As Ambel peered through his binoculars, what he saw evinced in him some surprise, and for the Old Captain that was no common occurrence.

‘Definitely a ship’s boat, and there’s someone waving from it,’ he announced.

‘Can’t have been out at sea here for long—wouldn’t have survived the first rhinoworm to come along,’ observed Boris.

‘Well let’s pick ‘em up before one does happen by,’ Ambel replied.

Boris eased the helm over, and Galegrabber eased himself and his fabric brethren to the optimum angle. The Treader curved in towards the smaller craft, foaming out a white wake in the stiff breeze. The men in the boat began rowing hard to intercept the ship’s course.

Climbing up to the bridge, Anne observed, ‘We’ll have to reef to pick them up—it’ll slow us.’ Down below, Peck had already unwrapped his shotgun.

‘That’s as maybe,’ said Ambel, ‘but we can’t leave the lads to die. Anyway, we’re out over deep water now, so there shouldn’t be any problem with big angry molluscs.’

‘That’s good.’ Anne turned to stare behind them.

As they finally drew in beside the small boat, Boris shouted at Galegrabber, ‘Reef ’em!’ after the sail seemed a little reluctant. Muttering to itself, it pulled the reefing cables that wadded the fabric sails up against their spars, then climbed high up the mast, peering nervously all about. Ambel frowned at it, then climbed down to the main deck.

‘You all right there, lads?’ he asked, leaning over the side. He vaguely recognized the two men in the boat, which probably meant they were juniors, as he clearly recognized every senior crewman. How could he not, having known them for centuries?

‘Captain Ambel!’ said one of them delightedly. He was a thin-set lad with blond hair tied in a pony tail. The other one was of squatter build, his ginger hair patchy on the dome of his head. Another few years and it would likely all be gone—just like Ron’s.

‘Do I know you?’ the Captain asked.

‘I’m Silister, and my friend is Davy-bronte… from the Vignette.’

‘Ah…’ said Ambel. ‘Well get aboard sharpish and you can tell me all about it.’

The two men scrambled up the rope ladder Peck had cast down to them. Ambel observed chunks taken out of the side of their craft, some burns, and the remains of a rhinoworm on which the two had obviously been dining. The boat was also partially awash. He nodded to himself—they had been adrift for a while and survived, doubtless with some Polity assistance. As soon as the two men were on deck and standing before Ambel, he shouted up to Galegrabber, ‘Let’s be moving along then!’ The sail seemed intent on something out at sea, so he yelled. ‘Galegrabber!’ Eventually it obeyed and, under the boom of fabric sail, the Treader journeyed on.

‘What about the boat?’ Peck was peering over the side.

‘Tie her off at the stern,’ Ambel replied.

Muttering imprecations Peck took up a coil of rope and climbed over the rail.

‘All right, lads, which of you has the laser?’

The two of them looked uncomfortable. Eventually the squat one, Davy-bronte, opened his shirt and pulled out a QC laser handgun. He hesitated for a moment, then turned it round so as to present the butt to Ambel. The Captain took the weapon, inspected it for a moment, then handed it back to him. The look of surprise on Davy-bronte’s face both amused and saddened him.

‘This isn’t the Vignette. It’s your weapon, so you keep it. I just want to know who has it so I know who to call on should it be necessary.’ He pointed up to the bridge. ‘Anne up there’s got a laser carbine. And that over there is mine.’ He pointed to where his blunderbuss hung. ‘Now, speaking of the Vignette, where exactly is that ship now?’

After a long hesitation, the one called Davy-bronte replied, ‘A couple of kilometres down, I reckon.’

Ambel winced. He might not have much time for Orbus, but no Captain liked to hear about a ship going down. The best that could be hoped for crew from a stricken ship who ended up in the water was that something big might grab and kill them quickly, since only very young Hoopers would have the luxury of drowning. Ambel knew, only too well, what happened to older Hoopers left helpless in the sea.

‘Why’s that then, lad?’

‘A big Prador war drone shot a hole through the side.’

Coming over the rail with the end of the rope, the other end of which he had just attached to the boat, Peck said, ‘Chewin’ bloody squeaky weed bugger.’ He then headed for the stern, flipping the slack along the rail as he went, while the rowing boat drifted out behind the ship.

Ambel ignored his muttering. ‘Prador war drone?’

Silister now replied, ‘It come out of the sea. The Cap’n thought it was that other big Polity drone at first an’ it harpooned him, then it rained sail meat an’ it got Drooble first…’ He trailed off, looking confused, then brightly added, ‘We were caulking the boat. We hid.’

Ambel patted him on the shoulder. ‘Perhaps you’d better start—’

‘Aaargh!’

Ambel stepped past them and hurried to the stern, in time to see Peck leaning back hard, his feet slipping along the deck, the rope now a taut line to the stern rail, then out to the boat beyond. Ambel stepped to the rail and saw the boat, half sunk, waggling from side to side.

‘Let it go, Peck.’

‘Umph.’

The line slackened. The boat turned a circle, lifted up out of the water and fell back upside down. A familiar flat white tentacle rose behind it, then came down hard, smashing it to matchwood.

‘We got all the sail on?’ Ambel asked loudly but casually.

‘Yes, Captain!’ shouted Boris. He was also turning the Treader quickly, so it would run with the wind.

‘What?’ asked Silister, who had followed with his companion.

‘One thing at a time,’ said Ambel. ‘Now tell me again what happened to the Vignette.’

The giant whelk chewed on the fragments of wood, sucking every nuance of flavour from them. She located and gobbled up the slightly rancid chunk of rhinoworm. She was very hungry, having discovered that swimming used up more energy than crawling along the bottom, but all this unaccustomed activity also made her feel more alive than ever before. Also, such were the changes she had undergone, mentally and physically, she was beginning to question her earlier motivations of revenge.

The bulk of her young had been eaten by a shoal of turbul, but should she ever encounter any of that species again she would treat them no differently than before. She would kill and eat them just the same. The human… yes the word was now clear in her mind… had only killed one of her young, and she was not exactly pursuing that particular human, but any with some connection to it. No matter. She gave an underwater shrug. She would kill and eat them just the same. That was what she did. Anyway, she was enjoying this chase. It was with a growth of something new inside her—humour—that she recognized that she killed and ate any living thing she could lay her tentacles on. And so she laboured on after the Treader.

The heirodont, closing in from five hundred metres behind her, possessed no sense of humour at all, probably because it spent most of its life being fed upon by parasitic leeches. However, it did enjoy a chase, and it definitely ascribed to the same creed as the whelk: it killed and ate anything it could get its mandibles around.