He tossed away the empty shell and heaved himself upright, noticing how deeply blue the other two looked, and how their ridiculous giggles kept growing louder. He himself was not so blue yet; his diet of ship lice must be staving off the change in just the same way as did dome-grown food. Stretching his aching limbs he realized the other two were now staring at him.
‘Ca’in,’ said Lannias, smiling brightly, unable to articulate the ‘pt’ because of what was now growing in his mouth.
Orbus just looked away and tried to ignore him, not liking the immediate urge he felt to go over and kick the man insensible. Shalen started giggling uncontrollably. She thrust her hand down the front of her trousers and began playing with herself. She seemed unable to keep her eyes still and her chin was wet with drool.
‘Captsss!’ she hissed.
Lannias stood up. Orbus recognized the man’s expression as one possessed to a lesser extent by all his old crew. But now it turned the man’s features grotesque. Lannias drew his own skinning knife and began stabbing its tip into his own chest as if to test it. Surely he didn’t think himself capable of taking on an Old Captain? Apparently he did for, when mutilating himself abruptly became too much of a bore, he suddenly rushed towards Orbus.
Orbus crouched, and slashed his own knife in an arc before him as a warning. But Lannias did not even slow. Orbus straight-armed him in the face with a flat hand, snapping the man’s head back and flinging him to the floor, then circled round.
‘Want a little tussle do you?’ he asked nastily.
The hell with it, he thought; this might not improve their situation, but it would make him feel better.
Lannias rose quickly, his tongue wagging as he spat out a couple of teeth. Grinning, he jumped forward, slashing at his Captain’s face. Orbus swayed back and cut up, opening the man’s forearm. Then there came a sound that sent a shudder through him. The door was opening again.
‘Ca-a ca-a ca-a!’
Lannias tried to bury his knife in Orbus’s guts.
‘Fucking idiot!’
Orbus slapped down Lannias’s knife hand and cut hard across his face, bursting one of the man’s eyes and feeling his knife crunch through the gristle of Lannias’s nose.
‘Urg,’ said Lannias, staggering back.
Suddenly a weight came down on Orbus’s back, arms and legs wrapping around him, and something wet licked round his ear.
‘Nicesss Captainsss,’ said Shalen.
He reached back, grabbed clothing, ducked, and slammed her down on the floor.
‘Damned bitch! You…’
A huge claw closed hard around his waist. He felt several ribs breaking and he vomited a stream of louse meat.
‘Fuck you! Fuck you!’ he kept repeating as the Prador retreated with him to the door. He snapped his knife trying to puncture the adamantine claw, struggled to no avail, and wished with all his heart that he had some sprine.
The third day’s Intertox injection immediately stopped her struggling against the braided monofilament restraints. Janer was glad about that—her bonds had been stretching alarmingly. Her breathing became stentorian, rattling that horrible flaccid tongue in her mouth. For a second she looked at him with tired sanity, before her eyes started rolling again. He uncapped a bottle of supplement and watched her speculatively, not liking what he must do next and wondering if the clamp gripping her head would hold. He stepped forwards, thrust the bottle neck deep into her mouth, and pinched her nose closed. She struggled at first, thrashing like a beached turbul, then abruptly started swallowing. Once she had drained half the bottle, her eyes opened wide and she stared at him directly. He withdrew the bottle, recapped it, and wiped her chin. Enough for now. As she closed her eyes and slept, Janer moved away.
Having now had time to look around, Janer fully realized what tasks awaited himself and Erlin—if she did not decide to throw Bloc off the side of the ship when she recovered. Four rows of chainglass tanks extended for hundreds of metres in both directions, two rows on either side of a wide aisle interspersed with three wide pillars which enclosed mast stairwells, and the same arrangement on the deck above. With each tank came a set of equipment similar to that they had used on Sable Keech himself: a chrome autodoc, diagnosticer, sets of body probes with optic connections, and a voice generator with an assortment of connections for the varying kinds of reification hardware. Pipes ran along the floor beside the tanks, and connected into each. Others ran along the ceiling, also with spurs leading down to each tank. These were obviously for filling and draining them, but he wondered what with? They had used sea water as an amniot for Keech. It contained microbes as hardy as any other Spatterjay life form, and had been a nightmare to sterilize. There were also stretchers and trolleys here—no doubt intended to bring in the half-dead half-alive reifs after their religious experience on the Little Flint—and there were restraint tables like the one Erlin currently occupied, for holding reifs should they go into conflict with their own cybermotors, as had Keech.
Janer turned back to Erlin, wondering how long he should leave it before administering yet another injection. He watched her for a while, then went out to take a turn around the outside of the deckhouse as the sun set. He next took the stairwell down to the crew quarters in the stern, obtained food in the galley, and chatted for a while with some bored Hoopers sitting around in the mess; before returning to the Tank Rooms to sleep the night away on the table next to Erlin. The following morning he administered more Intertox. The day after that she tried to talk, but her tongue still got in the way. It did, however, seem to be shrinking, and her colour was less blue. Another night and the best part of the next day passed before he dared consider freeing her.
‘What the hell is this?’ Erlin asked, as she shakily stepped out across the main deck towards the port rail. The sea stretched endlessly before them, the dark green of laurel with not an island in sight, but the vista divided by ratlines and stay cables. She eyed some reifications standing a short distance away, scanned around the ship, then turned and peered up at the forest of masts, spars, cables and fabric sails in which lurked the three sentient sails, two living and one debatably so. ‘Bastards,’ she added.
‘This is the Sable Keech,’ said Janer. ‘I was willingly recruited. I gather you did not come of your own free will?’
‘Damned right I didn’t, though the alternative at the time didn’t seem so good.’ Erlin suddenly looked uncomfortable and added, ‘At least that’s what any sane person would think.’
Janer glanced at her questioningly, then wondered if he had released the restraints too soon when she went on to describe her nearly terminal encounter with a giant whelk.
‘Why weren’t you with Ambel?’
‘I needed a break,’ was all she allowed, then went on, ‘What’s this all about here?’
‘You’re on a ship full of reifications sailing towards the Little Flint—sort of following in the footsteps of Keech. A pilgrimage.’ Janer stabbed a thumb over his shoulder at the Tank Room. ‘I think you can guess what happens when we reach that destination.’
‘Whose bright idea is this?’ Erlin asked.
‘A reif called Taylor Bloc. He was financed by Lineworld—’
Erlin snorted at that.
Janer continued, ‘Yes, I know. But with a little help from a hooder he now has them off his back.’
‘Hooder?’
Janer explained what happened back at the island, then went on with, ‘He and his followers are fanatical—as far as you can tell with reifs. I gather that having us aboard, being one-time companions of Sable Keech himself, is something of a coup for Bloc—something akin to having some Apostles at a Christian church service. Though I rather suspect we are expected to feel honoured and humble.’