‘I didn’t know you did this sort of thing here,’ Janer said conversationally.

It was the hive mind that responded: ‘It was going to happen to Captain Ambel.’

Forlam said nothing, just kept on staring.

Janer nodded. Of course, had the Convocation of Old Captains found Ambel guilty, the sentence would have been death, though the method different. He looked up as the crowd parted and Ron came through to reclaim his seat.

‘What’s happening?’ Forlam asked, licking his lips.

Ron eyed him. ‘Two lads off the Vignette, they slipped some sprine into a fellow crewman’s tea after a fight over money. Can’t say I’m surprised. Convocation sentenced ‘em to the same end.’

‘Convocation?’ Janer peered around. ‘Where are the rest of the Old Captains?’

Ron glanced at him. ‘Seems we’ve entered our technological age. Not sure I like that.’

The hive mind chipped in with, ‘All the Captains now use holographic conferencing links for Convocation. They now only meet physically if the matter is really serious.’

How serious was ‘really serious’, Janer wondered.

‘Why aren’t you surprised?’ he asked.

‘The Vignette, bad ship, and Captain Orbus…’ Ron trailed off into an embarrassed silence.

The three returned their attention to the platform as the first of the Hooper crewmen was dragged up onto it, fighting all the way despite the ceramal band around his body to which his wrist manacles were secured, and the manacles around his ankles. The man was naked, and by the look of him Janer reckoned him to be a Hooper of about a hundred and fifty years. Those wrestling with him attached a chain from the band to one of the two heavy iron posts protruding from the platform.

‘Fucking bastards!’ the man yelled. ‘He was squeaky weed-head slobber-arse!’ Released, he yanked at his chain, glared around.

The second man walked calmly onto the platform. His expression contained some of the craziness Janer had seen only recently in Forlam’s expression. He stood meekly as they attached him to his post. When the platform was clear but for these two, an Old Captain stepped up and stood with his back to the abusive Hooper.

‘Orbus,’ Ron muttered. ‘There won’t be any fancy speeches.’

‘Well, you know the decision,’ the Captain said, ‘and it’s my job to deal with my crewmen.’

He pulled on a set of gauntlets, drew a dagger from the sheath at his wide belt, and inspected the blade. Before the Hooper behind him could react he turned fast and drove the dagger into the man’s guts, withdrew it, then stepped away from him. The man grimaced, did not bleed.

‘Sprine on the blade,’ Forlam informed Janer irrelevantly. Janer realized it had to be that. Stabbing a Hooper with a clean blade would not kill him, only irritate him.

Orbus returned the dagger to its sheath, rattled it up and down for a moment then took it out for his inspection again. The second Hooper was watching his companion when the dagger, more sprine on it from the sheath, went into him. He oomphed, turned to Orbus with an expression of hurt accusation.

‘You could have let me watch,’ he complained.

‘Now,’ Forlam whispered.

The skin around the first Hooper’s stab wound turned yellow, that stain spreading. He started to shake, froth bubbling from his mouth. The crack of one of the manacles snapping was audible from where Janer sat, but the man only raised his free hand to wipe his lips. The second man was going the same way. Now the first one’s eyes rolled up into his head and he issued a long-drawn-out groan. A split appeared in his torso and black liquid began to run out. Other body splits appeared; more liquid poured onto the platform. Then he really began to come apart. One of his biceps departed his arm bone. His guts began to bubble out of the first split. The victim started to sink down, still coming apart. What remained was a steaming pile of separated bone, flesh and organs, as if the man had been slow pressure-cooked for a day. The second man reached similar pilehood shortly after him. Janer gulped some rum. ‘I nearly gave you the power to do that,’ he said, peering down at the encased hornets on his shoulder.

Ron and Forlam glanced at him, saw who he was addressing, then returned their attention to the platform, where a group of Hoopers had climbed up with shovels, buckets and mops.

‘If you recollect, you did give it to me, but then Captain Ambel took it away again. But be assured, in my possession such power would have been rarely used. What one of the older minds might do with it, even I am loath to speculate.’

‘What are they like then, these older minds?’

‘Unfathomable,’ was all the reply the hive mind offered.

Janer returned to easy conversation with his two human companions, as the rum began to work its familiar magic on him. At one point he commented, ‘They showed little fear.’

‘Hoopers don’t fear a quick death,’ Ron replied.

‘Do they fear anything?’

‘Oh yes, young Hoopers fear falling into the sea and not dying.’

‘Old Captains?’

‘What young Hoopers fear, plus the fate they avoided when Jay Hoop was in control here: they fear and hate the prospect of coring or having a thrall implanted,’ Ron explained.

‘Still… it was all such a long time ago.’

‘Never underestimate how Old Captains feel about that,’ Ron warned.

Seemingly without transition thereafter, they were sitting in twilight reliving old battles. Janer asked Ron if he knew what Keech was now doing.

‘Last I heard, he’s back on Klader working for the Polity monitor force,’ the Captain replied.

‘Still a policeman?’ Janer asked incredulously.

Ron eyed him. ‘Seven hundred years being dead didn’t put him off, so what do you think?’

Thereafter Janer and Ron became intent on extracting from Forlam the truth about what he had done with a certain female Batian mercenary. The other tables were empty now and no one objected when someone brought a chair to their table and joined them. Janer studied the dark-browed Hooper, trying to figure what it was about him—something out of kilter.

‘I want to join your crew,’ said the man to Ron.

‘And you are?’

‘Isis Wade.’

‘What experience do you have, Wade?’ Ron asked genially. Janer had lost count of the refills now.

‘As much experience as I want or need,’ Wade replied.

Ah, that’s it, Janer thought. The man was dark, his skin was patterned with leech scars, and he moved with that Hooper rolling gait. But Janer could see the difference. It was in the minutiae: mannerisms, exactitude of speech, how precisely soiled was his clothing, how his breathing was not quite in synch with his speech and movement—and probably also in things below conscious perception, like pheromones. Now why would a Golem android want to join Ron’s crew, and, for that matter, the Captain’s crew on what vessel? Ron was not returning to the Gurnard, and his own sailing ship had ended up at the bottom of the sea ten years ago.

Janer lost track of their conversation for a while, then came back to hear Ron saying, ‘Okay, you’re on. One like you might be useful.’

‘When does she sail?’Wade asked.

Ron replied, ‘They’ve got some of your kind working day and night on her, so not long. I’m getting some others together, but most are already on contract.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Janer asked.

Ron eyed him. ‘Why, we’re talking about the Sable Keech. What else?’

A skirt of warty flesh, hard as stone, oozed up the beach, and a long tentacle uncoiled from it. Erlin glanced back at the dismembered whelk on her surgical table and guessed the monstrous mollusc rising out of the sea was not looking for explanations. Its shell, encrusted with flatweed and alive with small prill, was the size of a large house. It rose up on a mound of flesh and in that mound two eyes blinked open, then everted from the main body on stalks thick as her leg. More tentacles unrolled up the beach, then a longer one with a wide flat end snapped back behind the rising shell then slammed forward and down exploding a shrapnel of stones in every direction. The tentacle tip rested momentarily a few metres from her door before the creature drew it back again. It was coming on rapidly, having now risen over the underwater ledge. Erlin dived aside as the pillar of stony flesh slammed down where she had just been standing. Rolling to her feet, she saw the tentacle slide quickly inside her house. There it paused, and a deep bass groaning issued from the monster. As the tentacle withdrew, a second one of the same type hammered down, and Erlin stared aghast at her home of a year. She had hoped to dive back inside, retrieve some weapon, but the dwelling now looked like a simnel cake that someone had smacked squarely with a lead bar. She glanced back towards the sea, and the two eyes pivoted towards her. She ran inland.