The calculations necessary to enable him to make repairs to the U-space engine were halfway completed. Vrell considered abandoning that pursuit, because to use the engine he must first get off this planet and well clear of its gravity well. It did not strike him as probable that Vrost would allow that. However, Vrell lost nothing by allowing those calculations to continue running, and some future opportunity might present itself. For the present he would take measures to protect himself, and those were predicated on the threat to Vrost of non-existent grav-tech weapons controlled by the Warden and Vrost’s resultant reluctance to destroy a ship-load of mobile corpses.

Vrell was not optimistic.

Stalemate. Sniper pulled away from the Prador war drone, and it pulled away from him. Assessing the damage done to him, Sniper was quite impressed. His internal systems were down to 70 per cent, his internal power sources were half depleted and only a few missiles remained in his carousels. Externally, his once bright armour was now battered and black, and he was even missing two tentacles. However, the Prador drone was not in the best of condition either: it was missing one of its claws, radioactive gas was leaking from a crack in its armour, and its shape was no longer entirely spherical.

‘You know, shithead,’ Sniper sent, ‘I’m saving a small imploder missile for that crack in your hide.’ With any luck this would make the Prador drone more protective of that area, perhaps thus leaving it vulnerable elsewhere.

‘My name is not shithead, old drone,’ it replied. ‘And such cheap ploys will not work with me.’

‘Right, gotcha. What’s your name, then?’

‘I am Vrell.’

Interesting.

‘Now that’s an odd coincidence.’

‘There is no coincidence—I am a copy.’

‘I see… I’m Sniper, by the way.’

‘Then know, Sniper, that we are evenly matched, except in one respect: my armour is thicker. Should we have finally depleted our respective armouries, I would have knocked you down onto one of these islands and pounded you into the ground.’

It sure was a lot more talkative than others of its kind that Sniper had met, and destroyed. ‘Would have?’

The Prador drone abruptly turned and opened up with its fusion engines, immediately accelerating away from Sniper.

What now?

Sniper set off in pursuit but, as he did so, he immediately picked up objects hurtling down from the sky above. Suddenly their fight was no longer an even match, for Vrost’s forces were coming to intercede. Sniper suddenly felt a kinship with the fleeing drone.

‘Looks like your relatives have come to finish what we started,’ he sent after his erstwhile opponent.

‘They make clear targets against the sky. I suspect they will not survive beyond another twelve point three kilometres,’ the Vrell drone replied.

Sniper abruptly cut his acceleration. Twelve point three kilometres was a precise figure, and certainly a strange product of bravado. At this elevation, he calculated, as drones and armoured Prador sped past him, that figure would bring them over the horizon and in direct line to the present location, within a permissible error, of Vrell’s spaceship. Using attitude jets, Sniper spun round, and re-engaged his engines to send him in the opposite direction. At three kilometres he observed one of the armoured Prador turning in mid-air as it sped past. It looked something like a gigantic dust mite cast in gold.

‘We will attend to the matter you have left undone,’ it sent contemptuously.

Sniper considered giving these new Prador the courtesy his opponent had just given him, but rejected the idea. Obviously the Vrell drone had felt the same kinship as he had felt for it, though given the opportunity it would still have pounded him into the ground just as he would have gladly given it a missile suppository. But he felt no such kinship with these others. As far as he was concerned, Prador killing Prador could only be a good thing, despite any treaties. Low over the ocean, he turned to observe, right on cue, the flash of particle-cannon impacts, and molten pieces of drone and golden armour raining on the sea.

Ambel gazed astern through his binoculars, and frowned. The sea was choppy so it was difficult to tell, but he was sure he had just spotted something in the waves. Not that this was unusual: since all the life forms on Spatterjay were long-lived and difficult to kill, it was inevitable that they swarmed everywhere. And, tacking like this, the Treader was sure to pick up the odd inquisitive monster—perhaps a rhinoworm then, or a big leech.

‘Something up, Captain?’ asked Boris from the helm.

‘I think we might have an unwelcome guest,’ Ambel replied.

‘Not that bloody whelk?’

Ambel shook his head. ‘Unlikely—I reckon that one’s long gone.’ He headed for the ladder, clambered down it to enter his cabin, snatched up the holographic conferencing device, and walked back out on deck. After spending a moment resetting it to voice only, and then connecting to one other such device, he asked, ‘Drum. Drum, are you there, man?’

Drum’s reply was immediate. ‘I wondered when you’d be getting in contact. I’ve been shouting into this thing on and off for a couple of hours.’

‘You’ve seen it then?’

‘Yup, something in our wake. Might be an idea to run with the wind for a while to lose it,’ Drum replied. ‘This blow is starting to shift the way we want to go, anyway.’

‘How long ago did you spot it?’

‘Roach spotted something this morning. No one believed him until our sail confirmed it a few hours ago.’

‘Any idea what it might be?’

‘I dunno—something dangerous by the way Cloudskimmer’s behaving.’

Ambel looked up. ‘Galegrabber! What’s following us?’

The sail lowered its head until it was level with Ambel’s. The creature now wore its new aug, and since donning it had been very silent and introspective. ‘A big swimming whelk. Its tentacle nearly snagged the rudder on that last tack.’

‘Why didn’t you buggering well tell us?’

The sail blinked. ‘The search program I ran revealed that no one has yet been attacked by a swimming whelk.’

‘Erm, and how about your memory?’

The sail looked astern, licking its black tongue around its teeth. ‘My memory is clear. Yes, I do recollect this individual attacking us.’

Ambel sighed. ‘Galegrabber, this is the real world, right here.’ He stabbed a finger at the deck. ‘I know what you see in the AI nets can be astounding, and that the programs you run can reveal all sorts of fascinating facts, but none of that stuff will help you if something tries to eat you here and now.’

‘Aug trance?’ asked Drum over the link.

‘In a big way,’ Ambel replied. ‘I reckon we should do what you said. Boris, turn us into the wind!’ He addressed the sail again. ‘And you.’

Galegrabber stared for a long moment, then abruptly jerked up his head and began to turn both himself and the fabric sails. Boris spun the helm and the Treader heeled over. Across the link, Ambel heard Drum bellowing similar orders, and saw that the Moby was coming about as well.

‘Everyone up on deck, and armed!’ Ambel now called out, then returned to his cabin to inspect a chart spread on the table. If Drum was right, and the wind did shift to take them back on their original course, then in a few days they would be reaching an island which was only a number on this chart. He again considered his earlier thoughts on how to deal with this persistent pursuer. They required a landfall for that, as they stood no chance against such a monster on the open ocean. He just hoped the wind did not die, meanwhile.

Back out on deck he observed such crew as were not moving about assigned tasks all standing armed at the rail, looking astern. He joined them in time to see a huge iridescent shell break the surface, tentacles whipping the waves ahead of it, and two huge eyes extruded on stalks to observe them.