The Skinner

  ‘Come on, you damned haddock! I want out of here!’

  Windcheater turned his attention to where Captain Ambel had focused his. There was a disturbance in the sea, and white water glinting in the dark, as the molly carp swirled and rolled and thrashed its tail against the waves.

  11

  The second male glister flicked clumps of hairlike organs on its head, registering the tail-end of a low-pitched squeal in what served it as ears, but so stupefied was it by its current pleasure in gustation that it could not identify the sound. Perhaps this was understandable, since it had never heard a brother’s death-squeal before. Waving its antennae, it detected only an overwhelming taste of whelk, but that was perfectly understandable – so many of them having recently been torn apart in the vicinity. It gave a lobsterish shrug, and went to take another bite of the wonderful bounty of flesh strewn before it. The wall of flesh that rolled over it and its meal, as well as uninvited leeches and prill, was as yielding as old oak – the great mouth behind just hoovered them all up.

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

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

  ‘Fucking Prador diagnostics,’ Svan snarled.

  ‘What is it?’ Frisk asked.

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

  ‘Will that be a problem?’

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

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

  ‘Is all this really necessary?’ Svan asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  ‘How are you . . . feeling?’

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

  ‘Alive,’ said Keech.

  ‘A novel experience,’ said Janer.

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

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

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

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

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

  Keech waited for an explanation.

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

  Keech noted Janer rubbing the distinctive scar on his hand.

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

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

  ‘Exactly,’ said Erlin, studying him carefully.

  ‘Why do Hoopers hunt leeches?’ he asked.
br />   ‘Sprine,’ said Janer.

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

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

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

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

  ‘Why?’

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

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

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

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

  ‘Explain,’ he said.

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

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

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

  ‘Quickly! Get him below!’ Erlin yelled.

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

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

  ‘What about his aug?’ Janer asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  Then, in time, he came back.

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

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

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

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

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

  ‘You waste useful tools.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  Drum continued, mindlessly, to steer his ship.

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

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

  ‘You ready there, Boris?’ Ambel asked.

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

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

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

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