The Voyage of the Sable Keech

17

The blanks in the holding area were immobile, since most of their mental capacity was running the calculations Vrell needed to make for undertaking U-space engine repairs. Now that those calculations were nearly complete, he dropped four of the blanks out of the circuit. These were the ones who were still reliable, as they were not so badly suffering from the effects of starvation and from the havoc the Spatterjay virus was wreaking on them. He sent them trudging to the engine room, watching them closely through cameras in the corridors for signs of any unprogrammed movement. They appeared not to be doing anything outside of his control, but he knew they were fast approaching the time when they might reject their spider thralls. Satisfied at seeing them then begin the tasks he had programmed in—detaching all the optic and S-con cables in preparation for opening the engine casing—he turned his attention to his channel to the ship above.

The remaining blanks nearby, and those spaceship systems he had employed in the same mathematical task, should complete the calculations in a matter of hours. He did not really need the two minds of Aesop and Bones in the sailing ship above for that purpose, but another task had occurred to him.

Ebulan had died because of his perpetual underestimation of the opposition, and Vrell had no intention of being so arrogant and stupid. Above him lay a shipload of reifications and Hoopers, which Ebulan might have ignored as irrelevant but which Vrell considered a danger that must be either neutralized or otherwise distracted. Vrell had already subtly manipulated Taylor Bloc into refusing to give Captain Ron access to the computer system, thus delaying the departure of the Sable Keech long enough for Vrell to get underneath it.

Bloc was the key, and now it was time for less subtle manipulation. That reif was full of bitterness and anger and, in human terms, not entirely sane. He possessed an overwhelming need to control which stemmed from a similarly overwhelming desire for adulation. At one stroke Vrell shut down Bloc’s consciousness, causing the reif to slump from the edge of his bed to the floor. Then the Prador began making some alterations to Bloc’s mind. Once he finished, Bloc would have to obey the Prador’s orders, though he retained free will in everything else. Vrell watched through Bloc’s eyes as the latter awoke and struggled to his feet.

‘Who are you? What are you?’

Vrell did not deign to reply just then. He linked through the now-clear channels in Bloc’s mind, and gazed through the eyes of Aesop and the visual receptors of Bones. After a moment, he returned to Bloc both his mobility and the reif’s control of the others.

‘Secure your ship. Prevent any aboard from moving against me,’ Vrell finally ordered.

‘You are Prador.’ Bloc’s observation contained something like yearning, and Vrell realized this stemmed from the reif’s fanatical interest in Prador thrall technology—control technology. Ignoring the further flood of questions that ensued, he turned the bulk of his attention to another matter in hand.

Despite his present desperate circumstances, Vrell was determined to confirm his suspicions about the King’s guard. The Warden had also obviously been as curious, hence Vrost’s action in destroying the one who had drifted too close to one of die AI’s satellite eyes. The armoured individual now in the drone cache had not detonated for one of two reasons. Either the EM that knocked it out of the sky had fused the relevant circuitry, or else Vrost somehow knew exactly the guard’s location and was awaiting an opportune moment to send the destruction signal—probably when Vrell himself put in an appearance. There was only one real way to find out.

The Prador heaved himself up off the floor and, with his tool chest trailing along behind him, headed out of his sanctum. He noted, as he travelled the dank corridors of the ship, how the omnipresent lice remained somnolent on the wall, only shifting a little on sensing his presence. Lack of food again. He himself had not eaten for some time, and for longer there had been little for the lice to scavenge. Now suddenly aware of his own hunger, he summoned the two leech-headed blanks from where they had collapsed in the corridor outside the holding area. They joined him just as he reached the door to the cache, where he picked one of them up in a claw and began tearing it apart and feeding gobbets of its flesh into his maw. As he ate he noted how much longer his claws had now become, and how their colour was a translucent black like some kind of glass. Then he entered the cache itself.

Vrell first eyed what was left of the hooder, squirming over near the portal. It seemed more lively than before, looked longer and thinner, and gaps were growing between its segments. The Prador decided it might be quite a good idea to dump the thing outside sometime very soon, then turned his attention to his prisoner.

The King’s guard was down on its belly with its legs folded underneath and its claws stretched out slack on the floor before it. Its armour seemed to conform to the pear shape of a Prador first-child, but now, on closer examination, Vrell saw that it was just too big for that. A Prador of this size should be an adult, and therefore lacking some limbs. This one seemed to have all its legs and both its claws, and doubtless, underneath, all its manipulatory arms. Vrell speculated on the possibility that some of these limb casings might be empty of arms or legs, and instead wholly motor-driven. He would not know for sure until he took a look inside it.

After opening his tool chest, Vrell removed a powerful short-range microwave scanner, and began running it over the golden carapace before him. Soon ascertaining which areas of the armour shielded no vital systems, he summoned his drone over with a thought.

‘Cut here,’ he directed, stepping back.

The drone extended its thermic lance, which ignited with an arc-light flash. Soon the room was full of metallic smoke, and fans hidden in the ceiling began automatically drawing it away. The guard tried moving its claws and legs, but they only quivered a little. It would, in a moment, realize that there was only one way it might survive, and that would be without the encumbrance of dead armour. Vrell felt some satisfaction when he heard the sound of locks disengaging. He silently relayed another instruction to his drone, and moved further back.

The armour opened with a sucking crump, the entire upper carapace rising on silver rods, then hinging back. The ejection routine was fast, compressed air blowing the occupant’s limbs from their casings. But not fast enough: as the grey and distorted Prador head lifted on a ribbed neck, and one claw and the legs on one side pulled free, the drone repositioned the lance and drove it straight into its grey body. The guard screamed, trying to bring to bear a short assassin-spec rail-gun. The drone snipped that manipulatory arm away, closed its claw on the creature’s neck, and drove the thermic lance deeper into its body, searching out the major ganglions. The guard kept struggling and screaming for some time, green blood and smoke issuing in gushes from its mouth and over its grating mandibles. Eventually its struggles diminished, but never entirely ceased. Vrell knew that, unless this body was utterly destroyed, it would regenerate, though into what was open to speculation. After the drone dumped it down on the floor, beside its armour, Vrell moved over to investigate.

The Prador was almost the same size as himself, and its mutation quite similar, the only differences being its lighter colour, the saw-tooth edges on its legs and a thicker carapace around its neck. Was this what Vrell would eventually become? Next he turned his attention to the armour.

The fusion bomb was easy to locate and remove. It did not require disarming for the EM blast had completely fused its U-space receiver. It was also accessible to the armour’s occupant, so clearly the latter was not expected to try shutting it off. This meant that these guards were utterly loyal to their chain of command, leading up to the King himself, which indicated pheromonal control. What then was this creature? What was Vrell himself? Were they adolescent or adult, or something else entirely?

Stepping back from the armour, Vrell studied it long and hard. He considered carefully all that its occupant implied—what it meant to the Kingdom and where he himself might fit in, if at all. Eventually he began to turn away, realizing at last the truth of his situation. He would not survive to leave Spatterjay in this ship, even with the U-space engine repaired.

He must die.

The Warden dispatched a recording of all recent events through an open link to Earth, and thereafter kept the leading AI up to date with current events. Earth Central could do nothing about what was happening here, except make promises of retribution.

‘I am in contact with Oboron,’ the Earth AI replied. ‘Obviously there is more to this than we suspected.’

No shit, thought the Warden, privately.

As a result of five coil-gun projectiles obliterated by Vrell’s particle cannons, incandescent gases billowed in high atmosphere. The blast from the second from last projectile, had it struck Vrell’s spaceship, would also have smashed the Sable Keech into burning fragments and scattered them across kilometres of ocean. The last projectile would have left little of the ship but ash, since when it was fired its target was parked right underneath the sailing vessel. Both missiles would have resulted in a wave sweeping past the island to strike the two approaching Hooper ships with the force of a bullet.

There seemed little doubt: the moment Vrell’s weapons were fully engaged defending himself from Vrost’s troops, that coil-gun would fire again, and then again. The Warden could do nothing. By his actions, Vrost had called the AI’s bluff.

Vrost, of course, could not resist commenting on this. ‘I must assume then that you have decided not to use your U-space weapons against me?’The translated voice of the Prador was flatly devoid of emotion, but the sarcasm was implicit.

The Warden replied, ‘I am consulting with Earth Central on the matter, and EC is talking to your King. I estimate it will take a few more hours before Vrell is completely engaged with your forces, and therefore before you can make an effective coil-gun strike. By then I will have received my instructions.’

‘I see,’ said Vrost. ‘I was beginning to think that perhaps your U-space weapons had malfunctioned.’

Screw you and the horse you rode in on.

The Warden felt brief disquiet at his own angry reaction, for that seemed very like something Sniper would say, then assigned this pointless banter to a submind and turned his attention to communication with Earth Central.

‘Oboron was apparently unaware of Vrost’s actions there, and is now attempting to open a communications channel. But he is apparently experiencing some difficulties in that respect.’ The Earth Central AI’s sarcasm was all too evident. ‘I would suggest, however, that the King is in constant com with Vrost. I am therefore about to inform Oboron that Vrost’s actions will not be tolerated. ECS beta-class dreadnoughts, though some distance from Spatterjay, are in a position to intercept Vrost’s spaceship upon its return to the Prador Kingdom. I suggest you meanwhile raise the underlying issue here with Vrost.’

The Warden acknowledged that, and returned his full attention to communicating with the Prador captain. His submind was saying, ’… I am attempting to adjust U-space targeting so as not to completely obliterate your ship, but those adjustments are very finely—’ The Warden absorbed the temporary mind in a microsecond, and in another microsecond scanned the previous exchange for anything of relevance. Word games: bluff from his submind and contempt from Vrost. Allowing a pause of some seconds the AI continued, ‘It occurs to me, Vrost, that with your warriors and drones in the sky, and your ship in constant orbit, Vrell is unlikely to ever be leaving the planet. This being the case, I have to wonder at your anxiety. What is so dangerous about one post-adolescent Prador, that you need to kill it so quickly, despite risking the ire of Earth Central in doing so? We can surely wait until he attempts to leave, and destroy him once he is clear of the ocean and collateral damage minimized?’

A long pause ensued. Doubtless Vrost was speaking to Oboron and learning what lay in store for himself and his ship once he left Spatterjay. Clearly there was something Oboron did not want the Polity to learn about Vrell, but would the King want to sacrifice so large a ship as Vrost’s to that end, or—the Warden now considered Vrost’s destruction of that guard—allow that ship to be captured and its occupants studied?

After a few minutes the Warden detected the coil-gun powering down, then watched it fold back into Vrost’s ship.

‘Agreed,’ said the Prador captain. ‘I have finally managed to open a communication channel back to the Kingdom, and received instructions from Oboron. He has informed me that I must make this particular task my primary objective, rather than those other matters concerning me. My anxiety was due to my wish to quickly complete this chore.’

Other matters. Yeah.

‘I appreciate your cooperation,’ the Warden replied.

Then, utterly to the AI’s surprise, he observed Vrost’s other forces withdrawing out of range of Vrell’s weapons. It seemed the storm had paused.

Erlin gazed down at the sea, eyeing the countless remains of marine denizens—most of them adolescent rhinoworms—floating on the surface. Clearly the underwater battle had been just as vicious as the one in the sky. Though it was night and Coram had yet to breach the horizon, she could see everything clearly. Even the ship’s lights looked dim in the glare of the luminous clouds smeared across half the firmament. As she gripped the rail, her expression was stormy. She guessed at the cause of those clouds—the kind of weaponry recently employed from orbit, and fortunately negated—and how close they had all come to extinction. But now the dark weapons turrets of the Prador ship were still, and she could no longer hear the sound of distant thunder. Perhaps they had made a truce, but it seemed more likely to her that they had run out of ammo.

Erlin knew her cynicism was due to weariness and frustration, though not necessarily unfounded. But she was busy—and that was important to her. She had spent many hours going from cabin to cabin, checking on the reifications. Though most of them could tell her if they needed help, a proportion of them possessing older reification hardware had been knocked out by the EM overspill from the surrounding battle. A steady stream of reifs had been going into the tanks, for their by-no-means-certain resurrection. One nanochanger had completely dissolved a reif and filled that particular tank with a slimy mass of intestines. But that was the least of her problems.

She assessed all they thus far knew: Vrell was alive and well and parked directly beneath them in his father’s spaceship; a larger vessel had then arrived from the Kingdom with the obvious intent of turning Vrell into Prador kebabs while the Warden had been trying to prevent collateral damage. Communication with the AI up on Coram had been intermittent at best, and even when they achieved it, the Warden did not have much to say. The AI probably felt that informing them they were about to die would only prolong the general anguish. The planetary server was also not doing so well and, what with the same EM interference that had done for the reifs, the Sable Keech’s com system was down too. But the attack had ceased, so what now?

‘Thirteen!’ Erlin bellowed.

Perhaps trying to find out more might be an unwise move. Really she should just head for her bunk, as had been her intention.

‘Thirteen!’ she bellowed again.

‘I’m here.’

The seahorse drone rose up beside the ship and hovered before her, glinting in the light of the burning sky.

‘I thought you’d gone,’ said Erlin. ‘This is not exactly the safest place to be at the moment.’

‘It was safer here than trying to get to elsewhere. Even though I am small, Vrell’s systems would still have detected me and shot me down.’

Erlin observed the water dripping from the drone’s iron-coloured skin. ‘You’ve been down to Vrell’s ship.’

‘Vrell’s internal security is good, but not that good.’

‘Anything to report?’

‘I managed to slip inside through a damaged section of the hull. Vrell is in serious trouble. Not only does he have one of his relatives intent on obliterating him before he can leave the planet, but he cannot leave anyway.’

‘Explain.’

‘He has some of the Vignette’s crew working on the U-space engine. I scanned it. It’s damaged and I very much doubt he possesses the facilities to repair it,’ replied the drone succinctly.

‘Vignette?’ asked Erlin.

‘Ah, you don’t know,’ said Thirteen, then explained.

Erlin contemplated the situation. Ron, having fought the Prador in that long-ago war, and being simply what he was, an Old Captain, would not be at all pleased. And certainly, knowing Hoopers were enslaved in the ship below him, he would want to act. She herself understood the horror of the situation, and realized that something must be done.

‘The rest of the Vignette crew?’ she asked.

‘They are secured in a holding area, their thralls keeping them somnolent.’

‘And Vrell himself?’

‘As far as I can ascertain he is working in the drone cache. I avoided him completely—evading the spaceship’s security systems was difficult enough.’

Erlin nodded. ‘Why’s the shooting stopped?’

‘I do not know.’

‘Then ask the Warden.’

The drone bobbed in the air, as if undecided, then agreed: ‘Very well.’ The delay before the drone’s next utterance was brief. The voice, however, sounded different. ‘Ah, Erlin, you seem well enough after your recent adventures.’

‘Thank you so much, Warden. Now perhaps you can update me somewhat on current events?’

Still speaking through Thirteen, the Warden replied, ‘Vrost, the Prador who recently turned this area into a war zone, has desisted for the moment. How long this will last is open to conjecture.’

‘And what are we supposed to do, meanwhile?’

‘Do you have by chance any religious inclinations?’

‘None at all.’

‘Then any suggestion that you pray would be wasted. I will let you know if there is any means I can use to get you out of this trap.’

The light advancing and retreating in its eyes, the drone jerked as the Warden suddenly withdrew.

To Thirteen, Erlin said, ‘Wade tells me there’s a submarine aboard. Maybe, with that, something can be organized to rescue at least some of the Vignette’s crew?’

‘The hull of Vrell’s ship is only three metres down,’ the drone told her.

‘Just breather gear or good lungs should do then.’ She pointed to the dead creatures floating in the sea. ‘It’s not very lively down there at the moment. Tell Captain Ron I’ll join him on the bridge shortly. I’m sure we can work something out between us.’

The drone drew back a little way, as if mulling over her suggestion. Erlin sniffed and wrinkled her nose. A putrid odour had infected the air. Somewhere close by was a virus-infected reif. Then Thirteen swivelled abruptly and bellowed, ‘Watch out!’

Bony fingers closed around her throat, dragging Erlin back from the rail. Another skeletal hand opened before her face, extending blades from its fingertips. Then a blinding flash of ruby light cut the air, and she saw Thirteen fall from sight, canted to one side with steam pouring from it.

‘Yes, let’s join Captain Ron on the bridge,’ said Taylor Bloc, from the shadows.

Aesop, clutching a laser carbine, stepped over to the rail and peered down into the sea.

‘Fragile hardware,’ he commented.

‘Yes, Polity technology often is,’ agreed Bloc, as he stepped hideously into view, five of his Kladites crowding behind him.

Erlin at once realized Bloc had not been looking after his physical condition. She also knew what it took to bring down a Polity drone like Thirteen. She remained silent about both matters.

Over a wide area, few creatures were moving. The underwater shock waves had ruptured leeches, prill and glisters; EM pulses had disrupted the senses of other bottom dwellers; and infrasound and ultrasound weapons had done for the remainder. However, right beside two downed Prador drones, a silvery eye extruded on a stalk from the settling mud.

Even though chameleonware had always been the form of concealment favoured by the Polity, Vrell, having installed such tech in his own drone, had expected no less from his Prador attackers and so had designed a defence to counter it. The attacking drones and armoured Prador had indeed used chameleonware, which was surprising to Sniper, but Vrell used EM pulses to disrupt the ‘ware long enough for any attackers to be detected and destroyed, and the ‘ware, not really being efficient in a medium like water, Vrell’s torps had homed in on the holes it created. However, there remained one hole in Vrell’s defence: conventional concealment.

Since his chameleonware would conceal him neither in the sky nor sea, approaching that way would have been suicidal. However, the mud beneath lay metres deep and, clinging to the rocky bottom below it, the old Polity drone had been able to drag himself, so far undetected, to within a few kilometres of Vrell’s ship. Now it seemed the battle was over, there being no disrupting EM pulses coursing through the water. But Sniper was not fooled: the line of detectors might be a few kilometres behind him, but they would still pick up his absence in the water if he emerged from the mud and turned on his ‘ware.

‘What do you hope to achieve, Sniper?’ enquired the Warden over U-space com.

Sniper paused and considered numerous foul responses. Instead he chose to be reasonable. ‘If I can get to Vrell, this could all be over in the time it takes me to pull off his legs.’

After a pause, the Warden replied, ‘Continue, then, and inform me the moment you are aboard his ship—should that remote possibility occur.’

Sniper retracted his eye and dragged himself onwards. Only another ten kilometres to cover.

The bar had no closing time. As rhinoworms were no longer trying to scramble aboard, and no local monsters seemed likely to try while the Sable Keech sat on a bloody great Prador spaceship, Janer decided there was nothing else for it but to enjoy a good drink or two then head for his bed.

‘If Zephyr tries to leave now, Vrell’s weapons would destroy him,’ he observed to Wade, sitting opposite him at the table.

‘This is true,’ said the Golem.

‘What was your plan then?’ asked Janer. ‘If our friend had not appeared below, and Zephyr did head off?’

‘Follow him and try to dissuade him from his course, then if all else failed, destroy him.’

‘It all sounds wonderfully simple, except for one problem. You can’t fly.’

‘Wrong, Mr Anders. I keep an AG harness in my cabin.’

Janer took another slug of rum. ‘Just one?’

‘Yes, just one.’

Janer liked Isis Wade and understood some of his motivations, but his trust of the Golem remained limited. Wade was here, apparently, to heal a rift in an ancient hive mind’s personality and, failing that, to altruistically prevent a catastrophe which the other half of that personality might cause. That all sounded fine, but how close to the edge would Wade play it? Would he wait until Spatterjay and all its inhabitants were teetering on the edge of disaster? Would he wait too long and be unable to prevent Zephyr using the virus? Janer realized that if Zephyr flew and Wade pursued, he must somehow follow as well, but he was not sure how he could manage that.

Then other matters intruded. The ship’s intercom gave an ersatz crackle and Ron began to speak. ‘All passengers and crew must return to their cabins for the duration of the current crisis. This order comes direct from Taylor Bloc. Anyone seen on deck or in the ship’s corridors will be shot on sight and tipped over the side… and that includes all you Hoopers out there. Go immediately to your cabins, and stay there or answer to me. Janer Cord Anders is to report to the bridge.’

‘What the fuck?’ murmured Janer, inevitably.

Reifications were getting up from the nearby tables. None of them could show much in the way of expression, but Janer guessed they must be scared. It seemed Bloc had finally gone completely power crazy, and the ancient expression control freak now occurred to him.

‘So, what do we do?’ he hissed to Wade.

The Hoopers were leaving as well. They could have quite easily dealt with any Kladites on deck and were probably not much concerned about anything else Bloc might do, but he knew that there were few Hoopers who dared risk Captain Ron’s wrath.

‘You will go to the bridge,’ said Wade, his head tilted to one side as if he was listening to something. ‘And you will do nothing with that nice little gun of yours, no matter how tempting that might seem.’ Wade smiled tiredly. ‘Of course, even Zephyr and myself have been experiencing problems after the recent EM emissions, so I very much doubt that any of the security systems are still operating below decks.’

‘So?’ said Janer.

Wade held out the flat of his palm. ‘It won’t be your concern, Janer.’

‘What are you on about?’

‘You had better go now. You’ve just half an hour, and the bridge is not that close.’

Janer swore, got out of his chair, and headed for the door.

Drooble and Shalen stood behind the Prador, handing it the tools it required. Orbus and Lannias stood back against the wall, out of the way but ready should Vrell summon them. Orbus blinked, comprehending the scene from inside the rigid Prador grip on his mind, like a glister wrapped in the tentacles of a giant whelk. When he managed to fix his mind on the contents of the engine casing, comprehension fled him for a moment, for there were things in there that twisted out of human perception, but it returned even stronger as his gaze fell away.

I’m beating the thrall, just like Captain Drum did, he realized.

Keeping his eyes averted he peered down at his hands and tried to move them. Nothing for a moment, then, as if his right forefinger suspended the full weight of a man, it slowly eased itself out from his thigh. He snapped it back down, his eyes facing forwards, when Vrell abruptly turned and himself selected from the tool chest something that seemed to bleed shadow. Orbus realized, by what feedback he could understand through the controlling link from the Prador, that the creature was not fully repairing the engine. He sensed the shifting of plot and counterplot in an incredibly complex mind, but could understand no more than that. Eventually, however, the Prador was satisfied. Hissing, it drew back from the compartment and its hinged upper half closed down on the incomprehensible components inside it. New orders then came through the Captain’s thrall, and with Lannias he stepped forwards to go to work.

Orbus reached out, unhooked an optic cable from where it had been tied to the framework above the U-space engine, and plugged it into the casing. Reaching for the collet that fully engaged the cable, he then paused for a moment. The itchy dug-in tic-like irritation at the back of his neck felt unbearable, but maybe now he could do something about it. With a huge effort he lifted his hand away from the casing. He found the further he moved it, the less effort he required, as he eroded the control over him. Finally, his hand poised at the back of his neck, he ground his nails in hard, scratching through skin and flesh down to the multi-legged cylindrical device beside his spine. The relief was immense—this was an itch he had been unable to scratch. Sighing, he glanced drunkenly round at his fellows, his mouth clamped shut to stop his leech tongue from escaping.

Their skin was dark blue, and they all possessed leech tongues, too. Lannias had a forehead now divided into segments, and Shalen’s face jutted forwards as if turning into something bestial. But with robotic precision they all continued reattaching the optic and power feeds, and reinstalling the support equipment. Only Drooble, right next to him, showed any hesitation in his movements. And Orbus noticed a small scabby split had appeared in the back of the man’s neck, over his thrall.

As he placed an optical amplifier against the casing and began pulling the clips across to hold it in place, Orbus considered his present situation. He had known something like this might happen, having heard Drum’s story, but what now? He was only moments away from being able to pull the thrall from his own neck—its control of him now slipping away. Afterwards, he could continue with the job in hand without any noticeable interruption, as Vrell’s instructions were firmly embedded in his memory rather than in the thrall itself. However, if the Prador at any time changed those instructions, or checked the thrall linkages, it would soon realize it no longer controlled him. Orbus wondered what would then happen. The thrall, once being rejected, could not be reattached. Vrell would either core him fully, or else kill and eat him. Not the most promising of choices.

He must escape, then, or die trying. He again glanced at these four members of his crew. He would free them of their thralls, as perhaps, despite their inclinations, they would realize what choices remained to them. Orbus reached up, stuck a finger into the wound in his neck, hooked it around the thrall’s body, and pulled hard. The thing came out like a huge splinter, its wriggling legs coated with yellow pus. Reaching back to the tool chest, Orbus took out a large clamp, closed it on the thrall, then dropped both clamp and thrall underneath the engine casing. Had he destroyed it, Vrell might have been alerted. Now, with the heavy clamp on it, the thing would not be able to crawl away to alert the Prador. Drum had only got away with destroying his thrall because he had been enslaved to it by voice, not through a direct radio channel. Orbus then finished attaching the amplifier, before turning to Drooble, as he reached over for something on a work surface extending from one side of the tool chest. Orbus stabbed a finger into the opening wound at the back of the man’s neck, and quickly hooked out his thrall.

‘Oh, oh the bastard,’ said Drooble.

‘Keep working,’ said Orbus, taking up another clamp.

Drooble gave him a wild look, the tip of his leech tongue questing around his chin, but he found enough sanity to obey his Captain. Orbus then moved around the engine casing, and positioned himself beside the next of his co-workers.

Kladites packed the foremast stair leading up to the enclosed bridge, which was also crowded. Including Ron and Forlam, there were five Hoopers here at the controls, besides John Styx and Santen Marcollian. Erlin was standing back against a wall, with Bones behind her, his bladed bony fingers at her throat. Two Kladites stood either side of the Captain, their weapons trained on him unwaveringly. A putrid smell permeated the air. Bloc, standing behind Aesop with his back to the forward window, was obviously the source of the stench.

Something was obviously going seriously wrong with Bloc’s preservation routines. Rather than resembling a dried-out mummy, he now bore the appearance of a corpse that had lain rotting on a riverbed for some time. Some of his grey skin had slewed aside from the back of one hand and also from his neck, to reveal white flesh beneath. The transparent syntheskin on his skull had bulged up like a damaged fingernail, and the grey morass underneath it was veined with vivid yellow. His spectacle irrigator sprayed intermittently, and both his eyes wept constantly. When he moved, looking from side to side as if expecting attack at any moment, the exposed white flesh of his neck became beaded with yellow pus.

Janer realized Bloc was long overdue for going into a tank, since the Spatterjay virus, which in a living body fed upon dead tissue, was feeding on his entire body—rotting it away.

‘Well, this is interesting,’ said Janer. ‘What are we doing here?’

Why had Bloc decided to do this?

‘You—over there.’ Bloc directed Janer to go and stand beside Erlin.

Janer did as instructed, turning to Erlin with, ‘What’s going on?’

Ron interjected bitterly, ‘Seems Bloc doesn’t want anyone trying to get to the Prador ship to rescue the crew of the Vignette.’ The Captain ignored the two Kladites covering him, though his angry gaze never strayed from Bones. ‘Now why is that, do you reckon?’

Vignette? Janer quickly put together the facts just made available to him, and came to the only conclusion possible: the Prador must have grabbed the crew, so they were human blanks now, slaves. That then was one source of Ron’s anger. He remembered their conversation outside the Baitman when they had first encountered Wade. ‘Never underestimate how Old Captains feel about that,’ Ron had said, referring back to thralldom and the Prador. The other source of his anger was the threat to Erlin, who all Old Captains now looked upon as something of an icon.

‘It is not your right to speculate,’ Bloc bubbled. ‘You will all remain here, and everyone else must remain below decks.’

‘Ah,’ said Ron, ‘that’s to prevent anyone going over the rail to make that rescue attempt.’ He finally now looked around.

‘That is correct,’ Bloc replied.

‘What’s your interest?’ asked Janer.

Bloc glanced at him. ‘You will all stay here,’ he repeated.

‘Why?’ demanded Ron. ‘I can understand you keeping some of us here, but what about the rest of them?’ He pointed at John Styx, Santen Marcollian and the Hooper crew. ‘This lot could cause you no more problems than those below decks, and it is a bit crowded in here.’

Bloc froze as if this was too much input to process, then after a moment said, ‘Very well. You’—he pointed at Ron—‘will remain here along with Erlin and Janer.’ He turned to John Styx. ‘You too will remain.’

‘Then I will stay too,’ said Santen Marcollian.

Styx looked at her. ‘Santen, please leave with the rest.’

Bloc seemed to have some trouble with this, since his eye irrigators were drenching his face again. ‘You will both stay… as hostages.’

‘There you go,’ remarked Ron, looking towards Forlam, who was now heading for the door with some others. ‘So you lot remember, no one is to go over the side and submerse.’ While Forlam looked back at him he added, ‘Anyway, there’ll be no one to lead a rescue, what with that Polity drone, Thirteen, having been destroyed by laser.’

Janer winced at this flagrant hint, but it seemed to have shot straight over Bloc’s putrefying head. The four Hoopers and the reif filed out of the bridge and headed below decks.

‘What now?’ Janer asked.

‘We wait,’ said Bloc. ‘We wait until it’s all over.’

The sun was due to rise at any time now, and was turning the sky into a rainbow maelstrom. Ambel thought about the battle they had witnessed the previous evening. He had recognized the glare of particle beams cutting the sky, laser flashes and the dull crump of explosions. But then it had all suddenly ceased, and only minutes later gold-armoured Prador and spherical war drones had been speeding overhead, to the sound of Captain Drum’s curses as he waved his fist at the sky. Either Vrost had won the victory he sought, or for some other reason the Prador captain had recalled its forces. Ambel, though, now had more immediate concerns.

The island was visible; a dark mass poised between the psychedelic sky and its reflection in the ocean. Within a few hours they would be hitting the beach, and less than an hour after that, mayhem. He turned to Captain Drum, who now stood beside him on the foredeck.

‘Maybe it won’t touch the Moby,’ he suggested.

‘Maybe it’ll tie a white flag to its tentacle and immediately surrender,’ Drum replied.

He seemed a bit tetchy this morning, but Ambel felt this had less to do with rowing all night bringing across his crew, weapons and supplies from the Moby, and more to do with witnessing Prador up there in the sky, out of reach.

‘Anyway,’ Drum added, ‘you better hope it does attack my ship.’

Ambel glanced down at the two crews standing ready on deck. They were all armed, and the harpoons from both ships were sharpened, their ropes attached. Ambel just hoped they would be able to find something to which those ropes could be tied. He harrumphed, raised his binoculars and gazed across at Drum’s ship. The sail, Cloudskimmer, was doing an excellent job, controlling the Moby’s fabric sails and steering the ship with his jaws clamped on the helm. But inevitably the Moby was lagging behind.

‘How much are you paying him?’ Ambel asked.

‘Twice his normal fee, plus he wants an aug like the one you gave Galegrabber.’ Drum gazed at Ambel estimatingly. ‘Supposing I can afford it.’

They had yet to settle who was to blame for all this. Whelkus titanicus had started out pursuing Ambel, and Drum had opined that had he himself sailed away, it would have left him alone. Ambel disputed this, adding that the creature’s behaviour seemed very odd, and anyway it had not pursued him through any fault of his own. Drum then decided it was Erlin who would shortly be owing him a lot of Spatterjay New Skind.

Their pursuer surfaced occasionally, as if not wanting them to become complacent about it. Earlier, when they had necessarily run slightly athwart the wind and as a consequence slowed, it had drifted to one side, pulling away from the Treader, which was closer, to go after the Moby instead. It might have caught them otherwise. Ambel felt the whelk was enjoying the chase far too much.

‘If there’s shallows way out,’ Ambel said loudly, ‘we’ll use both ship’s boats to ferry everyone in. All the harpoons will have to take precedence in the boats. Without them we’ll be running around this island till we all turn into skinners.’

‘I doubt we’ll get everyone ashore before it attacks,’ murmured Drum.

‘Let’s hope for a steep beach,’ Ambel murmured back.

As they drew closer to the island, the sun gilded the underside of distant cloud and now began washing colour from the sky. Meanwhile, the island’s central volcanic cone became distinct above thick foliage. A great swathe of peartrunk trees had been toppled, probably by the recent wave, but enough still stood for Ambel’s purpose.

‘Keep us straight,’ Ambel told Boris, then bellowed, ‘Peck, get forward and keep an eye out for shoals!’

His shotgun resting across his shoulder, Peck obeyed.

‘The rest of you,’ Ambel continued, ‘load the boats. We want to launch as soon as we can, even if we can beach the ship.’

The crews began stowing harpoons and other items in the boats, which were hung like upside-down beetles’ wings on davits either side of the ship. With Drum following, Ambel climbed down to the lower deck, then headed forwards to peer over the side. Even though the rising sun reflected off the water, he could see the occasional shape passing below the ship, and undulating masses that were the upper foliage of kelp trees.

‘We need to get right in, and quick,’ said Drum, pointing.

Ambel squinted in the direction indicated, noticing a mass of something floating on the surface. At first he thought he was seeing sargassum, then realized the mass was moving. Juvenile rhinoworms—the situation just got better and better.

‘Starboard, two points!’ Peck abruptly yelled.

The ship turned slightly, and Ambel observed a twisted mass of packetworm coral like some sunken temple sliding by to port. The ship shuddered as a grating vibration came up through the deck.

‘Okay,’ Peck muttered, ‘three points.’

‘Let’s get that anchor chain up—we might be needing it,’ said Drum.

The two Captains moved up behind Peck and began hauling heavy anchor chain out of the chain locker and coiling it on the deck.

Soon, over the side of the ship, the bottom became clearly visible. Ambel estimated the depth to be four metres. Also visible down there were the pink anguine shapes of more juvenile rhinoworms. Nothing else was evident, but then anything else around here would have been eaten by now, no matter how solid its shell.

‘I reckon we’ll be able to pull her in,’ stated Ambel.

‘We’ll need cover,’ said Drum.

Ambel nodded and turned to the crew. ‘Anne, Davy-bronte, and anyone with Polity weapons, let’s have you up here!’

Anne stepped forwards screwing a new energy canister into her laser carbine, then came Davy-bronte, brandishing his QC laser. Ambel was glad to see that some of Drum’s crew also carried the necessary weapons: one pulse gun, a laser carbine and a pulse rifle.

‘Okay,’ said the Captain, ‘the rest of you with old guns, divide yourselves evenly between the two boats. That way you can cover us from either side if we have to haul the ship in.’ Their various antiquated automatic weapons, rifles, six-guns and shotguns would not prove very effective against worms swimming under water, but were better than nothing.

When Ambel turned to face forward again, he observed Drum holding an apple-sized silver device with a small touch-pad connected to one end. ‘I was saving this to shove up a Prador where the sun don’t shine, but I guess I’ll have to use it now.’

‘Don’t drop it too near the hull,’ Ambel advised.

Drum snorted.

Now the bottom was only a few metres down, and the beach close. Ambel heaved up the anchor and moved beside Peck, gesturing him to stand back.

‘It’s reached her,’ said Drum.

Looking back, Ambel saw Cloudskimmer taking wing from the Moby, which was canted to one side with its stern low in the water. A long white tentacle rose high out of the sea, reaching higher than the masts, then smashed down straight through the ship. Deck planking shot into the air and one mast began to topple.

‘Fucking thing.’ Drum faced forward and hurled his grenade into the shallows just before the beach. The Treader then began to shudder as its keel started to bite into the bottom. Another crash from behind, and the two halves of the Moby were sinking. A great fan of tentacles rose over it, a glittering mountainous shell visible behind.

‘Get the boats in!’ bellowed Ambel.

Rope hissed through the davit pulleys, the two ship’s boats dropping to the sea. Crew not standing with Ambel and Drum began scrambling over the side and into them. From ahead there came a dull boom, followed by an explosion of spume and fire and snakish corpses. The force of the blast rode the ship up from the bottom for a moment, then it came down hard, shuddering to a halt and flinging some of the remaining crew into the sea. Ambel had no time to watch who might rescue those unfortunates.

‘Get your heads down!’ he bellowed, and, once his warning was heeded, began swinging the heavy anchor round and round above him on a length of its chain. He released it towards the beach and, towing out its chain with a rattling roar, it splashed down only metres from the shoreline. Drum jumped over the prow ahead of Ambel, who followed, submerging to his neck in the water, his feet just touching the bottom. Up again, and he swam after the other Captain, as pulse-gun and laser fire began hissing into the sea around him. On either side the boats came in, their crews also firing at writhing shapes in the water. When the water was only up to Ambel’s waist, a rhinoworm—nearly out of adolescence, for it had dropped its forelegs—reared up beside him. He backhanded it up out of the sea and sent it flying back five metres through the air. Soon he joined Drum, who had lifted the anchor from the bottom. They took firm hold of one tine each.

‘Well, here we go then,’ said Ambel.

He knew that Polity citizens witnessing this sort of strength might be shocked, but for himself and Drum it was just something they accepted, as it increased over the centuries. At one time even he and Drum would have struggled to raise this anchor together, but now hauling on it to straighten out a tonne of chain behind was no big deal to them—it had taken the best part of a thousand years for them to become capable of this.

‘Let’s get her in, then,’ growled Drum.

They began trudging ashore, pulling the Treader in behind them. Once they reached dry land, because of the combined weight being carried and the force they were exerting, they waded up to their knees in the sand. Reaching the head of the beach, they found an outcrop of volcanic stone, upon which they took a stand to continue pulling the chain, hand-over-hand, until the ship’s prow was out of the water.

‘Let’s move it!’ Ambel yelled, dropping the chain and gunshot-clapping his hands.

The crew were swiftly unloading the boats, hauling harpoons and other supplies up the beach. Nothing remained of the Moby but floating shards, and beyond the Treader a mobile hill was rapidly heading shorewards.