Thirteen now dropped down further, into the bilge, and headed back towards the rudder. On the way the drone halted where a reif and a Hooper were busy scooping up the rest of the hooder’s remains.
‘Why would Janer Cord Anders be carrying such a weapon?’ the drone sent his inquiry to a far-away listener.
‘I would guess that the hive mind he consorts with supplied it to him,’ the Warden replied. ‘This is a situation that bears close watching, and it seems evident that the Golem, Isis Wade, may be the hive-mind agent I am seeking.’
‘And if that proves to be the case,’ said Thirteen, ‘what action should be taken?’
‘None at the moment. Our actions are dependent on what the Golem actually does. If he ever attempts to take any sprine off-planet, he must be stopped, which I suspect were Janer’s instructions, too. It is, however, doubtful that this is truly Wade’s aim.’
‘And what might be his aim, then?’
After a long pause the Warden replied, ‘I have no idea.’
Thirteen moved on, finally entering the meeting hall at the stern. Here again floor panels had been pulled up, but to expose the tangled and incinerated wreckage around the rudder’s rear tang. The Golem, Isis Wade, was unbolting the electrical control of a hydraulic pump, while Janer detached various servo-switches and their charred loom of optics. Others were replacing melted pipes and heat-seized valves. The work was nearly done, but the rudder remained jammed over at the full extent of one ram, the ram on the other side having been removed.
This was where Captain Ron came in. While Thirteen watched, the Old Captain heaved against the rear tang of the rudder, as if against the bar of a lock gate. Slowly the rudder began to move round, fluid jetting from melted pipes and valve holes as the remaining ram closed up. Dragging behind two large iron wedges, and with a sledgehammer resting over his shoulder, Forlam followed the Captain.
‘Now,’ said Ron, once the rudder lay straight relative to the ship.
Forlam dragged the wedges into position underneath the tang and hammered them into place while the Captain continued to prevent the rudder from swinging back.
‘That’ll do it,’ Ron opined.
Thirteen just filed this further example of how physically strong Old Captains were. It observed the dents made in the bubble-metal floor by the Captain’s feet, then swung away to scan, by ultrasound imaging, Janer Cord Anders. Within a second the drone ascertained that the man still carried his singularity gun—the drone receiving strange feedback from its vicinity. Abruptly Isis Wade looked up and located Thirteen.
By radio, Thirteen sent, ‘Are you a hive-mind agent?’
‘Yes,’ replied Wade, without opening his mouth.
‘Why are you here?’
‘To repair this rudder control system.’
‘No, I mean why are you here.’
‘I was never much good at metaphysics.’
Wade returned his attention to his work, no longer responding to Thirteen’s questions. The drone swung away, floated out into the bilge, and once again ascended up to the deck. It observed Erlin contemplatively studying formulae on a screen while, nearby, five reifs floated in tanks of sea water and tried to live. It saw a Hooper inspecting the hull where it had impacted against an atoll, only to find no discernible damage. Other Hoopers tossed sacks of human bones and wrecked reification hardware over the side, and one of the living sails departed its mast to snatch up a rhinoworm this commotion attracted. The drone transmitted a signal to Zephyr, and as ever received no response.
Then, once the rudder was repaired, over the ensuing days and nights Thirteen watched the continuing voyage of the Sable Keech settle into an uneasy rhythm.
The trench was a vast canyon under the sea, up to seven kilometres deep in some places, and sometimes twice as wide. As Sniper cruised down the long slope leading into it, he observed a wide trail in the sand and mud, then eventually encountered its source, perambulating along the bottom like a mobile mountain. From below the slope of gnarled pyramidal shell cut through with glimmers of iridescence, dinner-plate eyes turned to track his course, and thick white and grey tentacles groped out of the murk after him. He accelerated beyond their grasp.
‘Eleven, Twelve, how are you doing?’
Twelve replied, ‘We’ll be with you in two hours.’
‘That the best you can do?’
‘Without imploding, yes,’ Twelve replied dryly.
Sniper grumped to himself and moved on.
Soon he was travelling alongside a vast cliff occupiedby diamond jellyfish like glinting blue glass eyes, roving glisters black as midnight, and populations of smaller molluscs roaming like flocks of vertical sheep. All his detectors were operating at maximum efficiency: his magnetometer checking for anything metallic around him for a distance of a kilometre, he probed the ground below with ultrasound and to a wider radius with infrasound, constantly sampled the sea water for unusual compounds, and just watched, listened… As the canyon grew wider, he moved to its centre to maximize the efficiency of his scans. Detecting metal he immediately put his weapons systems online, until discovering a vein of silver in the rock. Another return had him digging down into mud, using his tentacles and the blast of his tractor drive. But he only revealed a very old piece of ceramal hull, quite possibly from the same craft Jay Hoop crashed onto what later became the Skinner’s Island. Then Sniper reached the first side canyon.
He was undecided about entering this tributary, as it seemed too narrow here, but checking his map of the trench he saw that further along it became wide enough to hold Ebulan’s ship—or rather Vrell’s ship, now. He motored between the narrow walls, paused to listen to the sound of packetworms grinding through obdurate stone, ascertained that the rumbling disguised nothing else, and moved on. Passing through a blizzard of diamond jellyfish that had detached from the walls, he found glistening tubular structures sticking to his armour, so combed them away from his surface with his tentacles and jetted on beyond the clouds of microscopic eggs thus released. Another of the giant whelks was wedged in a crevice ahead of him, its cracked shell gaping open, one eye missing, the remaining eye directed above him to a circling heirodont the size of an ocean liner. The heirodont ignored Sniper, intent on larger prey. Beyond them, where the canyon widened, no spaceship was revealed, though huge pieces of iridescent shell were scattered on the ocean floor. Turning to head back, Sniper realized his was a walk-on role in a drama played out down here many times before.
Moving beyond the tributary, Sniper zigged and zagged as the canyon grew wider, picking up two metallic sources that came to nothing. Another three tributaries branched off just ahead. Two of them, by his internal map, were over fifty kilometres long. Assessing how far he had come and what area he had covered in what time, Sniper made a rough calculation of how long this search would take him, presupposing he would have to search the entire trench on his own. The resulting figure depressed him. However, he was no longer alone. Up above him now he detected two metallic objects descending, and scanning them by sonar he recognized the shapes of a fish and a scallop.
‘Each of you take one of the longer side canyons,’ he instructed, ‘and maintain constant link to me.’
‘So you’ll know when we’re obliterated?’ enquired Eleven.
‘I see,’ said Sniper. ‘I thought your descent overly protracted.’
Neither of the other drones replied as they descended to the separate canyons and sped off into their individual darkness. Sniper turned into the remaining canyon, there exploring a killing ground used by a large prill—the creature surrounded on all sides by the dismembered remains of a pod of black glisters. It leapt up from the bottom at him, turning at the last moment to present its array of sickle legs revolving like the blades of a food processor. He caught hold of it with his two larger tentacles, held it for a minute as its bladed limbs grated harmlessly over his armour, then shoved it away.