She tasted and sensed the ground again, detected trails leading inland, swivelled her eyes to look out to sea again, could not decide what to do, then understood she had only the land trails to follow. Abruptly she surged forwards, knocking over trees and following those trails to the lane she had earlier cut across the island. From a high point, in darkness, she dimly discerned the ship turning into the wind beyond the far shore. She hurtled downslope, staying to her previous trail as on it she could move faster. Soon she reached the tideline and paused. Then she surged on.
Throwing a huge wave before her the giant whelk slammed back down into the sea. She remembered things so much more clearly now. The other had done this and.. other… was in the vessel heading away from her. Licking her corkscrew tongue through the water she detected the taste of them, and the vaguest hint of the other from the island. Confusing memories arose: sounds with meanings disconnected from their inherent meaning within the sea, objects fashioned like shells but extraneous to the body, hints of understanding of things beyond her watery home. But the ship, yes the ship, contained others like the killer of her young, connected to that one by small objects taken from its dwelling on the island.
And she would avenge.
Janer jerked awake to the sound of explosions, glanced towards the window of the bunk house he had been directed to the previous evening. He had quickly realized that there were certain tensions here. Now it seemed they had come to a head. He rolled off his bed, pulled on his trousers and slipped on his envirosuit boots. As an afterthought he took up the skinstick box containing two hornets and pressed it against the bare skin of his shoulder.
‘What the bugger is that?’ said a Hooper in one of the other bunks.
‘Shut yer gob, Loric.’
‘Let’s be taking a look at it then, lads,’ said the calm voice of Captain Ron.
‘Batian weapons? the hive mind informed Janer. ‘Perhaps you should not have come here.’
‘No shit,’ said Janer, moving to the door.
He paused for a moment, glancing back at his belongings, but decided against collecting one particular item from among them. Opening the door he peered out.
The mercenary Shive ran across in front of him, two comrades dogging his footsteps. They reached a storehouse, quickly opened its door and darted inside.
‘Big leech?’ Janer wondered.
The hive mind just buzzed at him.
He stepped out as the Hoopers bestirred themselves behind him, and turned towards the staccato crackling of projectile weapons. A group of six Batians were firing at something between units. Something large.
‘Big leech,’ he confirmed, and began walking in that direction to watch the show. He did not suppose it would be a long one, since the weapons the mercenaries carried would make short work of the soft-bodied creature, no matter how large it was. He was ten metres from his unit when a group of reifications ran past him with that off-balance gait they assumed when trying to move fast. Something rose up into the night from further over in the enclosure. Large and spoon-shaped, it turned and he glimpsed two vertical rows of glowing red points. Weapons fire began to impact on it, lighting it up. He glimpsed armoured segments, saw that the weapons were having no effect. Then a missile streaked in from the side and exploded against the creature, which dropped out of sight.
‘That is not a leech,’ said the hive mind. ‘I suggest you hide.’
Janer glanced round. The missile had been fired by Shive or one of his two comrades, who were all now carrying missile launchers. After that initial shot they disappeared off between buildings to the left. The other visible group of mercenaries also headed on out of sight.
‘You know I’m not the kind to hide,’ muttered Janer, moving after them.
‘That creature is a hooder.’
Janer paused, having heard of such things. They were no natives of this world, and where they came from they were implanted with locators so people could know when to run. Very tough and difficult to kill, apparently. Janer at once wanted to take a closer look at it. As he advanced, however, something else gave him pause. Bloc’s Kladites—either troops or worshippers, Janer was not sure—had appeared from behind the storehouse. Some of them now entered it and began dragging out heavy crates for others of their number to take away. More weapons, he assumed. Janer moved on.
Around the corner two Batians were firing repeatedly at the glistening side of the hooder as it hammered between the buildings, lit up with multiple concussions. Janer saw it bow under the impact of them. One of the buildings crashed over, still intact, at an angle, and that nightmare cowled head swung into clear view. The creature paused, its cowl swivelling like a searchlight. Janer took cover behind a stack of plasmel barrels. Something caught his eye and he looked down. Bones. Stripped of flesh but bloody. A head, one side of it stripped clean. Pieces of crabskin armour. Janer ignored the weapon that lay there—it had not done its owner much good.
The hooder came on over the tilted building and swerved towards the two marksmen. Someone else launched a missile, blowing its front end up off the ground, but still it came on, up over one of the mercenaries, then hard down on him even as he fired up into its hot eyes and surgical cutlery. It reared again, scattering human detritus, then swung sideways, chopping the other man in half with its cowl edge. Janer abruptly realized that no one was firing at it from this side of the enclosure. He moved further back into the shadows and glanced at the gore-bespattered weapon lying in the dust. Fortunately the hooder had turned towards the firing coming from behind it.
‘Now would be a good time to hide,’ the hive mind suggested.
Janer ran from cover, following the creature. In a narrow alley between accommodation units he noted the rips in the nearby walls caused by the passage of hard-edged carapace. Further along it had obviously caught a number of mercenaries, their number Janer could only guess by counting heads. Probably five or six? It was a gory mess, and blood-soaked dust caked his boots as he moved on.
In the clear central area of the enclosure the hooder was swinging around in an arc. Two mercenaries were crouched behind some crates nearby, tending to one of their fellows on the ground. Janer ran over and saw it was Shive. He was coughing blood while his comrades slapped drug patches on him and hooked an oxygenator into his jugular. The two glanced up at Janer and continued working. He supposed they preferred doing this than being out there in the beast’s path.
‘The Kladites are arming themselves,’ Janer said, testingly.
Shive just exposed bloody teeth then turned his head for the device to be attached to his neck. Returning his attention to the monster, Janer saw it rear up over a small group of Hoopers.
‘Oh shit… Ron!’ Janer stood upright.
The Old Captain stood at the fore, directly facing the hooder, a huge machete held ready to deliver a blow. The hooder came down on him hesitantly, as if it thought there might be some danger here. The Captain struck it hard with his machete, unbelievably hard, for the blade dug well into shell the Batian missiles had only pocked. The monster jerked back, pulling the blade from the Captain’s grasp. The Hoopers behind him began retreating. Perhaps realizing he might have been a tad overconfident, the Old Captain also retreated, but the hooder came down on him like a cat’s paw.
Janer began running towards the Captain, not knowing what he intended but knowing he must do something. Then the cowl lifted up, higher and higher, Ron heaving himself upright, Herculean, but it slammed down yet again. Then fire ignited the night: a ragged beam of violet energy struck the hooder centrally. Janer went down feeling heat on his face and along one side of his body. For a moment the hooder’s tough carapace resisted the energy directed at it, then it burned like straw in an acetylene flame. Whoever was directing the weapon brought his aim back across, going for the monster’s head, but already the front ten-metre section of the hooder was coiling up and away. It crashed against a house, slid up over it and down the other side. Two more blasts, focusing on the still-thrashing tail of the monster, and two body segments flamed before the fire shut off.