‘It was foolish of you to cut communication with me. You are now in extreme danger,’ warned the mind. This was not what Janer had expected.
‘What do you mean?’
‘There is a ship now coming towards you. Aboard it is one Rebecca Frisk, with two Batian mercenaries, and possibly others. They are coming to kill Sable Keech, and no doubt any others who are with him. They have Prador weaponry.’
‘That’s not so good,’ said Janer, at a loss for anything else to say.
‘It is not good,’ agreed the mind. ‘I would suggest that you tell someone.’
Janer glanced up at Captain Ron standing at the helm, then around at the morning activity on board. All seemed so slow and tranquil that what the mind had just told him did not gel for a moment.
‘Now would be a good time,’ urged the mind.
‘Oh fuckit,’ said Janer and trotted down the deck to the forecabin. As he mounted the cabin-deck, Ron gave him an amused look that suggested he might want to slow down a bit. Without more ado, Janer told him the mind’s wonderful news. Ron’s expression lost its humour and he looked over Janer’s shoulder as Ambel joined them.
‘Seems we got problems,’ said Ron.
Ambel gazed enquiringly at the two of them.
‘We got Rebecca Frisk and some Batian mercenaries with Prador weapons coming right up our backsides,’ said Ron.
Ambel glanced around at the open sea. ‘We don’t stand a chance out here,’ he said.
‘The island,’ Ron stated.
‘Seems the best option,’ said Ambel.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Janer.
‘Does your Hive mind know how long we’ve got before they reach us?’ asked Ambel.
‘The Warden informs me that at present they’ve stopped to… that they have halted their journey. You still have time to reach the island,’ said the mind.
‘We’ve time to reach the island,’ echoed Janer, wondering exactly what their pursuers had stopped to do.
‘Alert the others,’ said Ron. ‘Tell them to get their gear together. We’ll be at the Skinner’s Island in about five hours.’ He turned to Ambel. ‘Might not be time to ferry everyone in.’
‘Beach her then,’ said Ambel, his hands tightening hard enough on the helm to make the wood groan in protest.
Janer went to do as bid encountering Keech on the main deck and telling him what was happening.
‘I thought it a bit improbable that she handed herself over to ECS,’ the monitor said.
‘How’d she manage it?’ Janer asked.
‘Not sure, but I’d bet she’s now not wearing the face I knew her by.’
Janer brooded on that as he rushed to wake Erlin up and to find Pland. Anne had by now joined Ron and Ambel on the cabin-deck.
For the next hour, there was a continuous flurry of activity as supplies were brought on deck and weapons were taken out of waterproof packaging to be checked over. Keech cut the lines holding his scooter to the deck. From its baggage compartment he took out his attaché case and opened it.
As Janer approached him, Keech tossed him an item from the case. Janer nearly dropped it, finding it heavier than he’d assumed.
‘Never seen one of these in real life,’ he muttered.
‘Give your handgun to one of the crew. You won’t be needing it now. That’s a QC laser carbine. Half an hour continuous fire, thousand-metre kill range, and auto-sight.’
Janer handled the weapon as if it had suddenly turned into a snake. ‘Bit drastic,’ he said.
‘You might well need it,’ said Keech.
Janer turned to Forlam, who at that moment came up beside him.
‘Here,’ he said, passing over his handgun. Forlam stared at the weapon for a moment, then suddenly looked pleased and thrust it into his belt. Janer thought it was rather a strange grin the crewman wore.
Forlam pointed at the weapon Keech was quickly assembling from the case. ‘What’s that?’ he asked.
Keech clicked the twin barrels — as of a shotgun — into place, then the folding stock, before opening out the fan of cooling fins from the main body of the weapon. He gave it a slow visual inspection then carefully took up a gigawatt energy canister and screwed it into place underneath.
‘This,’ he murmured, ‘is completely OTT.’ With that, he mounted his scooter, pulled the leg straps across his thighs and secured them in place, then slammed his vehicle up into the sky. He gave no one time to ask where he was going. No one needed to ask.
Amazingly, one of the juniors, who had either somehow survived the burst of rail-gun fire or had gone over the side during the attack, now yelled nearby as darkness seeped out of the sky. Before dawn, one of the mercenaries, perhaps out of boredom, finally shot a shell into him. Roach wished they would do the same to him.
Through a haze of pain, he tried to concentrate on what she was saying.
‘Now I want to be utterly sure of this. Think about it a little before you reply,’ said the woman he now knew was Rebecca Frisk.
He’d thought about it a little when she’d asked him the last time, and the time before — and on every occasion he’d told her the truth. She didn’t care about truth, though. She wasn’t doing this for truth. She was doing it because she liked to see suffering. Roach bit on his tongue as she played the laser, on wide beam, over his feet and legs. He’d screamed the third time she’d done this, in the hope that would satisfy her. But it hadn’t. She’d just go on until there was nothing left of him to scream. It was Frisk’s way, just as it was the way of her husband, or what was left of him.
‘Think carefully now,’ warned Frisk.
She seemed oblivious to everything else — had a crazy look in her eyes and jerky shudders running through her body with metronomic regularity. Roach did pretend to think carefully, while he listened to the low conversation going on behind her.
The mercenary woman was speaking to the Prador. ‘… time for this?’
‘Delay… Convocation… does not matter.’
‘Fucking lunatic’ That last came from the male mercenary. He seemed to find Frisk’s pursuits contemptible, but then his kind tortured people only for business, not for recreation.
‘Tell me again about Jay,’ demanded Frisk.
Roach leapt at the chance. At least while he was speaking, she wasn’t burning his legs.
‘Ambel… y’know, Balem Gosk, kept the head in a box in his cabin. I reckon Peck musta — aaaargh!’
‘Oh I know all about that. Tell me something new, something interesting.’
‘AG vehicle approaching.’
Roach could not identify from where that voice had come. The others were blanks, so perhaps it was their master speaking. He knew that this Prador on board wasn’t an adult. It still had all its legs.
‘Rebecca Frisk, we must return to our vessel,’ grated the translator box of the same Prador.
Roach prayed that this would mean the end.
Frisk stood up and confronted the Prador, angry that her little game had been interrupted.
‘I want to take him with me,’ she spat.
‘We do not have time. To the vessel — now.’
The Prador turned away. The blanks were already leaping from the Ahab, ahead of it. Frisk seemed about to rebel. Abruptly she turned, walked up to one of the mercenaries, and snatched his weapon from him and thrust her carbine into his hands instead. This is it, thought Roach. This is when I end up spread all over the deck.