The Skinner

11

The pinioned sail kept mouthing obscenities, until Shib cut its tongue out. That made it thrash about so much that he had to put a couple of more staples through its neck and into the mast to keep it secured. He was the right one to do it: he had been very vocal in his dislike of this place and its fauna. Without ceremony, the three Batians then dropped the body of their deceased comrade over the side. Dead, he was as much rubbish as the rest of the human debris scattered over the deck. Frisk watched the corpse dragged down as countless leeches attached themselves to it — and then she went to see how Svan was getting on.

‘How much longer!’ she shouted down into the aft hatch. There was no reply so she climbed down to have a look. Svan was crouching in the rear of the ship, over the open casing of the motor she had just bolted to the keel. There were twists of wood shavings all over the floor where she had bored the bolt holes, together with those holes required for the intake pipe and outlet jets. Two pipes went straight through a bulkhead to the bow of the ship; Frisk assumed they were for braking.

‘Fucking Prador diagnostics,’ Svan snarled.

‘What is it?’ Frisk asked.

‘This whole motor is just a pain,’ Svan said.

‘Will that be a problem?’

Svan closed the casing and locked it into place. ‘Shouldn’t be unless it goes wrong. But I don’t see why it has to be so complicated. This ship isn’t exactly high-tech.’

Frisk stepped out of Svan’s way as she began to unreel a length of optic cable from the motor. She followed the Batian as she climbed the ladder on to the deck, across this, then up the next ladder to the cabin-deck. Here, Svan plugged the cable into a throttle-lever attached to the helm.

‘Is all this really necessary?’ Svan asked.

‘Not completely,’ Frisk replied. ‘It’s just the way I want to do things.’ She took a device from her belt and peered at its small screen. She nodded at the coordinates displayed there, then quickly put the device back on her belt when her hand began to shake. She forced a grin.

‘Why not just take your Prador’s ship straight there and blow them out of the water?’ Shib asked Frisk, coming up on to the deck. She stared at him and her grin collapsed. Was he really that stupid?

‘Because if the Warden detects a Prador war-craft moving about down here, we just might never be able to get away,’ she said. ‘So, Ebulan will have taken his ship down deep and out of sight.’

Svan glared at Shib, then turned back to Frisk. ‘I see your point there,’ said the mercenary, ‘but why not use one of the little transports?’ Frisk appeared confused for a moment. Svan went on, ‘Why all this?’ she asked, gesturing at the helm.

Frisk glanced down to where the transport bumped against the side of the ship.

‘It was Ebulan’s idea… to get us close to Keech. He’ll be naturally suspicious of strangers. All the Old Captains are familiar figures to each other. This way we’ll be able to get close without rousing too much suspicion.’

This reasoning sounded specious even to herself. Frisk had indeed considered using one of the transports — until she had been dissuaded — but now, now she liked things this way. She glanced over as Speaker came aboard leading Captain Drum. It gave Frisk a buzz of pleasure to see the Captain, standing here on his own ship, reduced to a human blank: his spinal column disconnected and his body run by a spider thrall. This was power. This was everything Jay Hoop had taught her. Her grin came back: a rictus that stretched her split cheek. She didn’t mind the pain; it told her she was real.

He felt everything. The breeze against his skin almost hurt, and each step he took on the wooden boards of the deck sent a jolt through his entire body. His breathing sounded like waves hissing on a shingle beach. The air tasted of metal and vinegar and carried a thousand scents, some putrid, some sweet. The thumping of his heart was controlled thunder in his breast, and the images coming in through his eye seemed to imprint themselves on the back of his skull.

Keech stopped where he was, and thought for a moment. One eye. He reached up and pressed his fingers into the cartouche on his aug unit. With a sucking click it came away and rested warm and heavy in his hand. Doubled images slowly pulled together as his new eye focused. Erlin had repositioned the connections while he had been in the tank — as it seemed the nanites had been intent on growing him another eye, whether there were connections into what remained of his optic nerve or not. Vision was now painful. Taste, sound, the texture of the rail on his hands: it was a beautiful pain called life. And now he had it, Keech wanted to keep it.

‘How are you… feeling?’

Keech glanced round at Janer, who was standing just behind him.

‘Alive,’ said Keech.

‘A novel experience,’ said Janer.

Keech turned to Erlin as she came up on to the deck. ‘Thank you,’ he said.

Erlin smiled, glanced at Janer, and abruptly appeared uncomfortable. She turned back to Keech. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘This is the most involved I’ve been in anything for decades. I…’ she paused, and again glanced at Janer, ‘I enjoyed it.’

Keech nodded and gazed down at the sea. These two were like teenagers who had discovered sex for the first time — or was that just his perspective? Was this how the Old Captains felt? Did most people seem naive and silly to them? He studied his pink hands, then his body with the monofilament overall clinging to it. He felt a vague twinge of embarrassment when thoughts of sex and the feel of the material against his skin conspired to give him an erection. He stayed where he was by the rail.

‘What’s that?’ he asked after a moment, and pointed to a humped shape in the sea.

Erlin stepped up beside him and peered at where he was pointing. ‘It’s either a transitional leech that tried to take a large prill, or Hoopers have been hunting here,’ she said.

Keech waited for an explanation.

To try and cover her earlier embarrassment, Erlin took on a didactic tone. ‘Small leeches feed by taking a plug of flesh from their prey, and whatever fluids they can suck out.’

Keech noted Janer rubbing the distinctive scar on his hand.

‘As a leech gets bigger it takes to the sea after bigger prey, also because the water there can support its larger body. In time, it begins to outgrow its prey, so it makes the transition from plug feeder to a feeder upon whole animals. The problem with eating animals whole here is that they tend not to die very quickly, so can cause a great deal of damage to a predator’s insides. Therefore big leeches produce a poison in their bile which can kill virus and prey at once.’

Before Erlin could continue, Keech said, ‘And a transitional leech is one that isn’t yet producing the poison, but still needs to feed on whole prey.’ He nodded at the leech floating past. ‘Hence, that could be one that has fed on something that tore its way out of it again.’

‘Exactly,’ said Erlin, studying him carefully.

‘Why do Hoopers hunt leeches?’ he asked.

‘Sprine,’ said Janer.

‘That’s the poison,’ said Erlin. She said no more, and gestured Janer to silence when he seemed about to explain.

‘Difficult to obtain, also rare, and it kills Hoopers,’ said Keech. He turned away. ‘No wonder they hunt these leeches. They’d probably do much more just to get hold of it.’

‘Why are you here, Keech?’ Erlin asked, suddenly.

Keech considered lying to her for only a moment. ‘I’m here to find and kill Jay Hoop,’ he said.

‘Why?’

‘Because he is a criminal. Because I must. Because it was… is my job.’

Erlin stared at the back of his head. She thought about where they were going, then about Ambel and about what he kept in his cabin. She’d hated that low morbid whispering. It was part of what had driven her away.

‘In a day or so we may well reach the ship that has… Hoop aboard,’ she said.

Suddenly Keech was facing her again, one hand gripping her collar, his other hand rigid for a killing strike. He had moved fast, faster than she could move. Alive, Keech must have been a very dangerous man. And now… he was alive again.

‘Explain,’ he said.

‘What remains of Hoop is kept on that ship,’ said Erlin.

Keech released her and suddenly stepped back. He seemed confused, and his hands were shaking. Spittle ran from the corner of his mouth.

‘No… I don’t believe that. I don’t believe that story.’ He shook his head once, shook it again. Abruptly his body began to spasm, and he fell over on the deck like a falling door. His aug unit bounced on the deck beside him, and a green light on its surface turned red as the reattachment delay finally ran out and it began to power down.

‘Quickly! Get him below!’ Erlin yelled.

‘What is it?’ Janer asked as he helped her carry the spasming man below.

‘His organic brain’s taken over control of his cyber implants and now his muscles are fighting them. We’ll have to restrain him till he gets control.’

‘What about his aug?’ Janer asked.

Erlin shook her head. ‘Wouldn’t work. He’d end up fighting it like he is his implants.’

Janer gazed down at the convulsing face. But for the metal interfaces inset in Keech’s cheekbone and above his eye, he looked utterly human and vulnerable. Janer wanted him to live, not to suffer — found that he cared for the man.

‘Well that’s a first,’ said his Hive link.

When Janer angrily questioned it, it retreated to its distant buzzing, and he wondered just how much it was picking up from him through their link.

Darkness and pain, and the smell of the sea and of things decaying. He fought the harness and, though stronger than most men, he was weakened by his wounds and could only flex ceramal that in other circumstances he could have broken like chalk. The blanks dragging him back were as iron as he had been, and his struggles were all but ignored. He was just a difficult parcel that they dragged to the table and threw down upon it. Then began the bubbling speech of the Prador and, in flickering nightmarish luminescence, a huge first-child entered and poised itself over him, its mandibles flicking as if it might like to taste this particular morsel. A claw closed on the harness, gouging into his back as it lifted and suspended him.

‘Why? Why did you kill my crew?’ Drum asked.

The Prador’s translator box groaned and crackled as it replied. ‘Kill your crew… I did not kill your crew,’ it stated.

‘Why—?’ he began, but before he could question further it threw him face-down, looming over him. Something clicked and detached from the harness, and now he was able to move his head. He turned to see the underside of the creature’s body: the ridged carapace and swiftly moving manipulatory arms. In one of those hands he saw something like a grey metal spider, wriggling its legs as the first-child brought it down behind Drum. He started to bellow as small legs like pitons burrowed into the back of his neck. Then his whole body went entirely slack, but not, unfortunately, without feeling. The cutting sensation continued, and the pain rolled out in waves which soon grew dull and distant. Blackness welled up inside him and took him away: stood him aside from the world.

Then, in time, he came back.

Drum would have normally looked around, but no longer had that choice. He continued to steer his ship and check the compass, but these actions were not at his own instigation. Hunger and thirst were constant, but he could do nothing to slake them. He could feel the horrible ache of healing injuries, and he could see, and he could taste the salt in the air, but beyond sensing the world around him he could not influence it. Straining to look round where he was not directed to look availed him nothing more than a little hope: for there was still something physical to strain against — and something at the back of his neck repositioned itself each time he tried.

Frisk screamed and flung the biomech detector to the deck. Before anyone could think of trying to stop her, she stamped on it until it broke. As she stepped back, its power pack discharged into the planking, and set the pitch caulking on fire.

She stood there with her hands shaking. ‘How did he fucking know! How did he know!’

Svan and Tors stood back, kept their faces without expression. When Frisk pulled her pulse-gun, Tors slipped a hand down to his own weapon — before Svan gave him a cautioning look. He didn’t take his hand away from it though.

Frisk crashed out of the cabin, swearing repeatedly. She glared up to where Drum stood impassively at the helm, and fired off three shots at him. The first shot seared the side of his face. The second punched a smoking hole through his chest, and the third shot set the helm burning. He showed no reaction but just continued to steer, his hands sizzling where they touched the burning wood. Frisk screamed with rage and went storming down the deck. She burnt holes through the planking as well as the rail. Eventually she came to the mast and glared down at the head of the sail. It tried to move out of the way as she directed her weapon at it, but with three staples through its neck it could not move far. Frisk altered the setting on her weapon and let off a volley of shots into its face. It made a gargling hissing sound as it struggled, and its wings boomed against the spars. It grew still, eventually.

‘You waste useful tools.’

Frisk turned and rammed the barrel of the gun up under Speaker’s chin.

‘This is not your tool to waste,’ said Speaker.

Frisk pulled her arm down in a jerky motion, holstered the weapon, pulled her injector from her belt and placed it against her own neck. Her right leg was quivering and her cheek had started to ache again. These nerve conflicts were becoming more and more frequent. Was it being here? The stress? The excitement? The priozine soon flooded her system and stilled the rebellion of this body she had stolen.

‘Stupid,’ she said to herself, then glared down along the deck to Shib.

‘Get that thing secured,’ she ordered him, with a nod at the sail’s body hanging in folds where it had released its holds during its convulsions. Shib looked with distaste at the sail, then went to obey. From where they stood, outside the cabin, Svan and Tors gave each other a look.

Once Frisk was out of hearing, Tors said, ‘If the detector is not picking up Keech’s aug that means it’s off, and he’s probably dead. Doesn’t she realize that?’

‘Maybe… whatever. She pays the money and we do what she says. Mad as a pan-fried AI she may be, but she’s got the shillings,’ replied Svan, and went off to assist Shib. Tors stared up at the Hooper Captain, and after a moment fetched a bucket of seawater to throw over the smouldering helm.

Drum continued, mindlessly, to steer his ship.

Using the deck winch, Ambel brought the first carboy up from the hold. Using muscle and great care, he detached the cargo net it was contained in and took it over to below the forecabin ladder. After attaching a rope, he climbed up on to the cabin, then hauled the carboy up there, where he tied it to the rail before breaking the seal and extracting the bung with a large corkscrew. Anne and Pland grimly watched the proceedings, while Boris finished setting up the spinner and lubricating the cogwheels with turbul grease.

Peck came up on deck with a coil of tube looped over his shoulder. He threw one end up to Ambel, who caught it and inserted it in the carboy. On the lower deck, below the rail, the three armour-glass vessels Ambel had purchased at great cost twenty years before stood wedged in a rack. Peck sucked on the tube and watched carefully as the green bile came up out of the carboy and started to descend towards him, then quickly took the tube out of his mouth and put his finger over the end. Leech bile in the mouth wouldn’t kill a Hooper, but it would make him sick for months. Actually swallowing the mouthful would kill, though. Taking his finger off the end, he inserted the tube into one of the vessels. The bile flowed on down and it began to fill. Peck took this opportunity to put on his gloves. Once one vessel was full, he pinched the tube and transferred it to the next, careful not to get any of the bile on himself. The contents of the carboy filled all three.

‘You ready there, Boris?’ Ambel asked.

‘I am, Captain,’ said Boris, pulling on his own gloves and going over to help Peck transfer the vessels to the horizontal wheel of the spinner, and clamp them in place.

‘Let’s get winding, lads,’ continued Ambel.

Gollow and three of the other juniors were the first to come to the double winding handles, as Ambel came down from the forecabin. They put their weight against the handles and heaved. Greased cogs began to turn and the chain leading in underneath the spinner began to move. Slowly at first, the wheel began to turn. Peck and Boris removed their gloves and waited their turn at the handles, as did Anne and Pland. Ambel waited as well. He always went last, and he turned the handles by himself. It was an adequate demonstration of the difference in strength between juniors, seniors, and the Old Captain. They had a long day ahead of them.

Morning dragged into afternoon, and it was the next turn for Pland and Boris at the handles. The wheel was whirring around nicely, and the bile was just beginning to separate in the vessels. In the bottom half of each it lay thick and green, with a layer of cloudy fluid above it. When it came to Ambel’s turn, there was a thin layer of clear fluid at the surface. As he worked the handles some of the crew fished for boxies, and others went below to rest their aching limbs.

By mid-afternoon a centimetre of clear fluid rested at the top of each vessel. At this point Ambel released the handles and let the spinner wind to a stop. He called Peck over and together they siphoned this clear fluid into a smaller, open-topped vessel. This container they took into Ambel’s cabin to place in a secure framework he had earlier clamped to his desk. It wouldn’t do to lose all that work to the first squall that came along. The stuff remaining in the larger vessels, they tipped over the side.

‘Should be ready by tomorrow morning,’ Ambel stated.

‘Aye, the bugger,’ said Peck in the same grim tone that all of them had taken on this day. It was a serious business planning to kill something a thousand years old, no matter how evil it might be.

SM12 scanned the three ships and found nothing to make it suspicious. It recognized the crews of each vessel, having come across them many times before in its travels. Completing its circuit of Tay’s island, it experienced dronish frustration. Where was she? The Batian’s deflated dinghy still lay under the sheet-leaves where they had beached and there had been no signs of any other landings on the other beaches. Nothing in the air either, so that left one choice. The iron cockle dropped out of the sky with the aerodynamics of a brick, entered the sea with a huge splash, and switched on its sonar. Immediately it picked up signs of movement all around it, but nothing with a metallic signature. It accelerated, kicking up a cloud of silt behind, and ran electrostatic scans for as far as it could. It really needed some help. Taking an instant decision, it shot out of the water and broadcast.

‘Where’s SM Thirteen?’ it asked.

‘SM Thirteen is hypersonic and will be with you directly,’ said the Warden. ‘You are having trouble locating Rebecca Frisk?’

‘Has to have gone into the sea. She’s not on the island,’ Twelve replied. It then dropped, and started scanning once again. It was soon tracing something it thought might be promising when there was a splash above it, and soon an iron seahorse was cruising along beside it.

‘Want a hand?’ asked Thirteen.

‘Yes, I’m on to something now,’ said Twelve.

‘You realize that hammer-whelk shells have a slight piezoelectric property?’ said Thirteen.

In chagrin Twelve said, ‘Well, aren’t you the whelk expert. Take the north side. If she’s using an escape pod as a submersible, there should be ionic traces. She’s probably heading away fast. We need to get on to this.’

SM13 tilted and shot for the surface. Shortly after it was gone, SM12’s underspace transceiver opened.

‘Anything?’ asked the Warden.

‘Nothing yet, but I’m sure we’ll find her,’ replied Twelve.

‘I’m glad you’re so confident,’ said the Warden. ‘I have to wonder if there’s not something we’re missing. No matter — she will never leave.’

‘They’ve gone to the atolls,’ said Captain Ron, thumping a finger down on the chart.

‘How can you be sure?’ asked Erlin.

Janer stood back and didn’t question. His concerns were all with Keech, strapped in his bunk below, fighting to regain control of his body. His convulsions had not let up for twenty hours and it seemed his return to life might only be temporary.

‘Ambel’s got his own refining gear. If he’s having a good hunt this early, he’ll want to refine what he’s got, then see if he can get some more before the season ends. For refining he needs a stable mooring. Anyway, we’d have found him by now if n he’d been here.’

Erlin shrugged. ‘I bow to your superior knowledge,’ she said.

‘And so you ought,’ said Ron, tipping Janer a wink.

As they left the cabin, Janer asked, ‘What now, when you find your sea captain?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Erlin. She looked Janer up and down. ‘It could be nothing has changed, and it could be everything has. I won’t know till I find him.’

Janer nodded. He wasn’t about to argue with her. So they’d had sex a few times: it had been fun, but nothing to get all emotional about. He liked Erlin and he found sex with her intensely stimulating, but there would be other Erlins and there would be other sex. Just a little more thought along those lines, and he felt sure he would convince himself.

Janer followed Erlin below decks, to the cabin where Keech lay strapped to his bunk. The monitor’s convulsions were less severe now. But perhaps he just didn’t have the energy to fight any more. Erlin stood over him and started to lift one of his eyelids. Both Keech’s eyes abruptly flicked open and he looked from one to the other of them.

‘Getting it,’ he managed, before the next convulsion hit.

Erlin checked the reading on her diagnosticer then plugged it into her drug manufactory. In a couple of seconds it provided her with a drug patch, which she slapped on Keech’s chest. He relaxed; his arched back settling to the bunk and his jaw unclenching.

‘How’s he doing?’ Janer asked.

‘Getting it, as he said. He seems to have control of his limbs now. I should think in another ten hours or so he’ll be able to get up and move about. If he lives that long,’ she replied.

‘Why the doubt?’

‘He took a hell of a risk using that nano-changer. They shouldn’t be used without AI supervision with full and constant scan. All it would take is one rogue factory in his bloodstream, and he could end up with nanites floating about doing untold damage. That could happen at any time in the next week or so, until the changer programme has run its course.’

‘He’s been dead before,’ Janer observed.

Erlin went on without acknowledging his comment, ‘The nanites could do anything. Rogue bone-repair nanites could ossify his entire body. Nanites building blood cells could turn him into a pool on the floor.’

‘You don’t have much confidence in them, I take it.’

‘I do not. The more miraculous a technology is, the more prone it is to catastrophic breakdown.’

Janer studied her very carefully. Sinking back into her didacticism, she had abruptly become distant from him. He considered taking her in his arms there and then, and rejected the idea. He didn’t really need the complications. Without a word, he left her alone to tend to Keech, and returned to his bunk in the crew quarters.

Once there, Janer pulled the box that Keech had delivered earlier from under his bunk. He studied it for a while, then pressed his fingertips against the touch-plate on its side. When nothing happened, he lay back on his bunk, holding the box up before his face.

‘Why here?’ he said.

There was no reply.

‘I could easily take this box and throw it over the side of this ship. I wouldn’t be killing anything, as no doubt the contents are in stasis. In fact, I think I’ll do that now,’ he said, and began to sit up.

‘Why not here?’ the mind asked him.

‘I can think of a number of reasons. This is a primitive world. Hornets have to be adapted to survive here… The main reason, of course, is that it’s not a Polity world and that you’d piss off an awful lot of people,’ said Janer.

‘Not half so many as on a Polity world,’ the mind replied.

‘OK, let me reiterate: why anywhere?’

‘Humans establish their colonies where they will. Why should I not?’

‘No answer to that, but it’s not often you establish a nest without a reason, beyond that of colonization… Tell me, the remaining hornet was successful here, wasn’t it?’

‘It was.’

‘So you had it transfer its genetic imprint to our friend here in this box.’

‘I did.’

‘How long will this queen live?’

‘As long as any other. The adaptation completely prevents any invasion by the fibres. For that I took a snip from a glister — a creature that also exists here without the viral fibres in its body.’

‘So what’s the point?’ Janer asked, weighing the box in his hands.

The mind warned, ‘If you throw the box over the side I’ll have another brought in by another agent.’

‘You’re not going to tell me,’ said Janer.

‘Not yet.’

‘Now, why do I get the distinct feeling that you’re up to something you shouldn’t be up to?’

The mind did not reply, and Janer snorted, then reached over and placed the box on the floor beside his bed — before closing his eyes and settling down, intending to sleep. Before sleep could claim him though, he opened his eyes again.

‘The hornet with me possessed the pattern for survival here. OK, it’s imprinting the queen — but that’s not enough, is it? You have some other edge?’ he said.

‘You will be told eventually,’1 said the mind.

For a while, Janer stared at the bunk above him. It occurred to him that he might live to regret not throwing the box over the side, then reporting things to the Warden. It also occurred to him that the AI probably knew a lot more about what was going on here than he did. Soon, he slept.

From the promontory, Olian Tay watched the three ships slide over the horizon and come in to moorage beyond the reefs. She continued to watch for a while, expecting that once a rowing boat put out from one of them she would have plenty of time to wander down to meet it. That Sprage had come here for her was unsurprising to her, as they had been friends for many years and he was one of the few Captains ever to visit her and acquaint her with the doings of the rest of the Old Captains. That those same Captains had done nothing in which she felt interested for many years had never really interfered with their relationship. Now, of course, the Captains were involved in something very interesting. To capture coming events, Tay had all her portable recording equipment with her, hooked on her belt.

Still no rowing boats left the ships, and Tay was getting fidgety when she observed the sail circling above her. Soon it came lower and, with a booming of wings and a stirring of dust clouds, it landed further along the promontory. She knew that sails had landed here in the past. This fact was evinced by the scattering of broken glister shells, and the black spinal columns and articulated skulls of rhinoworms. She had only ever seen them from a distance, though, and they had always departed immediately at her approach.

This sail did no such thing. After folding its wings, it waddled over to her and gazed down upon her with its demonic eyes.

‘Sail, you have an augmentation,’ Tay said, trying not to sound as nervous as she felt.

‘The name’s Windcheater,’ said the sail, and Tay immediately clicked a switch on her belt. From the top of a flat rectangular box attached there, a device the shape and size of a candy bar launched into the air and began slowly to circle the two of them. The sail tracked the course of this device for a moment.

‘Remote holocorder,’ he declared. ‘X-ten-fifty, full spectrum plus anosmic, with a transmission range of five hundred kilometres. Why do you want to record me?’

‘Because you’re a legend, and obviously part of the whole story,’ Tay replied.

Windcheater shook his head. ‘If you like,’ he said. ‘Right, you ready?’

‘What?’

The sail made a low growling sound, then abruptly launched itself. Tay yelled in shock and closed her eyes against the dust. The next thing she knew, long bony claws had closed around her waist and her feet had left the ground.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

Windcheater gave no reply.

‘Put me down, dammit!’

Windcheater snickered. ‘You sure about that?’ he asked.

Tay looked over her shoulder and down, to see her island rapidly receding.

‘OK, don’t put me down,’ she said. Even though angry and not a little frightened, she felt some satisfaction in seeing her holocorder speeding along beside them, recording every moment.

Sprage drew deep on his pipe and chuffed out a cloud of smoke that drifted down the length of the Vengeance like a confused djinn. He rocked back in his chair, clumped his boots up on the rail of the foredeck, and gazed across the white water marking the reefs around Olian Tay’s island. Though now certain that Rebecca Frisk was back on Spatterjay, he was in no screaming hurry to find her. A brief conversation with the Warden had confirmed that she would never be leaving the planet. He and the rest of the Captains could take their time, in deciding how to deal with her — not that there would be a lot of debate on that, as she would most certainly end up in a fire — then slowly and inexorably they would hunt her down. Sprage gave a grim smile at this thought.

‘That sail’s got something,’ said Lember from the cabin-deck.

Sprage glanced at the creature winging out from the island. It had probably caught a rhinoworm, though why it was heading out from a landward direction he couldn’t say, unless it had flown with its prey from the sea on the other side of the island. Watching its continued approach as he pondered what must happen in the coming days. The Jester and the Orlando were moored up, and by now, through the slow message-carrying of the sails and, in some cases, through Polity-issued radios, nearly all the Old Captains should know — barring those still out in Deep-sea. Soon the rest of them would be arriving, and it would be time for the Convocation. Before then, Sprage would send for Olian Tay, as she would be a pain for years if he let her miss this. Then would come a slow but sure search, island by island, atoll by atoll. Sprage felt sure it would be the Warden who would detect Frisk first, but that would not stop the Captains from searching, even though the Warden had assured him that they could have her eventually. All of those who had once been slaves of Hoop carried just too much emotional baggage to keep out of it all.

‘Hey, it’s carrying someone!’ shouted Lember, now gazing through Sprage’s tripod-mounted binoculars. Sprage dropped his feet from the rail, stood, and walked to the front ladder of the forecabin, puffing on his pipe. Soon he was up standing beside Lember.

‘Spot who it is?’ he asked.

Lember jumped back from the binoculars, and glared at his Captain. Sprage might be ancient, but he certainly moved soft.

‘Can’t really see,’ said the crewman.

Sprage gently pushed past him and, moving his pipe so it jutted sideways from his mouth, he put his eyes to his binoculars.

‘Olian Tay,’ he said, and stepped back to watch the sail come in to land.

This sail was a big one, and the boom of its wings had its smaller kin on the spars flinching back. It deposited Olian on the main deck then, hovering above her, it stretched out its neck towards the other sail.

‘Bugger off,’ it said succinctly.

The smaller sail hurriedly released its grip on the spars, furled its wings, hauled itself higher up the mast and launched away from Windcheater. The bigger sail now descended and quickly settled himself into position.

‘Interesting,’ said Sprage.

Lember watched as Olian climbed to her feet then came stomping towards the forecabin.

‘Yeah,’ he agreed. ‘You don’t often see them doing that.’

Sprage faced him, pointed a finger to one side of his own neck, then pointed down at the sail’s head.

‘Ah,’ said Lember, squinting at the aug Windcheater had acquired.

Sprage moved away to the ladder and climbed down to the main deck. As Tay approached him, her face was flushed and there was a touch of exhilaration in her expression.

‘I was just about to send for you,’ he said. ‘Interesting times.’ He turned to regard the new sail, that had swung its head round the mast to watch the two of them.

‘They are that,’ agreed Tay.

Just then, Sprage spotted the holocorder sliding around them in a wide arc.

‘I would guess you know about Frisk?’ he said with a raised eyebrow.

‘I know about her — and I want to be in at the kill.’

‘Like you were with Grenant?’ Sprage asked, fixing his attention back on the sail.

‘If possible,’ said Tay, trying to keep an impassive face.

Sprage nodded as he once again puffed at his pipe. After a moment he said, ‘Welcome aboard, sail, how are you called?’

‘The name’s Windcheater,’ said the sail. ‘And I’ll want paying for this.’

The sun edged over the horizon, and turned umber clouds to turquoise silk. About their business over the sea, three sails glided across the face of this orb as its light revealed a ship far out on the water, and decked it blue with gleams of emerald. Ambel stared at the vessel for some time, then turned to Peck, crouching by the rail and staring down into the water. Peck looked distinctly unwell in this morning light. The scars on his face were livid and his eyes were dark with blood.

‘What is it, Peck,’ Ambel asked him at last.

‘Bugger,’ muttered Peck.

Ambel waited for him to continue. It took him a while.

‘It calls me, Captain,’ Peck said.

‘It calls to us all. It’ll call to any who listen.’

‘It called and I went,’ Peck confessed.

‘What have you done, Peck?’ Ambel asked calmly.

Peck rested his forehead against the rail. ‘Wouldn’t stop. It had its hunger. I fed it to shut it up,’ he said.

Ambel glanced back at his cabin and considered, having spent the night in there, how the head had been strangely silent.

‘Did you release it?’ Ambel asked.

‘No, Captain.’

‘What did you give it, then?’

‘Remains of the baiting steak.’

Ambel was about to make a reply to that when Boris yelled down from the nest, ‘It’s the Ahab!’

Ambel shaded his eyes to gaze out at the distant ship.

‘Now what’s Ron doing out here? Last I heard he was off after a load of turbul,’ he observed.

‘Maybe it calls him, too,’ said Peck.

Ambel stared down at his crewman and wondered if that might be true — for the Skinner called in different ways. Perhaps Ron was coming to deliver some long-avoided Convocation decision on the matter. But he would soon know, as the Ahab was heading straight towards them. Ambel walked back to the door of his cabin and locked it. The next time he went in there, he would take with him a harpoon wet with sprine. He didn’t like to think about what might be going on inside his sea-chest.

‘Get a cask up, lads,’ he yelled generally. ‘You know how thirsty Ron can be.’

And general laughter greeted this comment, though it was subdued.

The rowing boat approaching from the Ahab had six people in it. Ambel immediately discerned the large, bald-headed shape of Captain Ron at the tiller, and he guessed the two at the oars to be Forlam and Goss. The other three were dressed like off-worlders, and for a moment he didn’t recognize any of them.

So he felt a momentary flush of pique when Boris recognized her first.

‘It’s Erlin!’ the crewman yelled from the nest.

Ambel squinted his eyes at the Earther woman. The last time he had seen her, she’d told him he was dead inside, and she seriously doubted if he was human any more. He wondered what she wanted of him now. Was she starting to comprehend things beyond her own small compass? Was time now doing to her what it had done to him so long ago? Ambel doubted it. He shook his head and concentrated his attention on the other two off-worlders. The blond-haired man wore the utile clothing of a seasoned traveller, and he wore it with the casual air of one who had not just donned it. That one might be an interesting person to meet. The other man looked ill — or as if recovering from a long illness. He was bald and scrawny, though his bone structure was that of a heavy-worlder. He was wearing monofilament overalls — utile garb again, but the kind worn by Golem androids and the like: individuals that did not worry too much about either the temperature or their appearance. Was there something familiar about this man? Ambel felt the nag of memory and a surge of both apprehension and excitement. Perhaps he was from before? No, unlikely: there were few off-worlders of that age. Ambel tried to dismiss these thoughts, but he still felt a nagging doubt.

The boat clunked against the side of the ship and greetings were shouted back and forth as a rope was thrown up for them to secure it, then a ladder lowered. Ron was first over the rail and Boris thrust a jug into his hand. Ron downed it in one and handed it back for a refill.

‘How are y’, Peck m’boy!’ he bellowed at Peck, after he had bellowed greetings at each other member of Ambel’s crew.

Peck just stared at him, and Ron turned to Ambel.

‘Still a bit… y’know?’ he asked, making a wiggling motion with his hand.

Ambel nodded.

Erlin was next over the rail and, while each member of the crew greeted her, she kept her eyes fixed on Ambel. When he winked at her, a slow smile spread across her face. Goss immediately started to come on to Boris, and Boris suggested showing her around the ship. Anne stared speculatively at Forlam, then filled a jug and took it over to him.

Ambel watched the blond man as he came over the rail assisting the bald one up behind him. The look blondy gave Erlin told Ambel all he wanted to know. He allowed himself a little smile, as it wasn’t important. He stepped forward to greet the two new off-worlders.

‘Welcome to the Treader,’ he said.

With deep-blue eyes the bald man stared at Ambel, and an immediate shock of recognition ran between them.

‘This is Janer Cord Anders and this is Sable Keech,’ said Erlin, still smiling.

Ambel had only time to raise one hand before the first energy pulse slammed into his stomach. The next burnt a hole in his chest and the next blew away part of his shoulder. Collapsing, he turned and ducked to protect his head. Another pulse hit him in the back and he lost it for a moment. As he came to, he groaned and rolled over, agony blurring his vision and sapping his strength.

He looked up to see Keech glaring at him with flat hatred, while he tried to bring his weapon to bear again. Ron, Forlam, and Boris were all three having trouble restraining him, which was very surprising. His struggles against them lasted only so long as it took Ron to get a hand free to slap him on the side of the head. As Keech went down, Ambel tried to rise, but that was not a good idea. He felt the blood draining from his face and just had time to see Erlin crouching over him, peeling open a drug patch, before he lost consciousness for the second time.

Keech regained consciousness to find himself roped in a chair, with his head throbbing and an ache in his torso that evidenced the fact that someone had put the boot in as he went down. He sat for a moment with his teeth firmly clenched against the vomit that threatened to rise into his mouth. As the nausea slowly started to recede, he tested the rope and found it strong enough to restrain his human muscles. Next, he found that direct brain-to-cybermotor link that had nearly killed him, and tried again. This time the ropes stretched and the chair creaked. But still he did not have the strength, augmented or otherwise, to free himself, so he scanned the cabin for some other means of escape.

No knife was lying handy on the desk and there were no useful sharp edges anywhere else, as was to be expected in a ship’s cabin. There were cupboards that might contain something he could use, but what chance did he have, without being heard, of manoeuvring his chair to one of them and opening it? So he waited and, as he waited, he became aware of a sound… or something like a sound. The sea-chest by the wall drew his attention. Before he could wonder what it was about this chest that increasingly riveted his attention, the door slammed open and Ron stomped in.

‘Give me a reason why I shouldn’t let the boys chuck you to the leeches,’ growled the Captain.

Keech tested his bonds again then let out a sigh. ‘My name is Sable Keech,’ he said.

‘I know that, but it don’t sound like reason enough for me.’

The Captain was angry, and Keech knew what damage an angry Hooper of his age could do. He suspected that if he didn’t explain himself soon, he wouldn’t even reach the sea in one piece.

‘I first came here seven hundred years ago, with the ECS mission that released Hoop’s slaves. I was part of the attack force that raided Hoop’s stronghold — and I was the one who subverted the program running the slave collars Hoop was using.’

In shock, Ron stared at Keech, then stepped back and sat down on the sea-chest. He shook his head, appearing confused for a moment, then realized where he was sitting and abruptly stood again.

‘Keech?’ he said. ‘I came here after the war, but I know about you.’

‘I’m the same Keech who killed Frane and Rimsc, and I can recognize one of the Eight no matter how scarred and changed they may be. Ambel — a ridiculous anagram. So you don’t recognize him, even though you were present when the ex-slaves threw him into the leech swarm,’ said Keech. He spoke with the calm of utter certainty.

‘Gosk Balem,’ whispered Ron.

Keech awaited some explosive reaction, but there came none. Ron looked thoughtful for a moment, then he shuddered. He rubbed a hand down across his bare chest, where the leech scars were thickest.

‘Are you going to release me now and let me finish what I started?’ asked Keech.

After a moment Ron said, ‘No.’

Keech felt a momentary sick anger. Had he misjudged? Could it be that Ambel was not the one he thought him to be? Or was Ron not who he thought either? So many memories crowding in his mind — so many to sort, to know.

‘Why not?’

‘Because he’s not Gosk Balem,’ said Ron.

‘What makes you so sure of that?’ Keech sneered.

Ron advanced to stand over him, placed his hands on the arms of the chair.

‘It’s the sea, Sable Keech. It takes.’

With that, he turned from Keech and left the cabin. Keech stared at the door for a moment then slowly began to work his arms and legs against the rope. Motor and muscle. He broke skin and ignored the pain. The chair began to creak. From the sea-chest there came sounds of movement — and that other sound, that whispering.

Keech worked harder at loosening his bonds, a sudden ludicrous idea occurring to him as to what was inside that chest.