‘I am glad to have helped. Zephyr has told me of the circumstances in which he found you. I also must apologize for bringing you here like this, but our need is great…’
Erlin released his hand and smiled around. ‘No need to apologize,’ she said smoothly. ‘I’m sure I can allow you months or even years from a lifetime that could possibly last thousands of years for me. Whether intentionally or not, directly or indirectly, you did save my life. Anyway, as you are perhaps aware, one of the greatest dangers to a person of my many years is boredom, and this,’ she waved a hand to encompass the ship, ‘looks interesting.’
‘So, when required, you will apply your considerable knowledge and abilities to helping my people… Arise?’ Bloc asked.
‘Certainly. The possibility of my refusing you is doubly remote now that I see that my friends are here willingly.’ She indicated Janer, Ron and Forlam.
Bloc nodded woodenly. ‘Perhaps you can prepare yourself as soon as possible. It has come to my attention that some reifications are already infected with the Spatterjay virus, and that the Intertox inhibitors merely slow its progress in them.’
‘Not surprising really,’ Erlin said offhandedly. ‘Any form of Intertox, whether in balm or blood, possesses a short active life. It won’t therefore access those places the balm reaches by slow percolation, like your bones, where the virus also grows.’
Bloc turned slowly to gaze at one of his companions, before turning back. ‘This sort of knowledge is precisely why we need you, Erlin Taser Three Indomial.’ He paused, eye irrigators working so hard that moisture was now running down his wrinkled face. ‘Please consider yourself welcome aboard the Sable Keech, and if there is anything you require, anything at all, please contact me at once. Now, I have some matters to which I must attend. Perhaps later I can give you a tour of our ship?’
‘That would be wonderful,’ said Erlin.
Even Janer could not fathom whether or not her delighted smile was genuine. Bloc turned and departed, with his two companions in close step behind him. Once he was out of sight, Erlin scanned her surroundings before turning to Ron.
‘Okay, Ron, what the fuck are you really doing here?’
‘Someone’s got to keep an eye on things,’ muttered the Old Captain.
‘Why you?’
‘It’s my job.’
‘Job?’
‘Yeah. Pays well too.’
‘And who’s paying you?’
Ron shrugged resignedly. ‘Windcheater.’
Oh hell, thought Janer.
The cave had been excavated over the millennia by a stream wearing gradually through flinty chalk then limestone running down alongside a basalt column that had been created some time in the island’s volcanic past. Packetworm burrows also intruded, to confuse matters, and the drone spent many hours scanning tunnels that led out promisingly sometimes thousands of metres, but always ended at some ancient collapse. On the third day, Thirteen thought it had found the hooder, on coming upon the petrified corpse of a massive packetworm a metre in diameter, its grinding head resting against the basalt that had finally defeated it. The creature must have been dying when it hit this obdurate rock, and just did not have the energy left to turn around. Passing it, the drone explored deeper.
Other living creatures also attracted Thirteen’s notice. There were no leeches in the cave, so a species of land heirodont had escaped their attention. These creatures were no bigger than the drone itself—pallid armadillo forms with stunted mandibles. In pools swam their prey: globular white fish that appeared to share ancestry with boxies, diamond-shaped jellyfish, and strange animals mistakable as bonsai baobabs until they scuttled along the stream bed on their rootish feet. But of the hooder there was still no sign.
Eventually, the cave system now completely mapped in its mind, the drone returned via a winding route to the surface. It had scanned every square metre of the island. It had run geoscans into soft ground and, though finding some strange items it might like to investigate later, had found no sign of the alien monster buried there. There were other cave systems, but none large enough to conceal the creature. Thirteen was certain it had missed nothing. Now it reviewed what it had downloaded via the planetary server regarding hooder biology.
They were incredibly tough, and incredibly difficult to kill with most weapons available to the Polity. like flat-worms, if they were broken into segments, each of those segments could eventually grow into another hooder. Their home environment was swamp, on a planet with very little oxygen in its atmosphere. However they did still need oxygen to survive, a small amount of which they obtained from the atmosphere itself, some by eating the oxygen storage cells in their prey, and the rest by cracking CO2 in photochemical and electrochemical reactions. Such creatures could survive underwater for a considerable time, but they could not swim—were too heavy for it. On their home planet the only specimens found in the sea had been those that had drowned. Had it ventured into the sea? Thirteen thought this unlikely. So where was it then? Thirteen rose high out of the dingle on Mortuary Island, revolved in the air and gazed out across the ocean, tilted itself towards the horizon, and set out.
Leaning against the stern rail, Santen Marcollian gazed out across the sea. She had been a cultist for her first fifty years of existence as a reif—after her unfortunate accident with a grenade—but even being dead did not prevent one growing up. That half a century taught her a lot, and in the end, feeling she had outgrown the Cult of Anubis Arisen, she rejected it and went her own way. Consequently, it peeved her that this voyage was controlled by the likes of Bloc, who though not a cultist of the old style, still espoused some of its ideals. And, after that scene on her first day aboard, she was beginning to wonder if she had made a big mistake.
Bloc’s armed Kladites were everywhere, and that worried her. Yes, this was a ferocious world, but they were aboard a large ship protected by automated laser turrets dotting the hull. Nothing nasty was going to get aboard, so perhaps it was the case that the nasty thing was already here. She looked around, noting a few other reifs strolling about out on deck, experiencing what they could of their surroundings in their own limited way. The prospect of actually returning to life, like Sable Keech, had brought her here—to actually be able to feel again: wind against skin, movement through the inner ear, the roughness of this metal rail against her palm…
‘How are you enjoying the ocean life?’
Santen turned and saw that the reif John Styx had stepped up beside her. Studying him, Santen wondered what had killed him, since there was no visible damage to his body, and for a reif he moved with a surprising smoothness. Prior to their earlier encounter aboard this ship, she had witnessed him, when the hooder had attacked, taking up a Batian weapon and firing on the creature while other reifs, herself included, merely took cover.
‘It is becoming somewhat boring,’ she replied.
‘After just eight days?’
‘Yes, after just eight days.’
‘Never mind, I’m sure that will soon change.’
‘What do you mean?’
Styx shrugged—which was not an easy thing for a reif to do. ‘Have you received Bloc’s summons?’
‘Yes.’ Santen checked her internal clock. The meeting was due in only half an hour in a hall down in the bilge, immediately above the rudder. Santen wondered where the intervening time had gone. ‘He’s probably going to lay down the law for us. And I somewhat doubt he’s going to be making any concessions, perhaps rightly so.’