“Too acid,” he said. “Makes you fart like a wind machine and burns your ring when you crap. Know a guy died of it once. Terminal wind. Blew his arsehole across the room.” Peck snorted disbelievingly. “Well, we gotta get something to take back.” He looked towards the dingle.
“Not there,” said Jane. “We’ll go back to the beach and circle around. Might get a rhinoworm coming in.” The three moved back through the weeds onto the green sand of the beach. Ambel gazed out at the ship and noticed that the masts were still bare. They needed a sail something bad. They needed food, yes, but whatever they got from the island would only keep them going for a little while, as they were. They had to get back to port and get some real Earth-food inside them; some dome-grown grain and meat.
“They say there are people out here who survive on wild food. They say the Skinner lives out here on one of the islands,” said Jane.
“You gotta be kidding, all alive, and Hoop?” said Peck.
Ambel nodded morosely to himself. “They all survive, but they ain’t people no more, Hoop included.” That killed the conversation until they reached the first stream winding out from the deep dingle. Ambel looked into the water and thinking about the dome he thought; salmon, then, seeing how they were grouped he thought; eels. But of course some of them broke from the water, their glistening ribbed backs rolling in the glitter, round thread-cutting mouths probing the air.
“Leeches again,” said Peck. “There anything edible on this island?”
“Yes,” said Jane avidly as she pointed out to sea.
The rhinoworm was as long as a man and its sinuous body as thick. It was aptly named. It had the head of a rhino, little different from those pictured in the old zoology books, and it had the body of a thick eel. It was pink and red-speckled. They watched it approach the mouth of the stream and rear its head out of the water with a leech writhing and flicking in its narrow mouth. Ambel’s blunderbuss boomed, part of its head disappeared, and it sank back down into the water, clouding it blue.
“Quick! Quick!” shouted Jane, leaping up and down. Peck waded out, hooked his grapple into its flesh and waded back in, trailing the line out behind him. He was nearly ashore when he yelled and splashed in very quickly.
“Gerrit off! Gerrit off!”
A four-foot long leech had attached itself to his hip. He fell in the sand and grabbed hold of the horrible thing in both hands to try and prevent it boring in even further. Jane grabbed up the line and began hauling in the rhinoworm while Ambel tended to Peck. He did the only thing that was possible in the circumstances; he grabbed hold of the leech in both hands, put his foot against Peck’s leg, and hauled with all his might. Peck let out a scream as the leech pulled away with a fist-sized plug of his flesh in its circular mouth. Ambel bashed the creature against a rock until the lump came free, then after trampling the creature to slurry he handed the piece of flesh back to Peck. Peck screwed it back into his leg, then wrapped a bandage from his pack around it to hold it in place.
“Help me with this,” said Jane. She had got the rhino-worm to the edge of the water, but could not haul it up onto the sand by herself. A mass of leeches was building up around it, each of them after its plug of flesh. Ambel rushed over and helped her haul it in, then the both of them stomped as many of the creatures as they could. As they stomped the last of them Peck was able to join them and relished splattering the last few.
“Right, let’s chop it and head back to the ship,” said Ambel. They proceeded to slice the rhinoworm into huge lumps, which they packed into their waterproof packs, and staggering under their loads, headed back up the beach. Before they set out Peck was able to take his bandage off. The plug of flesh had healed back into place and his muscle was working again. When they reached the rowing boat and were dumping the packs into it Jane grinned at Peck.
“The Earther’ll want to see your leg. Probably want blood samples and a few pots of piss outta you as well,” she said.
“Bollocks,” said Peck, and gave the boat a shove. “Don’t know what she’s all worked up about. We ain’t that different.”
Ambel, who was, so the Earther had said, built like a tank, rowed the boat, being careful not to put too much pressure on the oars and go snapping them again. Jane, as skinny and small as a starveling child, had undone her shirt to her waist and sat plaiting her hair and looking at Ambel meaningfully. She was always horny after a meat hunt, and when all her attempts to get Ambel into her bunk failed, as they always did, she turned to the next available crewman. During the next few hours the crewmen would be falling over each other as they tried to stay close to her. Peck had opened one of the packs and was cutting slices of rhino-worm meat to stuff into his mouth. He had injury hunger; another phenomenon the Earther woman was eager to study. Shortly they arrived at the wooden cliff of the side of the ship and the meat was hauled aboard. The three followed, after passing up the oars, then Ambel hauled the rowing boat up the side and held it in place while others strapped it just below the gunnels. The Earther woman came out of her cabin to watch this and when it was done she returned shaking her head in amazement.
“How long before you were mobile again?” asked Erlin as she inspected the circular scar. They all had these scars, every member of the crew; white and neat circular scars on their bluish skin.
“Eh?” said Peck, brilliantly.
“How long after this injury were you able to stand again, to walk again?”
“Couple of minutes after I screwed the plug back.”
“Let me get this right. Ambel thumped the leech against a rock until it released the piece of your leg it had excised. You then took that piece of flesh and screwed it back into your leg.”
“Yeah, so what?”
“Doesn’t that strike you as a little odd?”
“Who you callin’ odd? At least I ain’t the colour of burnt sugar. Bleedin’ Earthers always callin’ us odd.” It was the strangest piece of racism Erlin had ever encountered. Her first doctorate had been in history because she had been fascinated by her genetic heritage. Not that she was a true Negro, there had been none for more than a five hundred years, nor any other definite racial types, but her skin was very dark. She was almost a throwback, but for her white hair and blue eyes. The people here though, on this strange little world, were very different from the usual run of humanity. She handed Peck a couple of bottles.
“Here. I want your next urine samples. Now I’ll take some blood.” This she did, quickly and efficiently. You could not take too much time over such things with hoopers as they healed so fast a needle would block in less than thirty seconds. When Peck grumbled his way back out onto deck she got the blood under her nanoscope and found the fibrous structures she had expected to find. It was all coming together now. She had a damned good idea of what was going on and reckoned that when she made her report, Spatterjay would be descended on by just about every science team in the Polity. Ambel grinned to himself as Jane dragged Peck below decks and the rest of the group broke up in disappointment. He carved himself a slice of rhinoworm and chewed on it contemplatively. They really did need a sail. He did not like to hang around the islands for too long as he was well aware that the Skinner was still active. One day he intended to come here alone and catch the mad bastard. One day. He turned as Erlin came out on deck and stood next to him gazing with distaste at the worm steak.
“Want a bit?” he asked her. Her food ran out a couple of days ago and he knew she must be hungry.
“I wouldn’t mind if it was cooked,” she said.
He shook his head. “Destroys the flavour.”