‘Good.’ Galegrabber rose up and turned back towards Ambel.

‘Now,’ said Ambel, ‘I could ask for help from the Warden, but I’ve always felt we should settle our own problems. I intend now to sail to this Mortuary Island and rescue Erlin.’

‘That’s a bloody long way,’ someone muttered incredulously.

Ambel went on relentlessly, ‘We’ll detour to the Sargassum first, picking up some turbul and amberclams on the way to supplement our supplies. I’m told there’s at least seven ships in that area, so any of you who don’t fancy the journey can hitch a ride from there.’

As the crew began to disperse, Galegrabber stretched his neck even further and brought his head level with Ambel on the bridge.

‘I got a contract,’ said the sail. ‘And this journey ain’t written down in it.’

Ambel reached into his pocket and pulled out a wooden box.

‘The aug you’re wearing,’ said the Old Captain, ‘it’s the basic cheap datalink kind. Bottom of the ladder really.’

‘So?’

Ambel opened the box and displayed the shiny new aug inside. ‘I thought about fitting this to myself, but never got round to it. It’s an Orion 3000, top of the range. From your present aug we can record across the alignment program for sail physiology, and then it’ll be ready to attach. What do you say?’

The sail licked its lips with its bifurcated tongue. ‘I’ll want that in writing.’

Ambel produced a new contract from his other pocket. ‘Just sign here.’

The sail took the paper from him in its soft lips and took it up to the top of the mast to study. By the time it finished and signed the new document—surprisingly remembering its new name—Ambel was down on the deck organizing some fishing gear, for a shoal of turbul had just been sighted.

The Hoopers, to make their bunkhouse distinct and for their own comfort, constructed a veranda on which many of them would lounge during the day while they grumbled about the cost of living here. Janer felt they did not really have much to complain about: they were on a retainer until the Sable Keech launched, at which point they would go onto a full crewman’s wages. Anyway, as well as a veranda, they had also put together a couple of rafts to go fishing for boxies and turbul in the nearby shallows, so all they needed to buy from the various commercial concerns here was some Earth food, which was sensibly sold to them fairly cheaply. Forlam, showing uncharacteristic enterprise, had even brought along a still, and the distinctive smell around their bunkhouse came from the numerous buckets ranged outside, all full to the brim with fermenting seacane. Captain Ron thought Forlam a good lad.

‘He’s speaking again,’ Janer observed as he stepped out onto the veranda. He blinked in the bright light, rubbed his aching head—too much of Forlam’s rum last night.

‘Haranguing more like,’ rumbled Ron from where he sat in a chair tilted back against the wall. ‘It don’t seem to be working.’ He sipped from a beaker of coffee.

Bloc stood on a crate in the central clearing before a crowd of reifications. Picking up the gist of what he was saying, Janer realized the reif leader was telling them it was their duty to support him in defiance of Lineworld Developments’ attempted rip-off.

‘Maybe that’s because the intended target of that rip-off was Bloc himself,’ said Janer.

‘I dare say,’ Ron replied.

The hive mind then chipped in, ‘I have been checking: Bloc now fully controls this operation here, yet has maintained his contract with Lineworld. That means no reduction in ticket prices, accommodation costs or reification spares’

Janer relayed that to Ron. They had both heard plenty of grumbling, and knew that when the shuttle finally returned over two hundred of the reifications currently here would be leaving on it. But maybe that was not all down to economics. There was still the front end of a hooder out there somewhere.

‘How are you now?’ Janer asked Ron.

His injury hunger—that ravenous appetite Hoopers experienced after any physical damage as their bodies rebuilt themselves—had been immense, and had required the other Hoopers to chip in funds to buy sufficient dome-grown food.

‘Right as rain.’ Ron patted his shoulder.

Janer took hold of a chair and sat astride it. He watched Bloc, the crowd, the armed Kladites scattered all around the area.

‘Lineworld really screwed up, shipping that thing here,’ he said testingly.

Ron just grunted at that.

‘I note that no APW has turned up yet, and no one has admitted to owning one. We still don’t know who it was that cut the hooder in half.’

‘Not for lack of effort on Bloc’s part,’ Ron observed. ‘His lieutenants ain’t stopped turning this place over ever since.’

Janer nodded then emphatically wished he had not. He finally relented and took some pills from the top pocket of his shirt to swallow dry.

‘You should not have drunk so much last night. You are not here on holiday,’ the hive mind informed him primly.

Janer squinted down at his shoulder. ‘I’m not sure I give a damn.’

Muttered imprecations issued from the hivelink. Janer returned his attention to Captain Ron, who was gazing at him queryingly. ‘Hive minds are big on temperance, probably because they don’t like what happens to their hornets when they eat rotten fruit. You were saying…’

Ron shrugged and went on, ‘Curious how desperate Bloc is to find that weapon and its owner, considering they saved so many lives.’

‘They’re all a bit odd here,’ said Janer.

‘Yes.’ Ron nodded. ‘Not normal folk like us.’

A snort issued from the hivelink. Janer stood up and stepped down from the veranda, leaving Ron to nurse his coffee. Crossing the enclosure he eyed the damage the alien beast had wrought and noted that most of it had already been repaired. Most of the human remains had been collected, but it was still not uncommon to step on something nasty concealed in the dust.

‘They were burning the dead last night,’ he observed. The pyre had been built over the tail section of the hooder in an attempt to burn away some more of that as well. Hooder flesh did not combust very easily. ‘I wonder what they’ll do with the rest—the reifs are still extant, despite their bodies being ripped apart.’

‘Their memcrystals will be sent to Klader. Possibly the reifs now lacking bodies will be resurrected in Golem chassis or in cloned bodies, or destroyed, depending on the strength of their beliefs.’

‘Destroyed?’

‘Yes. Fanatical cultists believed the body was all, no matter how decayed it might be, and that without the body there can be no real return to life. Though the Cult itself is now defunct, many reifs still ascribe to its beliefs. Most here, incidentally, are Kladites.’

Janer grunted an acknowledgement then said, ‘I’m surprised.’

‘What, surprised at such primitive belief systems?’

‘No, that for three whole days you haven’t tried to persuade me to return to Chel. Or, rather, I’m not so much surprised as rather certain there’s something you aren’t telling me.’

‘Our agreement was for me to fund your journey here and to pay a bounty when you performed certain tasks. I have other contacts on Chel who will keep me apprised of anything I need to know. Meanwhile, I am curious about this… situation.’

Janer winced. There were no facial or verbal cues from a hive mind, but he knew it was lying. By now he had reached the edge of the compound, and saw that a female Kladite guard stood at the gate, which seemed to Janer rather redundant as over to her left a huge swathe of the fence was down.

‘Not advisable to go out there,’ said the woman.

Janer paused. He thought about arguing with her. But he was unarmed, being reluctant to carry around the weapon he had brought, and was now remembering how lethal Spatterjay life forms could be. And out there lurked something even worse than hippo-sized leeches, prill or the occasional adventurous whelk. He was not Captain Ron’s age, so the hooder could turn him into mush. He started to turn away, when a voice spoke from behind him.