He reached out and took the graser; it was as if his free arm had no connection to the rest of his body, as if had a mind of its own. When Ash depressed his firing stud and swept the beam across the ice, shearing through his forearm, he was surprised as the snake must have been.
Silence rang in his head. Blood burst from the incompletely cauterized arteries, splashing across the hard black ice, freezing instantly into lovely red crystals. He tipped forward, and the ice was soft and warm.
Just before the darkness took him, he felt the Green lift him gently.
Ash woke in Avlsum's crawler, swaying in an improvised hammock. The air was heavy with the musty body odor of the Green, and the sharp, oily stench of Green spices. He pulled the thick, warm stuff gratefully into his lungs. After a while he raised his arm and looked at the neatly bandaged stump. The sight brought him a pleasurable pang, more sweet than bitter. He smiled.
«Awake you are? Good!» The Green turned to look back at him. Avlsum sat in the pilot chair, driving with one hand, holding a small vidbook in one hand, stirring a steaming pot with another hand. «Dinner soon is.»
Ash ate awkwardly, holding the pot between his knees, steadying it with the stump, but he ate with a good appetite. The Green's stew tasted better than it smelled, fortunately.
Avlsum cut the throttle, and the crawler coasted to a stop. «Listen,» Avlsum said, rising from the pilot chair. «Somewhere a fine human cyber-arm I have. In the lockers I will look.»
The Green disappeared back into the cargo bay, and Ash heard rattles and thumps, an occasional crash, muttered Green curses. But finally, Avlsum returned with the cyberarm. It was lovely, a god's arm, of golden alloy, with a circlet of smoldering green gems at the wrist.
«From a pirate it came. A very evil man,» Avlsum said, holding it out. «But beautiful work it is.»
Ash drew away slightly. «It's too fine for me. You’ve already done too much for me.»
«No, no. Take. Self-grafting it is. Look.» And Avlsum displayed the butt end of the arm, where a ring of tiny stainless teeth protruded. «One problem there is. No human anesthetic aboard is. Trimmed your stump must be. Or one arm longer than the other will be.»
Ash set his jaw, held out the stump. «All right.»
Avlsum laughed. «Brave you are. But here a solution is.» The Green pointed to the emotigogue. «No pain, when connected you are.»
When Avlsum strapped him to a chair with strong webbing, Ash felt a momentary flash of panic. But, he told himself, the Green had already had plenty of opportunity to harm him. He lay back, and the harness tightened around his head.
Avlsum held up a wafer. «Here. This 'The Touch of the Hook' is.»
Ash struggled against the bonds. «No, wait. .,» he said, as Avlsum slipped the wafer into the slot.
And then he floated in the eddy below the cascade. The cool, sweet water caressed his sleek body, and he pumped the rich stuff through his gills, glorying in it. He sensed movement along the bank, and for a moment he became more alert. But no shadows fell across the sun-dappled surface, and he relaxed. He sank to the bottom, finning over the gravel, probing for tasty larvae.
When the mayfly drifted down the current toward him, he rose to it without hesitation. He sucked it in, expecting the crunchy tang of the spent insect. But instead, his mouth filled with a stale, metallic, artificial taste, and he tried to spit it out. A sharp pain drove into his jaw and jerked his head violently toward the bank.
Panic filled him. The pain was terrible, but the constraint was worse. The moment seemed to last forever; he was drawn inexorably toward the bank. He angled down, then up, finally leaping high into the harsh air, shaking his head, seeing some great uncouth land monster on the bank.
At that instant the hook tore loose from the soft tissues of his mouth, and he fell back into the water, free.
Fear still drove him as he fled away down the riffle, but over the fear, building higher and higher, was a great joy, all the more intense for its unfamiliarity.