‘It might not be Frisk. If it is her, though, there’s no way she could have got that far merely in an escape pod used as a submersible,’ said Twelve.

‘I am aware of that,’ said the Warden. ‘If it is her, then it seems likely she has had more assistance than that of a handful of Batians. If it is not her, then you can return to your search for her, or work from that point, should there be a connection. Twelve, I want you to confine your scans to very low power, as I do not want you detected. Thirteen, you will transmit direct to me via underspace. For now we just watch and learn.’

‘You got it, boss,’ said Twelve as the Warden withdrew.

‘Creep,’ muttered Thirteen as they sped on through the sky.

Prill had entered through the gaping hole in the ship’s bows. Bits of their bodies lay smoking round that hole, though some of them had made it further in before being hit. A legless prill lay on a coiled pile of rope, its red eyes still shooting round and about its carapace. Svan thought how like an adult Prador it seemed, and equally vicious. She looked to where Speaker sat against a bulkhead, a pulsed-energy weapon on her lap and a cord round her right upper arm, above where the limb had been cut away.

‘Need any help?’ asked Svan, forgetting herself. She glanced at Shib, who was staring at the legless prill with a horrified fascination.

‘It is unfortunate that this unit has lost its arm,’ said Speaker, and Svan stared back at her, reminded that this Speaker was not actually a human being; she was just a tool of the Prador in its ship; its eyes and ears, and… hand. She shook her head in annoyance, then ignored the blank while she inspected the damage to the ship.

‘Do we have enough equipment to deal with this?’ she asked Shib, gesturing at the breached hull.

‘I’ll rig a couple of sheets — inside and out — and fill the gap between with crash foam. Shouldn’t be a problem,’ he said, still staring at the prill.

‘There is a more immediate problem,’ said Speaker. Both the Batians turned and looked at her as she removed the cord and dropped it, then stood, holstering her weapon. She continued, ‘Rebecca Frisk has been going into deep nerve conflict with her body for some days now. She carries the drug to alleviate this problem, but since arriving here has not taken it with any regularity. The nerve conflict is therefore causing in her a psychosis with schizophrenic episodes.’

‘Pan-fried AI,’ said Shib, turning from the prill. Svan was glad to see that he seemed to have himself under better control now.

‘What are we supposed to do?’ asked Svan.

‘She must start to take the drug regularly. If she does not she could become a further danger to this ship. Also, while she is acting like this, you will find it difficult to effect repairs, and we do not want it running on AG for much longer.’

‘You go and tell her to take her damned drug,’ said Svan. ‘She just took a shot at me out there.’

‘It should be possible for you to bring her down with a high-energy stun setting,’ said Speaker.

‘Right,’ said Shib, rolling his eyes.

‘I repeat, if you do not do this, she will become a danger to herself as well as to others.’

‘Tell me about it,’ said Svan, turning back to inspect the hole in the hull.

‘Also, if you do not do it,’ said Speaker, ‘you will have to find some alternative method of transport from this planet.’

The Batians stared at her.

‘What’s your interest, Prador?’ asked Svan. ‘Her I can understand. She wants Keech off her back. She wants him dead. What’s in it for you?’

‘Friendship,’ said Speaker.

‘Answer the question then I’ll do what you ask,’ said Svan with contempt.

‘You don’t believe I do this for friendship’s sake?’ asked the Prador through its Speaker.

‘No, I don’t.’

‘Very well — politics. Our Kingdom is slowly but certainly developing closer ties with the Polity. As these ties grow, I become ever more of an outcast in my own society because of my connections with the trade in cored humans. I have come here to sever all such connections.’

‘But Frisk is one of those connections,’ said Svan.

‘I do have a certain affection for her,’ said Speaker.

‘Keech is also one,’ said Shib, ‘but surely you could have left him to her, to us.’

‘There are others too,’ said the distant Prador.

‘Who?’ asked Svan.

‘Anyone who was once a slave here when the coring operation was being run. They are still here, many of them. They are people like Drum: the Old Captains.’

‘All witnesses,’ said Svan, nodding in understanding. Shib eyed her questioningly. She explained, ‘It’s the nature of Prador politics. Since anything written or recorded can be falsified, only the verbal statements of witnesses are given any credence in law. It basically works out that you can get away with anything so long as you leave no living witnesses to it.’

‘In this you are correct,’ said Speaker.

‘Be difficult tracking them all down,’ said Shib.

‘For really important events, all the Old Captains come together in Convocation. The presence of Hoop’s mistress here would certainly bring about such a Convocation.’

‘Then what?’ said Shib.

‘They are very primitively armed here.’

‘Point taken,’ said Shib.

Svan pulled her stun gun from her belt and altered the setting. Shib watched her for a moment, then did the same with his own.

‘Let’s go put our leader to sleepy-byes then,’ she said.

Up on deck Frisk was still blasting away at this and that — and giggling at things only she could see.

‘I can’t even begin to imagine such suffering as he experienced,’ said Janer, watching the sun descend into dull sunset.

‘None of us can,’ replied Erlin. ‘It’s beyond even his understanding — which is why his mind died, why he became Ambel.’

‘I’m confused,’ said Janer.

‘That’s not surprising,’ said Erlin. ‘It’s a very long and involved story.’

‘No, not about that — just about a couple of other points,’ he said.

Erlin watched him and waited.

He continued: ‘I know Hoopers have a very high pain threshold, but obviously they do suffer pain.’ He nodded towards Forlam who stood at the stern, near Keech. ‘I saw him get his guts pulled out in a contest, yet that was an arranged bout he got into willingly. Was it just for the money, or what?’

‘Some of them do have a strange relationship with pain,’ said Erlin. She seemed uncomfortable with the knowledge.

‘What kind of relationship?’

‘Some of the neural pathways get mixed up. Severe injury can cause it. They get hurt time and time again, then find themselves going on to put themselves in more danger. It’s unconscious, mostly, though some of them begin to realize what they want.’

‘They want pain?’

‘It makes them feel alive.’

Janer shook his head and stared down at the sea.

‘Maybe that’s why they want to keep on pursuing that dreadful thing,’ he said.

‘Maybe, but it is something that has to be done. It must be killed.’

‘Why?’ asked Janer, surprised at her vehemence.

‘The head will go to where its body is, and its body is on the Skinner’s Island. They intend to go there and destroy the Skinner completely.’

‘This Skinner is Jay Hoop, then? You know I never believed that story until now.’ He paused for a moment. ‘And now it’s… heading for its own body—?’ He allowed himself a weak grin at the unintended pun.

‘To rejoin it, yes. And that cannot be allowed to happen.’

Janer studied her for a long moment. He felt as if someone must have shoved him into one of the weirder type of VR scenarios. Every time he thought he had a handle on the situation, it just got stranger.

‘What about this Convocation?’ he asked, trying instead for a discussion of the prosaic.