Ryan watched the creature, which looked like a cross between a small rabbit and a large rat, but with a skin that glistened in the dawning as if it were covered in scales. It ignored the two dories and paddled across the cove, quickly reaching deeper water. It passed only a few feet in front of Ryan, head held back, little eyes twinkling like polished buttons, whiskers perkily aloft, paws twitching up spray. Its teeth were bared with the effort of its exertions.
There was a swirl and a flash of dull white sandpaper skin, and teeth, row upon serrated row, as the shark rolled belly-up in its attack. The little animal vanished, and the water cleared once more. It was as though nothing had happened.
One single bubble of dark maroon blood came plopping to the surface and burst, the color spreading and dissipating.
"Not a good place for swimming, Mr. Ogg."
"Not a good place at all, Captain."
"Fucking get on!" Jak shouted.
"Language, laddie!" the woman reproved. "Mebbe thou should wash out thy mouth with good salt water. Ample under thy feet, cully."
"It's only me, you sick bitch! Let the others go."
"That an order to the captain, Outlander Deadman?" Ogg grinned at Ryan. "Well named, art thou not? Deadman. Outlander Deadman."
Ryan was trying to work out the odds. There wasn't much doubt that the first volley from the mate and the woman would put at least two and probably three of them over the side. And that meant death with the sharks cruising by, jaws gaping. One of the friends might snatch up a blaster and chill them both, but all the pointers were for a lot of dying.
A triangular fin broke the water near their boat, causing a wave to rock them from side to side.
Another appeared in the entrance from the open sea, and then a third. At a guess Ryan figured there were now at least a half dozen of the mutie monsters in the constricted waters of the narrow cove.
Their ceaseless swirling was raising a swell, water lapping at the jagged walls of the mollusk-covered rocks.
Ryan's boat, grounded in the shingle, only moved a little from the waves. The blasters rattled and jostled in the bottom. Near Ryan's hand, where he steadied himself on the thwart, was the shaft of one of the long killing harpoons, its curved end glittering in the dawn.
"Bastard belly-rippers," Pyra Quadde said. "Canst thou not make 'em hold still or go out into the open Lantic, Mr. Ogg?"
"Do better," he said, firing three spaced rounds at the nearest shark.
The weaving killer that Ogg had fired at disappeared for several seconds. Allowing for the deflection effect of the clear water, it wasn't likely that the first mate had harmed it.
But to everyone's shock and amazement, the shark surfaced, trailing a ribbon of blood behind it. The long tail thrashed at the water, kicking up a spray of blinding foam. Ryan saw two of the other creatures, tasting blood, sensitized to the faint electrical emanations of the wounded beast, dart in, the sound of their rending teeth clearly audible as they entered a feeding frenzy.
One lashed out with its tail as it rolled, teeth locked in the flesh of its comrade, throwing a huge wave across the cove.
Pyra Quadde's boat careened sideways, sending Cyrus Ogg tottering into his skipper, arms clasping her as he fought for balance. Petrified by the sudden hazard of toppling into the frothing sea, the woman also staggered, hands waving and pushing at her first mate.
For a crazed second, they were both helpless.
Ryan reacted first and fastest.
The blaster was too far off. By the time he'd stooped and risen again, a bullet from the Astra would be shredding his flesh. His fighting brain raced in overdrive as he dropped his hand to the narrow wooden shaft of the whaling iron, drawing it smoothly from the bow of the boat. He braced himself and aimed in a single, fluid movement.
Muscles exploded into action, the breath hissing through his teeth as he released the harpoon at Pyra Quadde's stocky figure. The woman had seen him go for the lance and was opening her mouth to scream at Ogg. Off balance, struggling in the bow of the pitching dory, she still managed to snap off two shots at Ryan before he'd let go of the harpoon.
One gouged a long splinter of curling wood from the seat, less than a foot from his leg, the other whistling past his right ear, close enough for him to feel the heat of its passing. It struck the boulders at the base of the cliff and howled off into the last fingers of mist.
But the iron was thrown.
It seemed to cross the space between the two whaleboats with agonizing slowness, the shaft vibrating with the power of the cast.
The point hit the woman below the breastbone, an inch to the right, piercing through her lungs and emerging under her right shoulder blade.
The Astra fell from her hand, splashing into the turbulent water. The long ugly shaft of the lance protruded from her chest, impaling her like a collector's specimen. Its weight tugged her forward, a few shambling, clumsy steps. Her eyes were wide open, showing the whites all around the dark pupils. They were fixed to Ryan Cawdor's face, as though she were seeking to memorize it. Her mouth opened and closed, but not a sound broke the heavy silence of the cove.
Pyra Quadde toppled into the frothing water without a single last word, falling among the flailing tails and teeth of the maddened great whites, bouncing off one of the creatures, her booted feet and the hem of the pretty dress the last to vanish.
"Gaia!" Krysty breathed.
With the exception of Lori, every one of the others had dived for their blasters, using the distraction of the sharks and the thrown harpoon to cover them. Four guns drilled in the direction of the hapless seaman, who was standing, utterly stricken, as he watched his captain go over the side. The Webley trailed at his side and his eyes were turned to the pitching water.
Pyra Quadde wasn't quite gone.
The huge mutie sharks were so crazed that they got in one another's way as they tried to tear at the body of the dying woman. She was tossed from side to side, rising and falling, the broken end of the lance appearing and vanishing repeatedly.
"Saints preserve us all," Doc muttered, as the slow and dreadful passing of Captain Pyra Quadde continued to its inexorable ending.
As she was drawn beneath the sea for the very last time, her desperate eyes were still fixed to the face of Ryan Cawdor, who turned to look across the bloodied waves to the motionless figure of Cyrus Ogg.
As Ryan picked up his own blaster, the first mate shrugged his shoulders expressively, letting his gun slide to join the mangled corpse of his captain.
"I named thee wrong, Outlander Deadman," he called. "I should have called thee Outlander One-from-One, for that's all it took to slay her."
Ryan looked steadily along the barrel of his pistol, the familiar weight and balance of the SIG-Sauer P-226 filling his hand.
The mate shrugged again, looking like a benevolent old uncle, the fringe of white hair pasted about the ruddy cheeks by the tossed spray. The sharks had left the tiny bay as suddenly and mysteriously as they'd come, leaving the white-bellied, raggled carcass of their fellow. Apart from the film of oily blood, there was not a single trace of Captain Quadde's body.
"I'm no threat to thee, Outlander," Cyrus Ogg said. "Not now. Go your ways and my blessings to with ye all."
The serrated grip of the pistol was cool and damp against Ryan's hand. He looked across the small space of water at the obsequious figure of the Salvation'sfirst mate. And shot him once, the 9mm bullet hitting Ogg through the top of his nose. The sound of the blaster, with its built-in baffle silencer, was no louder than a muffled cough.
The sailor threw his arms wide, back over the side of the whaleboat, landing spread-eagled like a fallen star.