Here, around her now, drifted the remnants of parboiled leeches, cooked-red segments of glister and hinged-open prill carapaces. Down below she observed the skeleton of a heirodont and felt a surge of gladness — as she well knew, such monsters did not die easily, so what had caused this ablation of its flesh must have been strong indeed. Now all that was left of that drastic event was unusual warm-water currents cutting through the devastation. But the ocean was gradually returning to normal and, like herself, its denizens were venturing into this area to feed on the organic detritus.
First came the turbul, crunching open both shell and carapace to get at the broiled meat inside. Then came shoals of boxies, swarming like silver bees as they picked through this cornucopia in the water and juggled clean any pieces of shell the turbul dropped. Glisters remained distant, keeping well clear of the whelk herself, but prill she had to perpetually slap away. A heirodont, half the size of the one she had beheaded, cruised into view then turned towards her. She prepared her garrotte and waited, as the thing circled twice, clacking its mandibles. Holding the line out towards it, drawn taut between two tentacles, she sculled round to stay facing it. Then it attacked.
Her line cut into the slope of its head as it drove her rapidly back up through the water, then along the surface, kicking up spray from the heaving ocean. Its mandibles kept groping only a small distance from her body. When it eventually slowed, she relaxed the line’s tension, sculled neatly round beside the creature’s head and looped the line around its neck. It was easier with this smaller attacker than the previous occasion, and the line did not snag on any vertebrae this time. A second heirodont arrived just in time to see the whelk pushing off from the thrashing body of her attacker while its head spiralled down towards the bottom, trailing ichor as grey as any spume from a volcanic vent. As the second heirodont quickly turned away, she felt joy not so much because of this victory but because the attacker had propelled her to this particular area of ocean. For, sticking out her corkscrew tongue, she savoured a familiar taste in the water.
The ship.
16
Molly Carp:
no one really knows how this creature obtained the first half of its name, though the second part is quite obvious, since the creature’s body resembles that of a Terran fish called a carp. However, there the resemblance ends. It propels itself through the sea by gripping the bottom with three rows of flat tentacles growing from its belly. Fossil evidence indicates that these are a further evolution of barbels. Molly carp are solitary and territorial creatures, usually making the shallows around a single atoll their domain. They can grow up to five metres long in the body, with tentacles extending down fifteen metres. Hoopers claim that once every three hundred years they all simultaneously leave their individual territories so as to mate in Nort Sea. This has yet to be witnessed by any Polity observer, but if it is the case, then they seem to have adapted well to viral longevity. Rumour and legend abound regarding these creatures: they rescue drowning Hoopers, sometimes follow ships for hundreds of kilometres, and like magpies will steal anything shiny they can lay their tentacles on. It is claimed that one Captain Alber even trained a molly carp to tow his ship. This Captain has never been found, so no confirmation can be made. All Polity observers have witnessed are molly carp haunting island waters, where they are voracious predators of glisters and prill, occasionally venturing down deeper to unearth amberclams —
Janer peered through the sight of the laser carbine and observed the adolescent rhinoworms tearing at each other in the island shallows. After targeting one of them he was about to fire when another surge from the ship’s engines forced him to step quickly to one side to maintain his balance. Some of the Kladites on deck, who were making themselves useful by lasering worms out at sea, were experiencing the same problem. Hooper crew up in the rigging, as well as having to maintain balance, were also plagued by lung birds which, apparently sated on nectar from the sea lilies, found the rigging a convenient place to roost. And they stank. But still lots of rhinoworms had been hit at some distance from the ship, diverting the attention of many of their cannibalistic kin away from those the ship’s autolasers were currently massacring.
Janer stepped back to the rail and peered over.
It was a mess down there. The sea was a soup of chopped up bodies, and of thousands more come to feed in a struggling mass three-deep up the side of the ship. Smoke was billowing all along the waterline, the stink of charred flesh infected the air and, much as he had no love for the voracious denizens of this planet, Janer was saddened to see their destruction in such numbers. He turned round and glanced up beyond the Hoopers joyously popping away at distant rhinoworms. Up there Zephyr hung upside down, his head jerking back and forth as if tracking every shot. Janer glanced down again, considering switching to auto-sight—as the Hoopersdoubtless had—which allowed some correction for the movement of the deck beneath him. Then he shouldered his weapon and wandered over to the ladder up the side of the midship deckhouse.
‘There has to be a better way than this,’ he said to Wade, who was observing the mayhem from the roof and occasionally turning to check Zephyr’s reaction to it.
The Golem looked down at him. ‘There is, and it’s being dealt with now. Everyone but a small crew is being ordered to remain in their cabins, and all stairwells and hatches are to be closed. We’ll keep the decks clear meanwhile.’
Janer climbed up to join him. ‘So even Ron is getting a little tired of this slaughter?’
‘It’s not that.’ Wade glanced at him. ‘These creatures are only being attracted to the bodies of their own kind, and that’s why there are so many around the ship. Left to their own devices, only a few would manage to crawl up the side and get aboard.’
‘You got that in writing?’
‘We have to try it.’ Wade grinned. ‘According to Ron, if we can lose the bulk of those now clinging at the waterline, the ship would lift as much as half a metre.’
‘Have to try what, precisely?’
‘Shutting off the autolasers.’
‘Ah, that’s—’ Janer did not finish, for at that moment Wade grabbed him, hurling the both of them to one side and down onto the deck. As he sprawled, Janer heard yelling, saw a shape hurtling down, then felt the deck jounce underneath him as a Hooper slammed down on it a couple of metres away. Immediately after, what was left of a Batian weapon hit the nearby rail. The two struggled to their feet and moved over to the fallen man, who was lying on his side with his hands wrapped around his head.
‘Are you all right?’ Wade asked.
Janer at first thought that a silly question, until he remembered: Of course, a Hooper.
With a crunching sound the man unwrapped his arms from his head. His landing had been a hard one, for the Hooper found it necessary to push one of his eyeballs back into its socket.
Another crunching sound as he straightened out his leg. ‘Think… I’ll be needing a little help,’ he managed.
Wade removed a comlink from his pocket and spoke into it. This was just a courtesy to Janer and the crewman, as he was quite capable of transmitting the same words by his internal radio. ‘Erlin, we’ve got an injured Hooper on the midships deckhouse, just above you.’
Erlin replied from the link, ‘And?’
‘He fell about a hundred metres from the rigging. He might need a bit of work to straighten him out, before he heals up flat.’