was but a small percentage of the overall task. There now remained the most complex and bewildering job of all, which, if left undone, meant Vrell would never be leaving this system. And the repair and realignment of the U-space engine was not a task the Prador could delegate.

The Prador left his sanctum for the first time in many days, making his way towards the ship’s rear. On the way he collected a maglev tool chest and reels of fibre-optics and insulated super-conducting cable. The U-space engine was positioned in a wide chamber just ahead of the main fusion engines. In appearance it was a large torus stretched until the hole in its middle had closed up. It was supported in a scaffold that also carried a fountain of S-con power cables, fibre-optic control and diagnostic feeds. Around the room’s walls were scattered banks of hexagonal screens and pit consoles. Vrell eyed the layer of soot on every surface, the burnt cables and blown U-field monitors. The engine itself bore no exterior signs of physical damage, but until he replaced those burnt-out optics he did not know how it was inside.

Vrell advanced into the room, the tool chest following him faithfully. He reached out to turn off the chest’s power, and it settled with a crunch on the ashy floor. Rearing up over the engine, he extended his manipulatory hands and detached an optic cable. He then opened the tool chest, used a vibro-sheer to cut an equivalent length from one reel, selected the required fittings from the chest, and sealed them to each end with optical glue. After replacing the cable he marked it with a coloured wire tie. And so it went. Some cables appeared undamaged, but he still replaced them all. Next, using a similar technique, he replaced all the S-con cables. These ail appeared undamaged, but he dared not trust their insulation, as the current they would need to carry was huge, and the slightest short could spell disaster. In a storeroom just off the engine room, he found spare U-field monitors and replaced the damaged ones. Once all this was done, he moved well back, linked in to the ship’s control systems, and switched on the power.

The whole room seemed to twist slightly, and suddenly the U-space engine appeared to gain greater weight and substance. Vrell moved to a bank of screens and pit controls and initiated the optic aligning program, since it was impossible for each cable to go back precisely in position, for they contained tens of thousands of microscopic individual filaments. While this was running, he headed off to the ship’s larder and fed himself, noting as he did so that supplies of food were getting low. By the time he returned, the program had run its course and he was now getting diagnostic returns. He inspected the screen readouts for a long time, then abruptly turned and knocked the tool chest across the room, to smash into another bank of screens. Then he settled down onto the ashy floor, with a hiss like something deflating.

* * * *

Forlam flushed with embarrassment. Styx, himself and just five other Hoopers up against Bloc, Aesop, Bones and a small army of Kladites—what had he been thinking? He could easily have got them all killed. The obvious reason for such rashness was those unhealthy impulses to which Styx had referred earlier.

‘Sorry about that,’ he muttered.

‘No matter,’ said Styx. ‘Just try to control yourself.’

‘Yeah, right.’

They reached the door to the nearest Mainmast stairwell, and clattered down to the reifications’ deck. Once there, Forlam turned to head for the stern. Captain Ron, in his own calm and lugubrious manner, would have to deal directly with Bloc. Maybe they could open the embarkation stair and lure the hooder there and somehow force it out into the ocean. Maybe Erlin could sort something out, since she was clever . . .

Styx abruptly caught hold of his shoulder. ‘Not that way,’ said the reif.

Forlam stared at him, puzzled.

‘Don’t you want to fetch those weapons for your Captain?’ Styx asked him.

‘Well . . . yes.’

‘Then follow me.’

Styx broke into a lope that was surprisingly smooth for a reif, leading the way towards the bows. Some other reifications were crowding the corridor, and from them one female reif approached him.

‘What’s happening?’ she asked.

‘I haven’t the time to explain right now, Santen,’ Styx replied. ‘Suffice to say that I think Bloc has dealt with a particular problem of his in a way that endangers us all.’

What is he on about? Forlam wondered, as he followed Styx on through the crowd. The female reif hesitated for a moment, then abruptly followed. Shortly they reached the stairwell by the third foremast, which led up eventually to the bridge.

‘We have to be quick,’ said Styx. ‘Bloc and the others may be coming back here.’

Soon they reached the doorway leading through to the staterooms on this level. Styx peered through the porthole in the door. ‘Two Kladites, armed. Deal with them, Forlam.’

‘Right.’ Forlam glanced around at his five companions. ‘Come on, lads.’

Forlam crashed through the door, saw the two guards turning towards him. He launched himself at the nearest one, grabbing the reif’s carbine and driving his head into the guard’s face. Hands slipping from his weapon the guard staggered back against the wall, while Forlam brought its butt up hard into his face. The other guard managed to fire just one blast, then disappeared under three Hoopers. The one Forlam had hit was struggling to get upright again.

‘Tie them up,’ said Styx. ‘You won’t be able to knock dead men unconscious.’

Sufficient belts and straps were found, and shortly the two Kladites were writhing about on the floor, leaking blue balm from their injuries.

‘You,’ Styx pointed to one of the Hoopers, ‘go watch the stair.’ He then strode down the corridor, checking each door before halting at one. ‘Forlam, here.’

Forlam kicked hard, his foot going right through the woodwork. ‘Bugger.’

Styx relieved him of the carbine, as he struggled to free his leg, and fired into the lock. After Forlam pulled himself free, he slammed his palm against the door above the smoking lock. It swung slowly inwards.

‘I’ll be damned,’ said Forlam. ‘How did you know?’

On the big wide bed rested a neat row of Batian projectile weapons, stacks of ammunition, energy canisters and grenades. It was the missile launcher that caught Forlam’s eye, however.

‘I knew because I watch and I listen.’ Styx turned to the female reif. ‘It always surprises me how much most people miss.’

‘Oh I missed it at first, but not now,’ said Santen Marcollian.

Styx just stared at her. Forlam knew he was missing something about this exchange between the two, but ignored them to take up the launcher and eye it greedily.

‘You be careful with that,’ said Styx.

The Hoopers collected the weapons, making a bag for them out of bed sheets, and were soon piling out of the room. Forlam shouldered the launcher and watched as Styx walked around the double bed and picked up something that had fallen on the floor. It was a plasmel box, and he opened it. Inside were four divisions, one of them empty. From one of the others he removed an aerosol can of some kind, no label, slightly dented. He sniffed it in a very unreif-like manner.

‘This was the stateroom assigned to Aesop,’ he said, ‘though he never uses it. Such luxury is wasted on the dead.’

‘Someone coming up!’ came a shout from the Hooper watching the stairwell.

Styx nodded briefly, led the way out of the room and along to the other stairwell, then down.

* * * *

Travelling under the ocean at what would be Mach 1 if airborne, Sniper followed the silt trail for a hundred kilometres before it faded into the normal background micro-debris of the ocean. Shutting off his S-cav drive, he coasted for a time while assessing collected data. Obviously the ocean currents would have shifted the trail, but how far? The war drone overlaid the present silt trail on his internal map of the sea bottom. Then, taking into account the ocean currents and tides, he tracked this trail’s position back day by day. The twisting line deformed, grew wider to account for possible error, but still—at a point in time a few days after the disappearance of the Vignette—it seemed to match some seabed features. Sniper turned, opened up with his drive, and returned with all speed to the spot where the spaceship had originally rested.

‘What you doing?’ asked Twelve from above.

‘The silt trail is just about gone, but I’ve plotted its original location. I’ll follow it and see if I can get into our friend’s thinking.’

‘Oh, right,’ said Twelve, with more than a hint of boredom.

Propelled by his tractor drive, without the S-cav field engaged, Sniper followed the winding trail he had configured along the ocean’s bottom. After fifty kilometres of this and two dead leeches, he still could not plumb the Prador’s thinking. Apparently it was heading towards the Lamarck Trench, but then it would have needed to circle back round the Skinner’s Island to go anywhere else. Then Sniper picked up a sudden surge from his magnetometer as he detected something far off to one side. He turned to trace the source, travelling two kilometres away from his current course. Finding only a piece of Ebulan’s ship which, judging by its encrustations, must have fallen away prior to it crashing ten years ago, he cursed repeatedly as he returned. It was only as he motored back through his own silt trail that he realized the Prador had made a compromise between depth and silt disturbance along the most direct route leading to the trench. It had clearly never expected any of this trail to last long enough to be followed.

‘He’s definitely gone to ground in the trench,’ Sniper sent.

‘That’s good,’ sighed Twelve.

‘What are your intentions?’ the Warden interrupted.

‘Well, this trail will only show me where he entered the trench, not where he is positioned now. Reaching it, he could have turned either left or right, or even into one of the tributaries. My chances of finding him are the same from wherever I begin my search. What can you give me?’

‘The geosurvey drones would not be able to sustain the pressure, and Thirteen is presently otherwise occupied. You will have to make do with Eleven and Twelve.’

‘You don’t seem that anxious to find this bastard—and its bastard drone.’

‘This bastard probably just wants to leave the planet, and though the loss of the Vignette crew is lamentable, it does not warrant major intervention on my part. Anyway, this may soon no longer be our concern.’

‘What?’ Sniper asked, then grunted almost physically as he began to decode the information package the Warden sent. ‘I see,’ the drone muttered. ‘We just got shat on all the way from Earth.’

* * * *

Janer studied the still-shifting remains of the hooder and wondered who was now in charge of the Sable Keech. About ten Kladites were now little more than piles of bones and reification hardware. The Hoopers waiting all around him were now well armed.

‘Steady, boys,’ said Ron, standing up at the sound of marching across the deck above.

The thirty or so Hoopers down here looked steady enough to Janer.

The Kladites started descending the two nearby ladders. A group of about twenty gradually gathered at the base of each, then milled around confusedly when they saw what awaited them.

‘Shall we do ‘em?’ asked Forlam eagerly. It seemed he was anxious to try out his new toy.

‘No,’ said Ron, ‘we’ll just make sure our position is clear, then get on with the work we’re being paid for.’

Taylor Bloc, carefully checking his hand- and footholds, finally worked his way down the ladder.

‘Looks a little shaky,’ opined Wade.

The Kladites parted to allow their leader through, then fell into ranks behind him. A few metres from Ron, the reif halted. He turned to stare at the remains of the hooder.

‘How was it killed?’ Bloc asked.

‘Well,’ said Ron, ‘I reckon whoever originally hit it with the APW came and finished the job this time. Never saw what happened myself. I was waiting for Forlam to bring us these weapons.’

‘I see,’ said Bloc, eyeing the gathered Hoopers, only a few of whom did not carry some of the hardware Forlam and Styx had obtained from Aesop’s stateroom. ‘Does anyone know who owns this APW?’

A general shaking and scratching of heads was all the reply he received.

‘So it would seem the present crisis is over.’ Bloc glanced back at his own men, then around at the Hoopers. To Janer it seemed the reif was weighing the odds. Laser carbines against Hoopers armed with Batian weapons: it seemed that Bloc did not rate his chances very high. ‘I don’t want any further trouble. We have already had . . . sufficient.’

‘That’s fine by me,’ said Ron pleasantly. ‘We’ve got work to do now if this ship is not to founder,’ Ron looked beyond Bloc to his gathered Kladites, ‘and more trouble would just mean more mess for us to clean up.’

Bloc did not turn or say anything out loud, but his people began heading back towards the ladders. After a moment he followed them. Forlam and many of the other Hoopers appeared slightly disappointed by this retreat.

‘I would dearly love to pull his head off,’ muttered Ron.

Stepping out of the shadows behind, John Styx said, ‘I understand your feelings, Captain Ron, but his attempt to prevent you obtaining weapons that would have proved ineffective against this creature hardly seems sufficient justification.’

‘Yes, I guess so.’

Styx held up a battered spray can and inspected it. ‘Patience—I think we will know soon enough,’ he said.

Ron sighed. ‘Okay, let’s go to work then.’

* * * *

Just two ships were in sight: one moored to a clump of sargassum, the other heeled over and heading away. Ambel recognized the moored ship as the Moby (which it was generally called rather than by its recorded name of Moby’s Dick) at just the same time as he recognized the figure on her bridge staring back at him through binoculars. After the loss of his ship Ahab the other Captains had pooled their resources to buy Captain Drum another vessel, for in sinking his own ship, which contained a Prador CTD, Drum had saved all their lives. Many said that Drum, who had been implanted with a spider thrall that he ejected from his body before sinking his vessel, was now slightly mad and dangerous to know. Ambel, who had lived through experiences more nightmarish even than that, thought this criticism unfair, for in reality it was a description that applied to all Hoopers. ‘Take her in. We’ll anchor just off the Moby and pay a visit,’ he told Boris.

Boris eyed him. ‘What about our friend?’ The helmsman still did not quite believe Ambel’s story about a Whelkus titanicus attacking a heirodont. But then a whelk managing to pursue a ship as far as it had was an unlikely story in itself.

‘We’ve seen no sign of it, and the turbul and boxies have been behaving normally. I reckon if it survived the heirodont, it probably lost our trail.’

‘You’d bet on that, Captain?’ Boris asked.

Ambel patted him on the shoulder. ‘We can’t live our lives expecting that thing to turn up all the time, lad.’

Boris nodded and spun the helm. The Treader heeled over and after a while Galegrabber furled himself along with fabric sails. Just ahead of them a mass of sargassum floated on the ocean: rotting woody stalks and wadded ribbons of weed. A couple of hammer whelks occupied it, but nothing else. Any prill there had no doubt been disposed of by Drum’s crew, for the Moby was moored to this mass. Ambel climbed down to the deck and walked over to the bows. There he took up a heavy iron grapnel attached to a long coil of thick greased rope. The ocean was too deep here for bottom anchors, and this was the only way. He spun the grapnel over his head and released it. It arced out, trailing rope, to thud into the weed just by the hammer whelks, sending those creatures lolloping into the sea. Then, drawing in the slack as the Treader nosed into the weed itself, he checked the grapnel’s hold and tied off the rope.

‘Hey up, Drum!’ Ambel bellowed. ‘Got anything cooking?’

‘Prill!’ Drum bellowed back. ‘I got prill on the menu today!’

Ambel turned to his gathering crew. ‘We won’t be staying here too long. You two,’ he pointed at Davy-bronte and Silister standing uncertainly in the background, ‘this may be your opportunity to catch a ride back to Chel. Drum may have some more sailing to do, but he’ll certainly be going back that way before we do.’ He turned to the others. ‘Anne and Boris will also come across with me. Anne, find us a cask of seacane rum. The rest of you, get the ship’s boat lowered.’

‘Aye, Captain,’ replied Anne, moving away. Silister and Davy-bronte, with the help of Pillow and another junior, set about lowering the ship’s boat, while Ambel turned his attention to Peck.

‘You’re in charge, Peck. I know you’re feeling a tad nervous,’ Ambel eyed the shotgun Peck was clutching, ‘so it’s best you stay here and keep an eye on things.’

Peck did just that, watching with unnerving intensity as the five scrambled down into the boat and rowed across to the Moby.

Like most Old Captains, Drum was built like a tank, but unlike many he had retained his hair, which he tied back into a pony tail. He was a wide-faced individual who always had a welcoming grin for his friends. He wore it now, but there was something unnerving about it.

‘How you doing, man?’ Ambel said, shaking Drum’s hand and looking round.

Drum’s crew was a relatively new one, as his previous crew had all been murdered by Batian mercenaries and the adolescent Prador, Vrell. Some of them, Ambel noticed, were from Ron’s old ship. There stood the appropriately named Roach, a raggedy weasel of a man who was honest because no one gave him any other choice, because he looked more untrustworthy than he actually was. Others were gathered around a couple of braziers on which prill roasted. Some of them were already eating: holding prill upside down on their laps with belly plates hinged open, scooping out the fragrant contents with spoons. Many of them, Ambel also noted, bore healing prill wounds.

‘They can be a bugger to catch intact,’ Ambel observed.

‘All you need is a little perseverance,’ said Drum, rubbing his hands together. ‘What’s that there, then?’ He nodded to the cask Anne was carrying on her shoulder.

‘A little gift,’ said Ron.

‘Then best we get it open! I’d guess you don’t want to hang around too long.’

Ambel raised an eyebrow. ‘Captain Sprage?’

‘Oh yes, we all know about your rescue mission.’

‘Do you know these two lads?’ Ambel gestured to the two Vignette crewmen.

Drum eyed the two men while scratching contemplatively at the back of his neck—a habit he seemed unable to break ever since digging a spider thrall out of there. ‘I know their faces . . .’ Then his attention wandered to where Anne and one of his own crewmen were driving a tap into the rum barrel. Suddenly realizing what he was doing with his hand, he snatched it away to rest on a nearby rail.

‘These are all that’s left of the Vignette crew.’ Ambel kept a close eye on the other Captain as he explained the next bit. ‘Seems the rest of the crew was grabbed by a Prador war drone before it sank their ship.’

‘Really?’ Drum turned back to look at Ambel. His apparently calm demeanour was belied by a loud crack as his hand splintered the rail. Most Old Captains’ horror of what Prador had done to their human captives, and their resulting hatred of the aliens, was a pale reflection of Drum’s views on them.

‘Seems,’ said Ambel, ‘that Prador you were hunting on the Skinner’s Island might have survived. The Warden didn’t say so, but no others have come here.’

Drum released the rail, now reduced to half its original thickness. ‘I think I’ll be needing a drink.’

So they drank, and Ambel related recent events. Whether Drum believed what he was told about the whelk and the heirodont (a name for a fable if ever there was one), Ambel couldn’t tell. Drum obviously had other things on his mind, murder probably being one of them. Later, Silister and Davy-bronte together approached Ambel.

‘We’d like to stay with the Treader, if we may,’ said Silister.

‘Why’s that, lad?’ asked Ambel.

Davy-bronte answered. ‘He’s not there yet, nowhere near, but he could turn too, like Orbus. We don’t want to be here for that.’

‘You think so?’ Ambel asked, and they both nodded vigorously. ‘All right, let’s get ourselves back, then.’

As Ambel and his fellows made their farewells, Drum said, ‘Looks like a storm’s about due,’ and Ambel knew he was not referring to the weather.

Drum was so very right, in more ways than he knew.

* * * *

The movable deck section hinged up on hydraulic rams, and the crane ran on high-powered electric step motors, but it took Hooper muscle to heave the still-squirming remains of the hooder into the cargo net. Hovering ten metres above the deck beside the central mainmast, Thirteen watched as the crane hoisted into the sunshine what was left of the creature—writhing like some great black maggot—and swung out over the sea to drop it. The drone watched a sudden activity in the water, spotting leeches and the long writhe of a rhinoworm closing in, and wondered if the life forms of Spatterjay would be able to digest this tough alien flesh. Then, turning its attention to Taylor Bloc and the watching Kladites, Thirteen assessed the situation there.

The Hoopers could probably wipe out these Kladites very quickly, and many of them were eager to do so. However, Ron kept them on a tight rein, reminding them that they had yet to be paid, which seemed to do the trick. The Captain was biding his time, and had quietly opined to Thirteen that something stank about recent events. The particular group of reifications the hooder had attacked had been those who had been giving Bloc a hard time—also some of them had been incinerated by laser carbine. Bloc’s explanation that this had happened accidentally while the Kladites fired on the hooder was weak at best. The present situation seemed precarious to the drone, who felt sure it would not last. Thirteen moved out from the mast and headed for the open deck as Bloc and his followers returned to their bridge staterooms. From down below came the sounds of industry.

With the hooder now out of the way, the Hoopers could all continue with the task of repairing the rudder. The drone descended a couple of levels, then hovered to observe the maintenance section. Several reifications were shifting movable floor panels from where they had been stacked to one side, and slotting them back in place. Two Hoopers had disassembled a large ram, earlier disconnected from the rudder and carried up here by Captain Ron. Hydraulic fluid ran out of the ram’s incinerated seals, trickling off the bench on which it rested. Another Hooper was returning from the stores carrying a box of new seals, and yet more Hoopers were coming up from the bilge with various other components of the rudder control system which were in need of repair or replacement.

Thirteen now dropped down further, into the bilge, and headed back towards the rudder. On the way the drone halted where a reif and a Hooper were busy scooping up the rest of the hooder’s remains.

‘Why would Janer Cord Anders be carrying such a weapon?’ the drone sent his inquiry to a far-away listener.

‘I would guess that the hive mind he consorts with supplied it to him,’ the Warden replied. ‘This is a situation that bears close watching, and it seems evident that the Golem, Isis Wade, may be the hive-mind agent I am seeking.’

‘And if that proves to be the case,’ said Thirteen, ‘what action should be taken?’

‘None at the moment. Our actions are dependent on what the Golem actually does. If he ever attempts to take any sprine off-planet, he must be stopped, which I suspect were Janer’s instructions, too. It is, however, doubtful that this is truly Wade’s aim.’

‘And what might be his aim, then?’

After a long pause the Warden replied, ‘I have no idea.’

Thirteen moved on, finally entering the meeting hall at the stern. Here again floor panels had been pulled up, but to expose the tangled and incinerated wreckage around the rudder’s rear tang. The Golem, Isis Wade, was unbolting the electrical control of a hydraulic pump, while Janer detached various servo-switches and their charred loom of optics. Others were replacing melted pipes and heat-seized valves. The work was nearly done, but the rudder remained jammed over at the full extent of one ram, the ram on the other side having been removed.

This was where Captain Ron came in. While Thirteen watched, the Old Captain heaved against the rear tang of the rudder, as if against the bar of a lock gate. Slowly the rudder began to move round, fluid jetting from melted pipes and valve holes as the remaining ram closed up. Dragging behind two large iron wedges, and with a sledgehammer resting over his shoulder, Forlam followed the Captain.

‘Now,’ said Ron, once the rudder lay straight relative to the ship.

Forlam dragged the wedges into position underneath the tang and hammered them into place while the Captain continued to prevent the rudder from swinging back.

‘That’ll do it,’ Ron opined.

Thirteen just filed this further example of how physically strong Old Captains were. It observed the dents made in the bubble-metal floor by the Captain’s feet, then swung away to scan, by ultrasound imaging, Janer Cord Anders. Within a second the drone ascertained that the man still carried his singularity gun—the drone receiving strange feedback from its vicinity. Abruptly Isis Wade looked up and located Thirteen.

By radio, Thirteen sent, ‘Are you a hive-mind agent?’

‘Yes,’ replied Wade, without opening his mouth.

‘Why are you here?’

‘To repair this rudder control system.’

‘No, I mean why are you here.’

‘I was never much good at metaphysics.’

Wade returned his attention to his work, no longer responding to Thirteen’s questions. The drone swung away, floated out into the bilge, and once again ascended up to the deck. It observed Erlin contemplatively studying formulae on a screen while, nearby, five reifs floated in tanks of sea water and tried to live. It saw a Hooper inspecting the hull where it had impacted against an atoll, only to find no discernible damage. Other Hoopers tossed sacks of human bones and wrecked reification hardware over the side, and one of the living sails departed its mast to snatch up a rhinoworm this commotion attracted. The drone transmitted a signal to Zephyr, and as ever received no response.

Then, once the rudder was repaired, over the ensuing days and nights Thirteen watched the continuing voyage of the Sable Keech settle into an uneasy rhythm.

* * * *

The trench was a vast canyon under the sea, up to seven kilometres deep in some places, and sometimes twice as wide. As Sniper cruised down the long slope leading into it, he observed a wide trail in the sand and mud, then eventually encountered its source, perambulating along the bottom like a mobile mountain. From below the slope of gnarled pyramidal shell cut through with glimmers of iridescence, dinner-plate eyes turned to track his course, and thick white and grey tentacles groped out of the murk after him. He accelerated beyond their grasp.

‘Eleven, Twelve, how are you doing?’

Twelve replied, ‘We’ll be with you in two hours.’

‘That the best you can do?’

‘Without imploding, yes,’ Twelve replied dryly.

Sniper grumped to himself and moved on.

Soon he was travelling alongside a vast cliff occupiedby diamond jellyfish like glinting blue glass eyes, roving glisters black as midnight, and populations of smaller molluscs roaming like flocks of vertical sheep. All his detectors were operating at maximum efficiency: his magnetometer checking for anything metallic around him for a distance of a kilometre, he probed the ground below with ultrasound and to a wider radius with infrasound, constantly sampled the sea water for unusual compounds, and just watched, listened ... As the canyon grew wider, he moved to its centre to maximize the efficiency of his scans. Detecting metal he immediately put his weapons systems online, until discovering a vein of silver in the rock. Another return had him digging down into mud, using his tentacles and the blast of his tractor drive. But he only revealed a very old piece of ceramal hull, quite possibly from the same craft Jay Hoop crashed onto what later became the Skinner’s Island. Then Sniper reached the first side canyon.

He was undecided about entering this tributary, as it seemed too narrow here, but checking his map of the trench he saw that further along it became wide enough to hold Ebulan’s ship—or rather Vrell’s ship, now. He motored between the narrow walls, paused to listen to the sound of packetworms grinding through obdurate stone, ascertained that the rumbling disguised nothing else, and moved on. Passing through a blizzard of diamond jellyfish that had detached from the walls, he found glistening tubular structures sticking to his armour, so combed them away from his surface with his tentacles and jetted on beyond the clouds of microscopic eggs thus released. Another of the giant whelks was wedged in a crevice ahead of him, its cracked shell gaping open, one eye missing, the remaining eye directed above him to a circling heirodont the size of an ocean liner. The heirodont ignored Sniper, intent on larger prey. Beyond them, where the canyon widened, no spaceship was revealed, though huge pieces of iridescent shell were scattered on the ocean floor. Turning to head back, Sniper realized his was a walk-on role in a drama played out down here many times before.

Moving beyond the tributary, Sniper zigged and zagged as the canyon grew wider, picking up two metallic sources that came to nothing. Another three tributaries branched off just ahead. Two of them, by his internal map, were over fifty kilometres long. Assessing how far he had come and what area he had covered in what time, Sniper made a rough calculation of how long this search would take him, presupposing he would have to search the entire trench on his own. The resulting figure depressed him. However, he was no longer alone. Up above him now he detected two metallic objects descending, and scanning them by sonar he recognized the shapes of a fish and a scallop.

‘Each of you take one of the longer side canyons,’ he instructed, ‘and maintain constant link to me.’

‘So you’ll know when we’re obliterated?’ enquired Eleven.

‘I see,’ said Sniper. ‘I thought your descent overly protracted.’

Neither of the other drones replied as they descended to the separate canyons and sped off into their individual darkness. Sniper turned into the remaining canyon, there exploring a killing ground used by a large prill—the creature surrounded on all sides by the dismembered remains of a pod of black glisters. It leapt up from the bottom at him, turning at the last moment to present its array of sickle legs revolving like the blades of a food processor. He caught hold of it with his two larger tentacles, held it for a minute as its bladed limbs grated harmlessly over his armour, then shoved it away.

‘I haven’t the time,’ he muttered.

‘What was that?’ asked Twelve distantly.

‘Lively down here,’ Sniper sent.

‘Yeah, we’ve seen,’ replied the other drone.

Sniper returned to the main trench, ruminated for a little while as he searched it, then came to a decision. Abruptly he programmed some missiles in his carousel, and fired them off along the trench. After a few minutes a detonation broke the night a few kilometres ahead of him, and his sound sensors nearly overloaded internal programs with data.

‘What are you doing?’ Twelve asked.

‘Call it extended sonar,’ Sniper replied.

Seeing with sound, he had just shone a very bright torch into the darkness.

‘Better,’ he opined, but he still knew this search could take him weeks.

* * * *

Close to utter exhaustion, the giant whelk pulled herself ashore, discovering that her buoyancy detracted from her ability to grip the bottom. But still she refused to release her prize even though it soon became utterly covered with leeches from the shallows. Reaching the tide line, she stretched tentacles up the beach and grasped a rocky outcrop to help pull herself and the heirodont’s severed head finally out of the sea.

The massive head was now just one great writhing mass of leeches. Irritably she stripped them away, feeding one after another, like sweets, into her beak and champing them down. A strange whistling sound distracted her, and she kept searching around for its source, finally locating it as the gas issuing from the now open orifices in her shell. But she returned her attention to the leeches, soon revealing the head itself, badly pocked but still recognizable. She prodded the beast’s mandibles and they snapped at her. Its remaining angry eye blinked and glared. Groping along the beach till she found a small boulder, she heaved it up, then smashed it down on each mandible in turn, but this was still not enough. The whelk hauled herself and the head further up the beach and, using the rock outcrop as an anvil, again smashed the mandibles until there was nothing left of them. Next she turned over the head to inspect the severed neck, then began to chew on the tough flesh. It took her hours to eat away all the skull’s exterior flesh, but she left the monster eye still blinking and glaring at her.

Only after another few hours did she discover that no amount of chewing would get her through the thick skull itself. She glanced towards the sea and observed huge movement out there. The heirodont’s body still seemed fairly lively, and somehow had stayed with her despite its lack of a head. Memory again nudged her. She then finally pecked out the eye and shoved the skull further inland. It seemed the safest thing to do in the circumstances. Now replete, she moved on across the island to the beach on its other side. She settled down contemplatively, gurgling eructations regassing her shell.

Now what? she wondered.

* * * *

Depression slowed Vrell’s return to his sanctum. Some of the U-space engine’s super-conducting power cables must have had their insulation damaged, for they had transmitted a massive temperature surge inside it, cracking and blowing minor components all the way through. The main components remained undamaged, as they were built to withstand forces far beyond mere heat. The casing of the line-singularity generator was intact, as were all its internal parts. The Calabi-Yau shape expansion matrices (a technology stolen from the humans) could not be damaged by heat, though they could have been collapsed into one of the smaller dimensions of the quantum foam. And the phase emitters had gone into safety mode, folding a few degrees out of phase with reality, though those systems that could bring them back were trashed. Overall, the damage was beyond anything one Prador adult, even with slaves, could repair. In normal circumstances the functional parts would have been salvaged and all the rest scrapped. Yet, as Vrell entered his sanctum, he began to think the unthinkable.

Bringing back the phase emitters would be the most taxing task, but then the repairs to their support systems could be countenanced. Perhaps if he used an expanded Calabi-Yau shape as a tool . . . Such shapes were, after all, six-dimensional. All he needed to do was work out the formulae controlling energy input into a matrix, so as to distort the shape into the spatial analogue holding the phase emitters. At a rate of one base-format calculation per second, using all the ship’s computing, this would take Vrell approximately four thousand years. Too slow, therefore. But aboard there was further computing capacity he could use, in the form of human minds. He turned his attention to his control units and the spider thralls they controlled. It should be possible to use those minds to increase the computing power by an order of magnitude ... It was then that Vrell noticed some interference to the thrall channels, and immediately put a trace and decode program onto it.

More Prador? Here?

The program did its work with surprising speed, and Vrell studied the results. In the ocean, not very far from him in planetary terms, he had detected the code spillover from nine interlinked spider thralls. That was very strange. The readings he was getting told him they linked through only one channel back to a control unit up on the sea’s surface. This did not seem like the work of Prador, for there was no encryption in the coding, yet their technology was definitely being employed.

Nine thralls . . .

This meant a mind, or minds, he could use. He must take the risk.

‘Brother, retrieve this.’ He sent coordinates and the signal to trace to the drone cache. ‘If you are seen, do not return here until you have destroyed the watcher.’

‘Yes, brother mine,’ the earlier version of Vrell replied, as it motored its war drone body out into the depths.

* * * *

It had been another slow day aboard the Sable Keech, but it would not be long before things started to get more interesting. Forlam, who of course was fascinated by the ship’s grisly passengers, had informed Erlin of the recent events below decks, and of the discovery of some reifs incinerated by laser carbine. So it seemed Bloc might be beginning to exercise his power. Did she feel good about the possibility of danger? She was not sure. However, whatever he might do did not negate what she felt were her responsibilities here. She looked across the lower Tank Room to where Janer was working. She had spent most of the day running diagnostic checks of the control equipment and, at her behest, he was visually checking filters and scanning for contamination in the small autodocs each tank employed. She would let him go once he seemed about ready to start shouting at her, which would bring them full circle to the end of their last relationship. But the equipment needed to be ready. And here, she thought, turning to the reif who had just stepped from the stairwell, is the reason why.

‘Just lie down on the table,’ she said, when he finally approached.

The reif, a man without visible signs of a death wound, twisted his face in what looked very like a grin. ‘I’m not here for a medical.’

Erlin felt there was something not quite right about him—but then that could just be her. She had been sane for only a little while now, and even so knew that the virus had wrought changes in her mind. Some day she must make a study of the psychological damage the change caused.

‘Then why are you here, John Styx?’ asked Janer, who had rapidly found this an excuse not to continue with his mind-numbing task.

‘Janer,’ said the reif, then looked at each of them in turn before tilting his head to stare up at the ceiling, focusing on one of the camphones attached there. Erlin did not need any further hint. She beckoned him to follow her into an area separated by partitions erected by one of the Hoopers. Here, on wide work surfaces, sophisticated equipment lay at her disposal. It was also her base and her refuge.

‘Unfortunately, when crewman Lumor put up these partitions, he accidentally smashed the camphones. Very clumsy. He’s also sadly been unable to locate replacements for them.’

The reif grinned. It was definitely a grin this time. Erlin shot a look at Janer, taking in his slightly bemused expression, before returning her attention to the reif. He reached into his pocket and withdrew a dented spray can. She took it and held it up.

‘And what am I supposed to do with this?’

‘I would like you to analyse the contents.’

‘It may have escaped your notice, but I am rather busy.’

‘This will only take a moment of your time, Erlin.’

Something familiar . . .

Erlin shook the can and turned with it to her nanoscope, which included a viewing screen mounted above the glittering mechanisms of the scope itself. Using the side console she designated an empty sample cylinder from the carousel of six. The carousel turned, and in a moment the small chainglass cylinder folded out from the scope’s mouth.

‘Could this be dangerous?’ she asked.

‘Not now,’ Styx replied.

She grunted and just held the spray can over the top open end of the cylinder, and sprayed inside. ‘Right,’ she said, working the console, ‘could this be nanotech?’

‘I think not,’ said Styx. ‘I rather suspect some animal product.’

The cylinder folded back into the scope. ‘In that case I’ll just use straightforward molecular analysis.’ The screen blinked on displaying a shifting cladogram. Chemical formulae began to scroll up below it. ‘You’re right; looks like some kind of hormone.’

‘Would you be able to find out what kind?’

Erlin began running a program to compare the substance in the scope with the billions listed in the scope’s database, then she turned and gazed at him. ‘Who are you and what do you want?’

‘I want some answers,’ the reif replied.

‘You didn’t answer both of Erlin’s questions,’ said Janer.

‘For all present purposes, I am the reification John Styx. However . . .’

Styx rolled up his sleeve to expose an antique watch. He did something with the controls and pressed his thumb against the face. After what ensued, both Erlin and Janer laughed out loud—which was obviously not the reaction Styx had been expecting.