‘Captain Ambel.’
‘Hello, Warden.’ Ambel looked equally sombre. ‘Good to have you back. That other fella was a bit irascible.’
‘Yes, quite. How can I help you, Captain?’
‘Not so much how you can help me…’ Ambel gestured at the two juniors. ‘Let me introduce crewmen Silister and Davy-bronte, lately of the Vignette.’
The Warden abruptly focused more of its attention through the link. ‘You are from the Vignette. What happened to your ship and the rest of the crew?’
Both the juniors stepped back, looking somewhat startled. The Warden realized it was projecting one of its many avatar images through the link, and that the two men were now looking at a two-metre-long grouper floating before them. It changed the image to something more human and acceptable.
‘Well the Cap’n was right pissed-off with Drooble, an’ the harpoon went through him, not Drooble you understand…’ Silister babbled, until Ambel put a hand on his shoulder.
‘I think, lad, you should let Davy-bronte tell it, just like he did earlier.’
The explanation from Davy-bronte was much more concise, and the description unmistakable.
A Prador war drone, evidently upgraded, thought the Warden. Sniper will be pleased.
‘Thank you for informing me,’ said the Warden.
‘One other thing,’ added Ambel. ‘You will be telling Windcheater about this?’
‘Certainly. He is, after all, your ruler.’
Ambel gave an ambivalent shrug and the comlink cut.
So, confirmation, if any more was needed. An upgraded war drone had been used, which inferred that systems aboard Ebulan’s ship were in a good state of repair. The same could be inferred from the fact it had been moved undetected. Also, the fact that the adolescent Prador—the Warden checked its records—Vrell, had survived Ebulan’s traps meant it was a very capable Prador indeed. Deciding it needed further advice, the Warden opened a communication channel through its own runcible, and through five other runcibles, right to the heart of things.
‘Yes?’
The Warden transmitted all it had recently learnt, in detail, the information zipped into a package even some AIs would have had trouble deciphering. A microsecond later the reply came back.
‘Work to your remit as best you can, Warden. Thrall codes within the ship will have been changed, and without signals for you to intercept you will not be able to break them, so there will be no repeat of Sniper’s… lucky shot, and you do not have the armament to deal with a functional Prador light destroyer,’ the Earth Central AI advised the Warden. ‘I am now informing all interested parties.’
‘Interested parties?’
After a delay of nearly half an hour, EC replied, ‘The nearest Polity warship is two hundred light years from you. However, there is another warship much closer.’ Earth Central then transmitted all relevant information, and a recording of a recent conversation in which it had participated.
‘Is that a good idea?’ the Warden asked.
‘It is in the nature of a test of agreements.’
As the communication channel closed, the Warden could not decide if things had got better or infinitely worse. Certainly the stakes had just gone up: Earth Central was gambling with a planet and its population. The AI scanned round inside the moon base at the crowds of Polity citizens. No need to start a panic just yet, so it put a message up on the bulletin boards in the main concourse and arrivals lounges:
BUFFER TECHNICAL FAULT DETECTED
The submind at the planetary base immediately queried this, and the Warden told it what the real problem was.
‘Oh fuck,’ said the submind.
The Warden added, ‘It would be convenient if those travellers on the surface were encouraged to leave.’ Shortly after, the Warden observed that the departure bookings began to rise when the news-net services began speculating about a rumoured mutation of the Spatterjay virus into a lethal form—a rumour neither confirmed nor denied by the planetary base submind.
Then an hour later:
FAULT CONFIRMED. INCOMING TRAVELLERS ON BLOCK OR DIVERT. WE APOLOGIZE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE. FURTHER MESSAGES TO FOLLOW…
Now no more Polity citizens would be coming to the moon, and increasing numbers of them were already leaving. This meant that if things went pear-shaped, at least the body count would be lower.
‘Okay, lads,’ said Ambel, leading the two crewmen out of his cabin onto the deck. ‘Peck will show you to your bunks. Tomorrow we should be reaching the Sargassum.’
‘You gonna put us on another ship to go back?’ asked Silister.
Ambel paused.
‘Be a bugger to stop,’ said Peck, who was standing underneath a lamp, peering out into the darkness.
The man, Ambel noted, had been very reluctant to be more than a pace from his shotgun, and cradled it now. Perhaps understandable with what was evidently following them. And he was right about stopping, too. The moment they did, the giant whelk now somehow swimming after them would be all over the Treader in minutes.
‘Peck’s got that right, I’m afraid. We’d end up in the sea if not in our friend’s guts.’ He stabbed a thumb behind the ship. ‘So you’ll have to stay with us for a while.’
‘Good,’ said Davy-bronte.
Ambel peered at him curiously.
Davy-bronte continued, ‘We been on the Vignette, Cap’n, so we know a good ship when we’re on one.’
‘Okay, lads. You get some rest now.’
Ambel turned away as Peck took the two juniors below. He glanced up to Boris at the helm, nodded to him, then strolled to the stern. Ambel—always calm and not prone to panic—realized Silister and Davy-bronte’s service aboard the Treader might be limited indeed unless he could think of a way to deal with the giant whelk. Perhaps after the Sargassum, find an island, break out the harpoons and every other available weapon, beach the ship and… get things sorted. Ambel winced at the thought. Jabbing harpoons into giant leeches was all very well, but he knew a bit about the thing following them.
Sticking a harpoon into it would not be easy. Only himself and elder crew would be able to accomplish that, as it would be equivalent to ramming a knitting needle into a tree, and about as effective. So what to do? As far as he knew, only large heirodonts were capable of killing a giant whelk, and they were massive creatures with mandibles capable of crushing rocks. Be nice to have one of them on his side, but they spent as much time as possible down deep where the leeches were not so thick, only ever coming up for air. And when one did that, and any Captain spotted it, he would quickly take his ship out of the vicinity. There were no stories of heirodonts sinking ships, but maybe that was only because no one had survived to tell such a story. No, that was a fancy, and he still had to find a way.
The function of the ship’s harpoons, of course, was not to kill but to harpoon. Ambel stared into the darkness and reflected on an old old story about another kind of giant.
A kilometre behind the Treader, the giant whelk experienced a bowel-loosening moment which clouded the water sufficiently for her to jet out of the attacking heirodont’s path. The great creature cruised on with leisurely insouciance, utterly aware that the whelk had no convenient rocks to which it could cling. In panic the whelk released gas from her shell and began to sink, but the bottom was a long way down and there was no guarantee there would be stone there to which she could cling. She spread her harder tentacles out towards the heirodont and tried to draw as much of the rest of herself as possible into her shell. It was hopeless. By extending her tentacles she was only offering the predator a starter to munch on. Then she saw a wisp of something cutting starlit lines across her vision. The line from the ship, its hook still jammed into one of her tentacles. It was strong in a way that nothing else in the sea was, she realized, since it had managed to cut into her flesh. Perhaps it could equally cut into the flesh of a heirodont? She caught the end of the line and wrapped it about another tentacle, stretching ten metres of the stuff horizontally before her.