The Skinner

16

SM3 likened its appearance to a Harrier jump-jet, an ancient flying machine it had spotted on an ‘historical weapons’ site, but SM4 argued, on surveying the same site, that it looked more like a helicopter gunship. At their inception, the two subminds had not possessed sufficient mental differences from each other to have anything to debate, but as the hours rolled on they slowly began to develop individuality.

‘Why do you think the boss put that nancy in charge of us?’ Three asked its companion as they searched their assigned sector.

‘Well,’ said Four, who was becoming the more dominant of the two enforcer-drones, ‘I reckon it’s all down to prior physical experience of this world. We got the programming but we ain’t got the experience.’

Flexing its nacelles, Three harrumphed.

‘Yeah, Twelve might have done a bit more than us, but it ain’t got the firepower.’

Four, who had been playing ‘devil’s advocate’, moved into the defensive. ‘It’s not all about what you can do, but about what you can understand.’ Even as it said this, the drone was not quite sure what it meant.

‘Twelve might have more experience of the physical world, but he sure ain’t got the watts to handle it. That’s what we’re for,’ argued Three.

‘Well,’ began Four — and then fell silent for a moment. ‘Did you get that?’

‘Sure did!’ said Three excitedly.

The enforcer drones dropped low, and decelerated on ribbed fusion flames. Below them, the sea was kicked up in two tracks of white spray when they turned as one to nose back along the course they had been following. They moved more slowly now and slid apart, their dishes and antennae swivelling as if scenting prey.

‘There: underspace signature,’ said Four with satisfaction.

The drones turned again and hovered over the seawater like a couple of wasps zeroing in on a fizzy drink. They bobbed in the air as they attempted to read something from the tightly beamed signal — trying to pick something up from it by inductance, without interrupting it.

‘We have something!’ Four bellowed across the ether.

Flashes of quaternary code flashed through from their receivers, as they tried to nail down some sequence of the code.

‘Direct transmit all you are receiving,’ SM12 instructed them.

‘We’re getting it!’ shouted Three, as it tried to pull together something coherent to pass on. Then, ‘What’s that?’

Four did not get a chance to answer its companion, as a black line cut from the surface of the sea directly towards SM3. The drone fragmented round a disk of light, its weapon nacelles cartwheeling across the waves. Four blasted away from the surface, and something detonated below it. Then, to one side, a Prador war drone broke from the surface and headed towards it. Four released two seeker missiles and planed away. One missile exploded way out of range, but the remaining one blew just ten metres from the Prador drone and swallowed it in fire. Four slowed then abruptly accelerated, as the Prador drone came through that flame with only a coating of soot on its armoured skin.

‘You cannot survive,’ the Prador drone transmitted.

Two missiles came shooting after Four like hunting garfish. The drone blasted higher, only to be slammed sideways as its path intersected that of a stream of rail-gun fire. Pieces fell from Four’s body as it tried to swerve out of the way of this hammering fusillade. But the gunfire tracked it, and the drone could do nothing but sling power into its fusion engine. The EM shell extinguished the drone’s engine only fractions of a second before the two missiles came up at it from below. Four didn’t even see them. It disappeared in a double explosion, nothing of it larger than a fingernail surviving the twin blasts.

The shore was already in sight as the rhinoworm chose its moment to attack. It thumped against the scooter, slewing it sideways, and its beaked mouth clamped over Roach’s foot. Roach let out a yell, and promptly dropped Keech’s antiphoton weapon into the water. Keech reached over and caught hold of Roach’s jacket, while Boris lunged over the driver’s seat to link his arms around Roach’s chest.

‘Shoot the fucking thing!’ Keech yelled at Boris.

‘I can’t! He’ll go in!’

Keech swore, and tried reaching for the weapon in Boris’s belt.

‘I ain’t going! I ain’t going!’ Roach yelled.

‘Hang on!’ Boris yelled pointlessly.

Keech’s arm felt leaden as he tried to move it with its cybermotors, then his face became a mask of pain as something crunched in his wrist. He finally managed to pull the weapon free and aim it at the rhinoworm.

‘Damn! I can’t pull the trigger! Try to hold him aboard!’

Keech released his hold and swapped the weapon to his right hand. Boris, still holding on to Roach, was dragged over the seat when the worm tried to haul his companion into the sea. Keech’s first shot burnt a hole into the worm’s head. It paused in its tugging only to blink at them, then started pulling again. Keech fired again, then a third time, opening a smoking crater in the bone between the worm’s eyes. Abruptly the creature released its prey and rose up out of the water like a cobra about to strike. Keech took aim at the underside of its head: one shot that blew open something soft and yellow. The worm went rigid, coughed, then dropped into the sea like a puppet with its strings cut.

‘I told you I weren’t going!’ Roach shouted at the creature floating limply beside the scooter.

‘Oh shit,’ said Boris, staring in another direction.

Keech and Roach turned and gaped at the approaching mound of molly carp.

‘This isn’t going to stop it,’ said Keech, holding up his pulse-gun. ‘What we need is something like my APW.’ He glared accusingly at Roach, who tried his best not to look sneaky.

‘I can’t help it. Me arm ain’t working properly,’ the crewman protested.

‘This is it, then,’ muttered Boris.

The molly carp surged up to the scooter, but turned at the last moment and snapped up the rhinoworm. Because of its unusual mode of propulsion, it was able to stop dead once it had hold of its prey. It rested right beside the stationary scooter watching the occupants with one eye while it noisily munched on the rhinoworm’s head.

‘Nice molly,’ soothed Roach, while Keech tried to generate enough AG to lift them clear of the waves that were beginning to swamp his vehicle. The motor merely whined and grated.

‘Sprzzck burnt-out, safe Sniper,’ said SM13 from under the seat.

‘Can you give us more lift?’ Keech asked it quietly.

The SM thumped against the seat’s underside and jerked the scooter free of the waves. Roach swore as he nearly fell off again, but pulled himself back on while muttering about ‘talking lumps of scrap’. Keech eyed the molly carp as he reached for the tap that fed pure water to the one working thruster. He opened the tap and the thruster coughed and began to smoke. As areas of it began to turn red hot, Boris hurriedly shifted his feet off it.

‘What about thrust?’ Keech whispered.

‘No chance,’ said SM13.

The thruster coughed again, and spat out something that skated hissing across the surface of the sea before it sank.

‘There goes the grid,’ said Keech.

The thruster began to belch steam and pure water started to pour out of it. Keech took his hand away from the tap and watched this steady stream.

‘Might as well leave that tap on. It’ll bring our weight down.’ He leaned over and peered under his seat at the SM. ‘You’re all that’s left now. I suggest you try something.’

‘It’s finished eating,’ said Roach.

The three of them glanced over at the molly carp as it sucked in the last bit of the worm’s tail. About now, thought Keech, it should belch loudly. The carp did nothing so amusing. Instead it turned towards the scooter, with a movement so abrupt it appeared surprised by it itself, and came shooting at it head on. Before Keech could raise his pulse-gun and fire, the creature struck the scooter and propelled it over the waves. A second time it rammed against the scooter, still driving it before it.

Keech took aim at its eyes, but Roach caught hold of his wrist.

‘It’s only playin’. Won’t do to annoy it,’ he warned.

The scooter tilted over as the carp shoved it towards the shore. It was now travelling faster than it had moved for some hours, waves slapping against its underside while the AG motor puffed out smoke and whined alarmingly. The molly carp abruptly stopped propelling it, the scooter continued on, only the occasional wave slowing its progress.

‘Beach ahead!’ yelled Boris.

The scooter skipped over a mound sticking out of the water, smearing frog whelks with its underside. It continued to skip waves like a skimmed stone and the AG finally started to give out. The probe said something nonsensical that nevertheless sounded obscene. The scooter ploughed right into the beach, flinging its three passengers on to the sand.

Keech swore, sat up and spat out a mouthful of sand. Boris groaned and stayed lying on his back. Roach was the first to his feet and limped unsteadily to the waterline. The molly carp rounded the mound they’d just bounced over, cruising in close to the shore where it drew to an abrupt halt.

‘Did it mean to do that?’ asked Keech.

‘I reckon,’ said Boris.

‘Like hell,’ said Roach.

The carp now started shaking violently, so that the water foamed all around it. It then tilted back, opened its mouth wide, and made a loud groaning sound.

‘Weird,’ said Boris.

Suddenly the beast sank out of sight — but not for long. It exploded from the water, straight into the air, and seemed to hover there, hanging nose-down for a moment, before crashing back into the sea.

‘I ain’t never seen one do that before,’ observed Roach.

‘Me neither,’ said Boris.

Keech stared at the creature in perplexity. The way it had hung there in the air for a long moment had been… well, very strange. The carp was out of sight again, but left evidence of where it was by the gas and silty detritus bubbling to the surface. A putrid smell wafted in across the waves.

‘I reckon it isn’t well,’ commented Boris.

Just then, something exploded from the water with a whoosh and flash of light and shot over to hover above them.

‘I see,’ said Keech, though he wasn’t sure he did.

Sniper settled lower, opened his heavy claw, and dropped the monitor’s antiphoton weapon to the sand. He flexed his legs and shook himself. Rancid pieces of meat fell from his scarred armour. Keech felt a stirring of memory: hadn’t there been something like this involved in the clean-up operation here all those centuries ago? This was a war drone of very old design, he realized, and though ancient and without human expression it certainly managed to appear pissed off.

‘You all right?’ grated the drone.

Keech was about to give an answer when a movement caught his eye. He glanced down at the seahorse SM, as it made a buzzing sound and flipped itself upright on the sand, balancing on its tail.

‘Sprzzt, kill ‘em,’ the little SM managed.

Sniper turned and faced out to sea, then turned back to them.

‘Fucking Prador drones,’ he said. ‘Let’s see how they handle a real war drone.’ And with that, Sniper racketed into the sky, opened up his fusion engine and was soon just a dot on the horizon.

‘What was that all about?’ Keech asked, studying the SM. The effort had obviously been too much for Thirteen, who went over sideways on the sand with a thump.

‘Prador drones?’ Keech queried the two Hoopers. Boris and Roach appeared just as confused. Keech went over to retrieve his weapon.

‘Maybe they’re back here. Maybe the war’s on again,’ said Roach.

Keech shook his head as he moved to the luggage compartment of the grounded scooter. From it he took out the portable medkit Erlin had given him, sat down on the sand, then injected and bandaged his wrist. This was the problem in using cybermotors ungoverned by an aug: they could over-reach the strength of the bones they were attached to. As an afterthought, he looked up at Roach.

‘You need this kit?’ he asked.

Roach flexed his hand then batted at his legs. Thick scabbing fell away from the burns exposed through his charred trousers, and clean skin was revealed underneath.

‘Don’t need none of that stuff,’ he said.

‘I thought not,’ said Keech.

When he had finished working on his wrist, Keech stood and turned towards the dingle. The sudden and disconcerting appearance of that war drone he had to dismiss as irrelevant, simply because he had no explanation for it. Now he must concentrate on the matter in hand. It occurred to him that if Frisk thought he was dead, she might leave Spatterjay. Then again, she might also have come here in search of Jay Hoop, and Keech wanted both of them.

‘Ambel and the others should be here somewhere, searching for your Skinner,’ he said.

‘That’s so,’ said Boris, staring contemplatively at Thirteen.

‘How do we find them?’ Keech asked.

‘They’ll have landed on the other side of the island,’ said Boris.

‘Best we head over there, then.’

He fired his APW into the dingle. There was a blinding purple flash and a thunderclap. Once the debris had settled, Boris and Roach got up from the sand and glared at Keech accusingly. Keech gestured to the avenue he had opened up lined with burning trees. He grinned and went stomping on in there. Roach limped after him and Boris moved to follow, hesitated, then went back to Thirteen. He picked up the SM before hurrying after the other two.

‘Sprzzt thanks,’ said the submind.

Pieces of bubble metal floating in the sea pinpointed where the two drones had died.

‘That Prador drone won’t be here,’ said Sniper. ‘You realize it was your secondary emitter and that there’ll be more of the bastards?’

‘I am aware of that, Sniper,’ the Warden replied.

‘You also understand that you’ve got no chance of pinning down that signal until we’ve thinned a few of them out and whoever’s sending it starts getting desperate?’

‘I am aware of that also, Sniper.’

‘What is it you’re after, then?’ asked the war drone.

‘Enough code to decipher, then I can break into the transmission.’

‘To get that’s gonna mean a stand-up fight. These bastards ain’t gonna hang around while we record their overspill.’

‘How fortunate, then,’ said the Warden, ‘that you are no longer anally retentive, so to speak.’

‘Look, we need to work out how to do this,’ snapped Sniper.

‘What would you suggest?’

‘I suggest we find the fuckers and blow them. The more we blow, the less of them can act as secondaries. That way we’re sure to get more and more of their code.’

‘Well, that sounds like a good plan. How do you suggest we locate them?’

‘Sarcasm don’t help,’ said Sniper. ‘I know Prador, and if there’s one here, it’s in the deepest hole it can find. So what’s the deepest hole in Nort Sea?’

There was a long delay before the Warden replied, and its tone had somewhat changed when it did. ‘Yes, there is one very deep trench down there.’

‘And I’d bet that where I am now has a clear and direct line to the bottom of that trench.’

‘Why is that relevant?’ asked the Warden. ‘Underspace transmissions go under space. They are not affected by anything less than a planetary gravity well.’

‘It’s relevant,’ Sniper lectured, ‘because Prador stole U-space tech from us. They still think like they’re using realspace transmitters, and in terms of direct links and control. That’s their psychology. Put a mountain in the way of the signal, and a Prador will think it’s not quite in control of that signal’s recipient. Your secondary emitters will be found in an area above that trench.’

‘Very well,’ said the Warden. ‘SM Twelve, stay with drones Seven to Ten at the ship. The rest of you move into sectors immediately over the Lamant trench. Sniper, you take command there.’

With this communication came a deep-ocean map and Sniper saw immediately where he must go, and that it was not far. Slowly he slid up high above the ocean, with his antennae waving and a dish extruded from his stomach plates. As he travelled, he activated a system that he had not used in centuries, and bled power from his U-charger. Slowly, laminar gigawatt batteries built up to a huge charge inside him. Over the sea, he grinned his antiphoton grin. Soon he would get a chance to show his teeth — but he did not realize how soon.

Radar returned four signals as the enforcer drones the Warden had sent out came into the area.

‘Spread out singly and search. Stay up high to give yourselves time to respond to any attack.’

‘Sure thing!’ the drones responded eagerly.

‘If one of them comes at any of you, you don’t try to take it alone. You run for me.’

Their response this time was less enthusiastic.

Sniper watched the four signals separate and spread out, and then, from memory storage, he downloaded differing programs into his carousel of smart missiles. He knew that nothing less than a direct hit by one of these on that Prador armour would do the trick, and even then… These Prador drones were certainly not the pushover they had been in the old days. Sniper accelerated and was soon at the precise centre of the area to be searched.

‘Shit!’ shouted SM1.

Sniper received a fragmented picture of explosions, and one fleeting image of a Prador war drone. On radar he saw that SM1 was hammering towards him at Mach II. Close behind this SM came another signature that did not show up so clearly on radar. Sniper froze that second signature and studied it.

‘Exotic metal… right,’ he said. Then, ‘SM One, go higher, then straight down into the sea once you’re a kilometre out. I will give you the signal. Don’t deviate, you’ll have incoming straight over you.’

‘Poxingmissileupassgunning!’ was the SM’s reply.

Sniper opened up his fusion engine and sped towards the drone in trouble. After calculating vectors, he spat out one missile and watched it accelerate away. By the time it reached its intended target, it would be doing over Mach V. Little time to manoeuvre for either target or missile. Next, Sniper cruised to the right and opened up with his rail-gun. A swarm of carborundum fingers, needle-pointed and weighted, sped out in front of him. In seconds SM1 came into sight, swiftly pursued by the Prador drone. Sniper watched the missile making small corrections to its course, then sent the signal. SM1 dived, pieces falling away from it as the Prador hit it repeatedly with rail-gun fire. The missile flew over SM1, straight into the Prador’s face. It managed to shift aside only slightly before it was struck. Sniper tracked it as it came tumbling out of the explosion, its armour glowing white-hot. It corrected and swerved towards him, only to run straight into the swarm of carborundum fingers. As they struck, it shuddered in midair, jets of metal vapour issuing from its softened armour as the fingers penetrated and smashed its insides. Sniper turned in on it like a raptor as it dived for the sea. He allowed it to get within ten metres of the surface before grinning his grin. Violet fire speared the Prador war drone. It hit the surface and rolled along it like a droplet of water on a hotplate. Then it blew, scattering fragments that bounced and sank in clouds of steam.

‘Take that, fucker,’ said Sniper, as he jetted above those fragments.

The disembodied head dropped away before Janer could acquire it in the autosight and centre the beam on the thing’s perch. Stone flaked and exploded away, as he tried to follow its course. In a moment it lost itself in the vines growing over the ruin. Janer only stopped firing when Ambel placed a hand on the barrel of the carbine.

‘The power supply isn’t endless, lad,’ said the Captain.

Janer lowered the weapon and studied its displays. He swore when he realized there was only a quarter of a charge left.

‘We’ll go in after him,’ said Ron, undoing the straps that held Forlam to his back. ‘Erlin, Anne an’ Pland can stay here with Forlam.’

Janer surmised that this meant he himself was included in the hunt, so there’d be a use for that quarter-charge yet. He watched as Ambel removed a packet from his belt and handed it to Pland.

‘Wet your knife for the body if it turns up,’ said the Captain. ‘Same for the head.’

Pland nodded and gingerly accepted the packet.

Ambel pointed to the QC laser in his belt. ‘That’ll burn either of ‘em, but it won’t kill ‘em.’ Now he turned his attention to Peck, who stood clutching his shotgun and looking surly. ‘You wouldn’t stay here if I told you to, would you, Peck?’

‘Buggered would I,’ said Peck.

Ron laid Forlam on the ground, with his back resting against a rock.

‘Feelings bits betterst,’ said Forlam.

There seemed something funny about his tongue. Ron studied him dubiously for a long moment, before turning to Erlin.

‘He’s not well,’ said the Captain meaningfully.

‘I’ll get some more Earth nutrients into him,’ she said.

‘Let’s go then,’ said Ron.

The four of them set off down the slope towards the river, and the ruin beyond. Janer walked with his nerves jangling, and his attention flitting to every movement in the undergrowth. Peck proceeded with his shotgun close to his chest, and Ambel plodded stoically along, with his blunderbuss resting on one shoulder and his hand on the hilt of his sheath knife. Captain Ron ran a stone across the edge of his machete as he walked. Once they were halfway down the slope, he pocketed the stone and held out his hand. Ambel passed across one of the small packets of sprine.

In the river, leeches clung to the bottom, looking just like trout swimming against the current. In the deeper water, Janer spotted a creature that had the appearance of an onion with spider legs, and though it showed no inclination to come out of the water after him, he kept a wary eye on it. They crossed by using the boulders as stepping-stones and shortly reached one of the overgrown moats extending below a crenellated wall. Peck stared down into the moat and spat. Janer also gazed into it, and saw only stagnant water filled with a tangle of white branches. He was about to move on after the others when he realized that branches were not what he had just seen. He took another look at them and realized that what he was seeing was a tangle of human bones.

‘They shouldn’t be there,’ he pointed out.

‘Hoop’s place,’ reminded Ambel.

‘But that was centuries ago.’

‘Human bone don’t rot here, not unless it’s Hooper bone,’ said Ron.

Janer was about to ask why, but realized Erlin was not here to answer him.

‘A more suitable monument than that, I guess,’ he said, referring to the Hoophold.

‘Bugger,’ said Peck, with reference to nothing in particular.

They walked on, moving parallel to the moat, until they came to a place in the wall where there had once been a steel door. Some fragments of corroded metal still jutted from the stonework and the earth below was stained red with rust. Here, Ron scrambled down the slope to the edge of the stagnant water. He tucked his machete under one arm, pulled on his gloves and squatted down. He dipped the blade into the water then with great care sprinkled a few sprine crystals on to the wet metal before grinding them all to paste with the stone he had retained. After smearing the paste all along the razor-sharp edge, he tossed the polluted stone away.

‘Cross here,’ he ordered, holding the machete carefully away from his body as he waded through the stinking water.

Ambel quickly followed, then Peck. Janer halted at the edge, trying to detect movement below the oily surface.

‘No leeches there. The bones have poisoned it,’ said Ambel.

Janer decided to take him at his word and waded across. He tried to ignore a skull that they had disturbed from the bottom, which was now bobbing about in the silt like a Halloween novelty.

Once they had climbed the other side of the moat, they entered Hoop’s demesne through the rusted door. The wall was two metres thick and above their heads were open murder holes the purpose of which, in an era long before this place had been built, would have been to pour molten lead over unwelcome visitors. Janer wondered if Hoop had ever used them for such a purpose. Probably yes, just for the hell of it.

Inside, was an open courtyard, with stairs all around leading up to the top of the walls. Beyond this lay a further confusion of walls and buildings. Ron led the way across the courtyard then halted to point down at the flagstones. No one commented on a long distorted footprint clearly visible in the dust. Hefting his machete, Ron gestured for them to continue. He guided them through a long tunnel into yet another courtyard, then beyond that into an overgrown garden.

Janer stared around him at familiar Earth plants that had managed to survive here, seeding and reseeding themselves down the centuries. Wild rose covered one wall and some sort of orchid sprouted from the black ground below a tilted sundial. The wall bordering the far end of the garden had some kind of vine embedded deeply in its strange decorations. On top of that wall rested the Skinner’s head.

Janer raised his carbine just as the head moved, and he realized this was the second time he had been mistaken. The head was actually behind the garden wall, not resting on it. Behind the wall — and reattached to the long body that was now stepping into view.

‘Oh bugger,’ said Peck, more pertinently this time.

The Skinner was complete again and Janer had never before witnessed such a terrible sight. For here was a real monster: a blue man four metres tall and impossibly thin, hands like spiders, a head combining elements of warthog and baboon with much of a human skull, evil black eyes and ears that were bat wings, spatulate legs depending underneath the long jaw like feelers and, when it opened its long mouth, row upon row of jagged black teeth.

‘Only just reattached itself,’ said Ron calmly. ‘Look at its neck.’

Janer gazed at the neck and saw a leech mouth located where an ordinary man would have his Adam’s apple. He raised his carbine again, wondering how Ron could sound so analytical.

The Skinner roared, and came charging at them in ridiculous but horrible loping strides. Peck was already blasting away with his shotgun before Janer could fire. Janer’s hit burnt skin from the monster’s chest and seared one bat-wing ear. Yet the Skinner didn’t even slow down, so Janer kept firing — as an arm like softball bats joined by pieces of elastic came sweeping in his direction. The hand hit him with horrible force — as if he’d run full tilt into the iron bars of a cage. He flew back into a tangle of roses and was slammed against a side wall. The breath whooshed out of him and he found he just couldn’t move.

He was aware of Peck crouching behind the sundial, still blasting away, and next saw the sundial and Peck both taken up in a single grasp, heard stone crunching, and saw something bloody being discarded to one side. Then Captain Ron was there with his machete, and the Skinner became more wary, as it dodged Ron’s attempts to lop off its limbs. Suddenly it darted forward in a blur of motion. There was a clang and a whickering sound as the machete spun through the air, then another clang as it bounced off the wall to Janer’s right. This second sound seemed to return the life to Janer’s limbs, and he started to haul himself out of a tangle of roses, swearing as thorns snagged the skin of his face.

As Janer recovered the carbine and sighted it on the Skinner’s head, he saw it looming over Captain Ron as if relishing the prospect of tearing him apart. Ron just stood there with his arms folded, his legs braced, and a placid look on his face. This made the Skinner hesitate. Janer stepped forward, then promptly fell flat on his face — briars had become looped around his ankles. As he struggled to right himself and draw a bead on the creature again, he saw Ambel sneaking in behind.

The Skinner drew back one hand clenched into a fist, but Ron merely grinned at it. As Ambel drove his sprine-poisoned knife into the calf of the Skinner’s leg, Janer opened fire again.

The scream it made was deafening: an amalgam of a human scream of agony and the squealing of a pig going to slaughter, but with its volume stepped up five-fold. Janer winced at the hideous sound, but kept firing at the Skinner’s head. As it screamed, it lashed back with its foot and hurled Ambel ten metres through the air behind it. It then struck out at Ron, slamming him so hard into a wall that the Captain nearly went through it, rubble falling about him. Still screaming, it took two loping steps towards Janer, who thought he was done for then. His laser burnt away skin, but seemed to have no other effect on this monster.

The Skinner ignored him as it hurtled past, scrambling over the six-metre wall behind him.

‘What the hell was that?’ said Keech.

‘Hell’s ‘bout right,’ muttered Roach.

‘What do you mean?’ Keech asked.

Roach glanced at Boris, and shrugged. ‘Ain’t like nothin’ I’ve heard before,’ he said, then promptly sat down to inspect his charred boots. After searching the pockets of his ragged coat, he found a length of fishing line, which he used to bind one loose sole back into place. Keech watched Roach impatiently as the crewman finished this task, then stood to test his weight on the makeshift repair.

‘Are you quite ready now?’ Keech demanded.

‘Ready as I can be. Had me arm busted and me legs fried, so I ain’t gonna be hurrying anywhere,’ Roach grumbled.

Keech stared at him, unable to find a reply, then turned and set off through the dingle again. Roach and Boris exchanged a look, then slowly moved after him. A few paces farther on, Roach gestured at the SM Boris was cradling like a baby.

‘Why don’t you get rid of that thing?’ he asked.

‘It saved our lives,’ said Boris.

Roach snorted. ‘It’ll slow you down,’ he said with a sneaky grin.

They both glanced ahead at Keech, and began to walk just a little slower.

‘Yeah, definitely slow me down,’ said Boris, then grunted in surprise.

The SM had abruptly become the weight of something made of paper. He held it out on the flat of his hand and looked askance at Roach.

Roach shook his head. ‘Didn’t say we was in any hurry.’

Boris grinned weakly, tucking the SM under his arm, and together the two crewmen dawdled after Keech.

‘Signal detected. Transmitting,’ said SM5.

Sniper slammed himself into the sea as the only effective method of high-speed braking. As he went in, his course cut like a white icicle under the waves, until he had slowed enough to turn and explode from the surface again. In seconds he was accelerating towards SM5’s last location — only the drone was gone. All that showed on radar was a dispersing signal.

‘It got him,’ said SM1 angrily, as it came hammering in from the west.

‘No kidding,’ said Sniper. He now routed the radar signals through a clean-up program and detected the Prador drone a couple of kilometres from where SM5 had been, and moving away.

‘I can see you,’ he sent.

The Prador drone swerved in a ‘u’ and came hammering back towards him.

‘That you behind me, Two?’ Sniper asked conversationally.

‘Sure is,’ replied Two.

‘Good, I want you to veer off and go drop a cluster of mines here.’ Sniper sent co-ordinates. ‘Seems these arseholes always miss the upswing.’ Behind Sniper, Two shot away, chuckling over the ether.

‘One, you put a laser on it, and keep it on it,’ Sniper instructed.

‘Won’t touch that armour,’ SM1 pointed out.

‘I know it won’t, but it’ll have to keep on juggling its sensors. It won’t lose me, but it may well miss something smaller.’ Sniper turned so he was hurtling sideways and, reaching precisely where he wanted, spat two missiles into the sea.

‘Warden, how much code did you get?’ he asked as he observed the missiles torpedoing away on their preprogrammed course.

‘I could do with more, Sniper,’ said the Warden. ‘Why — are you getting bored?’

With the Prador drone hurtling towards him behind its two rapidly accelerating missiles, Sniper swore then slammed down into the sea. He was fifty metres down when one of the Prador’s missiles detonated on the surface spearing white lines after him with its shrapnel. The second missile followed him down. He released some chaff, then a couple of mines, before abruptly changing direction. There were explosions behind, then a huge splash to his right. The Prador drone was coming straight after him, vapour and bubbles exploding from armour that had been heated by SM1’s laser.

‘Over here, arsehole!’ Sniper sent.

‘You are dead,’ the Prador sent back.

‘Ooh, now I’m all frightened.’

Sniper instantly changed course and shot up to the surface at forty-five degrees. The Prador went straight back for the surface, knowing it could come on Sniper quicker through the air. With its sensors confused and misreading, it saw only at the last moment the mines Two had dropped there. Emerging from the sea in a swarm of explosions the Prador shuddered into the air, seemed merely to shrug to itself, then accelerated towards Sniper again. Sniper turned on it and fired his antiphoton weapon. Violet fire ignited on the disk of a projected screen.

‘OK, so you’re tougher than I thought,’ sent Sniper.

The Prador slowed, its screen still out in front of it.

‘You’re looking forward to this, ain’t you?’ Sniper sent, bouncing his signal off the sea.

‘I am,’ returned the Prador, ‘and now it will end.’

Below the Prador, two white fumaroles speared up from the sea. The first missile was powerful enough to blow a bar of plasma through its armour. The second missile went in through the same hole and gutted it. The distorted shell, which was all that now remained of this Prador drone, arced into the sea. Still burning inside, it planed for a moment on superheated steam, then sank.

‘Stupid,’ said Sniper as he tracked the glow into the depths.

The screams were terrible, and Erlin was glad to hear them recede into the distance. If the Skinner had come her way, she was not sure what she could have done, other than die.

‘Do you suppose that’s it, then?’ she said. ‘Do you think they’ve poisoned it?’

‘You’d know as well as me,’ said Anne.

Erlin shook her head and concentrated on the task in hand.

Pland finished knocking a length of peartrunk wood into the ground nearby on which Erlin suspended the drip she had prepared, then turned on its plastic tap. Next, she pressed another tranquillizing drug patch against Forlam’s upper arm. The recumbent crewman was completely out of it, and that’s just how she wanted him to stay — for the present. She pressed a thumb to his bottom jaw and pulled it down. Forlam’s tongue had turned into the feeding mouth of a leech, but at present it lay flaccid behind his teeth. Erlin inspected the back of her hand and the hole where a neat circle of flesh had been excised. Forlam’s tongue had done that to her when she tried to look in his mouth earlier, while he was conscious. He’d been most apologetic afterwards.

‘Needs lots of Dome food,’ suggested Pland, staring off in the direction the other four had gone.

‘I know that,’ said Erlin, ‘but right now we haven’t got any — just a few supplements.’

‘There’s plenty on the Treader,’ said Anne. ‘Maybe I ought to sneak back and fetch some.’

Erlin glanced at Forlam, then back at her.

‘He certainly needs some Dome food. Could you manage it without getting yourself killed?’

Anne gave her a pitying look, then stood up.

‘I’ll run,’ she said, and turned to go.

Just then, three figures stepped into sight. All three wore black crabskin armour. All three were armed.

‘Shit,’ said Pland, and reached for the laser at his belt.

His hand touched the grip just as there came a sound as of a hammer striking an apple, and he flew backwards, landing on his back and skidding along the ground. Wisps of smoke rose from his chest. He just had time to lift his head and blink at his attackers, then a dull explosion turned his torso into an expanding ball of fire. In an explosion of torn flesh and blood, his head flew one direction and his arms and legs in various others.

‘Nobody move!’ yelled the figure which had fired.

Anne moved to draw her automatic and Erlin quickly grabbed her arm.

‘Don’t!’ she warned. ‘Your bullets won’t get through that armour.’

Anne seemed about to ignore her and Erlin knew that she could not restrain her. Anne stared round at the steaming remains of her fellow crewman, and for a moment wore a puzzled expression. Erlin had seen this look before; because death was such an uncommon occurrence among them, Hoopers found it a very difficult concept to accept. Slowly the expression of puzzlement turned to one of resigned anger.

Anne returned her attention to the approaching three, slowly moving her hand away from her weapon. ‘I hope I don’t regret this,’ she said.

‘So do I,’ said Erlin.

The foremost of the three removed her helmet, and looked from Anne to Erlin with a deranged expression.

Here is something horrible, was Erlin’s immediate thought.

‘What have you done to my Jay?’ the woman asked.

So, this is Rebecca Frisk, concluded Erlin. Superficially she appeared an attractive young woman, but that this was merely a veneer over something old and ugly was also evident. Erlin kept silent.

Frisk turned from them and gazed at the Hoophold, smiling wistfully.

‘You’ll walk ahead of us,’ she instructed. ‘Try anything and you know what will happen to you.’ She gestured to Pland’s remains.

‘What about him?’ asked Erlin, gesturing at the unconscious Forlam, then instantly regretting that when one of the Batians turned his weapon on the prostrate crewman.

Frisk held up her hand. ‘No, I don’t think so,’ she said. Gesturing with her laser for Anne and Erlin to move aside, she approached then squatted down beside Forlam. With one finger she pulled down his jaw to peer inside his mouth. She gave a small laugh and rocked back on her heels. ‘We’ll leave him here,’ she continued, then abruptly yanked the drip from his arm and cast it aside.

Anne went rigid.

‘The weapon — throw it on the ground,’ ordered Svan, levelling the snout of her weapon at Anne’s middle. Anne hesitated for only a moment, then undid her belt and dropped it to the earth. Svan now turned to Erlin, who wondered what she might want of her. The mercenary’s hand snaked out at Erlin’s belt, and she glanced down to see her QC laser being removed. How alert am I? she wondered. She’d been wearing the thing for so long, she’d forgotten its purpose.

‘Step back, both of you,’ said Svan, and the two captives did as directed.

Svan walked over to the belt, and stooped to withdraw the holstered automatic. She inspected it for a second, and then gave a bark of laughter before tossing it aside. The QC laser she tucked into her own belt.

‘Get moving.’ She pointed, as she stood up again.

Erlin and Anne turned and headed down the slope.

The Warden observed that the warning Windcheater had delivered earlier had been heeded, then concentrated its attention on another area of ocean. Even from one of the orbital eyes it had been possible to track the occasional flares of energy. It had to admit Sniper knew his business. Even with ‘attitude’, the enforcer drones remained pretty ineffectual in this situation. They were constructed for local police actions involving human terrorists, so could only cope with the kind of weaponry such groups normally possessed. They should still, though, have outclassed the antiquated war drone, just as the Prador war drones, with their heavy armour, outclassed them. But every time Sniper had come up trumps. The Warden suspected that Sniper had been constantly upgrading himself over the centuries that had passed since the war. Back then the old drone had certainly not possessed ballistic programs of such accuracy, nor did he own an antiphoton weapon. Even so, those Prador drones, with their armour and weaponry, should still technically have been superior. The Warden supposed Sniper’s victories indicated that it wasn’t the size of a weapon that counted, but how and when it was used. Each of Sniper’s victories was like that of a medieval pike man bringing down a mounted knight in full armour.

‘Signal detected. Transmitting,’ piped up SM1.

The Warden soaked up the signal and hoped that there would be enough information this time before the fighting recommenced. It carefully studied the quaternary code as it came in, then loaded it into the same program as the rest.

‘That’s it,’ concluded SM1.

‘Where is it?’ Sniper queried, as he hurtled towards the war drone.

‘No sign of any Prador war drone,’ said SM1, managing to sound utterly casual.

‘You know what this means?’ said Sniper to the Warden.

‘Enlighten me.’

‘It means that the Prador that’s down there can’t afford to lose any more of its drones, so has told them to head for cover rather than fight.’

‘Yes, so it would seem.’

The Warden was distracted now. That last two-second sequence had been enough for decoding. ‘Sniper, I have enough. You may withdraw,’ it sent.

‘Withdraw?’ Sniper asked.

‘Yes, that’s what I said. I see no reason to have any more of my SMs destroyed.’

‘Whatever you say,’ said Sniper, shutting off with a crackle of static that sounded suspiciously like a raspberry. The Warden did not pursue this thought.

‘SM Eleven, initiate and upload to com relay shell,’ it sent to the satellite orbiting between itself and the planet. Two seconds later the satellite opened and spat yet another coffin-shape out into atmosphere. The Warden observed it for a moment, before concentrating a whole quarter of its processing power on the five seconds of coded transmission it now possessed. There was no point seeking to obtain any more, since if these five seconds couldn’t be cracked then the rest certainly couldn’t. After two seconds, the Warden ascertained that the code was based on random number generation from the quantum decay of a mixture of three rare isotopes. A real bastard, it thought. The Prador had never bothered much with building AIs, as they considered their own minds to be the pinnacle of excellence. This was unfortunate for them, as it deprived them of the knowledge that there was no such thing as a ‘random number’.