Four of the bodies were headless, and the fifth without limbs as well. Vrell recalled having snipped away these heads and limbs for Ebulan’s delectation during their voyage here. The first four were now, since the failure of the chillers, growing leech mouths from the severed flesh of their necks. The fifth one was also growing them from where its limbs had been. All of them were constantly moving; writhing slowly on the meat hooks jammed through their ribcages. Vrell knew that, without those hooks, these five would be squirming about on the floor, probably feeding on the other comestibles available here.
He considered a possible option. The coring process entailed the removal of the animal’s higher cerebrum and much of its autonomous nervous system. To then turn the animal into a useful tool required the connection of a Prador thrall unit in place of what had been removed. The Prador had found that such drastic measures were only required in Kingdom animals to prevent any wetware/hardware conflicts when making them do something that went against their instinct. The disadvantage to this was the loss of autonomous function. Only certain uncored animals—made to do simple tasks—could be controlled by spider thralls which burrowed in where required and connected to the nervous system. Adapting humans to either process had been difficult, as it was discovered that both methods of enslavement usually killed the host. That was until Jay Hoop cornered the market in humans infected by the Spatterjay virus, who proved tough and difficult to kill. Ebulan, to his cost, discovered too late that spider thralls could be rejected by the bodies of older Hoopers. For them only a full coring was safe.
Finishing his megafauna steak, Vrell continued eyeing the five human bodies busily making their transformation into the leech form. The fifth, limbless one, would be effectively useless, so he reached up and plucked it down, then cut its tough fibrous flesh into pieces and began inserting them one after the other into his mandibles. Perhaps, even though their nervous systems would be severely degraded by the leech transformation, he might be able to get some use out of the remaining four. Abruptly he spun towards the door.
As Vrell stepped out into the dripping corridor something cracked along his back. He turned an eye-palp, together with his visual turret and mouthparts, which had now separated from his main carapace and risen on a short muscular neck, and observed a long split in his shell, which was now knitting with fibres almost like hull repair mesh. It occurred to him that he had never heard of one of his own kind infected by the virus. Ingesting infected meat would not work because the virus did not long survive in the vitriol that was a Prador’s digestive juices. The only way a Prador could become infected was by inoculation through the shell itself, as had happened to him. But surely some adult Prador would have therefore tried the virus on its own offspring? He must check the ship’s data banks to see if any mention had been made of such. But not now: time to go to work.
Erlin smashed the frog whelk’s shell with a rock, pulled off the eye-stalks because they were gazing at her accusingly, then took out her pen laser and began cooking its flesh. In the twilight, the glare from the device was intense, and she noted the two normal sails edge back from her as they dined on their molluscs. But Zephyr was unmoved, having nothing to fear from the laser. After a moment the device sputtered and gave out, the whelk flesh only partially seared. Erlin had expected this, as she had used it twice before: once on a chunk of rhinoworm and once on another whelk. She had no problem eating raw meat, but had been using the laser rather more to pasteurize than cook it. The less of the virus she took in orally, the slower would be the change it wrought upon her. Already her skin had taken on a bluish tint, and some of her inclinations were edging towards the irrational. But one uncomfortable fact seemed plain to her: she had known about the giant whelk.
Was her memory playing tricks? No, she and Ambel had talked about that creature jokily named Whelkus titanicus, and she recollected reading about it in one of the Warden’s many reports on Spatterjay’s ecology. How then to account for her behaviour on the island? That was easy. She was not immune to the ennui of long life—it had driven her here to find Ambel in the first place—but she had thought herself immune to the near-suicidal pursuits to which that boredom drove others. Obviously she was not, though in her the impulse to self-destruction was unconscious. Her own mind was playing her false. Erlin grimaced. Could that also be why she remained here on this dangerous planet? Was she, rather than trying to learn how to live from Captain Ambel, just staying in a place where it would be easy to die?
Damn it, enough of this!
‘You know, Windcheater won’t be best pleased with you,’ she said abruptly, before stuffing her mouth with warm meat.
‘The pleasure of that particular sail is not my concern,’ replied Zephyr, who had his wings folded now. During previous landings in daylight he would spread them, blotting out the sun and casting a shadow across wherever they landed. This confirmed for Erlin that their fabric was photo-active and he had been feeding that way—no doubt to complement the power supplies he already contained.
Erlin nodded, wiped her wet chin. ‘He hasn’t established any laws as yet, so the right of might still rules here. Do you think you’re strong enough to go up against him, or against Ambel, or any of the other Old Captains?’
‘None of them know where she is.’ Speaking to Zephyr, Puff indicated Erlin with one claw.
Erlin turned. ‘Until Sniper, our present Warden, spots you, for he has many eyes. He’ll be even less inclined to non-interference than the old Warden. He’ll certainly let the Old Captains know, and might even do something drastic himself.’
The two normal sails looked to Zephyr for guidance.
‘You feel that you are important,’ the Golem sail stated.
Erlin frowned, realizing how arrogant she had sounded. It probably stemmed from her utter self-absorption.
Zephyr continued, almost dreamily, ‘As of only a few days ago, Sniper ceased to be Spatterjay’s Warden, and the old Warden, now back in control, has too many other concerns. No one is coming to rescue you, Erlin, so you might as well finish your meal and get some sleep. We still have a long way to travel.’
Erlin did as suggested. She knew there was no way out of this until they reached Mortuary Island, and at least during that time, her destiny was out of her own control. However, when they did arrive there she was going to damned well stir up some trouble. She lay down on hard stone and was soon sleeping fitfully, dreaming that a giant whelk was bearing down on her out of the darkness.
In deepest dark, the moon gone from the sky, she was woken by a hard scrabbling sound, and opened bleary eyes to look up at Zephyr. The sail’s eyes were black hollows directed behind her and to one side.
‘Sentience is life. Intelligence is anti-Death,’ the Golem sail whispered.
‘What? What’s that?’
She flinched away as the turquoise flash of a particle cannon ignited the night. The scrabbling became a clattering as something fell down the side of the atoll. Huff launched and dropped out of sight, finally returning with a large glister, its front end a charred hollow. The glow in Zephyr’s eyes slowly went out. Remembering her earlier exchange with the Golem sail, it occurred to Erlin that Zephyr probably ranked quite high up on the scale of the mighty… and the deranged.
The darkness, Ambel felt, reflected his mood. Leaning on the ship’s rail, he gazed across at the island and wondered what the hell he was going to do. For some years Erlin had somehow defined his life, and now she was gone he felt without purpose—disjointed from his ‘long habit of living’. He was calm—a bulwark of calm rested at the centre of his being, steadily built, layer upon layer, over the centuries he had lived—but there was no completion here, as there never was when someone died such a pointless death. Vengeance was no good to him. If they remained here, even though on the other side of the island from Erlin’s encampment, the creature that had taken her might attack the Treader, and he very much doubted they could survive such an onslaught. And if they sailed away to obtain the equipment he would need to kill such a monster, it would likely be gone by the time they returned. Anyway, it had been defending its young and, though the creature was no doubt ancient and canny, there was unlikely to be any real malice in it.