“Don’t worry,” said Ambel. “I got it.” He beat the leech on the ground until it released the lump of flesh it had unscrewed. Erlin regarded him with tears streaming from her eyes. God it hurt. Until now the whole process had seemed so unreal.
“That won’t work,” she said as Ambel approached with part of her back between his forefinger and thumb.
“’Course it will,” he said.
He screwed it into her back and the pain immediately started to fade. Slowly she got to her feet and tried to reach around to the wound. There was blood, but she couldn’t quite reach…
“You’re one of us now,” said Boris.
Erlin stared at him. Of course, the leeches. It all made sense now. She had to get her blood under the nanoscope as soon as she could.
“Come on,” said Ambel, shouldering his blunderbuss.
When they reached the putrephallus stand at the edge of the dingle, Erlin refused the mask Boris offered her until the smell hit her, then she snatched it from him and quickly placed it over her face. The weeds were green and, again, well named. There was an Earth fungus that looked similar, but that did not throb quite so disconcertingly.
“See the hill. He lives up there,” said Ambel.
Boris eyed him suspiciously."You’ve been here before.”
“Couple of times. Chopped him up last time and spread him all over the island. Reckon it took him a century or two to pull himself together.”
“Someone tried burning once,” said Boris. “Wouldn’t burn.” The conversation went completely over Erlin’s head. Beyond the putrephallus the hill rose up into a gentle pimple in the centre of the island. Ambel unshouldered his buss and began walking up the slope, his head darting from side to side. Definitely bluer, thought Erlin. Then she looked upslope just as the nightmare loomed into view and came screaming and giggling down towards them, something flaccid, and which she had no wish to identify, held in its long fingers. It was like a man who had been put on a rack for a hundred years, every joint and muscle stretched out impossibly. It was huge blue and spidery and came capering down the hill as if to welcome them. Ambel’s blunderbuss boomed and a great cloud of smoke wafted away. The Skinner went, “Oh!” and fell on its back.
“Quick!” shouted Ambel, drawing his knife. Boris did likewise and followed him. They reached the Skinner just as it sat upright, reached round behind itself, and threadled its long hand through the hole Ambel had made in its chest. Ambel and Boris skidded to a halt.
“Shit!”
“Bugger!”
Erlin ran past them and swiped with her laser scalpel. The Skinner’s long head thudded on the ground and looked at her accusingly. She laughed a little crazily and proceeded to cut the rest of the monster into pieces.
“That’s the ticket!” bellowed Ambel, and proceeded to pick up bits and hurl them in every direction. Boris joined him and soon the Skinner was scattered all over the hillside and in the jungle below, barring the head that Ambel held onto, and the flaccid thing it had been carrying. Erlin saw it direct for the first time and immediately threw up.
“Oh God! Peck!”
It was Peck, outwardly.
Ambel looked at Boris and nodded towards the skin. Boris picked it up and shook it, then turned it around and peered at the split from the circle cut around the anus to the one cut around the mouth.
“He’s gonna be a bit cranky for a while,” said Boris.
Ambel nodded in agreement. Erlin turned away. They had both gone mad, she had to get help for them. When she turned back they were walking back up the hill. She quickly followed. She had nothing left to throw up when she followed them into the basin in the top of the hill. She just retched a little. The rest of Peck was jammed between two rocks, writhing about and making horrible noises. Erlin followed them down and watched in horror as they dragged him down and dropped him on the ground. All his muscles she could see, all his veins. His lidless eye-balls glared up at the sky. She advanced with her laser switched on. It was the only merciful thing to do.
“No!” Ambel knocked the laser from her hand. “Don’t you think he’s got enough problems? Find his clothes.”
Erlin dropped to her knees, not sure if she wanted to cry or laugh. No, this was not happening… but it was. When she looked up, Ambel and Boris were putting Peck’s skin back on him, tugging the wrinkles up his legs and pressing the air bubbles out… and Peck was helping them. As she watched Peck climb unsteadily into the boat she said to Ambel, “What are you going to do with the head?”
Ambel held the Skinner’s head up in one hand.
“I’ll put it in a box, then he’ll never be able to pull himself together properly.” Erlin had lost all her doubt. Of course, why not? She wondered about the report she must make. A nice scientific dissertation about how the leech fibre kept everything alive so that the leeches would have more prey to feed on, that was fine, but what about the Skinner? How would she tell them what the fibre had turned Spatterjay Hoop into, and what happened to humans too-long deprived of the Earth proteins that kept the fibres in abeyance? No, she would move her research in another direction — something about the leech symbiosis with the pear-trunk trees. She was relieved, as they came to the ship, to see a couple of sails circling above it. Both Boris and Ambel were now a much darker shade of blue, and Ambel seemed to be getting taller. Her own blueness was hidden by the natural colour of her skin, though Ambel had told her she had a pretty blue-white circle in the middle of her back.
JABLE SHARKS
The ship: three masts stitched across the horizon, black against the lemon sky. The hull is a cliff of wood topped with rails supported by tallow urns. Carvings everywhere. Wood and bone knitted together, interlaced, cunningly crafted. Along its sides are longboats braced like a beetle’s wing cases. It seems deformed — top heavy. In the rigging are five crew, two hanging idle and one in the crow’s nest, the twins reefing a sail. Below the deck are five more: three sleeping, the Barrelman, and Cook. On the deck to make things even are five others, for the moment.
Bosun Hinks handlines for green mackerel and the Captain sits in drugged stupor. Hinks pays him no mind. It is a fear the Captain has never named that drives him to the smoke, but he is not as bad as some, better than most, and only gives orders when the sharks are in. The rest of the time Hinks has charge. From his handline he now glances to Cheyne and Pallister who are sharpening the great knives ready for the next jable run. These harpoons are made of manbone and laminated shark skin. One of them is tipped with rare hull-metal, but it is never used during a run, being too valuable to lose.
“Ketra! Ketra!”
Hinks ties his handline to the rail and stares to where Chaff lies with arm stumps leaking into his bedding and the smell of his dying sickening the air. Tiredly Hinks climbs to his feet and walks over to the dying man. Cheyne is quickly with him.
“Chaff… Chaff, it’s Hinks.” He squats down beside the man and touches a palm to sweat-soaked hair.
“Chaff.”
Behind him Cheyne pulls a long bronze-edged stiletto from his sash and waits.
“Chaff, speak to me, please.”
“He would choose death.”
It is Pallister who speaks, Second Knife now that Chaff is dying.
“I would choose death and I would expect my friends and shipmates to release me, even had I no tongue to ask it.”
He looks with especial concern to Cheyne. Cheyne has no tongue.
“Ketra! Ketra!”
Hinks glances to the Captain. “The Captain says no knife until he asks for it. By the Book. By the book.” All three of them regard the large black book resting next to the Captain’s hooka. The book he always has with him but never seems to read. They are aware of its presence, its weight, that it is the source of the fear that drives the Captain to his choice of oblivion. They listen to the creak of his chair as he rocks slowly back and forth puffing the smoke into the air.