In the gloom of the Treader’s hold, Ambel studied the ship’s manifest on his palm-screen. Then he eyed the crates of bottles filled with Intertox-laced fruit juice, the garlic bulbs and onions hanging in nets, the packs of desiccated proteins and vegetables, the salted pigs and various other items of dome-grown food. At a bit of a stretch there was enough here to keep himself and the crew from going native throughout the long journey he planned. Just one of those bottles of juice could keep the change at bay for the best part of a week. However, there was not enough food overall. He listened to the noise up on deck, which told him they were ready up there, then turned off the screen and headed for the ladder.
Climbing up onto the bridge of the Treader, Ambel turned and surveyed his crew. As instructed, all of them were now up on deck, some of them looking tired and irritable after being woken while off their shift. There were only four seniors: Peck, Anne, and now Sild on the deck below, and Boris at the helm beside Ambel. Of the junior crewmen there were eight, Sprout being the most senior. Fourteen mouths to feed, including the sail.
‘Listen up, lads,’ Ambel called, and, once he was sure he had their attention, continued. ‘You all saw the island and think you know what happened there. You don’t, and neither do I really. Erlin is still alive.’ He allowed them to mutter amongst themselves and toss dubious glances at each other. ‘I know this quite simply because she was spotted being carried away from the island by that big Golem sail, Zephyr, and his two companions.’
‘So she’s safe?’ said Anne delightedly.
Standing next to Ambel, Boris was rolling the end of his moustache between his fingertips, but even he could not remain dour at such news, and began smiling. Even Peck was showing his teeth, though whether or not he was grinning was debatable. Sild also looked happy. Other crew members, knowing Erlin less well and not having shared in this ship’s history, showed varying degrees of happiness or scepticism.
Ambel winced. ‘I’m not so sure about her being safe. The sail is heading due east, and the only habitation that way is what has recently been named Mortuary Island—where reifications are building a big ship called the Sable Keech.’
‘Why would she want to go there?’ asked Anne.
‘I’m not so sure she does want to go there,’ said Ambel, ‘as she would have communicated her intention, if not to me, then at least to the Warden. I’ve learnt that one Taylor Bloc, a reif, wants her there so she can do for him and his followers what she did for Sable Keech himself.’
‘The sails kidnapped her?’ said Boris.
At this one of the juniors spat, ‘Bloody sails.’
Ambel eyed the man, a one-fifty Hooper called Pillow—which was a comfortable name for a man who had taken to discomfort in a big way, by the look of his various body piercings. Ambel was about to utter some sort of reprimand when he saw Galegrabber’s head swing over the crowd, on the end of its long muscular neck, and dip down until it was breathing in Pillow’s ear.
‘You got a problem with sails, junior?’ hissed the sail.
Pillow nervously revolved his nose stud between forefinger and thumb. ‘Nooo, no problem.’
‘Good.’ Galegrabber rose up and turned back towards Ambel.
‘Now,’ said Ambel, ‘I could ask for help from the Warden, but I’ve always felt we should settle our own problems. I intend now to sail to this Mortuary Island and rescue Erlin.’
‘That’s a bloody long way,’ someone muttered incredulously.
Ambel went on relentlessly, ‘We’ll detour to the Sargassum first, picking up some turbul and amberclams on the way to supplement our supplies. I’m told there’s at least seven ships in that area, so any of you who don’t fancy the journey can hitch a ride from there.’
As the crew began to disperse, Galegrabber stretched his neck even further and brought his head level with Ambel on the bridge.
‘I got a contract,’ said the sail. ‘And this journey ain’t written down in it.’
Ambel reached into his pocket and pulled out a wooden box.
‘The aug you’re wearing,’ said the Old Captain, ‘it’s the basic cheap datalink kind. Bottom of the ladder really.’
‘So?’
Ambel opened the box and displayed the shiny new aug inside. ‘I thought about fitting this to myself, but never got round to it. It’s an Orion 3000, top of the range. From your present aug we can record across the alignment program for sail physiology, and then it’ll be ready to attach. What do you say?’
The sail licked its lips with its bifurcated tongue. ‘I’ll want that in writing.’
Ambel produced a new contract from his other pocket. ‘Just sign here.’
The sail took the paper from him in its soft lips and took it up to the top of the mast to study. By the time it finished and signed the new document—surprisingly remembering its new name—Ambel was down on the deck organizing some fishing gear, for a shoal of turbul had just been sighted.
The Hoopers, to make their bunkhouse distinct and for their own comfort, constructed a veranda on which many of them would lounge during the day while they grumbled about the cost of living here. Janer felt they did not really have much to complain about: they were on a retainer until the Sable Keech launched, at which point they would go onto a full crewman’s wages. Anyway, as well as a veranda, they had also put together a couple of rafts to go fishing for boxies and turbul in the nearby shallows, so all they needed to buy from the various commercial concerns here was some Earth food, which was sensibly sold to them fairly cheaply. Forlam, showing uncharacteristic enterprise, had even brought along a still, and the distinctive smell around their bunkhouse came from the numerous buckets ranged outside, all full to the brim with fermenting seacane. Captain Ron thought Forlam a good lad.
‘He’s speaking again,’ Janer observed as he stepped out onto the veranda. He blinked in the bright light, rubbed his aching head—too much of Forlam’s rum last night.
‘Haranguing more like,’ rumbled Ron from where he sat in a chair tilted back against the wall. ‘It don’t seem to be working.’ He sipped from a beaker of coffee.
Bloc stood on a crate in the central clearing before a crowd of reifications. Picking up the gist of what he was saying, Janer realized the reif leader was telling them it was their duty to support him in defiance of Lineworld Developments’ attempted rip-off.
‘Maybe that’s because the intended target of that rip-off was Bloc himself,’ said Janer.
‘I dare say,’ Ron replied.
The hive mind then chipped in, ‘I have been checking: Bloc now fully controls this operation here, yet has maintained his contract with Lineworld. That means no reduction in ticket prices, accommodation costs or reification spares’
Janer relayed that to Ron. They had both heard plenty of grumbling, and knew that when the shuttle finally returned over two hundred of the reifications currently here would be leaving on it. But maybe that was not all down to economics. There was still the front end of a hooder out there somewhere.
‘How are you now?’ Janer asked Ron.
His injury hunger—that ravenous appetite Hoopers experienced after any physical damage as their bodies rebuilt themselves—had been immense, and had required the other Hoopers to chip in funds to buy sufficient dome-grown food.