‘Got enough now?’ Janer enquired.
Earlier, he had noticed Huff making a mound of still slowly moving bodies up on the deckhouse roof—those he did not eat, at least. Janer guessed the sail was laying in food stores for himself, but even in that there had to be a limit.
The sail eyed him. ‘I grow sick of the taste.’
‘Understandable.’ Huff’s body was now bloated from his gorging, and Janer suspected he would not be taking wing for some time. Puff, over on the stern deckhouse, had not been quite so greedy for, after feeding only a little while, she had concentrated on picking up the encroaching worms in her jaws and flipping them over the side of the ship.
‘Doesn’t it worry you how Zephyr might react?’ Janer asked.
Huff turned and looked up at the aforementioned sail. ‘Zephyr… is not right. Death is an absence, not a presence.’
So the living sails understood something of their Golem companion’s motivations.
‘He still might take a shot at you, to stop you killing those rhinoworms,’ Janer suggested.
‘He does not kill. He cannot kill.’
Janer did not even bother to dispute that. Instead, he turned and shot a rhinoworm that was sneaking over the rail behind him. By destroying the defensive lasers Zephyr had endangered them all for, had these creatures been less intent on devouring their kin, they could have swamped the ship. He moved up to the rail and peered over, noticing how now there were fewer of the creatures clinging at the waterline. Clumps of them were even drifting away, fighting with each other over the remains of those hit earlier by the now disabled autolasers.
‘Do you know where Isis Wade is?’ he asked over his shoulder. ‘I lost track of him a couple of hours ago.’
‘He is on deck over on the starboard side of the bridge,’ Huff replied, before heaving himself up and back out of sight.
Janer began walking in that direction, his carbine slung from his left shoulder and his handgun in his right hand. Just then the ship lurched as Ron once again started the engines. A grinding vibration shivered up through Janer’s feet, and he felt the ship move this time, if only a little way. Walking on, Janer observed red flashes of carbine fire from a group of Kladites gathered around the bridge on the roof of the staterooms just below it, and smelt wafts of acrid smoke drifting across the ship. They were probably huddling there to protect Bloc. All the hatches were locked down now, all the stairwells bolted shut. Crossing, behind the bridge, over to the starboard side, he spotted a rhinoworm scuttling down the further gangway, and was about to take a shot at it when a pursuing Hooper dived onto the creature and brought it down. It tried to turn on the man, but he grabbed it by the neck and smacked its head against the planking until it desisted, then tossed it over the side.
‘Wade?’ Janer asked him.
The man gestured behind himself with a thumb, then went to retrieve a machete embedded in a nearby wall.
Wade, leaning against the rail, was gazing down. Janer joined him there and also peered over. A number of the worms were still working their way up the hull, but none were yet within easy reach of the rail.
‘Do you note their toes?’ the Golem asked.
Janer saw only that the mentioned items were as flat and round as always. ‘What about them?’
Wade pointed. ‘The hull paint has a very low coefficient of friction—enough to prevent any whelks or leeches climbing it—yet these things still manage to get aboard. Look.’ He reached down and picked up something to show Janer. It was a rhinoworm leg, ripped off at the shoulder. ‘See,’ Wade poked at one of the toes, ‘the structure of these is very like that of an Earth lizard called a gecko.’
‘Your point being?’ Janer asked. Even though he himself had recently been shooting these unwelcome boarders, he could not quite accept the callousness of ripping a leg off one so as to study the toes. That seemed inhuman, which of course it was.
‘Why would sea-going animals develop toes like that? What use do they have for them?’
‘You might well ask the same question about the legs themselves. But don’t you think we’ve got more important concerns?’ Janer gestured up towards Zephyr. ‘Your other half is still rather agitated, and to my mind looks ready to go.’
‘His agitation is a good sign,’ Wade replied. ‘His time as a distinct being is now conflicting with his madness.’
‘So he won’t fly?’
‘I did not say that.’
Janer wondered how he should best assess this Golem before him. Underneath that human exterior and emulation, he was not even a normal AI (if there was such a thing).
‘Are you afraid to make that final decision?’ he asked. ‘I reckon Zephyr is a danger to the entire ecosphere of this planet, not to forget its financial system.’
Another rhinoworm poked its head over the rail, and Wade casually smacked it from view with the leg he still held. Almost as if that one worm had been holding down the entire weight of the Sable Keech, the roar of its engines changed, the grinding sound recommenced and continued, as the ship’s propellers began dragging it back out to sea. They both turned to watch as clumps of battling worms slid past them towards the bows, bobbing up and down in the first waves generated by the shifting hull.
Parting his feet to maintain his balance, Janer said, ‘Perhaps I should make the decision for you?’
‘That will not be necessary.’
‘How can you be so sure? You’re too close to the problem.’
Wade glanced at him. ‘Zephyr will not use the virus… not yet.’
A cheer arose, and Ron beamed round at his crew gathered on the bridge.
He slapped Forlam on the shoulder. ‘Keep us on this heading until we’re well clear—a couple of kilometres at least—then take us round and back on course. On the other side of the island we’ll put on sail and shut down the engines.’
‘What do you reckon Windcheater’ll do about this? We have broken his law.’
Ron tapped a finger against the comlink in his belt. ‘I asked him before we started those engines. He won’t do anything drastic—just work out how big a fine the owners of this ship will have to pay. I must go and give Bloc that good news sometime.’
‘Captain Ron, I think we have a problem,’ said John Styx, who was working at a nearby corns console.
Captain Ron turned to him. ‘What is it, a leak?’
‘No, a message from the Warden. I would have found it earlier but I was using this console to break into the ship’s computer system.’ Styx pointed towards the forward bridge windows. ‘Yes, you can see it now.’ He then pressed a touch-plate on the console, and the Warden’s voice issued forth:
‘Ebulan’s spaceship, controlled by his now-adult first-child Vrell, is heading directly towards you. It is just submerged, and presently being attacked by drones and armoured Prador descending from the upper atmosphere. I do not know Vrell’s intentions, but him being Prador I suspect they are not amicable.’
‘Oh.’ In the distance Ron could see objects silhouetted against the sky, like birds or bees, and amidst them flashes like distant lightning. ‘Forlam, take us to port—quickly now.’
As the Sable Keech turned, Ron noticed dark objects in the sea immediately below the swarm of activity: blockish columns of metal and rounded turrets, all generating wakes as they came towards the island and the ship. Having watched Ebulan’s ship crash, he instantly recognized the upper weapons turrets of the Prador light destroyer. Ron picked up a nearby monocular, held it to an eye and kept knocking up the magnification. What he saw confirmed everything the Warden had told him, but gave him no explanation as to the why of it.