It looked like a partially plucked crow that someone had nailed in place because it had been dead for a week or more. Then it turned its head and regarded him with pink, blind-looking eyes, before honking loudly and winging raggedly away. It left behind it the stink of decay.
‘Lung bird,’ explained Ron, stepping up beside him.
‘I know what it was,’ Janer muttered.
‘We’ll have to get off here soon, before things get too hectic,’ Ron added.
‘Hectic?’ Janer queried. ‘Because of lung birds?’
Ron led the way to the rail and pointed a thumb downwards. ‘No… them.’
Janer peered over the side to see one of the hull laser turrets swinging back into its hold position. Pieces of some pink anguine form thrashed, still steaming, in the sea, then a shoal of leeches dragged them down. Janer squinted, puzzled, sure that he had seen a limb amongst those remains, yet the swarming creatures were rhinoworms, which were limbless. Further along, he saw another laser turret fire, then distantly he heard one from the other side of the ship.
Ron pointed out towards the lily-like plants all around the ship. ‘Breeding area, that. There’ll be thousands of the leggy buggers.’ He took his comlink from his pocket and spoke into it. ‘How we doin’ there, John?’
From the link a tired voice replied, ‘I will get it, but I can’t give you any estimate on the time. The programming is rather convoluted.’
‘Okay, keep at it.’
Ron put the link away, then seeing Janer’s querying expression said, ‘Bloc is behaving very strangely and being stupidly uncooperative. He’s refused to give us access to the ship’s computer systems, even though that’ll get us out of this mess. Maybe he’s frightened to hand over any further control.’
‘And why would access to the ship’s computer systems help?’ asked Isis Wade, who had just joined them.
It had been Wade who had kicked in the door and suggested rather loudly that here were facilities it seemed a shame not to use. He also served the first drinks, before starting up a metalskin barman that had been stored under the bar. The place had become a regular watering hole for Hoopers just coming off-shift from clearing up the mess below—there had been little damage to the hull itself, much to Captain Ron’s surprise.
Ron glanced at the Golem. ‘As you know, there’s more to this ship than Windcheater would be happy about. Now, that John Styx is a clever one, knows more coms coding and programming than probably even you, Wade. He used to do that stuff on Klader before the Polity AIs got there, and before he fell off a mountain… So he tells me.’
‘And the relevance?’ Wade asked.
Ron gestured down the entire length of the Sable Keech. ‘Only the front half is grounded on the bottom. Once Styx cracks Bloc’s codes, we should be able to start the engines in reverse, and maybe that’ll pull us back into deep water.’
‘Engines,’ said Janer, nodding. Other Hoopers had already speculated that might be what was concealed under the enormous sealed housing forward of the rudder hydraulics. ‘What sort of engines?’
‘The usual kind—does it matter?’ Ron then downed a large slug of rum before heading back into the bar.
Isis Wade followed the Captain, but Janer stayed observing the two organic sails, Huff and Puff, winging out over the sea. He watched them for a moment, then gazed up ahead into the rigging. All the fabric sails were reefed and everything above appeared skeletal. The Golem sail, Zephyr, stood motionless like some folded piece of iron equipment affixed on a spar. Janer patted his hand against the gun concealed under his jacket, and considered the dangerous game Isis Wade was playing. Should he allow it to continue? He lowered his hand; any intervention might be provocative in the present uneasy circumstances. Better instead to wait and watch. He returned his attention to the sea, and watched Puff scoop up a great spaghetti tangle of writhing pink shapes. Then he glanced down again and saw a man-length rhinoworm, with thin newt-like limbs, attempt to climb the hull, before being lasered into smoking segments. He supposed he should not be surprised that this world had yet to reveal to him all its teeth.
Returning inside, Janer observed the small group of Kladites now sitting around a table—probably positioned there to note down the identities of those who were breaking the curfew Bloc had tried to impose. No one had been punished as yet, so perhaps Bloc was wary of upsetting the uneasy truce for the moment. Like the other reifs scattered around the room, the Kladites sipped through straws pure ethanol drinks to complement the balm inside them. He had seen Sable Keech do the same, ten years ago, and wondered if they too possessed the facility to feel or emulate inebriation. He walked past that table and went over to stand with Erlin, Ron and Wade.
‘I just saw a rhinoworm with legs,’ he commented.
Erlin turned to him. ‘The juvenile form. They grow up in island nurseries, like this one surrounding us, and lose their legs as they go fully pelagic.’
‘They’re going to give us trouble,’ Janer stated.
‘They don’t mind snacking on each other,’ said Ron. ‘Our problem is that every time those autolasers hit one, its remains attract even more.’
‘Will there be many of them here?’ Janer asked.
Erlin replied, ‘The adults gather in places like this en masse, and each one lays tens of thousands of eggs under the leaves or on the stalks of those plants you see out there. There’s probably millions of juvenile rhinoworms around this island.’
‘There’s always the thought to consider that we might be better off somewhere ashore,’ Janer said, passing his glass back to the barman—the metalskin android was fashioned in blued metal with a flattened ovoid head and scanning red eyes. It looked like a prill mounted on the neck of a humanoid body.
‘You did notice that they’ve got legs?’ said Erlin dryly.
‘Yeah, but I wasn’t thinking about that. What if that Prador captain above us decides to ignore the Warden and continue its bombardment?’ The Warden had lately updated them on recent events. ‘How many more of those waves can this ship endure?’
‘And where would we go, once we’re ashore?’ asked Ron.
Janer thought about that for a moment: the devastation visible over the island, the steam rising from the caldera somewhere behind the highest point on the island.
‘Okay, dumb idea, I guess,’ he allowed.
Janer now considered revealing to Erlin and Ron what he had learnt from Wade—he trusted these two absolutely and felt the Golem should do the same—but just then there came disturbing sounds from outside, as of all the lasers firing at once.
‘Ah, that’s it.’ Ron took out his comlink and strode to the door. Janer, Erlin and Wade followed the Captain, and this caused a general exodus from the bar. The racket originated from the sea below, so everyone moved to the rail to look over. Janer was expecting to witness some massed attack from leggy rhinoworms, but what he saw was the sea boiling towards the stern, just forward of the rudder. Large chips of wood kept bobbing to the surface amidst a spreading slick of sawdust.
‘Is that supposed to happen?’ asked Erlin. ‘I wouldn’t have thought it such a good idea to make holes in the hull.’
Wade explained for her. ‘The propellers are made of case-hardened ceramal. They’re mounted on telescopic shafts housed in watertight compartments inside the hull. When activated, they just bore their own way out through the hull. A concealed engine Windcheater could make no objection to, but evident propellers would be a little too much.’