Love, Death and Robots. Volumes 2 & 3

BAD TRAVELLING Neal Asher

The captain hung in his hammock like a sack of whale blubber, his eyes closed and his mind lost in dream smoke. Cert, the cabin boy, stood at the helm and was hardly tall enough to peer over it. And Bosun Torrin had drunk enough sea-kale rum to feel no responsibility for anything. He knew the sea killed the drunk, the negligent and the fatigued, for it was without forgiveness, without mercy, but just then he did not care. He should have. Saparin was the first to notice the clumped sargassum, but by then they were already upon it.

“Steer to port! Steer to port!” Torrin screamed, his rum bottle smashing on the deck as he stumbled and weaved toward Cert. The boy wrenched the helm to the side and the ship heeled over, its tarred wood and rope creaking in deep protest. There was a lurch as the mass of rotting weed dragged across the hull and a thick waft of decay as it broke apart.

“Drop the port boom! Drop it!” Jorvan bellowed at Melis and Calis.

The two crewmen ran to obey while others, not lost in stupor, scrambled for the great knife harpoons scattered about the soiled deck. Soon clutching these ill-kept tools, they stood with faces pale as the ship shuddered and groaned past the bed of weed. All knew what it meant to go too close to the sargassum, for the great clumps of rotting weed brought creatures of the deep to the surface, creatures that would not otherwise be able to reach the ships. The ship lurched then began to pull free.

“Hard starboard, now,” said Jorvan.

Torrin looked askance at him, but did not countermand the order, since he had been about to give it. He looked over the port rail and saw the mass of weed, a great yellow scum on the sea, receding behind them. He offered up a thank you to Cerval then peered with annoyance at his broken bottle. The deep hatchetting thud turned him round, and the ensuing thuds had him and the rest of the crew backing away from the rail.

“Thanapod,” said Jorvan, First Knife, and perhaps the only man aboard who kept his ship-metal blade clean and honed.

The thanapod shattered the starboard rail as it scrambled on deck, its ten legs propelling it rapidly across the planking as a rain of blunt harpoons bounced off its carapace. It was on the captain in a moment as he sat up in his hammock with the pipe of his hookah clutched in his right hand. The thanapod dragged him from his hammock with its two sets of long forelimbs, and drove the barbed hooks these limbs terminated in straight into his fat body like sticks into dough. Its flat armoured tail clacked against the deck as with one stalked eye it watched the crew. The other stalked eye it turned to the task in hand. As the pain penetrated his befuddlement, the captain realised this was no dreamfish-induced hallucination, and began to writhe and scream. The thanapod caught one flailing arm in its mouth and with one of its mandible pincers it neatly snipped. The crunching was loud as it consumed the captain’s hand.

Through drunken haze, amidst the shouting and terror of the crew, Torrin gaped in horror. He watched the captain being eaten alive, screaming until a ripped artery finally spilt his life. At three metres long, this thanapod was no ordinary one. Harpoons bent and blunted on armour which, as it scraped around the deck, sounded like stone. The crew retreated and clumped defensively together. Perhaps, once it had fed, this monster would depart the ship.

“We must attack it,” yelled Turk as soon as he came from below. He was their barrelman, he possessed the black skin that marked him for his position from birth, for only by the hands of those born of the dark may the dead be handled before their last passage into it. His face and shaven skull were dyed white, and the pits of his eyes stained red. The crew feared him, and in this they obeyed him. He led a charge at the back of the creature and harpoons jabbed and clanged. The monster thanapod swept its tail and the crew retreated leaving Turk on his knees by the creature, trying to prevent his intestines from spilling across the deck.

While they watched the last of the captain being consumed, Torrin wondered guiltily if Turk had urged the attack because there would be nothing left of the captain to barrel; no bones to preserve and no skin to cure. He watched as the thanapod then grabbed Turk, spun him, and stood him upright before it. Torrin closed his eyes on what followed.

Turk’s scream was guttural with agony, and his offal fell in one steaming mass to join the few remnants of the captain stuck to the bloody deck. Now the thanapod turned Turk to face the crew, while its long forelimbs probed inside his empty stomach cavity and into his chest. Turk’s eyes rolled up into his head as he died and finally hung unstrung. Torrin opened his own eyes. What was this? Why did it handle him so? Blood jetted from Turk’s mouth and his head snapped upright. Gurgling and hissing he spoke.

“Have fed,” he said. “Let me into hold.”

Soberness began its painful return to Torrin after he emptied his stomach over the rail.

“The hatch,” he said to the crew, waving vaguely at the forward hatch as he staggered from the rail. Some glared at him contemptuously, some gaped at him in bewilderment, all moved aside. He kicked over the latch and heaved the heavy cover open. He quickly stepped back as the thanapod threw Turk’s corpse across its back and scuttled over. It went in through the hatch with a sound like a chest of tools cast down a well. One small hind limb snagged the cover as it passed through and slammed it shut behind.

“Cerval protect us, what now?” asked Deacon, his fingers white on the haft of the harpoon he gripped so tight.

“What now? What now?” Melis crowed. “It eats our captain, uses our barrelman like a glove puppet and you ask; ‘What now?’ We’ll sell it with our barrels of shark oil and jable. We’ll have it dance on the jetty so we get a better price! Cerval protect us!”

“Oh, be silent,” said Jorvan. “We must think on this.”

“We should seal the hatch,” said Torrin and, as one, the crew stared at him.

Jorvan said, “Your lack of spine brought us to this.” He nodded to where Cert crouched by the rail. “You let the captain’s bum-boy steer this ship. You let discipline slip, and you drank rather than face your responsibilities.” The other members of the crew now stared angrily at Torrin, though there were some amongst them who could see that Jorvan’s words were equally as damning of them. They soon freed themselves of this guilt though, as it is so much easier to blame others.

“What has that to do with the hatch?” asked Torrin, backing away from the glare of rage.

Jorvan tipped a finger to the smashed rail where the thanapod had come aboard.

“You think the hatch cover will stop it? You think such cowardice is enough?” he asked.

“It’ll hunger when it’s done with Turk. You see if it won’t!” shouted Melis. Jorvan turned and slapped him hard across the face. He subsided. Jorvan looked to the rest of the crew. “It must die,” he said, “else it will kill us all. We must find a way to kill it.”

“What would you suggest?” asked Deacon. “Chiselling a hole through the armour on its head so we can get a great knife into it?”

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” asked Torrin.

“Oh, I haven’t forgotten that I am going to cut your throat once we are back in port,” said Jorvan.

“Let him speak,” said Deacon.

They all gazed at Torrin with hostility and waited for what he had to say.

“It speaks,” said Torrin.

“And this means what?” asked Jorvan.

“It means we might be able to… negotiate.”

Jorvan and the rest of the crew gazed at him disbelievingly. Jorvan turned and stared pointedly at the spread of gore across the deck, the tangled remains of the captain’s hammock.

Melis moaned deep in his throat before speaking out. “Let him negotiate with it then,” he said.

There was no verbal agreement and no denial. As one the eight crewmen turned on Torrin and grabbed him.

“No! I didn’t mean! NO! PLEASE NO!”

Six of them bore him above their heads, whilst two — Deacon and Calis — went ahead and opened the hatch. They stood ready at the hatch with harpoons, little use they would have been.

“Steady lads, let’s not kill our negotiator,” said Jorvan sneeringly.

They lowered him into the hatch, gave him a chance to grasp the rungs of the ladder there, used the points of the harpoons to prod him lower and lower down until they could close the hatch cover on him.

“Please! Please let me out!”

Torrin sobbed when he heard the latch slam across. He stayed as high on the ladder as he could, crammed against the rough wood. It was not completely without light in the hold, for it came in through the uncaulked holes in the deck. But it was too dark for Torrin to make out more than the barrels of shark oil and stacked hides of the jable shark. After his last outburst he kept as still and as quiet as he could, but for the occasional sob he could not prevent. Slowly his eyes adjusted to the darkness.

The thanapod’s stalked eyes glowed in the gloom and the blood on its carapace was a slick wet glitter. The dark bulk that stood in front of it he finally discerned as the barrelman, his name gruesomely fitting now the thanapod had eaten his arms and legs.

“Come down,” a voice bubbled, and Torrin realised the absolute futility of his position. The thanapod was large enough to rear up and knock him from the ladder without even climbing. If it wanted to kill him, it could do so with ease. He peered beyond it to the bulkhead where a door gave access to the midhold and crew quarters. If he could get to that…

“Come down,” the voice insisted.

Was it feeling lazy? Did it like the idea of its meals walking to it? Torrin climbed to the bottom of the ladder and began to edge towards the doorway.

“What do you want?” he asked, no better question occurring to him.

“I want to go ashore,” came the bubbling of the dead barrelman’s voice.

Torrin paused at this. What could it mean? None of the ocean-going creatures ever went ashore. “Why should you want to go ashore?” As he asked this question, he spotted something glistening beside the creature. Squinting in the darkness he finally discerned a pile of glassy spheres the size of human heads. He swallowed dryly.

“Men have stopped us,” the voice bubbled.

“I don’t understand,” said Torrin, still edging towards the door.

Suddenly the thanapod was moving and Torrin screeched and ran. It crashed down between him and the door and turned its nightmare head toward him. Its mouth was a mass of dripping shears and toothed mandibles. The barrelman, hanging underneath it, spoke for it again. “Men came and seeded the sea round the islands. All thumb shark and hammer whelk to feed and kill. Where do we lay our eggs? On the sargassum and so we survive,” it said.

Torrin felt sick. The monster had become suddenly very articulate, and he had just shit his pants. He was going to die and he didn’t need much imagination to see how, since he’d seen how. He knew that if it moved towards him again his legs would give way, and he fought the temptation to just close his eyes. Then he remembered what the crew had just done to him, and a species of dull anger drove him to speak. He’d show them ‘negotiator’. “Perhaps we can make a bargain,” he said.

“Bargain,” hissed the voice.

“If you kill us, you won’t get ashore, and this ship will just drift and eventually sink,” said Torrin.

“I must feed.” The creature moved closer to him and suddenly the shaking of his legs stilled. It continued, “Not all are essential.”

“No,” said Torrin. “I am, because I am the bosun, but there are others.” He turned his attention from the grinding mouth to the stalked eyes above. “Now listen to me. This is how we can do this…”

In the crew quarters, Torrin changed his shit-smeared trousers before going on deck. He listened at the door to the arguing that was going on before opening it. The arguments died and absolute silence fell as he walked out on the planking. Jorvan was the first to break that silence.

“Did it have no taste for you then, Torrin?” he wondered, but without his usual firmness.

Torrin walked up to him and stood face to face. He still felt sick with fear, but what was Jorvan? Just a man. He slapped Jorvan so hard across the face that the man stumbled and fell to his knees.

“Hold him right there if you all want to live,” Torrin said.

Deacon grabbed Jorvan first. Melis pulled the harpoon from Jorvan’s hands and hit him with its butt as he continued to struggle. Jorvan sagged in Deacon’s arms, and Deacon lowered him to the deck.

“What do you have to say, Torrin? How is it that you live?” Jorvan asked.

“I live because I negotiated,” said Torrin, and waited, daring them to laugh or to sneer, but he just saw the expressions of men who were very much afraid.

“What truce do we have?” asked Calis.

“Just that,” said Torrin, “a truce. The thanapod calls itself Cerval, the name of the deeps god, so make of that what you will.” Torrin noted the expressions on the faces of the more superstitious of the crew: the likes of Deacon, Maril, and Chantre, and Saparin who now had the helm. He felt a horrible glee bubbling inside himself, and went on, “It wants us to take it in to port, to one of the islands, and for this service it will let us live. That’s all. That’s the whole of the bargain, the truce.”

“Liar,” managed Jorvan, before vomiting on the deck. He then struggled to get upright, and Deacon stood back to allow it.

“It is the truth,” Torrin affirmed, noting many of the crew still appeared undecided.

“That is not Cerval,” said Jorvan, finally on his feet now. He glared about himself. “He’ll lead you deeper into disaster. We must take to the shark boat and leave this ship. Eventually the thanapod will grow hungry and leave, and we can return. There is no need for this.”

“Cerval has fed,” said Torrin. “Do you want to spend even a day in the shark boat on these deeps?” He pointed and fate was on his side, for the fin of a huge jable shark was cutting the swell parallel to the ship. Perhaps some of the blood had run into the sea to attract it. Torrin added, “Do you want to spend any time out there over Cerval’s realm?”

“The creature below is not Cerval,” insisted Jorvan.

Torrin replied, “No, it’s just a talking thanapod three times the size of any that has ever before been seen.”

“I’m with Torrin,” said Deacon. He turned to Melis who nodded. Other members of the crew nodded their agreement also, and looked to Torrin for guidance. Torrin felt that his glee might bubble out of his mouth at any moment.

“Of course, if we feed Cerval, he will not quickly grow hungry,” Torrin said.

The crew acted with Jorvan as they had acted with Torrin. There was little more discussion once the decision was made. They lifted him up and carried him screaming to the forward hatch.

“You fools! He’ll get you all killed! You can’t do this!”

Torrin helped Deacon open the hatch and lift off the cover. Torrin leant over and spoke into the darkness. “Cerval, this man is not essential. He is an offering from us to you,” he said.

Deacon gazed at him with sick horror, perhaps only now understanding what they were doing. Torrin wondered if that horror had been there when he himself had been forced below.

“No! No! Please! You’re making a mistake!”

Jorvan clung to the top of the ladder, pushing against the hatch cover as they forced it closed over him. He kept yelling until Deacon kicked the latch into place, then went silent thereafter.

Torrin knew what he was feeling now. He stepped back as from below came the sound as of stones dragged across wood.

“Let me out! Please! Let me out!”

There came a whickering sucking sound followed by a hammering against the hatch. Jorvan screamed a long high-pitched scream, which terminated as something crashed hard against the hatch nearly breaking the hinges and latch. His screaming recommenced from deeper in the hold, but this time it was a deep and agonised sound.

They all heard the crunching.

Torrin wondered if there was anything worse than being eaten alive. He smiled a lopsided smile that he quickly shut off as he turned to the crew. “Right, lads, let’s get that mainsail up.”

“So, it’s decided: we’ll dock at Phaiden Island. It’s closest and none of us have any kin there,” said Torrin.

“Threw me out of the tavern there,” said Melis, and Calis grumbled agreement.

“Never gave a good price for jable,” said Deacon.

“Bloody skinflints,” Chantre added.

Torrin listened to them and tried to keep the sneer from his face. How easily they persuaded themselves that they were justified in trading their lives for the lives of hundreds of islanders. Their culpability made him sick and strangely, he no longer wanted a drink. He gazed out across the sea at the setting sun, then up at crew in the rigging.

“Best we reef for the night and get the lamps lit. We don’t want to end up ploughing another sargassum,” he said.

“We need oil for the lamps,” said Deacon.

Torrin stared at him, and the crewmen gathered around him.

“There’s nothing to fear from it now we have an agreement,” he said. “If you are so frightened then I will get oil for the lamps myself. You can clean up this deck.” He turned from them and entered the crew quarters, heading for the hatch. In here he heard movement and ducked through the door to the bunkroom.

“Ah, Cert. You can help me. They are all too frightened,” he said to the cowering cabin boy. The boy was trusting. Terminally so.

The mainsail cracked in a morning wind as Torrin and Deacon did a round of the deck, putting out the lanterns.

“As I thought,” said Torrin when they had completed their circuit. “Call them all together.”

Deacon looked askance at him but obeyed. But for Saparin, who remained at the helm, all of the crew gathered round.

“We have done some shameful things,” he said to them. “But this, I think, is a step too far. He was only a boy and who of us as boys would not have leapt at the chance to take the helm?”

They all looked confused.

“Cert?” said Deacon uncertainly.

Torrin smiled lopsidedly. “Yes, the captain’s bum-boy is no longer on this ship. One of you has done murder and will have to pay the price. Now, be about your duties. Melis, the deck needs caulking, and Chantre, that rail needs repairing.”

He walked away from them as they quickly set to their tasks. How good it was that they could so busy themselves. He could see it made them feel better. Returning to the captain’s cabin, he bolted the door and searched the place for the nth time, only this time locating the prize: a large iron key. With the key he opened the captain’s sea chest, and inside, wrapped in oily rags, he found the captain’s four-cylinder revolver, paper cartridges, and bullets made out of hard shell. Smiling to himself he loaded the weapon then hung the holster at his belt. Thus girded, he went back out on deck.

Chantre worked busily at the rail, Melis was at his caulking, and Maril was having another go at removing the bloodstains from the deck. Torrin noted that Deacon had positioned himself behind Saparin at the helm as if deck work was now beneath him. Calis was up in the rigging and Paln was sleeping as his had been the last watch of the night.

Torrin strode over to Melis and inspected the caulking. “You know, Melis, it wasn’t very good of you suggesting I negotiate,” he said.

Melis looked up into the barrel of the Captain’s gun.

Torrin continued, “I’d like to feed you to it alive, but that is not to be.”

Calis yelled from the rigging above. Melis flew at Torrin brandishing the caulking tool. The captain’s gun cracked and Melis jerked back in mid air as if he had reached the end of a tether. He hit the deck with half his head missing and one foot vibrating against the woodwork. There came a scream of rage from above, the sound of running feet from behind Torrin, and the sound of someone coming hand-over-hand down the rigging.

With his hands shaking, Torrin clicked over the lever that cleared the chamber he had just used. He turned the cylinder to line up the next cartridge and pulled back the hammer.

“Murderer!” Calis screamed as his bare feet hit the deck and he threw himself at Torrin.

Torrin shot him in the stomach, watched him stagger back then go down on his knees, then he concentrated on getting the next cartridge lined up while crew approached him from every side.

“What have you done?” said Deacon.

“Two brothers, two murderers. I saw them throw Cert over the side last night during Calis’s watch.” As Torrin spoke he kept the captain’s gun well visible.

“Liar,” managed Calis, before bowing over and clutching his guts ever tighter.

“What proof do you have?” asked Deacon.

Torrin pulled a heavy belaying pin from its holder on the rail, and stepped up to Deacon so that their noses were only inches apart. “What proof do I need, Deacon? I saw it, and I am in charge of this ship, or do you want to renegotiate with our friend below?”

Deacon went pale. “I was only asking…”

Torrin thrust the belaying pin against Deacon’s stomach. “Now let’s get this done and get on with our work.”

Deacon reluctantly clasped the belaying pin. Torrin stepped back out of his way and gestured towards Calis. After a hesitation, Deacon stepped over to Calis, who squinted up at him.

“I’m sorry,” said Deacon.

“You’re sorry?” spat Calis.

Deacon nodded once then smashed Calis’s skull.

Torrin allowed the silence that followed to draw out long and attenuated. When it seemed that something must break at any moment, he stepped up to Deacon and took the belaying pin from him. “Right, these two can go to Cerval. They’ll serve us better in death than they ever did in life.” Noting the anger in Paln’s expression, Torrin continued, “And you, Paln, better get a scrubbing brush to this mess before the stain soaks in. Maril has enough to do over there.”

Paln seemed ready to go for him, but Saparin caught his arm.

“Saparin, shouldn’t you be at the helm?” Torrin enquired.

This last comment dispersed them, because none of them dared risk the captain’s gun, and none of them wanted to negotiate with the thanapod.

Piles of eggs had been laid in every corner of the hold. The place stank like an abattoir, and pieces of ripped clothing, of human bodies, and of chewed jable skin strewed the floor. Torrin’s deck shoes made a ripping sound with each pace he took as they stuck to the pooled and drying gore. He stepped delicately over a hollowed-out skull which, by a process of elimination, he took to be Melis’s, for the thanapod now swung towards him what remained of Calis. Torrin turned to a hook in the wall, flicked something wet and fleshy from it, and hung his lamp there.

“How long?” the thanapod asked.

“Two days and we should be there,” Torrin replied. He noticed that the creature’s body had grown longer and fatter now, with fleshy areas showing between sections of hard shell. The eggs it had laid in the hold had relieved some of the pressure and the recent bodies had relieved it of some of its egg-laying hunger. But many more eggs were growing inside it, and it was still insatiable. Torrin knew that it had to feed again, and soon, if it was to be prevented from coming out on deck and killing them all. That suited him fine.

“How did you learn to speak?” he asked it.

“Have been on ships before. Many ships,” it replied.

So, others had been through this horror, but of course there had been no story to tell, no survivors to tell it. Torrin knew that every year many jable hunters disappeared. Such ships were said to have had a ‘bad travelling’. How very well he understood that now.

“Tell me about them,” Torrin asked the monster, for he felt starved of conversation. And as the monster spoke, he felt his face twisting in that lopsided smile again. He tried not to let it worry him unduly.

Deacon’s watch was the last of the night, and as last watchman, like Paln the night before, he was allowed to sleep in until first bell. Torrin stood on the roof of the midship cabin next to Saparin who was again at the helm. He watched as the men moved swiftly to their tasks and saw how they avoided his eye. How many days ago was it that they had nothing for him but contempt? But then he agreed; he had been contemptible. Now he had changed, and these men had changed him. Casually, out of contempt and seeking someone to blame for their own slovenliness, they had given him over to be eaten alive. He studied them individually. All of them had done this. Melis and Deacon had held open the hatch while these had carried him to it. Torrin watched them a while longer before going below.

Deacon snored with a sound like a blunt saw going through a beam. Torrin opened the door to the crew quarters and stared to the man lying in his hammock, then he took the rope he had brought and tied it at one end of the hammock and carefully he coiled it round and round until he was up to Deacon’s neck. Each loop he drew tight, expecting Deacon to wake at any moment, but he had the belaying pin tucked in his belt for that eventuality. Deacon only woke when Torrin stuffed his mouth full of bloody cloth retrieved from the floor of the hold. The crewman bucked and he fought, his eyes wide with terror while Torrin tied the gag in place, and succeeded only in some strange imitation of a large grub.

“You’re a religious man, Deacon, yet you held the hatch open. I’ll tell it to eat you from the feet up,” Torrin said, and cut the hammock down.

The thanapod found the canvas hammock a great hindrance and because of this it took a long time for it to eat Deacon who, of course, was unable to scream.

As he stood once again behind Saparin, Torrin wondered how long it would take for them to realise Deacon was missing and what they would do when they did find out. He carried the captain’s gun, fully loaded for any eventuality. Saparin, Chantre, Maril and Paln. Four crew remaining; four bullets in the gun. It was midday before Maril came up onto the bridge.

“Sir… Deacon is gone,” he said, his face deliberately devoid of expression.

Torrin stared at him for a long moment. “What do you expect me to do about it?” he asked.

Maril appeared very uncomfortable. “They said I should tell you…”

“Very good,” said Torrin, “now get back to your work.”

Maril hesitated then quickly did as he was bid.

Torrin turned to Saparin, who quickly turned away. “Should sight the islands very soon,” Torrin opined.

“Yes, very soon,” replied Saparin, not meeting his gaze.

“Almost a straight course from here on in,” said Torrin, walking round behind Saparin.

“It is that,” said Saparin.

Saparin managed a grunt as the Jorvan’s harpoon went through his spine, the point coming out of his chest just below his chin. Torrin twisted the harpoon a couple of times to be sure, but there was no more movement out of Saparin. He then wedged the butt of it against the deck and stepped away to view his handiwork. Saparin showed no sign of falling over. He would be at the helm to the end.

“Land ho!” yelled Paln.

Torrin climbed down the ladder and gestured for the three remaining crewmen to come to him as he walked out onto the deck. “Now lads,” he said, “in his way, Jorvan was right: we should escape on the shark boat. But he was wrong about us doing it out in the deeps.”

The three gaped at him as if hypnotised.

Torrin went on, “Out there we would have died — not enough food onboard and jable everywhere. Here we can do it.” He pointed to the islands now in sight. “Now, I’ll tell you what we’ll do.” He turned to Maril. “You and Chantre lower the shark boat. Do it quietly and be you ever so cautious. Paln, grab yourself a lamp and come with me.”

“What do you want me for?” Paln asked.

“Simple: we’ll burn the monster in its lair and abandon ship,” said Torrin.

Where before there had been a hopelessness, hope now bloomed.

“I’m with you, Torrin,” said Paln

“Good, then let’s get to it lads,” said Torrin.

They all moved with alacrity now, Torrin noted. In a few seconds they had forgotten everything that had happened. Was it any surprise he had become a sot having to deal with men so shallow as this? He went ahead of Paln to the mid cabin door, whilst Paln grabbed a lamp and hurried after him. Inside, Torrin ducked into the crew quarters to grab the lamp from there. While he got this lamp, Paln moved ahead of him in his eagerness. In that moment he perhaps realised his mistake for he turned at the last moment and got the belaying pin on his shoulder. He staggered against the wall and his lamp clattered to the floor. He took a breath to shout for help and Torrin smashed the belaying pin into his mouth. He fell back and Torrin hit him again across the bridge of his nose, then again and again, breaking fending hands and arms, driving Paln down to the floor.

Blinded by blood and muted by his broken face, Paln crawled away from Torrin, who let him, since he was heading for the mid-section hatch. Paln left a trail of blood as he hissed and bubbled and wheezed.

Torrin stepped past him and opened the hatch. Paln fought him with broken arms, and tried to beg with a mouth full of blood. Torrin tipped him in and then, after a pause, he followed. Paln continued to fight below as Torrin next dragged him to the door into the hold, it took some time and further blows from the belaying pin. The moment he opened the door, the thanapod surged through, seized Paln and dragged him into the hold. It cradled him like a mother cradles its child as it chewed his bloody face.

Having retrieved his lamp, Torrin walked past, squatted by one of the tapped shark oil barrels and proceeded to fill the lamp.

“What are you doing?” the monster asked, the voice issuing from Calis even as it fed on Paln.

“Filling this lamp. We’ll need light for this coming night,” Torrin explained. He spilt oil and swore, then stood and kicked the remains of Deacon’s hammock up by the barrel to soak up the spillage.

“You said we would be there before night,” said the thanapod, as, in an offhand way, it slowly scraped out Paln’s intestines.

Torrin stood and screwed the cap back on the lamp filler. “I did say that, but I needed an excuse to lure your last meal down here,” he said.

The thanapod accepted this, so Torrin headed for the ladder and climbed without looking back, aware that the oil from the tap he had not shut off, poured soundlessly into Deacon’s shredded hammock.

Torrin rushed out onto deck, slamming the door behind him. He leant against the door and gasped. He saw that Maril and Chantre had lowered the shark boat to the sea, but only Maril was in sight.

“Quick! The forward hatch!” Torrin shouted.

“Where’s Paln?” Maril asked.

“He didn’t make it. Come on; the hatch!”

Maril went with him. Torrin did not give him a chance to protest. As they reached the hatch, he handed his lamp to Maril. “Quick, light it.”

Maril pulled sulphur matches from his pocket and did as bid while Torrin undid the latch and opened the hatch.

“Turn the wick up! Bring it over here!” Torrin shouted.

Maril rushed over, winding the lamp wick up as he came. By the time he reached Torrin, flames were coming out round the glass of the lamp.

“Throw it in!” Torrin yelled.

As Maril rushed to obey it only took the flat of a hand in the middle of his back to send him and the lamp down into the hold. Torrin slammed the hatch down on the sudden gust of flame then the screams and horrible squeals that followed. He looked ‘round now and located Chantre on the bridge next to Saparin. Torrin ran towards the bridge. Trying not to be trapped where he was, Chantre hurried for the bridge ladder. Coming down the ladder in a panic, he slipped and landed flat on his back on the deck. Without pause, Torrin pulled out the captain’s gun and shot at him.

Chantre scrabbled up into a crouch, decking splintering beside him. Torrin fired again, exploding the man’s elbow, then again, the bullet slamming into his side. But in a last scramble, Chantre managed to get to cover beside the cabin. Torrin did not pursue, as he was thoroughly aware that there was an angry thanapod below, a fire, and fifty barrels of wax-sealed shark oil. He grabbed a rope and lowered himself hand-over-hand to the shark boat. He was easing off on his first panicked rowing when the first barrels blew scattering debris in the sea all about him. He stopped rowing and gazed back.

The side of the ship had gone, and a hot fire burned within. Another explosion had the ship heeling over and a slick of burning oil spreading out on the sea. Black smoke billowed into the sky and a fishy, burning stink infected the air. Torrin watched the ship sink. The thanapod had almost certainly burned in it, but if not…

He looked over the side of the boat. Here, near the islands, the waters swarmed with thumb sharks and hammer whelks — a cornucopia of voracious life seeded by the first men — more than enough to stop any monsters getting ashore.

Torrin smiled his lopsided smile and continued to row… for the shore.