Bloc froze as if this was too much input to process, then after a moment said, ‘Very well. You’—he pointed at Ron—‘will remain here along with Erlin and Janer.’ He turned to John Styx. ‘You too will remain.’

‘Then I will stay too,’ said Santen Marcollian.

Styx looked at her. ‘Santen, please leave with the rest.’

Bloc seemed to have some trouble with this, since his eye irrigators were drenching his face again. ‘You will both stay… as hostages.’

‘There you go,’ remarked Ron, looking towards Forlam, who was now heading for the door with some others. ‘So you lot remember, no one is to go over the side and submerse.’ While Forlam looked back at him he added, ‘Anyway, there’ll be no one to lead a rescue, what with that Polity drone, Thirteen, having been destroyed by laser.’

Janer winced at this flagrant hint, but it seemed to have shot straight over Bloc’s putrefying head. The four Hoopers and the reif filed out of the bridge and headed below decks.

‘What now?’ Janer asked.

‘We wait,’ said Bloc. ‘We wait until it’s all over.’

The sun was due to rise at any time now, and was turning the sky into a rainbow maelstrom. Ambel thought about the battle they had witnessed the previous evening. He had recognized the glare of particle beams cutting the sky, laser flashes and the dull crump of explosions. But then it had all suddenly ceased, and only minutes later gold-armoured Prador and spherical war drones had been speeding overhead, to the sound of Captain Drum’s curses as he waved his fist at the sky. Either Vrost had won the victory he sought, or for some other reason the Prador captain had recalled its forces. Ambel, though, now had more immediate concerns.

The island was visible; a dark mass poised between the psychedelic sky and its reflection in the ocean. Within a few hours they would be hitting the beach, and less than an hour after that, mayhem. He turned to Captain Drum, who now stood beside him on the foredeck.

‘Maybe it won’t touch the Moby,’ he suggested.

‘Maybe it’ll tie a white flag to its tentacle and immediately surrender,’ Drum replied.

He seemed a bit tetchy this morning, but Ambel felt this had less to do with rowing all night bringing across his crew, weapons and supplies from the Moby, and more to do with witnessing Prador up there in the sky, out of reach.

‘Anyway,’ Drum added, ‘you better hope it does attack my ship.’

Ambel glanced down at the two crews standing ready on deck. They were all armed, and the harpoons from both ships were sharpened, their ropes attached. Ambel just hoped they would be able to find something to which those ropes could be tied. He harrumphed, raised his binoculars and gazed across at Drum’s ship. The sail, Cloudskimmer, was doing an excellent job, controlling the Moby’s fabric sails and steering the ship with his jaws clamped on the helm. But inevitably the Moby was lagging behind.

‘How much are you paying him?’ Ambel asked.

‘Twice his normal fee, plus he wants an aug like the one you gave Galegrabber.’ Drum gazed at Ambel estimatingly. ‘Supposing I can afford it.’

They had yet to settle who was to blame for all this. Whelkus titanicus had started out pursuing Ambel, and Drum had opined that had he himself sailed away, it would have left him alone. Ambel disputed this, adding that the creature’s behaviour seemed very odd, and anyway it had not pursued him through any fault of his own. Drum then decided it was Erlin who would shortly be owing him a lot of Spatterjay New Skind.

Their pursuer surfaced occasionally, as if not wanting them to become complacent about it. Earlier, when they had necessarily run slightly athwart the wind and as a consequence slowed, it had drifted to one side, pulling away from the Treader, which was closer, to go after the Moby instead. It might have caught them otherwise. Ambel felt the whelk was enjoying the chase far too much.

‘If there’s shallows way out,’ Ambel said loudly, ‘we’ll use both ship’s boats to ferry everyone in. All the harpoons will have to take precedence in the boats. Without them we’ll be running around this island till we all turn into skinners.’

‘I doubt we’ll get everyone ashore before it attacks,’ murmured Drum.

‘Let’s hope for a steep beach,’ Ambel murmured back.

As they drew closer to the island, the sun gilded the underside of distant cloud and now began washing colour from the sky. Meanwhile, the island’s central volcanic cone became distinct above thick foliage. A great swathe of peartrunk trees had been toppled, probably by the recent wave, but enough still stood for Ambel’s purpose.

‘Keep us straight,’ Ambel told Boris, then bellowed, ‘Peck, get forward and keep an eye out for shoals!’

His shotgun resting across his shoulder, Peck obeyed.

‘The rest of you,’ Ambel continued, ‘load the boats. We want to launch as soon as we can, even if we can beach the ship.’

The crews began stowing harpoons and other items in the boats, which were hung like upside-down beetles’ wings on davits either side of the ship. With Drum following, Ambel climbed down to the lower deck, then headed forwards to peer over the side. Even though the rising sun reflected off the water, he could see the occasional shape passing below the ship, and undulating masses that were the upper foliage of kelp trees.

‘We need to get right in, and quick,’ said Drum, pointing.

Ambel squinted in the direction indicated, noticing a mass of something floating on the surface. At first he thought he was seeing sargassum, then realized the mass was moving. Juvenile rhinoworms—the situation just got better and better.

‘Starboard, two points!’ Peck abruptly yelled.

The ship turned slightly, and Ambel observed a twisted mass of packetworm coral like some sunken temple sliding by to port. The ship shuddered as a grating vibration came up through the deck.

‘Okay,’ Peck muttered, ‘three points.’

‘Let’s get that anchor chain up—we might be needing it,’ said Drum.

The two Captains moved up behind Peck and began hauling heavy anchor chain out of the chain locker and coiling it on the deck.

Soon, over the side of the ship, the bottom became clearly visible. Ambel estimated the depth to be four metres. Also visible down there were the pink anguine shapes of more juvenile rhinoworms. Nothing else was evident, but then anything else around here would have been eaten by now, no matter how solid its shell.

‘I reckon we’ll be able to pull her in,’ stated Ambel.

‘We’ll need cover,’ said Drum.

Ambel nodded and turned to the crew. ‘Anne, Davy-bronte, and anyone with Polity weapons, let’s have you up here!’

Anne stepped forwards screwing a new energy canister into her laser carbine, then came Davy-bronte, brandishing his QC laser. Ambel was glad to see that some of Drum’s crew also carried the necessary weapons: one pulse gun, a laser carbine and a pulse rifle.

‘Okay,’ said the Captain, ‘the rest of you with old guns, divide yourselves evenly between the two boats. That way you can cover us from either side if we have to haul the ship in.’ Their various antiquated automatic weapons, rifles, six-guns and shotguns would not prove very effective against worms swimming under water, but were better than nothing.

When Ambel turned to face forward again, he observed Drum holding an apple-sized silver device with a small touch-pad connected to one end. ‘I was saving this to shove up a Prador where the sun don’t shine, but I guess I’ll have to use it now.’

‘Don’t drop it too near the hull,’ Ambel advised.

Drum snorted.

Now the bottom was only a few metres down, and the beach close. Ambel heaved up the anchor and moved beside Peck, gesturing him to stand back.

‘It’s reached her,’ said Drum.