Keech nodded and gazed down at the sea. These two were like teenagers who had discovered sex for the first time — or was that just his perspective? Was this how the Old Captains felt? Did most people seem naive and silly to them? He studied his pink hands, then his body with the monofilament overall clinging to it. He felt a vague twinge of embarrassment when thoughts of sex and the feel of the material against his skin conspired to give him an erection. He stayed where he was by the rail.

‘What’s that?’ he asked after a moment, and pointed to a humped shape in the sea.

Erlin stepped up beside him and peered at where he was pointing. ‘It’s either a transitional leech that tried to take a large prill, or Hoopers have been hunting here,’ she said.

Keech waited for an explanation.

To try and cover her earlier embarrassment, Erlin took on a didactic tone. ‘Small leeches feed by taking a plug of flesh from their prey, and whatever fluids they can suck out.’

Keech noted Janer rubbing the distinctive scar on his hand.

‘As a leech gets bigger it takes to the sea after bigger prey, also because the water there can support its larger body. In time, it begins to outgrow its prey, so it makes the transition from plug feeder to a feeder upon whole animals. The problem with eating animals whole here is that they tend not to die very quickly, so can cause a great deal of damage to a predator’s insides. Therefore big leeches produce a poison in their bile which can kill virus and prey at once.’

Before Erlin could continue, Keech said, ‘And a transitional leech is one that isn’t yet producing the poison, but still needs to feed on whole prey.’ He nodded at the leech floating past. ‘Hence, that could be one that has fed on something that tore its way out of it again.’

‘Exactly,’ said Erlin, studying him carefully.

‘Why do Hoopers hunt leeches?’ he asked.

‘Sprine,’ said Janer.

‘That’s the poison,’ said Erlin. She said no more, and gestured Janer to silence when he seemed about to explain.

‘Difficult to obtain, also rare, and it kills Hoopers,’ said Keech. He turned away. ‘No wonder they hunt these leeches. They’d probably do much more just to get hold of it.’

‘Why are you here, Keech?’ Erlin asked, suddenly.

Keech considered lying to her for only a moment. ‘I’m here to find and kill Jay Hoop,’ he said.

‘Why?’

‘Because he is a criminal. Because I must. Because it was… is my job.’

Erlin stared at the back of his head. She thought about where they were going, then about Ambel and about what he kept in his cabin. She’d hated that low morbid whispering. It was part of what had driven her away.

‘In a day or so we may well reach the ship that has… Hoop aboard,’ she said.

Suddenly Keech was facing her again, one hand gripping her collar, his other hand rigid for a killing strike. He had moved fast, faster than she could move. Alive, Keech must have been a very dangerous man. And now… he was alive again.

‘Explain,’ he said.

‘What remains of Hoop is kept on that ship,’ said Erlin.

Keech released her and suddenly stepped back. He seemed confused, and his hands were shaking. Spittle ran from the corner of his mouth.

‘No… I don’t believe that. I don’t believe that story.’ He shook his head once, shook it again. Abruptly his body began to spasm, and he fell over on the deck like a falling door. His aug unit bounced on the deck beside him, and a green light on its surface turned red as the reattachment delay finally ran out and it began to power down.

‘Quickly! Get him below!’ Erlin yelled.

‘What is it?’ Janer asked as he helped her carry the spasming man below.

‘His organic brain’s taken over control of his cyber implants and now his muscles are fighting them. We’ll have to restrain him till he gets control.’

‘What about his aug?’ Janer asked.

Erlin shook her head. ‘Wouldn’t work. He’d end up fighting it like he is his implants.’

Janer gazed down at the convulsing face. But for the metal interfaces inset in Keech’s cheekbone and above his eye, he looked utterly human and vulnerable. Janer wanted him to live, not to suffer — found that he cared for the man.

‘Well that’s a first,’ said his Hive link.

When Janer angrily questioned it, it retreated to its distant buzzing, and he wondered just how much it was picking up from him through their link.

Darkness and pain, and the smell of the sea and of things decaying. He fought the harness and, though stronger than most men, he was weakened by his wounds and could only flex ceramal that in other circumstances he could have broken like chalk. The blanks dragging him back were as iron as he had been, and his struggles were all but ignored. He was just a difficult parcel that they dragged to the table and threw down upon it. Then began the bubbling speech of the Prador and, in flickering nightmarish luminescence, a huge first-child entered and poised itself over him, its mandibles flicking as if it might like to taste this particular morsel. A claw closed on the harness, gouging into his back as it lifted and suspended him.

‘Why? Why did you kill my crew?’ Drum asked.

The Prador’s translator box groaned and crackled as it replied. ‘Kill your crew… I did not kill your crew,’ it stated.

‘Why—?’ he began, but before he could question further it threw him face-down, looming over him. Something clicked and detached from the harness, and now he was able to move his head. He turned to see the underside of the creature’s body: the ridged carapace and swiftly moving manipulatory arms. In one of those hands he saw something like a grey metal spider, wriggling its legs as the first-child brought it down behind Drum. He started to bellow as small legs like pitons burrowed into the back of his neck. Then his whole body went entirely slack, but not, unfortunately, without feeling. The cutting sensation continued, and the pain rolled out in waves which soon grew dull and distant. Blackness welled up inside him and took him away: stood him aside from the world.

Then, in time, he came back.

Drum would have normally looked around, but no longer had that choice. He continued to steer his ship and check the compass, but these actions were not at his own instigation. Hunger and thirst were constant, but he could do nothing to slake them. He could feel the horrible ache of healing injuries, and he could see, and he could taste the salt in the air, but beyond sensing the world around him he could not influence it. Straining to look round where he was not directed to look availed him nothing more than a little hope: for there was still something physical to strain against — and something at the back of his neck repositioned itself each time he tried.

Frisk screamed and flung the biomech detector to the deck. Before anyone could think of trying to stop her, she stamped on it until it broke. As she stepped back, its power pack discharged into the planking, and set the pitch caulking on fire.

She stood there with her hands shaking. ‘How did he fucking know! How did he know!’

Svan and Tors stood back, kept their faces without expression. When Frisk pulled her pulse-gun, Tors slipped a hand down to his own weapon — before Svan gave him a cautioning look. He didn’t take his hand away from it though.

Frisk crashed out of the cabin, swearing repeatedly. She glared up to where Drum stood impassively at the helm, and fired off three shots at him. The first shot seared the side of his face. The second punched a smoking hole through his chest, and the third shot set the helm burning. He showed no reaction but just continued to steer, his hands sizzling where they touched the burning wood. Frisk screamed with rage and went storming down the deck. She burnt holes through the planking as well as the rail. Eventually she came to the mast and glared down at the head of the sail. It tried to move out of the way as she directed her weapon at it, but with three staples through its neck it could not move far. Frisk altered the setting on her weapon and let off a volley of shots into its face. It made a gargling hissing sound as it struggled, and its wings boomed against the spars. It grew still, eventually.