The Skinner Page 23

  Prill were mashed and smashed and blown apart. Bits of prill still managed to crawl to the scuppers and drop through into the sea, but what remained on board no longer had any mobility. Anne and Peck washed this mess out through the scuppers after the rest, where no doubt some of the larger pieces would grow into more prill again.

  ‘This is a good one, lads,’ said Ambel, rubbing his hands together.

  He scrambled down the rope with his crampons fixed to his feet and hooks hanging from his belt. Pland followed with the knife and bar and they were soon out standing on the slippery mound of the leech and making the first incision. At one point the leech convulsed momentarily, and Pland fell and began to slide down its side, before Ambel caught hold of his collar and hauled him back up. Soon they had the incision braced open and Pland was inside groping about in the bloody morass of its intestines. The leech convulsed once again, sinking down at its tail end. Ambel looked back and saw a large swirling in the water there. The humped crown of the molly carp suddenly surfaced. The creature regarded Ambel for a moment, then it sank out of sight again.

  ‘Crafty bastard,’ he muttered.

  Meanwhile, the juniors, hearing that the shooting had ceased, came back out on to the deck to help in any way they could. But really, at this stage there was little they could do. They would just get in the way, so they stayed back and watched.

  Peck next threw out the rope and Ambel caught it and lowered the end of it to Pland. When the leech shook again, Pland let go a stream of curses. He was on his way out of the incision when the molly carp got a firmer hold on the leech’s tail and gave a hard tug. As the bracing bar slipped, the incision closed on Pland like a wet mouth. Ambel slipped and fell and caught himself only a metre from the sea’s surface by driving one of his hooks into the side of the leech. One harpoon came free with a sucking crackle, and the leech now had enough of its mouth end free to investigate the damage being done to it. Luckily, that end oozed back past the creature’s main body, in the sea underneath Ambel, to where the molly carp was attacking it.

  ‘Pull on it! Pull on it!’ yelled Peck.

  He and Anne took up the slack in the rope Pland had tied to the severed bile duct inside the beast. The tension on the rope reopened the incision enough for Pland to get one leg out, but suddenly the leech rolled, snapping the remaining harpoons that secured it, and both Pland and Ambel went underwater. Boris grabbed hold of the rope as well, and the three crewmen pulled with all their might. Sild and Gollow joined in as they heaved. The rope went slack for a moment, but they were soon hauling in their gruesome catch. The bile duct was a large one, and clinging to its outer surface was Pland, with a carpet of small leeches clinging to him. They hauled him quickly up on deck.

  ‘Get ’em off! Get ’em off!’ yelled Pland.

  The crew gathered round him and wrenched the leeches off, one after another. The larger ones they beat on the deck until they released the plugs of flesh they had taken. Pland began screwing these pieces back into place, swearing angrily all the while.

  Peck meanwhile leant over the rail with a rope in one hand, to which he had hastily tied a grapple. As he searched for his Captain, he muttered under his breath. The leech drew away from the ship; its back end a ragged mess now where the molly carp still tore at it. Searching elsewhere, Peck turned his attention to the ship’s wake, where pieces of prill floated and writhed. Abruptly he cast the grapple there, hauled it quickly in, cast again. On his fourth cast, he hooked something large.

  ‘Give us a hand, yer buggers!’ he yelled.

  Anne and Boris were quickly at his side, hauling on the rope as well, while Pland leant back against the cabin wall, whimpering as the remaining leeches were removed from him. In a pool of sticky blood round his feet, lay more plugs of flesh, and kneeling in that blood Sild collected them and passed them up to Gollow, who screwed them carefuly back into place – Pland himself no longer having the strength to do it.

  Hauling on the rope, the three seniors saw an indefinite shape reach the surface, and pulled it in.

  ‘It’s the Captain,’ croaked Peck.

  They hauled it towards the side of the ship. Abruptly there was a swirl in the water behind the shape, and it was rapidly shoved right up next to the hull. The crew quickly pulled in the remaining slack and, as they did so, they saw the swirl circle back round towards the leech.

  Anne glanced questioningly at Boris.

  ‘Molly carp,’ he said, and shrugged.

  It was indeed Ambel under a thick layer of writhing leeches. Once he was on the deck, the crew proceeded to do the same for him as they had done for Pland, except for screwing back plugs of flesh. Ambel’s wounds closed too quickly for that, and there was no blood loss. When they had finished, Ambel lay still on the deck. The grapple was still hooked through his thigh, and it took two of them pulling hard on it to get it out. His clothing was in tatters, there were new scars layered across the many he already possessed, and with the recent loss of flesh, he looked smaller.

  ‘Captain?’ said Peck, tentatively.

  No reaction for a moment, then Ambel abruptly opened his eyes and sat bolt upright.

  ‘You all right, Captain?’ asked Boris.

  Ambel stood up and started for the rail. Peck tackled him before he could get there, and brought him down.

  ‘Bloody Hoop! Bloody Hoop!’ Ambel yelled, hammering Peck with his fists.

  The others heard bones break in Peck’s body, and they quickly leapt on Ambel to hold him down – but to no avail. He threw them off as easily as bed covers, and was at the rail in a moment. There he stopped, gasping heavily, his hands gripping and crushing the wood. As the others watched and waited, Pland came away from the cabin wall where he left a smear of blood, and stood with them.

  Ambel turned from the rail and stared at them. Then he walked straight past them and went into his cabin. He locked the door behind him.

  ‘That could have gone better,’ said Windcheater, as he turned himself into the wind and observed the crewman called Pland being helped below.

  ‘Well, it was your idea to move this damn molly up behind the leech,’ replied Sniper.

  ‘You wanted a bowel movement? You’ll soon get a bowel movement,’ said Windcheater, remembering the last time he had himself eaten a load of leech meat, and the unfortunate effect of that meal. He also remembered the unfortunate consequences for the crew of the ship he was over-flying shortly after.

  ‘I think you’re right. There’s about a tonne of chewed-up leech sitting in this molly’s stomach, and some very strange sounds coming from there. Surprising it attacked. Surely it knows the effect?’

  ‘Molly carp will attack anything that’s moving right in front of them, but they prefer glisters and prill,’ said Windcheater.

  ‘I’m aware of their love of crustaceans,’ growled Sniper.

  ‘Why the hurry to get out anyway? The Warden’ll only have you counting whelks again.’

  There was a long pause before Sniper replied. ‘Something going down,’ said the war drone. ‘We just had a Prador ship blow in orbit. That’s probably why the Warden sent you out here for a look. He’s always too cautious – should have this area covered by a network of war drones by now.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Windcheater, turning his attention back to the deck of the Treader. Peck and Anne were now draining the latest bile duct. The Captain was still in his cabin, and it seemed unlikely he would be coming out for a while. The sail wondered if he had made the right choice in coming to join this ship.

  ‘What do you think’s happening?’ he asked.

  ‘Dunno, but sure as fuck that explosion was no accident.’

  Windcheater thought about it. Maybe there might be an angle here. Maybe there would be some chance to add to his Norverbank account. He’d have to keep an eye on the situation.

  *

  Keech floated in a warm comfortable place, and considered what he must do next. In the morning he’d go and check that lead in Klader. He was sure he was
close to Rimsc now. The old pirate had been clever in leaving a number of false leads, but Keech felt he was getting to the end of them now, after using the new search program Francis Cojan had sent him. As he contemplated what he would do to Rimsc when he found him, a coldly analytical part of himself was saying that Rimsc was dead, that he, Monitor Keech, was dead. There was also the feeling that a long time had elapsed. His thoughts, such as they were, seemed to have been broken in two; as if separated over that time.

  N-FACT MESSAGE: EPIDERMAL GROWTH 65% COMPLETE.

  What was that? It seemed to come from that cold part of himself. He tried to move and encountered resistance. His body moved, but it was not moving how he wanted it to move. What this all meant was too painful to contemplate, so he concentrated on the task in hand.

  The man in Klader claimed he had seen Rimsc and knew where he now was. The man’s information would cost, but that did not matter to Keech: he would have readily paid for it himself if he had not had ECS funding. Rimsc had to die for the things he had done – just as all of them had to die.

  N-FACT MESSAGE: HEART RESTART.

  A sudden thumping drowned out all coherent thought. It was his heart, of course, yet something was telling him that he hadn’t heard it in a long while. He felt sick now, and there was a huge pressure growing in his head. A sudden swirling all about him made him aware that he was submerged in some kind of fluid. I’m in a tank, I’m injured, he told himself. But surely that was wrong? He was dead. He knew he was dead.

  Suddenly the fluid was draining away from all around him. As it went, he found himself lying at the bottom of a slimy hollow in a tangle of tubes. He stared up at the two faces hovering above him and he could feel the machinery attached to his body. This wasn’t right. Who were these people?

  ERROR MESSAGE: PHYSICAL RESISTANCE TO CYB-PLANT.

  DISCONNECT.

  Keech tried to ask them who they were, and what was going on. A colder part of himself already knew, and it tried to tell him as fluid jetted from his lungs and from his mouth. He felt he was drowning, and started to struggle

  You are the reification Sable Keech. You have been dead for seven hundred years.

  Keech gave a liquid gasp, and the sound he next made was more of a croak than a scream. The cold part of himself acknowledged that there was only one thing to do.

  MEMPLANT MESSAGE: FULL DOWNLOAD TO ORGANIC BRAIN.

  The memories began to return. As they returned, Keech could no longer fight: he was paralysed. A door opened before him and he walked into the apartment, drawing his EC-issue thin-gun. The stink he recognized from Spatterjay: the almost savoury smell of charred flesh. He only recognized his contact because the man was still wearing the bright green shirt he was wearing when he’d left the com message. The face itself wasn’t recognizable, as there was no face. Whoever had done this had obviously taken pleasure in it: they’d tied the man to the chair and done it slowly. This much was evident by the way the man had torn off his own nails by clawing at the chair arms.

  Keech moved on into the room, then checked all the doors leading off from it. Nothing he could do here now; he’d come back with the forensic team and go through this room at microscopic level. But he didn’t need the evidence they’d find to know who had been here earlier. He stepped out of the apartment and closed the door behind him, as well as he could, the lock being broken. Holstering his thin-gun he moved to the elevator, stepped inside, and descended the twenty floors to street level. Outside the building, one of those heavy rains that seemed to fall only in Klader was shining the hydrocar streets and running streams past the pavements. Keech folded up his collar and headed for his battered police hydrocar. Would this be another dead end, in more ways than one?

  His answer stepped out of the alley next to his car.

  ‘Sable Keech,’ the man sneered.

  He was short, thin-faced, and bald-headed, the heavy coat he wore not concealing the fact that he possessed a physique that appeared boosted. But it wasn’t boosted, not in the usual sense. Keech didn’t bother to respond with words. He pulled his gun and fired, and Alphed Rimsc went over backwards, with a smoking hole through his middle. Keech walked over, his thin-gun down at his side. Just like that: got him.

  Rimsc sat up and smiled, and casually lifted the gun he had been holding all the time. There was a flash, but Keech heard no sound. Something smashed into his side and spun him around. Next thing he knew, he was sitting on the pavement in the rain, broken, and unable to move his hand to retrieve his gun that had fallen next to him. The virus: the damned virus. Keech managed to find the strength to tilt his head and glare upwards at Rimsc. The man was still smiling as he narrowed the aperture on his heavy pulse-gun. Last thing: the snout of the weapon cold against Keech’s head, a blow, blackness. That was all for a while.

  Out of blackness, Keech woke to the grey. He was not alive and he knew precisely what had happened. He had prepared for this: he was now a reif. I am dead. The years of searching came back to him: the killings and the questionings, the terrible purpose that was empty of feeling. He had hunted down Hoop’s crew with the tenacity of a mining machine digging into a cliff. Rimsc first – it had been a simple thing to rig his suit once he had located him. There had been no restraining morality then as Keech had not considered himself a monitor any more. Killing Corbel Frane had been a high point. In between there had been lesser kills; many of those who had worked for the Eight, and those sent by Frane and perhaps by Hoop himself. So many of them, and so many years. Keech wanted to cry and felt the circuit that activated his eye irrigator becoming live, then going off again. The years of it all continued to download into his newly repaired and activated brain.

  In the darkness, Windcheater observed Ambel unsteadily leaving his cabin. All but the helmsman, Boris, were back below decks. When Ambel walked over to Windcheater’s food barrel and methodically pulled out steak after steak and munched them down, the sail considered, then rejected, the idea of complaining. He just watched as Boris spotted the Captain then, with a lantern hung from his belt, climbed down from the forecabin and walked across.

  ‘You better now, Captain?’ Boris asked.

  Ambel wiped purple blood from round his mouth before replying. ‘Bad memories,’ he said.

  ‘Happens like that sometimes. Got shot with a vis gun ’bout twenty years back. The wound healed in a day but I was real nasty for months after.’

  Ambel just looked at him and waited for him to continue – as he did.

  ‘It was on account of me first wife shooting me with one, ye see.’

  Ambel nodded. ‘You remember it all?’ he asked.

  ‘Mostly,’ said Boris.

  ‘I don’t. I’ve got a piece missing as long as you’re old, and I don’t want it back. I know what it is, but I don’t want it.’ Ambel looked very closely at Boris. ‘There’s bits, though. Bits keep coming back.’

  ‘How’d you lose it?’ Boris asked.

  ‘Lost it in the sea, Boris. In the sea.’

  Windcheater blinked and remained utterly still. Unlike most human conversations, this one he did not understand at all. He recognized the expression of disbelieving horror on the helmsman’s face, and understood that the man had not shuddered because of being cold. But beyond that . . .

  After a long silence Ambel said, ‘In the morning we’ll be at the atolls, and there we’ll refine us some sprine. With that, I’ll free meself of one of those bits. Time the Skinner went to his locker for good.’ He took another steak out of the barrel and began eating it.

  ‘You shoulda done that long ago. Don’t know why you didn’t. You know it whispers in the night?’ said Boris.

  ‘I know. Does it to Peck, mainly. Makes him all skittery.’

  ‘That don’t take much.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  They both eyed each other knowingly, then Boris nodded and turned to walk away, swinging his lantern in the night. Its light glinted on the open eyes of Windcheater as the sail watched Ambel move to the ra
il.

  ‘What was that all about?’ the sail queried through his aug.

  ‘Memory loss through intense pain,’ replied the Warden.

  ‘Oh, so glad I asked,’ said Windcheater.

  ‘It’s interesting that you chose this ship,’ the Warden told the sail. ‘Why did you choose this ship?’

  ‘It happened to be in the area,’ said Windcheater. ‘And you wanted me to look out for anything unusual in this area.’

  ‘And what have you found?’ the Warden asked.

  Windcheater, with his long understanding of human language, was not immune to sarcasm. ‘Well, I’ve found the ship with Jay Hoop on board, and I’ve found a molly carp with a big lump of scrap metal inside.’

  ‘I heard that!’ interjected Sniper.

  ‘Yes, I know you’re here,’ said the Warden. ‘Is that molly carp well?’

  ‘Think it might have a bit of a stomach upset. Reckon it ate something that disagreed with it, and I don’t mean me,’ replied the war drone.

  The Warden was silent for a moment, then, ‘You, Sniper, will stay with this ship and keep watch. When you’re free, I may have further instructions for you. You, Windcheater, will leave this ship in the morning and fly to Olian Tay’s island. By then Captain Sprage’s ship will have arrived. You’ll join it and keep watch. I’ll want constant reports.’

  ‘What’s happening?’ asked Sniper, unable to keep the frustration out of his communication.

  ‘The exploding Prador vessel was a cover for the arrival of Rebecca Frisk. Where she is now I have only a rough idea. The Old Captains, who are aware of her presence, are gathering for a Convocation.’

  Sniper hissed excitedly, ‘Frisk here?’

  ‘Yes, she is here.’

  ‘She won’t be alone,’ said the war drone.

  ‘She is not,’ said the Warden, and withdrew contact.