Roach shook his head. ‘Didn’t say we was in any hurry.’

Boris grinned weakly, tucking the SM under his arm, and together the two crewmen dawdled after Keech.

‘Signal detected. Transmitting,’ said SM5.

Sniper slammed himself into the sea as the only effective method of high-speed braking. As he went in, his course cut like a white icicle under the waves, until he had slowed enough to turn and explode from the surface again. In seconds he was accelerating towards SM5’s last location — only the drone was gone. All that showed on radar was a dispersing signal.

‘It got him,’ said SM1 angrily, as it came hammering in from the west.

‘No kidding,’ said Sniper. He now routed the radar signals through a clean-up program and detected the Prador drone a couple of kilometres from where SM5 had been, and moving away.

‘I can see you,’ he sent.

The Prador drone swerved in a ‘u’ and came hammering back towards him.

‘That you behind me, Two?’ Sniper asked conversationally.

‘Sure is,’ replied Two.

‘Good, I want you to veer off and go drop a cluster of mines here.’ Sniper sent co-ordinates. ‘Seems these arseholes always miss the upswing.’ Behind Sniper, Two shot away, chuckling over the ether.

‘One, you put a laser on it, and keep it on it,’ Sniper instructed.

‘Won’t touch that armour,’ SM1 pointed out.

‘I know it won’t, but it’ll have to keep on juggling its sensors. It won’t lose me, but it may well miss something smaller.’ Sniper turned so he was hurtling sideways and, reaching precisely where he wanted, spat two missiles into the sea.

‘Warden, how much code did you get?’ he asked as he observed the missiles torpedoing away on their preprogrammed course.

‘I could do with more, Sniper,’ said the Warden. ‘Why — are you getting bored?’

With the Prador drone hurtling towards him behind its two rapidly accelerating missiles, Sniper swore then slammed down into the sea. He was fifty metres down when one of the Prador’s missiles detonated on the surface spearing white lines after him with its shrapnel. The second missile followed him down. He released some chaff, then a couple of mines, before abruptly changing direction. There were explosions behind, then a huge splash to his right. The Prador drone was coming straight after him, vapour and bubbles exploding from armour that had been heated by SM1’s laser.

‘Over here, arsehole!’ Sniper sent.

‘You are dead,’ the Prador sent back.

‘Ooh, now I’m all frightened.’

Sniper instantly changed course and shot up to the surface at forty-five degrees. The Prador went straight back for the surface, knowing it could come on Sniper quicker through the air. With its sensors confused and misreading, it saw only at the last moment the mines Two had dropped there. Emerging from the sea in a swarm of explosions the Prador shuddered into the air, seemed merely to shrug to itself, then accelerated towards Sniper again. Sniper turned on it and fired his antiphoton weapon. Violet fire ignited on the disk of a projected screen.

‘OK, so you’re tougher than I thought,’ sent Sniper.

The Prador slowed, its screen still out in front of it.

‘You’re looking forward to this, ain’t you?’ Sniper sent, bouncing his signal off the sea.

‘I am,’ returned the Prador, ‘and now it will end.’

Below the Prador, two white fumaroles speared up from the sea. The first missile was powerful enough to blow a bar of plasma through its armour. The second missile went in through the same hole and gutted it. The distorted shell, which was all that now remained of this Prador drone, arced into the sea. Still burning inside, it planed for a moment on superheated steam, then sank.

‘Stupid,’ said Sniper as he tracked the glow into the depths.

The screams were terrible, and Erlin was glad to hear them recede into the distance. If the Skinner had come her way, she was not sure what she could have done, other than die.

‘Do you suppose that’s it, then?’ she said. ‘Do you think they’ve poisoned it?’

‘You’d know as well as me,’ said Anne.

Erlin shook her head and concentrated on the task in hand.

Pland finished knocking a length of peartrunk wood into the ground nearby on which Erlin suspended the drip she had prepared, then turned on its plastic tap. Next, she pressed another tranquillizing drug patch against Forlam’s upper arm. The recumbent crewman was completely out of it, and that’s just how she wanted him to stay — for the present. She pressed a thumb to his bottom jaw and pulled it down. Forlam’s tongue had turned into the feeding mouth of a leech, but at present it lay flaccid behind his teeth. Erlin inspected the back of her hand and the hole where a neat circle of flesh had been excised. Forlam’s tongue had done that to her when she tried to look in his mouth earlier, while he was conscious. He’d been most apologetic afterwards.

‘Needs lots of Dome food,’ suggested Pland, staring off in the direction the other four had gone.

‘I know that,’ said Erlin, ‘but right now we haven’t got any — just a few supplements.’

‘There’s plenty on the Treader,’ said Anne. ‘Maybe I ought to sneak back and fetch some.’

Erlin glanced at Forlam, then back at her.

‘He certainly needs some Dome food. Could you manage it without getting yourself killed?’

Anne gave her a pitying look, then stood up.

‘I’ll run,’ she said, and turned to go.

Just then, three figures stepped into sight. All three wore black crabskin armour. All three were armed.

‘Shit,’ said Pland, and reached for the laser at his belt.

His hand touched the grip just as there came a sound as of a hammer striking an apple, and he flew backwards, landing on his back and skidding along the ground. Wisps of smoke rose from his chest. He just had time to lift his head and blink at his attackers, then a dull explosion turned his torso into an expanding ball of fire. In an explosion of torn flesh and blood, his head flew one direction and his arms and legs in various others.

‘Nobody move!’ yelled the figure which had fired.

Anne moved to draw her automatic and Erlin quickly grabbed her arm.

‘Don’t!’ she warned. ‘Your bullets won’t get through that armour.’

Anne seemed about to ignore her and Erlin knew that she could not restrain her. Anne stared round at the steaming remains of her fellow crewman, and for a moment wore a puzzled expression. Erlin had seen this look before; because death was such an uncommon occurrence among them, Hoopers found it a very difficult concept to accept. Slowly the expression of puzzlement turned to one of resigned anger.

Anne returned her attention to the approaching three, slowly moving her hand away from her weapon. ‘I hope I don’t regret this,’ she said.

‘So do I,’ said Erlin.

The foremost of the three removed her helmet, and looked from Anne to Erlin with a deranged expression.

Here is something horrible, was Erlin’s immediate thought.

‘What have you done to my Jay?’ the woman asked.

So, this is Rebecca Frisk, concluded Erlin. Superficially she appeared an attractive young woman, but that this was merely a veneer over something old and ugly was also evident. Erlin kept silent.

Frisk turned from them and gazed at the Hoophold, smiling wistfully.

‘You’ll walk ahead of us,’ she instructed. ‘Try anything and you know what will happen to you.’ She gestured to Pland’s remains.

‘What about him?’ asked Erlin, gesturing at the unconscious Forlam, then instantly regretting that when one of the Batians turned his weapon on the prostrate crewman.

Frisk held up her hand. ‘No, I don’t think so,’ she said. Gesturing with her laser for Anne and Erlin to move aside, she approached then squatted down beside Forlam. With one finger she pulled down his jaw to peer inside his mouth. She gave a small laugh and rocked back on her heels. ‘We’ll leave him here,’ she continued, then abruptly yanked the drip from his arm and cast it aside.