A one-eyed simian chud, with hideous dueling scars, came at Slide, with a keg o'grog under one arm and a brandishing a cutlass and pike in its second and third hands, clearly intending mischief. Suspecting a crude, blind-tiger morph, Slide shot the thing, and then spun his blaster back into its holster with deft nonchalance. Rosa Coote looked around and frowned. "How long do you think the craft, and whatever passes for it's nervous system, is going to tolerate all this looting, burning, and fornicating inside its essential mind?"

Clearly demons, no matter how diverse their origins, thought alike. Slide shrugged, but not without unease. "I have no idea, but I can imagine a bunch of really nasty scenarios should the ship get multilaterally pissed off."

Rosa gestured to the huge misshapen dermal ovoid that was centrepiece of the cortex. "If that's the ship's brain, there's serious neural-damage going on right now."

Rosa didn't exaggerate. Thirty meters above them, the tree-like gantry that surrounded the ovoid was on fire. Where selected Eloi had previously serviced the soft-ovoid's function, the primary fun was now recreational hanging. Except the hangings would clearly be a temporary recreation. A gang that called themselves the Pyros of the Caribbean hadn't been able to resist the dramatic temptation of an extensive but flimsy structure that proved to be highly flammable. They had zippoed the catwalks and fire licked along struts and spars, and up stairs and ladders. The Roy Bean Society of Erotic Asphyxiators were forced by the flames to take their ropes and go elsewhere in search of a high beam, a long drop, and some suitable sacrifices to dance orgasmic on the empty air. The outer sheath of the biocraft's "brain" that held the essential sentient ooze was blistered and scorched already, and, in a couple of places, burned away, exposing an inner and more sensitive membrane.

"If that thing's got any capacity for pain, that's gotta hurt."

"I could be enjoying the experience."

"You wanna bet your continuance on that?

Slide shook his head. "Not me, lady."

As if in confirmation of Rosa's first observation, the banks of Eloi-eating orchids along the outer walls of the cortex were waving nervously, except for a few, clearly sterner flora, who grabbed all the digestible attackers they could reach. Slide grimaced. "For all we know, it could go into eterna-pod in the next minute."

A small cropulid flattened itself wetly on the contour-curved chest plate of Rosa's armor with a slight thwack and immediately probed with pseudo-pods. She ripped the single-cell loose and crushed it in the palm of a servo-assisted gauntlet. It squealed happily as its nucleus died.

"I think they only do that to make you kill them." She dropped the crushed cropulid and wiped her hands. "What happened to the queen and the vampire?

Slide made a noncommital gesture. "I kinda lost track of them when the pirates broke in. Last time I saw Lupo he had his helmet off and his fangs in the neck of some Barbary princess."

"I thought vampires only fed on humans."

Slide nodded. "That's what I heard."

"Do Barbary princesses qualify as human?"

"Seemingly they are close enough for Lupo."

Rosa Coote spotted the ex-Queen Mina. "She seems to have struck up a friendship with the Saphs of Nardaz."

Slide grimaced. "Is she aware of what she's getting into?"

"Knowing Queen Mina as I do, the more appropriate question might be 'are the Nardaz are aware of what they're getting into?'"

In their commandeered ventricle, the Corsairs of H'nad who liked their force-fucking ecclesiastical, now had four Eloi up on the 3D X-cross, simultaneously running squirm current through them and flaying flesh with a plasma scourge, but even the Corsairs paused in their highly liturgical persecutions when the first massive and botanical groan of pain and anger shook the ship.

Slide looked askance. "Uh-oh."

Rosa agreed. "That's not good."

The sudden and grinding burst of telepathic fury that followed the groan made Slide glad his own mind-reading capacities were fairly limited. Those better tuned to the thoughts of plants clutched at their brain cases, and some even dropped to their knees, or an approximation thereof.

Rosa winced."That's even worse."

For Slide, the projected image was of unfocused, but vicious and all-encompassing, violent vegetable revenge. "The ships getting mad."

Rosa nodded. "And I don't want to be around when it gets even."

Slide hesitated, and within the bowl of her helmet Rosa arched an eyebrow. "What's the problem, boychick?"

"It seems like I arrive everyplace only to have to lam out before I've hardly had time to get acquainted."

"You want to get acquainted with this mess?"

"No, but…"

Rosa worked the eyebrow again. "But what?"

"If I blind-jump one more time I could wind up bare-ass discorporate."

Slide felt that he was admitting weakness to another demon, but Rosa's laugh crackled through his radio. "Is that all that's worrying you?"

"Isn't discorporation enough?"

"Your worries are over on that count, Yancey Slide."

"What?"

"I have a way out for us, but we have to hurry. Aside from what the ship might do, I also see something that you might consider bad news."

Slide turned. "Bad news?"

"You're on the lam from the IIA and the Pentecostals, right?"

"And Nuygen von Bulow, and fuck knows how many others."

"And the beef is time-crime?"

"That's supposed to be the story, except in my continuity, I don't remember having done a damn thing."

Rosa wasn't buying this. "Not a damn thing? Gimme a break."

"Not time-crime."

"Well, whether you remember it of not, you may have troubles."

Slide twitched. "Say what? Nuygen's here with the pirates?"

Rosa shook her head. "Not Nuygen, but I think I see two of IIA Black Concluders over on the far side of the cortex."

The area was now so filled with smoke that Slide could see very little. "Where?"

"Beyond that red membrane thing."

Rosa was right; two figures in black skin-suits, and skullcaps under goldfish bowl helmets, could only be Concluders in full field kit. "You'd better show me that way out."

"Just follow me, kid."

They grabbed each others gloves and stepped over an Eloi being ravished by a frenzy of small fat Simolians, but seemingly loving every minute of it. Loving it so much, in fact, that, when her attackers rapidly abandoned her, as was the way of Simolians, she lurched to her feet and screamed after them to finish her.

Rosa indicated one of the arterial tunnels that led out of the cortex and into the leafy depths of the ship. As they entered it, Slide saw a cluster of bouncing rubberoid spheres coming rapidly up behind them. In an instant of dislike, he spun, drew, and blasted three of them. The others rapidly changed course and bounced back the way they had come, bleating and squeaking. Rosa nodded approvingly. "You're really quite the pistoleer, aren't you?"

"That's what they used to say."

Slide and Rosa emerged from the arterial tunnel into a vault-like chamber filled with foliage where nothing overly dramatic was being acted, just some nude Eloi and naked pirates engaging in a sloppy but an apparently consensual leaf-mold yabyum orgy, although Slide did notice orchids stealthily closing in, as if intending to turn the fuck-fest into a botanic gourmet delight. Rosa seemed also to notice the danger, because she quickened her pace, and, at the same time scanned the surrounding undergrowth as though searching for something.

"There…" She pointed and Slide saw. A Howdy Hole surrounded by cute little flowers.

"How the fuck did that get there?"

Rosa spread her gloved hands. "Don't ask me. I discovered it in my wanderings before you arrived."