The boat clunked against the side of the ship and greetings were shouted back and forth as a rope was thrown up for them to secure it, then a ladder lowered. Ron was first over the rail and Boris thrust a jug into his hand. Ron downed it in one and handed it back for a refill.
‘How are y’, Peck m’boy!’ he bellowed at Peck, after he had bellowed greetings at each other member of Ambel’s crew.
Peck just stared at him, and Ron turned to Ambel.
‘Still a bit… y’know?’ he asked, making a wiggling motion with his hand.
Ambel nodded.
Erlin was next over the rail and, while each member of the crew greeted her, she kept her eyes fixed on Ambel. When he winked at her, a slow smile spread across her face. Goss immediately started to come on to Boris, and Boris suggested showing her around the ship. Anne stared speculatively at Forlam, then filled a jug and took it over to him.
Ambel watched the blond man as he came over the rail assisting the bald one up behind him. The look blondy gave Erlin told Ambel all he wanted to know. He allowed himself a little smile, as it wasn’t important. He stepped forward to greet the two new off-worlders.
‘Welcome to the Treader,’ he said.
With deep-blue eyes the bald man stared at Ambel, and an immediate shock of recognition ran between them.
‘This is Janer Cord Anders and this is Sable Keech,’ said Erlin, still smiling.
Ambel had only time to raise one hand before the first energy pulse slammed into his stomach. The next burnt a hole in his chest and the next blew away part of his shoulder. Collapsing, he turned and ducked to protect his head. Another pulse hit him in the back and he lost it for a moment. As he came to, he groaned and rolled over, agony blurring his vision and sapping his strength.
He looked up to see Keech glaring at him with flat hatred, while he tried to bring his weapon to bear again. Ron, Forlam, and Boris were all three having trouble restraining him, which was very surprising. His struggles against them lasted only so long as it took Ron to get a hand free to slap him on the side of the head. As Keech went down, Ambel tried to rise, but that was not a good idea. He felt the blood draining from his face and just had time to see Erlin crouching over him, peeling open a drug patch, before he lost consciousness for the second time.
Keech regained consciousness to find himself roped in a chair, with his head throbbing and an ache in his torso that evidenced the fact that someone had put the boot in as he went down. He sat for a moment with his teeth firmly clenched against the vomit that threatened to rise into his mouth. As the nausea slowly started to recede, he tested the rope and found it strong enough to restrain his human muscles. Next, he found that direct brain-to-cybermotor link that had nearly killed him, and tried again. This time the ropes stretched and the chair creaked. But still he did not have the strength, augmented or otherwise, to free himself, so he scanned the cabin for some other means of escape.
No knife was lying handy on the desk and there were no useful sharp edges anywhere else, as was to be expected in a ship’s cabin. There were cupboards that might contain something he could use, but what chance did he have, without being heard, of manoeuvring his chair to one of them and opening it? So he waited and, as he waited, he became aware of a sound… or something like a sound. The sea-chest by the wall drew his attention. Before he could wonder what it was about this chest that increasingly riveted his attention, the door slammed open and Ron stomped in.
‘Give me a reason why I shouldn’t let the boys chuck you to the leeches,’ growled the Captain.
Keech tested his bonds again then let out a sigh. ‘My name is Sable Keech,’ he said.
‘I know that, but it don’t sound like reason enough for me.’
The Captain was angry, and Keech knew what damage an angry Hooper of his age could do. He suspected that if he didn’t explain himself soon, he wouldn’t even reach the sea in one piece.
‘I first came here seven hundred years ago, with the ECS mission that released Hoop’s slaves. I was part of the attack force that raided Hoop’s stronghold — and I was the one who subverted the program running the slave collars Hoop was using.’
In shock, Ron stared at Keech, then stepped back and sat down on the sea-chest. He shook his head, appearing confused for a moment, then realized where he was sitting and abruptly stood again.
‘Keech?’ he said. ‘I came here after the war, but I know about you.’
‘I’m the same Keech who killed Frane and Rimsc, and I can recognize one of the Eight no matter how scarred and changed they may be. Ambel — a ridiculous anagram. So you don’t recognize him, even though you were present when the ex-slaves threw him into the leech swarm,’ said Keech. He spoke with the calm of utter certainty.
‘Gosk Balem,’ whispered Ron.
Keech awaited some explosive reaction, but there came none. Ron looked thoughtful for a moment, then he shuddered. He rubbed a hand down across his bare chest, where the leech scars were thickest.
‘Are you going to release me now and let me finish what I started?’ asked Keech.
After a moment Ron said, ‘No.’
Keech felt a momentary sick anger. Had he misjudged? Could it be that Ambel was not the one he thought him to be? Or was Ron not who he thought either? So many memories crowding in his mind — so many to sort, to know.
‘Why not?’
‘Because he’s not Gosk Balem,’ said Ron.
‘What makes you so sure of that?’ Keech sneered.
Ron advanced to stand over him, placed his hands on the arms of the chair.
‘It’s the sea, Sable Keech. It takes.’
With that, he turned from Keech and left the cabin. Keech stared at the door for a moment then slowly began to work his arms and legs against the rope. Motor and muscle. He broke skin and ignored the pain. The chair began to creak. From the sea-chest there came sounds of movement — and that other sound, that whispering.
Keech worked harder at loosening his bonds, a sudden ludicrous idea occurring to him as to what was inside that chest.
12
The third male glister — the last one of this particular family had he but known it — was feeding with the female upon a turbul the size of a rowing boat. It sensed that something was very wrong, just before a hawser of a tentacle wormed into view, coiled and crushed the female, then snatched her backwards, squealing, through the murk. This last remaining male fled as fast as his flat tail and paddle legs could propel him. Another tentacle whipped out and slapped his side, cracking his armour, but driving him beyond the predator’s reach. The monstrous whelk was unconcerned about this escape, as it crunched down the female glister, then turned its attention to the plenitude of turbul corpses and their concomitant crop of leeches and prill. Perhaps it should have been more concerned about the heirodont, irate at having been deprived of the giant whelk it had been pursuing, and now ascending through the waterfall of organic detritus in the hope that its source might quell the grumbling of its gargantuan stomach.
With so many eyes keeping watch for it in so many places, the Warden did not feel any guilt in allowing its attention to stray beyond Spatterjay to observe such momentous events. In this particular observation it was not possible to easily maintain a direct link, so it created a submind ghost of itself that it sent hopping for lightyears: from runcible to runcible and onwards to AI ships and ship’s drones, until it reached its destination. Here, as just one of many thousands cramming together to view one scene, it watched through the eyes of a Golem — linked by virtual fingernails — while the essence of the ghost ran itself in the huge processing spaces of the thinly disguised AI battleships poised above the Prador world. It recorded the momentous events, the AI reactions and net-space discussions, and relayed them back to itself every few seconds — a veritable age in AI terms.