‘You’re alive,’ was all Erlin could manage.

Keech just looked at her with his single, weeping blue eye.

With the rest of the crew, Janer just stared. It was Ron who suddenly moved into action. ‘All right lads, get him below. Gently, mind,’ he said.

‘I ain’t touching that,’ said Goss.

Ron looked at her and raised an eyebrow — and Goss was the first one to reach for the reif. As they lifted Keech off his scooter, stinking crusts fell away from him to expose flayed muscle. Something bulked in the front of his overall, and Janer had a horrible feeling that organs were floating about free in there. He was so involved with what was happening that he didn’t notice the hornet had returned to his shoulder until Keech was taken below decks.

‘He brought a package for us,’ said the mind, ‘It is in the luggage compartment of the scooter. Get it now.’

‘You don’t order me any more,’ said Janer out loud, and Ron glanced round at him. Janer pointed at the hornet and Ron nodded, before following the others below decks.

‘Please,’ said the mind.

‘OK.’

Janer went over to the scooter and looked in the back. He instantly knew which package it was. He lifted it out and inspected it.

‘Put it somewhere safe… please.’

Janer headed for the hatch to his cabin. ‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘Do you need to ask that?’

‘No, I guess not,’ said Janer, since he had received deliveries like this before.

He took the package below, walking past the crammed cabin, where Keech was stretched out on a table. Reaching his own cabin, he was about to place the box under his bunk when the mind stopped him.

‘Wait one moment,’ it said, as if something had only just occurred to it. In Janer’s experience things never ‘only just occurred’ to a Hive mind. He waited anyway.

The hornet launched itself from his shoulder and landed on the box. It crawled round to the middle plane of its hexagonal front. Immediately a hexagonal hole opened and the hornet crawled inside.

‘You may put it somewhere safe now,’ said the mind. Janer crammed the box under his bunk, and went to see what was happening with Keech. As he arrived, Erlin was clearing the cabin.

‘Everyone out. Out, now,’ she said.

The disgruntled crew shuffled away. The medical technology of off-worlders always intrigued Hoopers simply because of its utter irrelevance to them. Their attitude was something like the attitude of a hospital consultant to the trappings of shamanism. This was yet another strange Hooper reversal.

‘You can stay,’ said Erlin, and it took Janer a moment to realize that she meant him. He walked into the cabin, past Ron as the Captain went out. He stared down at the thing that was Keech.

‘What can I do?’ he asked.

Erlin pointed at the autodoc. ‘That’s an idiot savant quite capable of dealing with injuries to a normal human. Right now Keech is making the transition from corpse to living man with the aid of a nano-changer. He’s also infected with the Spatterjay virus, which is digesting dead tissue, just as it does in a living creature. The problem is that it started on Keech when he was all dead tissue. We’ve also got a few hundred cybernetic devices to deal with.’

Keech made a clicking gurgling sound.

‘He keeps trying to speak,’ said Erlin. She seemed at a loss.

Janer did not know what to say. If she could not handle this, then there was no way he could. He looked at Keech and felt pity. The only option, it seemed to him, would be to load him back on his scooter and head full-tilt for the Dome. He’d probably be dead by then, but even so… Janer focused his attention on Keech’s aug. There was an interface plug on it.

‘Back in a moment,’ said Janer, and ran from the cabin. In the crew cabin he searched his backpack until he had hold of what he wanted, and rushed back. He brandished the small screen and optic cable, then walked over to Keech.

‘This should work,’ he said. ‘It has a voice synthesizer.’

‘It does work,’ said Keech, the instant Janer plugged him into the personal computer. ‘Erlin, do not concern yourself with the cybernetics. I will take them offline the moment they interfere with physical function.’

Erlin came up and stood by Janer. She seemed calmer now, and the look she gave Janer made something flip over in his stomach.

‘Right,’ she said, ‘we’ve got a lot of work to do. We need to rig up some kind of tank. The nanites cannot function outside of a liquid medium, and that’s why they’re failing to build his outer tissues. The virus needs to be inhibited by Intertox. Keech, I take it you’re blocking the pain?’

‘I am.’

‘Right, we need to make a tank.’

Erlin looked at her box of tricks for a moment, then looked at Janer.

Janer said, ‘There’s a monofilament mainsail stored in the rear hold. Goss told me it was a gift from some out-worlder who wanted to establish a business here by displacing the living sails. Ron didn’t have the heart to warn the man that such replacement sail would require extra rigging as well as extra crewmen. They now apparently only use it to stretch around the hull after an attack by borers. I don’t know what borers are, but I can imagine the effect. I should be able to rig something in about an hour.’

‘Do it then,’ said Erlin.

Janer turned to go, running through his mind the stored materials he had seen for the repair of any damage to the ship. He needed to construct a frame strong enough to support the weight of a few hundred litres of water. Perhaps some sort of hammock arrangement? He did not need to worry about the strength of the monofilament fabric. He’d yet to see it ripped, and knew that little short of a hit from a pulse-gun could puncture it.

‘Janer,’ said Erlin.

Janer turned at the door.

‘I don’t know how to say this…’ she began.

‘Then don’t,’ said Janer, and went on his way.

The four mercenaries were definitely unhappy. It had soon become evident that Frisk had been watching for some time before their arrival, and had allowed them to act as a crude decoy.

‘The warning message — was that you?’ Tay asked.

Frisk continued to study the looming sculpture of the Skinner and replied contemplatively. ‘Oh no, that was the Warden. We monitored the signal and made sure there were no subminds in the area. Now, tell me, how did you ascertain the details for this?’

Tay stared at the sculpture and wondered just who Frisk was referring to when she had said ‘We’. She also frantically tried to think of some story to turn to her advantage — something to eke out the possibility of escape from this impossible situation. Then she remembered one aspect of the history of Frisk and Hoop: they had once been art thieves and both had an interest in paintings.

‘A crewman going off-planet presented me with his collection of paintings. I never believed they were accurate until I went out to the Skinner’s Island and saw the reality.’

‘Ah, you saw… the Skinner, in the flesh?’ said Frisk.

Tay looked at her.

‘Yes, I saw what Jay Hoop had become,’ she said.

Frisk smiled humourlessly and moved on into the museum. At each exhibit she stopped and stared for an uncomfortably long time. Occasionally she laughed, and occasionally she shook her head in annoyance. All of this performance was precisely that: a performance.

‘It is an impressive collection,’ she said finally, coming to stand before the model of herself as she had once been. ‘You’ve got so much of it right, but there are a few inaccuracies.’

‘Such as?’ Tay asked.

Frisk made an airy gesture with her hand. ‘Eon Talsca was the one who always carried an old projectile weapon. Duon used a fast-feed minigun or one of those bulky old pulse-guns. They often argued over the effectiveness of the weapons they used. I remember them having a competition to see who performed best with their particular choice of weapon. Duon won, of course. He killed fifteen of the twenty ECS monitors we let run loose — though they disputed after about the artistry of their weapons’ play. Eon brought down his five monitors with clean head shots.’