He looked at the light blue circles visible on her dark skin. There were only a few of them. He put his hand on her neck and ran it down to cover one small breast. Her nipple was hard against his palm, as she lay back.

‘Help me off with this stuff. I’m too knackered to do it myself.’

Janer pulled her coverall down from her shoulders, and over her hips when she raised them. He tugged off her shoes then slid the overalls off completely. She now lay naked, staring up at him, stroking a hand over her belly.

‘Stress always makes me horny,’ she confessed.

‘Me too,’ said Janer, nearly breaking his neck in his hurry to get undressed. The fit of giggles that followed unmanned him for a while. But Erlin was warm and, although with the body of an eighteen-year-old, brought to their love-making the experience of over two centuries. This experience for Janer, himself only just into his second century, was enlightening. He soon discovered that there was nothing Erlin did not know about the human body, and how best to use it.

Alternately rubbing his eyes and his belly, Captain Drum left his cabin. He felt he’d maybe overdone it on the hammer whelks and sea-cane rum — just a tad, but not enough to cause any real damage. What had finished him off had been those glister brains on toast. The ensuing hallucinations had been of the flying kind and had continued throughout the night. He felt sluggish and slightly ill, as if the virus inside him was punishing him for his excesses. It was a moment, therefore, before he realized that what he was now seeing — mostly submerged next to the island of sargassum — was no Spatterjay leviathan he recognized. ‘Orlis, get that anchor up, nice and easy, lad.’ Drum moved to the rail to get a closer look at the initially unfamiliar shape. His vision was still a bit blurry, and some part of himself was trying to deny what he was seeing. Finally, he could deny no longer that he was observing Prador pictographs impressed in golden metal armour.

Jack, the first mate, walked up and stood beside him. ‘What’s up, Cap’n?… Oh!’

‘That,’ said Drum, ‘is a Prador light destroyer, armoured with that damned exotic metal that always made ‘em so hard to blow.’ He looked round to check that Orlis had the anchor in, then hurried to take the helm. ‘Wake up, Windcatcher!’ he shouted, and tried to turn the wheel. When it did not move, he pushed harder, then felt wood beginning to break in his hands, so he eased off.

‘Boarders!’ Jack yelled, suddenly.

Before Drum could react, a shape in black crabskin armour was on deck, levelling some kind of weapon. There was a flash and a thud and, trailing smoke, Jack went flying over the opposite rail. Before he hit the water, he blew apart and Drum saw one of his legs go cartwheeling across the surface of the sea. Another black-clad killer came over the rail — then another.

‘Get ‘em, lads!’

Orlis threw the anchor at the last one to come on deck. With a sickening crunch, the anchor folded that one, and he just lay down to die. With a roar, Orlis charged the next one, but something suddenly lifted him from his feet and flung him four metres back. He lay on the deck staring at the smoking wound in his stomach.

‘Hey! It’s only—’

A flat detonation curtailed his observation, and spread bits of him all over ship.

Drum picked up a harpoon head that Banner had been working on, up on the cabin-deck, and moved to join the fray.

‘One step further and you’re dead.’

Drum stopped exactly where he was, and looked around. The woman standing there held a heavy pulse-gun trained on him, and he knew she wasn’t kidding — it might take her two or three shots, but he’d certainly go down. Whoever these people were, they had come prepared for the durability of Hoopers.

The woman seemed surprised for a moment. ‘You…’ she said, then, ‘I suppose you don’t recognize me, Little Skin.’

Drum had not been called that in more years than he cared to remember. And even then there had only been a certain group of people who ever used the nickname. A sick feeling grew in his stomach as he guessed who this woman must be. Immediately he put her appearance down to cosmetic surgery, but quickly realized that had to be wrong. Whoever had given herself up to ECS needed to have the right genetic code for ECS to be fooled. That meant the woman before him had either cloned herself, or actually sent her own body. Drum knew which she had done, and why she looked so different now.

‘The sail, secure the sail!’ the woman yelled as she moved up behind him.

Three loud thumps followed, and he glanced down to see one of the armoured figures beside the mast, with some sort of bolt gun. The sail screeched and struggled in the spars — ratchets and chains clanking below and the foremast slamming back and forth. Another detonation followed and Banner’s head went bouncing along the deck.

Drum swore and threw the harpoon head at the woman. The gun stuttered in her double-handed grip, and Drum staggered under the impact of ionized gas pulses hitting his torso. It hurt like hell and there was a smell of burning flesh in his nostrils. She fired again and it felt to Drum like he’d been hit in the chest with a shovel. Losing his balance fell back towards the ladder, where a third hit sent him over towards the deck. His head struck the hard timbers and the world went dark — so thankfully he did not see the rest of his crew being slaughtered.

Rebecca Frisk gazed down at the three Batians as they removed their breather helmets and went to check on their comrade. Svan, Tors and Shib were all heavy-worlders, and all quite capable of tearing an Earth-normal human to pieces. Dime also, and the anchor thrown at him had nearly cut him in half. Svan, the woman whom Frisk had initially hired, soon saw that there was nothing to be done for her comrade, and turned to climb the ladder on to the deck which formed the roof of the forecabin.

‘They are dangerous and strong. It’s a shame we weren’t sufficiently acquainted with that fact before meeting Olian Tay,’ said Svan, once she was face to face with Frisk.

‘You were warned this time,’ said Frisk, a glassy smile on her face. ‘You have now also been provided with weapons suitable to the task, rather than those silly carbines you had before.’ She pointed to where Dime lay. ‘It seems that even such a warning and such weapons are not enough.’

Svan turned from her and stared out over the sea to where the Prador ship was surfacing, its chameleon skin of exotic armour now taking on the colour and texture of the nearby island of sargassum, so that it now appeared to be an extension of that island.

‘We will be more careful in future.’

Frisk congratulated herself on choosing these stone killers. Ebulan had offered her some of his human blanks, but she doubted he could control them as well as these Batians controlled themselves. Very fast reactions were needed to deal with Hoopers. She glanced at her hand and noted it was shaking. She put it on the rail to still it, and ignored the closing slit in her cheek where the harpoon had just missed slicing her head in half.

‘As for when you take the Captain aboard,’ said Frisk, nodding to a small wedge-shaped transport that was on its way over from the Prador ship, ‘full-restraint harness. Remember: a Hooper his age is about twice as strong as you are, and a lot more durable. Be prepared to hit him with a level-six stun if he so much as quivers.’

Svan went down to the lower deck and supervised the fixing of the ceramal restraint harness on Drum. With a feeling of melancholy, Frisk watched the proceedings. How ironic that so long ago she had saved this same man from coring in order to make him her personal body slave — and now to do this? She stared for a moment then took a cloth from her pocket to wipe away the small spill of blood on her cheek. As the cloth touched blood, she convulsed violently, dropping her pulse-gun on to the deck. Svan glanced up at her, but Frisk stepped quickly out of sight, pulled an injector from her belt and pressed it to her neck. The shaking stopped shortly after, but the feeling of dislocation, of not quite knowing whom she was or why she was, persisted. Bad nerve conflict. Partially under control, Frisk moved back to the rail.