The Skinner

  No matter how hard he tried, Ambel could not go back behind the pain. His first screams on the deck of Sprage’s ship all those years ago had been his birth screams. I’m Ambel now, I’m not this monster that fed Hoopers to the furnace – they’ll recognize this. But even as he thought these things, he could not rid himself of the memory of the look of hurt betrayal Boris had given him. Yet there were no lies: I am not Gosk Balem. I’m not.

  ‘I’m for bed,’ said Ron. ‘Wake me in a couple of hours.’

  ‘Use mine,’ said Ambel.

  ‘I’ll do that,’ said Ron. He patted Ambel on the shoulder as he went past him to the ladder. Ambel listened for the sound of a door closing then abruptly remembered that there was no door any more: the Skinner was away and all secrets were out. He glanced back and saw that Sable Keech, too, had finally gone to his bunk. The only ones remaining on deck were a single junior checking the lamps, and Anne and Forlam, who by the attention they were giving each other, would be heading bunkwards soon anyway. An aberrant thought crossed Ambel’s mind: Ron could be a problem to him, but a harpoon dipped in sprine would quickly solve that issue. The rest of them he could kill with ease, with the possible exception of Keech. There was no telling what kind of weaponry the Earth monitor carried. Ambel shook his head. Did others ever think such thoughts?

  Did he think such thoughts because, underneath all those years of being Ambel, he still really was Gosk Balem? No. He believed others did think such things. The test of character was in what you did, not what you thought about doing. He could no more actually murder these people than could a molly carp fly.

  ‘Deep thoughts?’

  Ambel glanced sideways at Erlin as she slipped up on to the cabin-deck beside him. He hadn’t heard her approach. He looked down at her bare feet, then to the thin slip she wore, then at her face.

  ‘Boris calls them “long thoughts”, because if you think too deep you lose sight of the point. Full of daft comments like that is Boris,’ said Ambel.

  ‘He hurt you,’ said Erlin.

  ‘It hurt, but I expected nothing else. I’m surprised that Anne and Pland still call me Captain and still act friendly. Either they feel no betrayal or they’re just waiting for their chance to shove me over the side.’

  ‘I doubt that. You’re not surprised at Peck still calling you Captain?’

  ‘Nothing Peck does surprises me. The Skinner turned his skin inside out and turned his head inside out as well. He stepped off the far side of weird long ago.’

  ‘He’d kill for you.’

  Ambel turned his calm gaze upon her for a long moment, then faced forward, nodding slowly. Erlin moved a little closer and rested a hand on his arm.

  He said, ‘I’d best have a little talk with Peck. Don’t want him doing anything drastic.’

  ‘Do you want to know why I came back?’ Erlin asked.

  Ambel turned to look at her. ‘I guessed you’d get round to telling me in your own time,’ he said.

  Erlin pulled her hand away, annoyance flashing across her face. ‘Do you even care?’ she asked.

  Ambel glanced at her. ‘Of course I care. The critical question has to be: do you?’

  She took a breath and started again. ‘Then you know why I’ve come back,’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Ambel, his hands resting easy on the helm, his face almost tranquil, ‘but it’s best you tell me all about it.’

  Erlin took another slow shuddering breath, but all her rehearsed words dissipated like smoke. ‘I came back because it gets so empty out there,’ she said. ‘Sometimes I can’t see the point of going on. Achievement or failure? After a time you don’t care about the difference . . .’ Erlin trailed off and stared at Ambel in the hope that he might understand.

  Ambel nodded. ‘I’ve felt that too, and I’ll feel it again maybe. In the end, you find a calm centre and you just keep on living. You live for friendship and a bright sunrise, for a cool breeze on your face or a peppered worm-steak. You take as much pleasure in the taste of sea-spray as in the discovery of the hyper-light drive or the saving of a human life. Because you can live for ever you take pleasure in the now. You don’t have to rush about living on account of having only a finite span. That’s trite, but true,’ he said, his words rolling out as rhythmically as the slow splash of waves against the hull of the ship.

  ‘I hear what you’re saying, but I don’t feel it,’ said Erlin.

  Ambel regarded her thoughtfully. ‘I can’t help that. It comes with the years or it doesn’t come at all. There’s twenty-three of the Old Captains here, and that don’t mean just the ex-slaves of Hoop. The Old Captains are those of us that have managed to “live into the calm” as they say. Some are only five or six centuries old. Including those off-planet, we reckon on there being a hundred or so of us. The rest . . .’ Ambel shrugged.

  ‘It’s why I need to be with you.’

  Ambel waited.

  ‘I need help. I need a guide. I already know the figures: it’s fewer than one in a hundred who “live into the calm”. Those same figures apply to people stretching all the way back to Earth.’

  ‘You want to live, then? That’s the best point to start from,’ said Ambel straight-faced.

  ‘I’m not sure I do,’ replied Erlin.

  ‘If you don’t, you’ll probably regret it later,’ said Ambel.

  Erlin laughed. Out of the corner of his eye, Ambel noted the abrupt easing of her tension. He continued to steer the ship, content in silence, at his still point.

  ‘Janer . . .’ Erlin began hesitantly.

  ‘I know,’ said Ambel. ‘Nothing lasts, you know. Even we change over the years. There’s joy and pleasure in that, if you think about it the right way. Stay with him for a while then come see me. Anything that keeps you interested keeps you alive, and right now you need to accumulate years. In my experience, most suicides occur before the three-century mark. Deaths after that are usually due to accident or someone else’s intent. Survive that mark and you’ll likely carry on, unless you’ve got some enemies I don’t know about.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Good,’ he glanced at her. ‘In a way this is academic. I myself might not be around in the near future. I might be back in the sea, or in a fire . . . Can we make a pact here and now?’

  ‘What do you want?’ Erlin asked apprehensively.

  ‘If the judgement is in my favour, I promise to do everything in my power to help you to live: to bring you to your calm and still point. In return I want a promise from you, should the judgement go against me.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘In my cabin are some crystals of sprine. You must bring me a crystal before they throw me in the sea or roast me. I came here out of a world of pain, and it’s not somewhere I wish to return to.’

  ‘I can promise you that.’

  ‘Good, Erlin. Go to your hornet man now.’

  Erlin smiled and went off to do as he told her. Ambel watched her go, and smiled as well. The breeze was cool on his face and he could taste the salt of sea-spray on his tongue.

  14

  Whelks, as they grow in size and calorific requirements, descend deeper and deeper into the ocean, their bodies adapting to the intense pressure there. Its slow ascent, of hiding in crevices and clamping down hard to rock faces whenever the heirodont got near, and a long concealment in that final crevice until the heirodont grew impatient and went away, had enabled this particular whelk to slowly adjust to the decreasing pressure, and not experience the whelkish equivalent of bends. Unfortunately, due to other conditions, such as differing salinity and temperature, and the extreme change of diet, the giant whelk was now beginning to feel rather queasy, and wished it had just returned to the depths in search of filter worms. So thinking, it began to slide towards the edge of the trench. It was a few metres from its goal when the heirodont rose out of the depths before it – even more irritable now that leeches had begun attaching to its body.

  Boris tried, without much success,
to accept that his life had changed now and that there was really nothing to regret. Because of his tetchiness resulting from his failure to come to terms with it all, Goss had kicked him out of her bunk.

  ‘And don’t come back until you’ve figured out what you really want!’ she’d shouted, then turned over with her back towards him.

  As he climbed up on to the deck of the Ahab, he wondered just what exactly she had meant by that. He greeted Gollow and a couple of Ron’s juniors, who were sitting playing cards below a deck lantern, and then went to the port rail to urinate over the side. When he was rebuttoning his trousers, he glanced over at Roach, standing at the helm, and the man gave him a knowing grin.

  Boris turned away. Obviously the man had heard Goss shouting at him. He decided then that he would try to patch things up with her, rather than talk to this weasely man. He didn’t like Roach. He didn’t like this ship – felt uncomfortable aboard it. Did he really like Goss all that much? Most importantly, did he really hate Captain Ambel? Regret was there – there was no escaping it. He stood on the crux of indecision, and while he pondered, he noticed the approach of the other ship.

  ‘Vessel to starboard!’ he yelled at Roach, and refocused his attention on the ship. There was something wrong with it, its lights had a much whiter tint than was usual, and they lit a wake that indicated the ship was travelling at a hell of a rate. Yet there was little wind, and from what Boris could see of its sail, it was belling in the wrong direction.

  ‘That’s Drum’s Cohorn!’ Roach yelled back at him.

  Boris hurried back towards the forecabin. ‘What’s he doing out here? Last I heard, he’d got a full load of turbul on and was heading back for port,’ he said as he approached the ladder.

  ‘Drum’s a changeable fella,’ commented Roach.

  Boris climbed up and joined him on the cabin-deck. ‘I don’t like this,’ he said.

  ‘Sail ain’t right . . . Take the helm for me,’ said Roach.

  Boris did as instructed while Roach went over to Captain Ron’s telescope. He swore once, took his eye away, and then put it back.

  ‘I see Drum at the helm, but there’s others there that ain’t his crew.’ Roach turned from the scope and shouted down along the deck. ‘Scart! Get everyone up on deck, and get ’em up armed!’

  ‘Aye, Captain!’ one of the card players yelled back.

  ‘“Captain”?’ said Boris, and Roach gave him a sour look. Boris then nodded towards the deck cannon. ‘That loaded?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ said Roach.

  ‘Might be needing it,’ Boris observed.

  ‘Best you load it, then,’ said Roach, squinting at the lower deck to see if his orders were being carried out.

  The Cohorn rapidly closed in while Boris packed the deck cannon with a paper-wrapped charge, then a bag of stones. He noted, as he worked, that the prow of the approaching ship was white and misshapen; it had many things on its deck that should not have been there. One of those things was moving about, and seemed to have too many legs for comfort.

  ‘Goss! Get yerself on deck! And bring up the guns!’ Roach yelled.

  ‘Biggest prill I ever saw,’ said Boris, taking a box of sulphur matches from his pocket and striking one on the rail.

  ‘That ain’t no prill,’ said Roach, who was a century older than Boris. ‘That’s a buggering Prador.’

  Boris grimaced as he got the cannon’s igniter wick smouldering. It hadn’t been necessary for Roach to tell him that. Boris had seen plenty of pictures of the creatures, and heard quite enough stories from drunken Hoopers in the Baitman.

  Goss charged up on deck clutching a handful of ironmongery, which she began to distribute. After this, she studied the approaching ship for a moment, then ran for the ladder. Boris leant over and accepted the weapons she handed up: two pump-action shotguns and one pulsed-energy handgun. The handgun had to be Ron’s. No one else but an Old Captain could afford such a thing.

  ‘Maybe they don’t want trouble?’ said Roach with what might have passed for humour.

  ‘In your arse,’ said Goss, feeding shells into one of the shotguns.

  There was no warning. Something flashed, leaving shadowy afterimages in their eyes. There was a dull crump, the ship lurched, and a spar crashed to the deck. Next, there was a double flash and one rail exploded into splinters. On the other side of the ship the other rail sagged, where it too had been broken, and was now being pulled down by the weight of the ship’s rowing boat. Boris pointed the deck cannon, fired, and had the pleasure of seeing two figures keel over on the Cohorn.

  Goss began firing shells at the approaching ship. But then all of them were rocked back as something crashed below and sea-spray fogged the air. Boris looked over the side at the hole blown in the hull, just above the water line, and the fires burning within.

  ‘We’re gonna sink,’ he said to Roach.

  The little man just appeared angry as he aimed again at the figures visible on the approaching ship. Boris picked up another paper cartridge, then stepped back from the cannon when it suddenly began to smoke.

  ‘Huh?’ he said brilliantly, as heat spectra travelled the length of the barrel, and it blued, then began to glow. Abruptly he realized that there was either a laser or some sort of inductance weapon being pointed at it. He ducked at the same time as Goss, and she slid the other shotgun across to him. Roach was now down beside him aiming with the handgun, a dangerously furtive look on his face.

  ‘They’re just playing with us,’ he said. ‘We’ve had it.’ Through the cross rail he shouted down to the main deck, ‘Scart! Gollow! Cut the boat free and get the rest of ’em into it!’

  ‘But, sir!’

  ‘Do as you’re bloody told! You reckon you can take ’em on with that club?’

  Boris looked down to see Roach’s orders being obeyed. Two of the juniors were busy at the sagging rail, trying to untie the rowing boat. Something else hit further along the ship and a lantern went down spreading flame across the deck. A third crew-member joined the two at the boat and hacked at the ropes with his panga. That was Gollow, and Boris felt unaccountably proud. The ship’s boat crashed into the sea and those on the lower deck quickly began to follow it down. Goss stood upright now, a wild look on her face, as she provided covering fire.

  ‘Goss! Get down!’ Boris yelled.

  She staggered back then stared at the smoking hole under her breasts.

  ‘Shit,’ she said – and was blown in half.

  Boris yelled and stood up again, firing at the ship as it swung alongside, then blasting at the figures that came leaping across. One of them was the bloody great prill!

  Something hit him right in the stomach and sent him staggering. He felt it exit through his back and heard it clatter to the deck. Both he and Roach stared at the small black cylinder, just before it exploded. The blast threw Boris over the rail, so he found himself hanging off one side of the ship. Roach, who had been knocked back against the remaining rail, struggled upright, then reached over to catch Boris by the scruff of his neck. He was about to start hauling him back onboard when a huge armoured claw closed on his arm, and something cold and metallic was pressed against the back of his skull.

  ‘Shit,’ he said – just like Goss had done.

  The claw clamped shut, making a sound like a vegetable knife going through a carrot. Roach yelled as his bones shattered and muscle was crushed. His hand went flaccid, and Boris yelled out and plummeted into the sea. Then, hand-things like iron pulled Roach around and hurled him aside. For a second he thought he too was going to end up in the sea, but instead he slammed against the main deck, and bounced. Then someone grabbed him again and flung him against the mainmast. He slid down it, waiting for that terminal shot. But it never came.

  ‘Oh look,’ someone sneered. ‘They’re escaping.’

  Roach turned his head to one side and dimly made out the silhouette of the ship’s boat out on the gleaming sea. The Prador now loomed over him as it moved forwards and brandish
ed a weapon in one of its main claws. The object was long and heavy-looking, and was fed by tubes and cables from a pack strapped underneath the creature’s body. There followed a whooshing roar, and the sea all around the escaping boat turned white. There was no time even for screams, as the rowing boat and everyone in it disintegrated under rail-gun fire.

  ‘Bastard,’ Roach managed, just before a hand closed in his hair and slammed his head back against the mast. He thought how the woman would have been attractive if her face wasn’t so twisted by whatever it was inside her.

  ‘Now, you and I are going to have a little chat,’ she told him.

  With a feeling of chagrin, Janer watched as Erlin slept in a tangle of sheets, then he rose from the side of the bunk and took up his clothing. As soon as he was dressed, he shoved a hand into his trouser pocket and took out the jewelled Hive link. Some new species of loneliness, he wondered, and then fixed the link back into his earlobe. There came a vague clicking as it induced a signal in the receiver imbedded in the bone behind his ear – for the visible ear stud was not the actual link, rather it acted as the on/off button – but he received no communication from the mind. Still none came as he left the cabin, passing Forlam in the gangway, and headed for the ladder. The link only buzzed into life once he was on deck, watching the slow grey roll of the predawn sea.

  ‘It was foolish of you to cut communication with me. You are now in extreme danger,’ warned the mind. This was not what Janer had expected.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘There is a ship now coming towards you. Aboard it is one Rebecca Frisk, with two Batian mercenaries, and possibly others. They are coming to kill Sable Keech, and no doubt any others who are with him. They have Prador weaponry.’

  ‘That’s not so good,’ said Janer, at a loss for anything else to say.

  ‘It is not good,’ agreed the mind. ‘I would suggest that you tell someone.’

  Janer glanced up at Captain Ron standing at the helm, then around at the morning activity on board. All seemed so slow and tranquil that what the mind had just told him did not gel for a moment.