That’s Drum’s Cohorn!’ Roach yelled back at him.
Boris hurried back towards the forecabin. ‘What’s he doing out here? Last I heard, he’d got a full load of turbul on and was heading back for port,’ he said as he approached the ladder.
‘Drum’s a changeable fella,’ commented Roach.
Boris climbed up and joined him on the cabin-deck. ‘I don’t like this,’ he said.
‘Sail ain’t right… Take the helm for me,’ said Roach.
Boris did as instructed while Roach went over to Captain Ron’s telescope. He swore once, took his eye away, and then put it back.
‘I see Drum at the helm, but there’s others there that ain’t his crew.’ Roach turned from the scope and shouted down along the deck. ‘Scart! Get everyone up on deck, and get ‘em up armed!’
‘Aye, Captain!’ one of the card players yelled back.
‘ “Captain”?’ said Boris, and Roach gave him a sour look. Boris then nodded towards the deck cannon. ‘That loaded?’ he asked.
‘No,’ said Roach.
‘Might be needing it,’ Boris observed.
‘Best you load it, then,’ said Roach, squinting at the lower deck to see if his orders were being carried out.
The Cohorn rapidly closed in while Boris packed the deck cannon with a paper-wrapped charge, then a bag of stones. He noted, as he worked, that the prow of the approaching ship was white and misshapen; it had many things on its deck that should not have been there. One of those things was moving about, and seemed to have too many legs for comfort.
‘Goss! Get yerself on deck! And bring up the guns!’ Roach yelled.
‘Biggest prill I ever saw,’ said Boris, taking a box of sulphur matches from his pocket and striking one on the rail.
‘That ain’t no prill,’ said Roach, who was a century older than Boris. ‘That’s a buggering Prador.’
Boris grimaced as he got the cannon’s igniter wick smouldering. It hadn’t been necessary for Roach to tell him that. Boris had seen plenty of pictures of the creatures, and heard quite enough stories from drunken Hoopers in the Baitman.
Goss charged up on deck clutching a handful of ironmongery, which she began to distribute. After this, she studied the approaching ship for a moment, then ran for the ladder. Boris leant over and accepted the weapons she handed up: two pump-action shotguns and one pulsed-energy handgun. The handgun had to be Ron’s. No one else but an Old Captain could afford such a thing.
‘Maybe they don’t want trouble?’ said Roach with what might have passed for humour.
‘In your arse,’ said Goss, feeding shells into one of the shotguns.
There was no warning. Something flashed, leaving shadowy afterimages in their eyes. There was a dull crump, the ship lurched, and a spar crashed to the deck. Next, there was a double flash and one rail exploded into splinters. On the other side of the ship the other rail sagged, where it too had been broken, and was now being pulled down by the weight of the ship’s rowing boat. Boris pointed the deck cannon, fired, and had the pleasure of seeing two figures keel over on the Cohorn.
Goss began firing shells at the approaching ship. But then all of them were rocked back as something crashed below and sea-spray fogged the air. Boris looked over the side at the hole blown in the hull, just above the water line, and the fires burning within.
‘We’re gonna sink,’ he said to Roach.
The little man just appeared angry as he aimed again at the figures visible on the approaching ship. Boris picked up another paper cartridge, then stepped back from the cannon when it suddenly began to smoke.
‘Huh?’ he said brilliantly, as heat spectra travelled the length of the barrel, and it blued, then began to glow. Abruptly he realized that there was either a laser or some sort of inductance weapon being pointed at it. He ducked at the same time as Goss, and she slid the other shotgun across to him. Roach was now down beside him aiming with the handgun, a dangerously furtive look on his face.
‘They’re just playing with us,’ he said. ‘We’ve had it.’ Through the cross rail he shouted down to the main deck, ‘Scart! Gollow! Cut the boat free and get the rest of ‘em into it!’
‘But, sir!’
Do as you’re bloody told! You reckon you can take em’ on with that club?’
Boris looked down to see Roach’s orders being obeyed. Two of the juniors were busy at the sagging rail trying to untie the rowing boat. Something else hit further along the ship and a lantern went down spreading flame across the deck. A third crew-member joined the two at the boat and hacked at the ropes with his panga. That was Gollow, and Boris felt unaccountably proud. The ship’s boat crashed into the sea and those on the lower deck quickly began to follow it down. Goss stood upright now, a wild look on her face, as she provided covering fire.
‘Goss! Get down!’ Boris yelled.
She staggered back then stared at the smoking hole under her breasts.
‘Shit,’ she said — and was blown in half.
Boris yelled and stood up again, firing at the ship as it swung alongside, then blasting at the figures that came leaping across. One of them was the bloody great prill!
Something hit him right in the stomach and sent him staggering. He felt it exit through his back and heard it clatter to the deck. Both he and Roach stared at the small black cylinder, just before it exploded. The blast threw Boris over the rail, so he found himself hanging off one side of the ship. Roach, who had been knocked back against the remaining rail, struggled upright, then reached over to catch Boris by the scruff of his neck. He was about to start hauling him back onboard when a huge armoured claw closed on his arm, and something cold and metallic was pressed against the back of his skull.
‘Shit,’ he said — just like Goss had done.
The claw clamped shut, making a sound like a vegetable knife going through a carrot. Roach yelled as his bones shattered and muscle was crushed. His hand went flaccid, and Boris yelled out and plummeted into the sea. Then, hand-things like iron pulled Roach around and hurled him aside. For a second he thought he too was going to end up in the sea, but instead he slammed against the main deck, and bounced. Then someone grabbed him again and flung him against the mainmast. He slid down it, waiting for that terminal shot. But it never came.
‘Oh look,’ someone sneered. ‘They’re escaping.’
Roach turned his head to one side and dimly made out the silhouette of the ship’s boat out on the gleaming sea. The Prador now loomed over him as it moved forwards and brandished a weapon in one of its main claws. The object was long and heavy-looking, and was fed by tubes and cables from a pack strapped underneath the creature’s body. There followed a whooshing roar, and the sea all around the escaping boat turned white. There was no time even for screams, as the rowing boat and everyone in it disintegrated under rail-gun fire.
‘Bastard,’ Roach managed, just before a hand closed in his hair and slammed his head back against the mast. He thought how the woman would have been attractive if her face wasn’t so twisted by whatever it was inside her.
‘Now, you and I are going to have a little chat,’ she told him.
With a feeling of chagrin, Janer watched as Erlin slept in a tangle of sheets, then he rose from the side of the bunk and took up his clothing. As soon as he was dressed, he shoved a hand into his trouser pocket and took out the jewelled Hive link. Some new species of loneliness, he wondered, and then fixed the link back into his earlobe. There came a vague clicking as it induced a signal in the receiver imbedded in the bone behind his ear — for the visible ear stud was not the actual link, rather it acted as the on/off button — but he received no communication from the mind. Still none came as he left the cabin, passing Forlam in the gangway, and headed for the ladder. The link only buzzed into life once he was on deck, watching the slow grey roll of the predawn sea.