The Skinner Read online

Tay glanced round at the drone as it came level with her shoulder. ‘Wait, you didn’t say why you thought Frisk might be here,’ she said quickly.

  Just then the SM jerked, shaking itself like a wet dog. ‘Well, there he was, gone,’ said SM12.

  ‘Did he answer my last question?’ Tay asked.

  ‘The boss don’t know why she’s here, but says it could be any of three clear reasons or combinations of them: to kill Keech, to find her husband, or to die here. He says the last is a certainty – through her choice or otherwise.’ And with that, the drone gave her its green-light grin again and shot up into the air.

  10

  The first male glister noted a vibration and a shifting of currents but recognized these as being no threat to itself. It continued to tear and feed, comforted by the knowledge that there were few creatures in the sea that could penetrate its adamantine shell. The presence of a large boulder to one side of it – revealed as one of these shifting currents dispersed the organic cloud for a moment – was something it puzzled over for only a moment before getting its nose down to its meal again. Its puzzlement increased when it soon noted how this boulder seemed to have got much closer. When the boulder suddenly heaved up and huge eyes observed it through the murk, the glister had time only for a few seconds of confusion, before it too became a crunchy mouthful.

  Keech was a blurred shape behind silver monofilament. He had coiled himself into a foetal position, and the autodoc clung to his side like a chromed crab. Umbilici and cables snaked from the surrounding fluid to Erlin’s drug manufactory, Keech’s cleansing unit, Janer’s computer, and other jury-rigged hardware.

  ‘That’s the best we can do for him,’ said Erlin.

  Janer noted that her hands were shaking. He himself had slept for a couple of hours, but she hadn’t stopped working all night. She slumped into a chair and sat staring at the floor. Janer walked over to her and took hold of her upper arm. She stood without him having to say anything, turned and rested her head against his shoulder.

  ‘Best you get to your bunk,’ he urged.

  She nodded her head, still resting against him, and allowed him to lead her to the cabin she shared with Goss and seat her on the bed. She showed no inclination to do anything more.

  ‘You’ll keep an eye on the read-outs?’ she said.

  ‘I will.’

  ‘You’re a good man.’

  ‘Debatable.’

  He reached down to her and tried to turn her over so she could lie down. Her arms came up round his neck and, before he knew what was happening, she was kissing him. After a time, they parted.

  ‘Is this a good idea?’ he asked.

  She unzipped the front of her coverall and gazed up at him.

  ‘It’s what I want,’ she said. ‘What about you?’

  He looked at the light blue circles visible on her dark skin. There were only a few of them. He put his hand on her neck and ran it down to cover one small breast. Her nipple was hard against his palm, as she lay back.

  ‘Help me off with this stuff. I’m too knackered to do it myself.’

  Janer pulled her coverall down from her shoulders, and over her hips when she raised them. He tugged off her shoes then slid the overalls off completely. She now lay naked, staring up at him, stroking a hand over her belly.

  ‘Stress always makes me horny,’ she confessed.

  ‘Me too,’ said Janer, nearly breaking his neck in his hurry to get undressed. The fit of giggles that followed unmanned him for a while. But Erlin was warm and, although with the body of an eighteen-year-old, brought to their love-making the experience of over two centuries. This experience for Janer, himself only just into his second century, was enlightening. He soon discovered that there was nothing Erlin did not know about the human body, and how best to use it.

  Alternately rubbing his eyes and his belly, Captain Drum left his cabin. He felt he’d maybe overdone it on the hammer whelks and sea-cane rum – just a tad, but not enough to cause any real damage. What had finished him off had been those glister brains on toast. The ensuing hallucinations had been of the flying kind and had continued throughout the night. He felt sluggish and slightly ill, as if the virus inside him was punishing him for his excesses. It was a moment, therefore, before he realized that what he was now seeing – mostly submerged next to the island of sargassum – was no Spatterjay leviathan he recognized. ‘Orlis, get that anchor up, nice and easy, lad.’ Drum moved to the rail to get a closer look at the initially unfamiliar shape. His vision was still a bit blurry, and some part of himself was trying to deny what he was seeing. Finally, he could deny no longer that he was observing Prador pictographs impressed in golden metal armour.

  Jack, the first mate, walked up and stood beside him. ‘What’s up, Cap’n? . . . Oh!’

  ‘That,’ said Drum, ‘is a Prador light destroyer, armoured with that damned exotic metal that always made ’em so hard to blow.’ He looked round to check that Orlis had the anchor in, then hurried to take the helm. ‘Wake up, Windcatcher!’ he shouted, and tried to turn the wheel. When it did not move, he pushed harder, then felt wood beginning to break in his hands, so he eased off.

  ‘Boarders!’ Jack yelled, suddenly.

  Before Drum could react, a shape in black crabskin armour was on deck, levelling some kind of weapon. There was a flash and a thud and, trailing smoke, Jack went flying over the opposite rail. Before he hit the water, he blew apart and Drum saw one of his legs go cartwheeling across the surface of the sea. Another black-clad killer came over the rail – then another.

  ‘Get ’em, lads!’

  Orlis threw the anchor at the last one to come on deck. With a sickening crunch, the anchor folded that one, and he just lay down to die. With a roar, Orlis charged the next one, but something suddenly lifted him from his feet and flung him four metres back. He lay on the deck staring at the smoking wound in his stomach.

  ‘Hey! It’s only—’

  A flat detonation curtailed his observation, and spread bits of him all over ship.

  Drum picked up a harpoon head that Banner had been working on, up on the cabin-deck, and moved to join the fray.

  ‘One step further and you’re dead.’

  Drum stopped exactly where he was, and looked around. The woman standing there held a heavy pulse-gun trained on him, and he knew she wasn’t kidding – it might take her two or three shots, but he’d certainly go down. Whoever these people were, they had come prepared for the durability of Hoopers.

  The woman seemed surprised for a moment. ‘You . . .’ she said, then, ‘I suppose you don’t recognize me, Little Skin.’

  Drum had not been called that in more years than he cared to remember. And even then there had only been a certain group of people who ever used the nickname. A sick feeling grew in his stomach as he guessed who this woman must be. Immediately he put her appearance down to cosmetic surgery, but quickly realized that had to be wrong. Whoever had given herself up to ECS needed to have the right genetic code for ECS to be fooled. That meant the woman before him had either cloned herself, or actually sent her own body. Drum knew which she had done, and why she looked so different now.

  ‘The sail, secure the sail!’ the woman yelled as she moved up behind him.

  Three loud thumps followed, and he glanced down to see one of the armoured figures beside the mast, with some sort of bolt gun. The sail screeched and struggled in the spars – ratchets and chains clanking below and the foremast slamming back and forth. Another detonation followed and Banner’s head went bouncing along the deck.

  Drum swore and threw the harpoon head at the woman. The gun stuttered in her double-handed grip, and Drum staggered under the impact of ionized gas pulses hitting his torso. It hurt like hell and there was a smell of burning flesh in his nostrils. She fired again and it felt to Drum like he’d been hit in the chest with a shovel. Losing his balance fell back towards the ladder, where a third hit sent him over towards the deck. His head struck the hard timbers and the world went dark �
�� so thankfully he did not see the rest of his crew being slaughtered.

  Rebecca Frisk gazed down at the three Batians as they removed their breather helmets and went to check on their comrade. Svan, Tors and Shib were all heavy-worlders, and all quite capable of tearing an Earth-normal human to pieces. Dime also, and the anchor thrown at him had nearly cut him in half. Svan, the woman whom Frisk had initially hired, soon saw that there was nothing to be done for her comrade, and turned to climb the ladder on to the deck which formed the roof of the forecabin.

  ‘They are dangerous and strong. It’s a shame we weren’t sufficiently acquainted with that fact before meeting Olian Tay,’ said Svan, once she was face to face with Frisk.

  ‘You were warned this time,’ said Frisk, a glassy smile on her face. ‘You have now also been provided with weapons suitable to the task, rather than those silly carbines you had before.’ She pointed to where Dime lay. ‘It seems that even such a warning and such weapons are not enough.’

  Svan turned from her and stared out over the sea to where the Prador ship was surfacing, its chameleon skin of exotic armour now taking on the colour and texture of the nearby island of sargassum, so that it now appeared to be an extension of that island.

  ‘We will be more careful in future.’

  Frisk congratulated herself on choosing these stone killers. Ebulan had offered her some of his human blanks, but she doubted he could control them as well as these Batians controlled themselves. Very fast reactions were needed to deal with Hoopers. She glanced at her hand and noted it was shaking. She put it on the rail to still it, and ignored the closing slit in her cheek where the harpoon had just missed slicing her head in half.

  ‘As for when you take the Captain aboard,’ said Frisk, nodding to a small wedge-shaped transport that was on its way over from the Prador ship, ‘full-restraint harness. Remember: a Hooper his age is about twice as strong as you are, and a lot more durable. Be prepared to hit him with a level-six stun if he so much as quivers.’

  Svan went down to the lower deck and supervised the fixing of the ceramal restraint harness on Drum. With a feeling of melancholy, Frisk watched the proceedings. How ironic that so long ago she had saved this same man from coring in order to make him her personal body slave – and now to do this? She stared for a moment then took a cloth from her pocket to wipe away the small spill of blood on her cheek. As the cloth touched blood, she convulsed violently, dropping her pulse-gun on to the deck. Svan glanced up at her, but Frisk stepped quickly out of sight, pulled an injector from her belt and pressed it to her neck. The shaking stopped shortly after, but the feeling of dislocation, of not quite knowing whom she was or why she was, persisted. Bad nerve conflict. Partially under control, Frisk moved back to the rail.

  Speaker and two guard blanks came aboard to collect Drum.

  ‘We have experienced previous difficulties with the coring of long-term Hooper humans,’ said Speaker, staring up at her.

  ‘You just need to be as quick as you can, and not worry about extraneous damage,’ Frisk informed the Prador in its ship. ‘Don’t bother removing the cerebrum either, just cut in and use a spider thrall unit.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Speaker.

  They never nod or use any hand gestures, Frisk observed for perhaps the thousandth time.

  ‘Oh, and don’t worry about his injuries. Hoopers heal very quickly,’ she added as they hauled the Captain over the side. Then she pressed a hand against her mouth to suppress a giggle.

  A wind from the east began blowing with greater and greater intensity, rolling the cloud into grey threads across the sky’s jade face. With the occasional imprecation and much skill, Windcheater and Boris tacked the Treader out of the cove, then rounded the island and ran before what seemed the start of a squall. The morning was gone before the island was out of sight, and a persistent drizzle sheened Windcheater and soaked the crew. Boris stood at the helm in a long waxed-cotton coat and sou’wester, and grumbled when the rest of the crew went below for shelter. Windcheater held his head up and was enjoying the moisture and cold.

  Ambel came and stood beside Boris for a little while before turning to him. ‘I’ll take over in a couple of hours, but I’ll send Peck up with some rum tea before then,’ he said.

  ‘Aye, Captain,’ said Boris, quite used to long lonely watches at the helm.

  Ambel stood there uncomfortably for another moment, then asked, ‘You got any sprine, Boris?’

  Boris gave him an odd look before replying. ‘Don’t carry it, Captain. Anything happens where I might need it, and I’d likely get no chance to use it,’ he said.

  Ambel nodded, moving to the ladder.

  ‘Try Peck,’ Boris advised. ‘He’d be the one.’

  Ambel nodded again, climbed down, and swung at the bottom to drop himself before the door of his cabin. Once inside he immediately opened his sea-chest. He didn’t attempt to open the box containing theSkinner’s head – just stared at it for a while before closing the chest and leaving his cabin. Clumping across the deck, he opened the hatch leading down into the crew quarters, and went through. As he descended, he could smell rum tea being made.

  ‘You got any sprine, Peck?’ he asked.

  Peck looked up from the little stove, shook his head, and returned his attention to the kettle. Ambel reckoned he was lying. Any Hooper who had been through the kind of experience Peck had endured would carry sprine just in case such a situation should recur.

  Ambel didn’t push it. ‘Any of you others got some?’ he asked generally.

  ‘Got any what?’ asked Pland, who lay on his bunk with a book propped on his knees.

  ‘Sprine, you idiot,’ Anne replied, from the bunk above him.

  ‘I ain’t that rich,’ complained Pland.

  Ambel looked next at Anne and she shook her head. He leaned back and glanced over to the junior’s quarters, then decided not to bother. No chance young ’uns like that had any sprine. You didn’t really get to think much about dying until you were reaching the end of your second century.

  ‘We’ll have to refine some then,’ he said.

  Nobody asked what for. They all knew what Ambel kept in his cabin.

  ‘We’d need a steady mooring for that,’ observed Pland.

  Ambel said, ‘We’ll cross Deep-sea, pick up one or two more on the way across, then moor at the west atolls. We can do it there.’ He gave them an estimating look. ‘Take an hour or so off, then I’ll want you up on deck and ready.’ And, with that, he climbed back above.

  An hour later, he was up on the cabin-deck, scanning the sea with his ancient set of binoculars, when a humped shape slid into view.

  ‘We got one!’ Ambel yelled. ‘Hard to port!’

  Boris drained the last of his rum tea, and hung his tin cup on his belt, before steering the ship towards the distant shape.

  Windcatcher adjusted himself accordingly. The rest of the crew clambered up on deck, but as the Treader drew closer to the shape, they all realized something was wrong. There were no prill visible there, and the hump was too steep, too immobile.

  ‘Yer molly carp again,’ said Peck.

  They were silent for a while as they watched the great fish parallelling their course, then, because they were now on deck anyway, they slowly began to set about their normal duties. Anne sharpened harpoons and knives. Peck had a couple of juniors helping him repair ropes, and making new ones from a bag of fibre beaten from sargassum stalks. Pland worked in the hold, salting rhinoworm steak, and Boris had the helm, of course. Other crew continued with that constant round of tasks which kept their ship seaworthy: the constant repairs to the superstructure; the greasing of chains and sprockets; the tightening of chains, cables, and bearing shells, besides the endless scrubbing and polishing.

  As they worked, the crew-members considered what they already knew. They had all heard stories about molly carp – about their tenacity and the odd things they did. They were aware that to have one hanging around while they were hunting giant leeches
could be dangerous. Through his ancient binoculars Ambel watched the molly carp for a while longer, then turned his attention elsewhere. The drizzle had ceased and the sun was burning the sky a lighter green, when he was able to yell out another warning. A group of three leeches had come into sight and they immediately headed for the Treader.

  ‘Twenty degrees to starboard!’ Ambel yelled. ‘Hold it there.’

  As the ship hove over, Pland came up on to the cabin-deck and quickly went to replace Boris at the helm. Boris meanwhile went to load the deck cannon with its powder charge and stones. The others brought out their own weapons and readied them. Ambel slid down the ladder, dived into his cabin, and came out with his blunderbuss tucked under one arm.

  He looked around. ‘All juniors below!’ he yelled, eyeing Gollow and Sild. The two men looked set to argue with him, before nodding acquiescence. It was fair enough: none of the juniors was as strong as any senior, or anywhere near as strong as Ambel, so they could easily get killed during a leech hunt. Gollow and Sild, who had done well enough during a previous hunt, were still suffering from the injuries they had received when going ashore with Ambel after the last rhinoworm – for juniors also did not heal as quickly as older crew.

  Once they were gone, Ambel scanned those who remained. ‘We’ll take the last one, lads.’ He glanced up at Boris. ‘You hear that?’

  ‘I ain’t deaf, Captain.’

  Boris sighted down the deck cannon at the last of the three shapes rapidly approaching. Ambel watched them for a moment, then turned his gaze to the right. Further out in the sea, the molly carp held station and watched.

  The incursion of prill from the first leech to arrive was short-lived and quickly repelled. The leech itself, after grinding at the wooden hull for a moment, lost interest and swam away with most of its prill remaining on its back. The same happened with the second leech, but the third one arrived only moments after the second had turned away from the ship, so the attack of prill from both was unrelenting. Boris managed to fire three times on the back of the final leech. Ambel managed to get off two shots before taking up the first of the harpoons and planting it in the huge creature. He continued methodically planting four harpoons deep into its body, hauling tight the ropes to each, and bringing the leech hard against the side of the ship.