“No, the stuff tastes awful — what it destroys is all the nutritional value for humans.” Ambel nodded and carved another slice. He held it out to her, blue blood dripping down his fingers. “Go on, it’ll do you good.”
Erlin took the slice and nibbled a bit off the edge. A sudden look of astonishment transformed her features. She ate the whole slice.
“It tastes good,” she said. “When I first had some it tasted like copper and curry powder.” He carved her another slice, and as he did this she studied his hugely broad back. His bluish skin was mottled, looked almost patterned. It was only then that she realised the effect was caused by leech scars layered upon each other in their thousands.
“Did you fall in the sea or something?” she asked.
“Once or twice,” he said, turning and handing her some more meat.
“You have a lot of leech scars. I didn’t realise it until just now. You’re covered with them. Could I have a blood sample from you?”
“Sometime,” he said, not meeting her eyes.
She was about to say more when there was a shout from the cabin roof.
“Sail! Sail coming in!”
Erlin peered up at the sky. She had heard about this but never seen it. When the hover car had dropped her at the ship it had been as it was now: bare masted and moored by this island. The sail undulated in on the east wind; a great veined sheet turning the flesh-filtered light underneath it a strange orangey pink. It caught hold of the top of the mainmast with one long bony hand, swung around and replaced that grip with a coil of its tail before moving that hand along with many others down onto the spars. Its lizard head on a long whiplike neck came questing down to the deck. Ambel pulled the worm steak off its spike and walked up to the creature’s head. The sail licked its lips with a dark-blue forked tongue and eyed the steak hungrily.
“How are you called?” asked Ambel, as was only proper.
“I am Windcatcher,” replied the sail, as replied all sails, never having mastered the idea that names could be an individual thing. Ambel gave it the steak, which it chomped down hungrily. Erlin watched the lumps of meat travelling up its translucent neck to where its stomach could be seen bubbling between the first two spars. When it had finished the meat it yawned loudly, shrugged the vast sheet of its body, then wrapped its neck around the mast and closed its eyes.
“Amazing,” said Erlin, but by that time Ambel had moved away and was giving orders. Erlin walked up to the triangular head resting on the deck and wondered if she might be able to get a sample without waking it. She stepped a little closer and removed a hand microtome from her overall pocket. The sail opened one demonic red eye and looked at her.
“Bugger off,” it said, then closed its eye.
The anchor socketed with a crash and crewman Boris ran yelling down the deck, swiping at a frog-whelk that had come up clinging to the chain, leapt onboard, and bitten a lump out of his calf before running away making a sound suspiciously like a titter. Boris cornered it by the forecabin and threatened it with a hammer. The whelk considered its options, looking from side to side with its stalked eyes, then spat out its prize before sidling towards the rail. Boris snatched his missing part and shoved it back into place before limping back to his station. Erlin looked on with her mouth hanging open, then quickly ducked into her cabin when she saw the whelk eyeing her estimatingly from the rail. There was a thump against her door just as she got it closed. Outside she heard yelling and cursing, then a squeal of surprise and a wet crunch. When she edged her cabin door open she saw Ambel toss something over the side then reach down and scrape something off his boot with his knife. He grinned at her.
“All clear,” he said.
Erlin closed her door, leant her back against it, then slid down until she was sitting on the floor. Culture shock? She would just have to get used to it. She bit down hard on a giggle. On the third day of sail Erlin finally got Ambel into her cabin for a blood sample, but, when she pushed the syringe into him she could get nothing into it, and after a moment it popped out of his arm. Thoroughly determined now, Erlin tried a chainglass scalpel on his skin with a pad held ready to soak some blood up. The scalpel went in all right, but when she pulled it out again the wound sealed instantly. She tried again with two scalpels, side by side, to hold the wound open between. The gap she opened abruptly filled with flesh and skinned over. When she removed the scalpels those wounds closed as quickly as the first.
“Doctor at the port tried once. Don’t reckon I got any blood any more.” Erlin thought about the fibrous structures she had seen down the nanoscope. Peck, who claimed to be a hundred and eighty years old, had the most in his blood she had ever seen. The rest of the crew she had taken samples from; Jane, Boris, Pland, and Mede, who were comparative infants at ages ranging from fifty to a hundred and ten, had proportionally less.
“How old are you, Ambel?”
“Oh, a bit.”
Ambel rolled down his shirt sleeve and looked shifty.
“Come on. This is really important.”
“Don’t rightly know. Been on the ships for a while.”
Erlin wasn’t having that. “You do know. Don’t fob me off!”
Ambel looked uncomfortable. “No one believes me,” he complained.
“I will.”
Ambel got up and headed for the door, as he opened it he mumbled, “Spatterjay Hoop was a crazy git.” He went out onto the deck.
Erlin sat down on the chair and shook her head. They were all crazy gits, and Ambel was no better. If he thought she was going to believe he knew Spatterjay Hoop, the man after whom this strange little world was named more than five centuries ago, then he was probably worse. Ridiculous idea. Wasn’t it?
“Sail’s awake! Sail’s awake!” bellowed Boris from his favourite vantage on the roof of the forecabin. The head was questing around the deck, its eyes blinking sleepily. As Erlin came out of her cabin to see what new madness might occur, the sail looked at her, yawned, then sneezed. Ambel ran for the hatch cover, opened it and jumped down inside, then climbed out with a worm steak on his shoulder. He held it out for the sail, which took it in its mouth, hesitated a moment, then spat it out on the deck.
“Wormy,” it said with disgust.
Ambel shrugged. The sail watched him for a moment then unwound itself from the mast, released its holds and undulated away through the air. The ship slowed as Erlin walked over to the steak and inspected it. A long thin worm poked its head out of the meat, grinned at her with a mouth full of small triangular teeth, then dived back in. Ambel picked the meat up and threw it over the side before Erlin could object. He eyed her carefully.
“I’ve had worms,” he said, then said to Boris, “see anything?” Boris pointed off to one side. “Island over there.”
“Better get some more meat,” said Ambel.
Erlin wondered how it was they ever got anywhere if this was the rate they always travelled. And was it her imagination, or were they all looking a lot more blue than they had before? She sat against a rail and watched as they unhooked the rowing boat and Ambel lowered it into the water. The island was a distant speck and she wondered about going with them this time. When Ambel rowed the boat out still attached to the ship with a thick hawser, she realised what he intended to do. She stared with her mouth falling open as he began to really dig in with the steel oars. Slowly he pulled the ship around and began towing god knows how many tons of timber and metal towards the island.
It took most of the day and the sun was going into fade-out by the time Boris dropped the anchor and peered with deep suspicion down the length of its chain. Ambel turned the rowing boat back to the ship and leaving it on the water he hauled himself up the hawser onto the deck.