Erlin dragged herself to her feet and glanced around with some relief. The tanks had been well anchored, and—though having spilled much of their liquid contents across the floor, to mix with everything that had come in when the sea smashed through the side doors—only two of her reifs had been tossed out of them. Wading through ankle-deep water, which was swiftly draining into scuppers all around the edge of the room, she approached the first of the ejections and, not bothering to bring across the ceiling lift, untangled the various connections to his body, then picked him up and lowered him back into his tank, which was still a third full of amniot. She did the same with the second one, noting how real blood was seeping from splits caused by his recent violent departure from his tank. Then, seeing that the tank amniot levels were automatically being topped up, she began checking readouts.
To say they would survive was not entirely accurate since they were dead. But their trauma had in no way halted or even slowed the work of their nanofactories. There was something else, though: she felt a tingling soreness where the sea water from outside had soaked her. It was caused by the vicious plankton of Spatterjay, and any of the tanks that had taken in some of the incursion of sea water would now be contaminated with it. She definitely needed to do something about that, or the work of the nanofactories would be undone as the reifs themselves served as a food source for the plankton. Quickly she returned to the wreckage of her work area, found a pack of soluble tablets of a sterilizing enzyme, and dropped one in each of the twenty-two tanks currently in use. This stuff might damage the reifs, but that damage would be limited and swiftly repaired by the nanites already working in their bodies, and it would certainly kill the plankton. She then checked the readouts on the remaining twenty tanks, plugging back in a few loose sensors, but that was all she needed to do until she came to Aesop and Bones, who were safely strapped to restraint tables.
Inspecting the screens that kept her informed of the condition of the two, she realized that whatever the problem was here, it had nothing to do with the sudden storm. Both screens were scrolling what seemed the kind of formulae in which runcible technicians and AIs dabbled. She shut down Aesop’s screen, plugged in her own laptop, and sent in a diagnostic check to be sure the optic plug in the reif’s hardware had not pulled loose. It was seated firm. Turning the screen back on, she glimpsed the usual diagnostics a reif would access, before it clicked back to scrolling formulae. Erlin left it alone. She felt no great responsibility to these two, and she needed to find out what was going on outside.
‘Wow, now that’s what I call a ride!’ said Janer, who had obviously been heading for the Tank Room just as she stepped out of it. The Golem, Isis Wade, accompanied him.
‘What was that?’ Erlin asked.
‘A tsunami,’ explained Wade.
Erlin stared at him for a moment, then enquired acerbically, ‘Could you elaborate on that?’
‘According to one of the Warden’s subminds, the tsunami was caused by a kinetic missile fired down into Nort Sea from a Prador warship in orbit above us. I’m getting no more detail than that. It seems they’re quite busy up there.’
Erlin turned to Janer. ‘Why am I not surprised about that?’
Janer merely shrugged.
‘You all right, lad?’ Ambel asked.
Pillow was looking particularly peeved, and it took the Captain a moment to realize the reason for this: the junior had lost some of his facial jewellery when he bounced down the length of the deck and slammed into the stern rail. But for a Hooper the rips in his face were minor injuries, and closing up already. Peck’s arm was broken, however, and Ambel saw the mechanic straighten it out with a crunch, then hold it taut while Anne splinted it. Peck, being an old Hooper, would only require use of the splint for a few hours.
There were other minor injuries amidst the human crew, but they had been lucky—Ambel counted heads—that none of them had gone over the side. Now he looked up and wondered if Galegrabber had survived while grabbing this particular gale, for the sail was now nowhere in sight.
‘Any sign?’ he called up to Boris, who was surveying die surrounding ocean through binoculars.
‘Not of the sails,’ Boris replied. ‘But the Moby is still afloat. They must have got their cables off the sargassum in time.’
Ambel nodded, turning to the rest of the crew, who were now mostly wandering around the deck in a daze. Their reaction was understandable—none having ever experienced weather quite that heavy, nor needed to cling onto a deck that was pitched near vertical. But this disorientation of theirs had gone on long enough.
‘All right, lads!’ he bellowed. ‘You three—Pillow, Davy-bronte and Sprout—I want the pumps up on deck and working right now. The rest of you, get down below and sort out the mess. Get everything that needs drying out up here hung on lines. Peck, I want you down below checking the racks and cogs. If Galegrabber comes back any time soon, I want everything ready and working. Take some hands with you, if you need them. Anne, I want a hull check, stem to stern—don’t miss a plank.’ They all stared at him, still a little bewildered. He clapped his hands together with sounds like gun shots, and began striding along the deck. ‘Come on, this isn’t a bloody holiday cruise! Move your arses!’ Crew members scrambled in every direction, but some still hadn’t realized he meant what he said. ‘Pillow, what are you gaping at! I see no pumps up here!’
‘But, Captain—’
Ambel picked him up by the scruff of the neck and threw him towards the nearest open hatch. Pillow hit the edge, then tumbled down inside, letting out a yell as he hit the deck below.
‘Any more questions?’ Ambel demanded.
There were none.
Over the ensuing hours, his crew pumped hundreds of gallons of sea water out of the bowels of the ship. Lines tied between the masts were loaded with soaked clothing and bedding. All this occurred to the sound of Anne’s tap-tapping as she checked the hull’s planking, and the constant clanging and occasional ‘Buggering buggered up bugger’ as Peck set about replacing one of the mast cogs which had sheared off all its teeth. Most tasks were completed by the time evening began to descend, and Boris set about lighting the recently replaced lanterns all around the deck. Ambel, who had just applied his Captain’s strength to the task of removing a stubborn cog from its shaft, came out on deck to see the Moby heading towards them, towed by its ship’s boat, which was rowed by Drum alone.
When the other Captain came within hailing distance, he called out, ‘I’ll be coming along with you!’
‘Why’s that?’ Ambel asked.
‘Out that way, the way you’re heading.’ He pointed. ‘Sprage tells me that’s where the spaceship is. Probably in the Lamarck Trench.’
‘Spaceship?’
‘Vrell’s—that bastard Prador.’
‘I see,’ said Ambel. ‘It caused this?’
‘Nope, seems the other spaceship did that,’ Drum replied.
‘Uh?’ was Ambel’s response.
Drum explained what he had learnt from Sprage about Vrell, and about the new spaceship above them, and what it had already done and might yet do. Even more so now, Ambel wanted to get to Erlin. He was grateful when, in the morning, a bedraggled Galegrabber and the Moby’s sail returned, with muttered curses, to occupy their masts.
It took Janer a moment to recognize the vicious drumming sound. Clutching a glass of a more refined version of seacane rum than he was accustomed to, he stepped out of the bar area recently opened on the first level of the stern deckhouse. Glancing to one side, he noted some of Bloc’s Kladites—probably set to watch those frequenting the bar—now peering over the side. He moved to the rail to take a look himself, then halted. There was something sitting on the rail.