‘You want pain, Drooble?’ Orbus asked. ‘Well you’re going to find more of it here than you’d ever think possible.’
As if to emphasize his words there came a crack from behind him. Orbus stared at Drooble, saw the horrible avidity in his expression, and wished he felt the same inclinations, but for a sadist pain only holds any attraction when it is someone else’s. He turned and eyed the wide door constructed for a shape that certainly was not human. It had split diagonally and now the two halves of it were revolving in opposite directions into the uneven wall. He stepped back amongst his men, noting they possessed the same avidity as Drooble, yet with some hint of doubt. Perhaps their wiring was not quite so twisted as his.
Then it came through the door and Orbus could not help but gape. This was no Prador he knew. It was fully limbed, like an adolescent, but no adolescent grew to this size. This one was black rather than the lurid purples and yellows of that kind. Its main body was no thicker than its vicious claws; its visual turret, palp eyes and underslung mouthparts had detached and risen higher on a corded neck, which seemed to be in the process of growing ringed plates of armour. Orbus slid a hand down to his belt, found the handle of his skinning knife and gripped it. He would go for the neck; that seemed the most vulnerable part.
‘If we all go for it at once, we might be able to bring it down,’ he hissed.
No reaction for a moment, then Drooble stepped forwards. The distorted Prador reached out almost gently, and closed its claw around the man’s waist. Drooble gasped as the pressure came on. It merely picked him up and backed to the door.
‘We should attack it, all of us together,’ repeated Orbus, stepping forward.
But not one of them moved with him.
He turned to them. ‘We’ll die here!’ he said urgently.
They just stared at him glassy-eyed, then turned away as behind him the door swiftly ground shut.
Perhaps they had found something more alluring than him.
Ambel was quite puzzled, and beginning to feel a little annoyed. They had sighted three turbul shoals over the last few days, then moved the Treader to intercept them, and on every occasion the shoals had veered aside.
‘That’s bloody odd,’ said Peck. He was standing with his bait plug cutter in one hand and his new boat line in the other. The line and related equipment was of Polity manufacture: braided monofilament with a breaking strain of tonnes, ceramo-carbide hooks, an electric reel powered by a laminar battery which in turn could be recharged by sunlight, attached to a stubby fishing rod with a big solid rubber-grip handle. Peck had been wanting to try out his new toy for a long time, but it seemed rather excessive to use it just for catching apple-sized boxies.
Ambel slapped him on the shoulder. ‘Never mind, we’ll hit some of the lads soon.’
Even so, Ambel could not understand why the three turbul shoals had turned away like that. Were they learning to avoid Hooper ships? He had heard nothing of it. Or was there something leaking down in the hold, causing some scent to emanate through the hull and put them off.
‘Just keep an eye out. I’m going to check below.’
Ambel headed for the ladder leading into the hold itself, climbed down inside and looked around. When he thought about it, there was not much on board that would put off turbul. Most of the stores here would do just the opposite. Maybe leech bile, but he had none of that, as he had refined it during the journey so as to take only a yield of pure sprine to Olian’s. And, anyway, having just come from there… Perhaps there was something else he had missed? Just then, while he was puzzling, there came a loud thump against the hull.
‘Turbul! Turbul! They’re coming under!’ came Peck’s excited cry.
Ambel rushed back on deck as his crew began casting their lines. Anne was the first to hook one, and pulled up a two-metre-long specimen with a shiny tubular body, randomly spaced blue fins, caiman head and whiplike tail ending in a hatchet fin. She snatched her hook from its jaws, and it landed thumping on the deck. With an apologetic look she kicked it sliding and struggling across to Ambel, as he was the one who always dealt with anything this large. He stamped his foot on its lashing tail, clamped its jaws shut in his right hand, then placed his left hand behind its head. Releasing the tail he pulled with his right and pushed with his left. With a sucking crunch the head came out half a metre, the fins disappearing into its body. He heaved again, and the quivering tube of flesh slid off across the deck, so he was left holding the head, the long spine and attached bag of internal organs. From the spine, fins sticking out all round at the end of jointed bones flicked and quivered, and at the opposite end the tail still thrashed. He cast this remnant over the side and watched it swim away, while the rest of the crew continued pulling in more of these piscine creatures, but smaller ones. The shoal, he saw, was heading under the ship then turning abruptly away to port. Something was definitely spooking them. Perhaps there was a big deep-sea heirodont somewhere nearby, which accounted for the behaviour of the previous shoals? But he dismissed this thought as he baited his hook with a plug of rhinoworm steak, cast his line, and immediately hooked another turbul.
Soon the deck was littered with their tubular bodies and glistening with slime. Anne brought over a turbul, leech-scarred and painfully thin, which told them they were reaching the tail end of the shoal.
‘Barrels and spiced vinegar,’ he told her when she unhooked this sorry creature and cast it back over the side.
‘Bugger me,’ said Peck. ‘This’n’s a big bugger.’
Ambel glanced across at the crewman, who was leaning back against the pull of his line, which, now humming like a power cable, angled down at forty degrees into the sea. Peck, Ambel knew, was not exactly a weakling, so it would take a seriously large turbul to give him any trouble. He coiled his own line and moved over behind the man, while other crew members, discarding leech-hit rejects, coiled up their lines and turned to watch.
‘Bugger,’ said Peck again—it was his favourite word.
Ambel eyed the short composite rod, which now actually had a bend in it. Peck’s knuckles were white around the handle. For anyone else, Ambel would have suggested they had snagged the seabed, but Peck knew when he had a live one on, and the way the line was moving in the sea also confirmed this.
‘You might have hooked a heirodont,’ Ambel suggested.
Peck was now beginning to slide against his will towards the rail. Ambel stepped forwards and hooked an arm around his waist.
‘Not… getting me bloody… tackle.’
Peck’s torso was as rigid as stone, and even Ambel had to strain to prevent him going over the side. A turbul body slid down against his feet, then another one. The deck was tilting.
‘Any suggestions?’ Ambel asked generally.
‘Switch… on the side…’
Ambel peered round at the reel. There were three switches there. Suddenly the line cut round to the stern of the Treader. As it chopped into the rail, Sild threw himself sideways to avoid being decapitated. Then the line began to drag down, till it was cutting into the deck. Ambel had visions of it going through the ship like a cheese wire. He reached round and clicked a switch.
‘No… that one!’
The reel started droning, pulling them towards the edge, their boots tearing up splinters from the deck. Boris grabbed the back of Ambel’s belt and held on, but found he was being dragged along as well. Ambel reached out and clicked another switch. The sound was a kind of slither; that of a very sharp knife cut hard through air. The three men collapsed in a heap as the tension abruptly came off.
Peck was the first to his feet. ‘Breaks the line where it’s weakest,’ he explained.
Ambel stood and eyed the man’s new fishing gear, wondering if he would be wise to throw it over the side right then.