The Warden decided to widen his logic field. Results: the immediate consequence of Frisk’s presence here being known had been the calling of a Convocation of the Old Captains. That made no sense. But perhaps something to do with the Prador? The Warden opened its Hoop files and began to check Prador associations, and to compare them with present events in the Third Kingdom. Ebulan, a human name given to a very old adult Prador, seemed the most prominent name. Slowly, the Warden began to discern a possible scenario emerging.

SM13 continued its silent vigil. It watched as Shib hung two sheets of plass across the gaping hole in the front of the ship, moulded them to the shape of the hull by means of a small heating unit, then injected crash foam in between both sheets. The foam set instantly, then Shib went to carefully shut off AG. The ship settled back into the sea, and the patch-up held firm. Thirteen momentarily considered introducing a few weaknesses around the repair but found it didn’t have the nerve to defy the Warden. It turned its attention elsewhere.

The sail was slowly recovering, though the damage done to it had been severe. Its brain had been partially cooked, but not completely destroyed, and was now regenerating. It could do nothing as yet, by dint of it having had its neck stapled to the mast, but it was working on that: methodically flexing its neck muscles against the strips of metal securing it.

Drum was a much more interesting possibility. Thirteen had noted the Captain’s finger movement and, listening in on conversations between Shib and Svan, it surmised that the accident was in some part due to Drum not immediately obeying a verbal instruction from Svan. It also noted the typical Prador metal exposed at the back of Drum’s neck, and surmised that a spider thrall had been used on him, but that the Captain had not been fully cored. Now, his virus-filled body was attempting to reject the device controlling him — just as the body Frisk had stolen was attempting to reject what remained of her. Such endless possibilities.

At present the sail and Drum were in no immediate danger, however. Yet, if either of them became capable of any more decisive action, they would likely put themselves in mortal danger. Then, the submind decided, it could act, despite the Warden’s orders. So it sat up on the mast, with the AI equivalent of smug satisfaction, and awaited events. Then it saw the one-armed woman climb out of the hold and, when it read the Prador glyphs tattooed on her body, it suddenly realized that something very important had been missed.

‘Warden! Prador blank!’ was the extent of the message it shrieked, before other events came upon it rather abruptly. A flash of intense light haloed the ship, and a thunderclap shook it. Thirteen had just detected something metallic in the sea — before its senses whited out and a power surge fused its AG.

‘Damn,’ it managed, before tumbling from the masthead and axing down into the deck timbers.

Shib drew a bead on the baroque metal drone. The seahorse wobbled in the splintered planking and little gusts of smoke puffed from a couple of its small vents. ‘Drone shell — probably loaded with one of the Warden’s subminds,’ said Svan. ‘That was an EM burst hit it. So it won’t be getting up again.’

‘What do I do with it?’ Shib asked.

‘Throw it over the side.’

Shib lowered his weapon and moved towards the drone. He tried to pick it up with his injured hand, and then had to holster his weapon and use both hands to tug the device from the deck timbers. When he finally lifted it, he found it as heavy as a cannon ball. It was hot as well, continuing to puff smoke and make small buzzing sounds. He tossed it over the side, watched it rapidly sink — and then turned quickly, drawing his weapon at the splashing sound behind him. He lowered his weapon on identifying the wedge-shaped Prador transport rising out of the sea on the other side of the ship.

The transport drew level with the rail, and opened like a clam. Out of it, in full war harness, sprang the large adolescent Prador he had earlier seen inside the destroyer. The creature rocked the whole ship as it hit the deck, the armoured spikes of its feet driving like daggers into the planking. Throwing up splinters, it turned — and demolished a section of rail with a sweep of its claw. Quickly following the creature through this gap came four heavily laden human blanks, just as fearsomely armed.

‘Get us back on course — now,’ rasped the Prador’s translation box.

‘And if we don’t?’ said Shib.

He did not even have time to duck. An armoured claw, reeking of the sea, closed round his neck and lifted him from the deck.

‘All are dispensable,’ Vrell rasped. ‘All.’

As Vrell lowered him back to the deck, Shib glared at the Prador with hate and disgust. When finally it released its hold, he glanced up to the cabin-deck where Svan stood at Drum’s shoulder issuing instructions. The motor churned the sea behind the ship, and Drum swung the helm over, turning the vessel away from where it had been drifting, the transport attached limpet-like at its side.

Moving away from Drum, Svan watched cautiously as one of the blanks came up the ladder. The blank looked straight into the polished barrel of Svan’s weapon, then went and crouched down by Frisk. The blank pulled the injector from Frisk’s belt and quickly hurled it over the side. Using a new injector, the blank gave the woman a dose, before substituting the injector in her belt with the new one. As Svan watched this she realized immediately that she had been lied to — then she climbed down to the lower deck and moved up beside Shib. They watched silently as blanks started bolting armament and defences to the deck. Their transport, now empty, sank back into the sea.

‘Getting a little complicated,’ observed Shib, staring at the Prador, with beads of sweat on his forehead.

‘Next chance we get, we’re out of here,’ murmured Svan.

‘Nice to get a chance,’ said Shib, still rubbing at his throat.

The Warden registered the message, and the EM blast, and then all its speculations and calculations slammed together in a logical whole. There was a Prador adult somewhere on the planet below. There had to be one, to run a human blank. Now, all of a sudden, Rebecca Frisk and the events on Drum’s Cohorn were only important in how they pertained to the presence of that Prador.

‘SM Twelve, keep away from that ship. I won’t tell you again,’ warned the Warden when it detected the little drone moving in close again.

‘Sorry, boss.’

The Warden went on, ‘Did it occur to you that the debris you scanned earlier might have been planted in orbit, that in fact no ship was destroyed in the atmosphere?’

‘No, boss.’

The Warden scanned back over its visual files, only confirming that — of course — none of its eyes had been close enough for it to identify what kind of vessel had approached Spatterjay.

‘Obviously didn’t occur to you either,’ interjected another voice.

‘Sniper, this is a private channel,’ said the Warden.

‘Yeah, and your security sucks. Come on, when are you gonna get with some direct action?’

If the Warden could have smiled, it would have done so then. It had only taken the smallest chink in its armour for the war drone to break through, and then from under the sea, in the belly of a molly carp: proof that even after all this time Sniper had still not lost his edge.

‘Our priority is to trace the Prador vessel. SM Thirteen was knocked down by an EM burst shell, the kind of weaponry often found on their war craft. That, combined with the tricky manoeuvring it executed on the way in puts it at nothing less than an attack ship.’

‘Yeah, so whadda you doing about it?’ demanded Sniper.