The Skinner (14 page)

‘Keep us just ahead, nice and easy,’ Ambel said, hefting his blunderbuss and sighting it on the back of the leech. The crash of the ’buss was shockingly loud and it released a
great gout of smoke. Three prill exploded into fragments. Others fell from the back of the leech then swam to catch up with it.

‘Boris!’ Ambel bellowed, and the deck cannon bellowed in reply. More prill flew to pieces and more fell in the sea. There were, however, still plenty left clinging to the back of the
leech, and it had slowed not at all. Ambel carefully rested his ’buss against the rail before climbing down to the lower deck and taking up one of the harpoons. He looked up at Pland and
nodded. Pland steered the ship into the path of the leech and the sail, at his nod, turned itself out of the wind and hauled in the reefing cables for the fabric sails. The
Treader
slowed.
With a couple of thrashes of its long flat tail the leech was up beside the ship, and there was a grating engine-sound as it tried to take a lump out of the hull. Ambel knew that it would rapidly
lose interest, and either dive or swim away. He leant over the side and stabbed half the length of the five-metre harpoon into its body. Held out his hand for another, then another. Before any of
the prill could clamber on to the deck, he had put five harpoons into the leech so it stood no chance of escaping. When it tried to rear up out of the water, Peck and Ambel drew the harpoon ropes
taut so it could rise no higher than the side of the ship.

After lashing the helm, Pland looked down as one prill clattered on to the deck. The creature was the size of a dinner plate and had ten sickle legs sprouting from underneath it. Eyes like red
LEDs zipped around the edge of its carapace as it crouched for its next leap. Pland snorted, and leapt before it could. His hobnail boots came down squarely on top of it, collapsing it underneath
him with a liquid crunch. Its spread legs quivered against the wood as he stepped away knocking the mess from his soles. The next prill to leap aboard landed right in front of him. He booted the
creature towards Anne, who shot it once. The hollow-point bullet made just as much mess as Pland’s boots, but by then the sailor did not need his boots as he had grabbed hold of his hammer
and cauldron lid and could do some real damage. Peck was taking the prill at the rail with his pump-action shotgun. Ambel just used his fists and feet, and soon had a morass of prill insides and
shattered carapaces all about him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Gollow and Sild standing back to back, thwacking at prill with their pangas. They seemed to be doing well enough. The sail
had rolled to the top of the mainmast and was keeping a wary eye on proceedings. All the crew made certain no prill made it to the mast, as the sail would flee if the horrible creatures started to
climb toward it.

‘Ah yer bugger!’ was the limit of Pland’s exclamation when a prill jammed one of its sickle legs into his thigh. He knocked it down on to the deck and, before it could recover,
kicked the creature into the rail where Ambel got it on the rebound and stamped it to slurry – before turning to another balancing on the rail and punching it from the ship. Just then, Boris
had managed to reload the deck cannon and fire. The shot fragmented another load of the creatures on the back of the leech.

‘Ahah!’ Boris yelled and frantically set about ramming another powder charge down the spout, followed by handfuls of stones.

‘We’re winning, lads!’ Ambel yelled as he chased another creature down the deck and jumped on top of it.

‘Boris! You bloody idiot!’ yelled Pland.

‘What!’ shouted Ambel, turning from another pool of quivering slurry.

‘He got two o’the ropes!’ yelled Pland.

Ambel turned toward the rail just as the spout-like head of the leech lifted into sight. This head was just a long tube with a metre-wide mouth at the end. Inside the mouth was a red hell of
revolving rings of teeth and reels of chitinous cutting-disks.

‘Oh bugger,’ said Ambel as the top half of the leech oozed over the rail and went after Anne. Anne leapt back and the leech cornered her against the wall of the forecabin. There was
real fear on her face. This was something no Hooper could survive. With her automatic held out in both hands, she emptied the weapon’s magazine into the leech’s mouth, shell cases
clattering to the deck around her feet. Shortly after the empty magazine hit the deck and she was groping at her belt for another one, sure she would have no chance to reload.

‘I’m coming!’ yelled Ambel. Anne saw him behind the leech with a harpoon in his hands. The weapon came down in an arc behind the creature’s head just as it reached for
her. The point of the weapon went through. She saw it pass through the grinding mouth, out through the bottom of the head, and punch through the solid deck timbers as she slapped her second
magazine into place. The leech heaved against the harpoon and the timbers creaked, but by then Ambel had another harpoon, then another. By the time he was finished, the part of the leech that had
oozed over the rail had been stapled to the deck with three harpoons. With shaking hands Anne recocked her weapon and quickly moved away from the cabin wall.

‘Thanks,’ she said to Ambel.

‘Think nothing of it,’ the Captain told her.

The last of the prill were those that had been knocked off the back of the leech earlier. Boris sank most of them before they even reached the
Treader
and Peck continued to pick off the
rest. Pland went below decks and came back with a knife half a metre long, a bar of the same length with flat pads at each end, some sets of hooks, and crampons. Behind him came the four juniors
who had been sent below earlier. They gazed about themselves at the mess on the main deck, at the huge pinioned leech, and nervously fingered their clubs and pangas. Peck, while reloading his
shotgun with cartridges, glanced at them, then with a shout and a gesture directed their attention to the rail locker containing the mops and brooms.

Pland and Ambel tied the crampons on their feet, and using these and the hooks, climbed down along the slippery body of the leech to where it was widest. In true pirate fashion, Ambel carried
the knife clamped between his teeth. When the two of them reached their destination, the rest of the crew moved to the rail to watch. Peck kept his attention on the water around the great body,
just in case any prill had been missed.

When Pland was firmly secure with his hooks, Ambel raised the knife and brought it down to drive it deep into the glistening flesh he stood upon. The leech bucked and writhed, but could not
throw him as he held on to the handle of the knife and steadily pulled it back. In moments he had opened a gash three metres long, to expose the leech’s innards. Pland quickly dropped into
the gash and braced it open with the bar. Ambel passed the knife down to him and looked up at the spectators.

‘Where’s the rope then, y’slugs!’ he bellowed.

Gollow left his mop against the rail and scurried to get a coil of rope and hurled one end down to them. The other end he tied to one of the deck rings. Anne stood over him as he did this, then,
satisfied with his knot tying, returned her attention to the sea. Pland, meanwhile, was industriously hacking away with his knife. After a little while he reached up out of the gash and Ambel
placed the end of the rope in his hand. He took this and disappeared for a while longer.

‘Move it, laddy,’ said Ambel, just then noticing a glistening hump out at sea, turning and heading in their direction.

‘Ready,’ said Pland.

Ambel reached down and hauled Pland out by his gore-soaked jacket. They retrieved their tools and quickly climbed back on to the ship. Once on deck, Ambel reached over the side and pulled the
harpoons still imbedded in the body of the leech. The barbs tore out great lumps of flesh, but it seemed as if Ambel was merely pulling corn stalks. He then pulled the harpoons from the deck and
the leech slid over the side, all the fight gone out of it.

‘Sail!’ Ambel yelled.

The sail unfolded and spread its wings, gripped spars and cables and with much ratchetting and clacking, unreefed the fabric sails and turned the rig into the wind. The ship slowly began to
move. The rope Gollow had secured grew taut and the ship shuddered as the leech struggled on the end of it. Abruptly the rope went slack and they left the maimed leech behind. The second leech
quickly closed in on it, the prill leaping up and down on its back in anticipation.

‘Haul it in,’ said Ambel, and the crew got on with what he could have easily done himself. On the end of the rope was something bulky, soon revealed, as they hauled it up the side of
the ship, as a greenish fringed organ with the end tied off with the rope, and veins hanging from it like string.

‘That’s a good un,’ said Ambel with a grin, as the leech’s bile duct sagged over the rail and flopped on to the deck. Then he looked contemplatively out across the sea.
‘No more today. Get the deck cleaned and we’ll sort it in the morning.’

The reply to this was a concerted sigh of relief.

The sun had become a green dome nested in turquoise clouds on the horizon and the temperature was dropping very quickly. As he went to his cabin to find his thermal suit, Janer
saw that no one else on the ship seemed to notice this cooling. The hornets were torpid in this cold, but the Hive link was alive with speculation and interest. The main part of the Hive, and hence
the Hive mind, was many light years away on a planet that remained constantly warm and comfortable for the insects. It was a world the hornets had claimed as their own and given the simple name of
Hive. People occasionally made the crack that it would be better referred to as New Israel – while other people often asked them what they were talking about.

‘I would say that they were once lovers and that she has come back to renew their relationship. Beyond that I have no idea,’ said Janer in reply to the mind’s question.

‘
But surely this must stem from dissatisfaction?
’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘
But Erlin has heretofore led a most interesting and satisfying life
,’ said the mind.

‘How can you know that?’

‘
I have studied records of her travels and the places to which she has been, and this place is only one of many. She has been at the forefront of xeno-studies for more than a century
and has made many important discoveries.
’

‘All you’ve told me,’ said Janer, ‘is that she has led an
interesting
life.’

Thankfully the mind remained silent for a while, so he took the opportunity to pull on his thermal suit.

When it spoke again the mind spoke with less certainty. ‘
Interesting does not equate to satisfaction?
’ it asked.

‘Perhaps it does to you, but that is not necessarily the case with humans. I think you hit the nail when you said she’s been at the forefront for more than a century, she’s
probably bored, looking for something she thought she once had, trying to return to a happier time.’

‘
I see
,’ said the mind. ‘
It is said that the human condition is one of striving. This then is the case. Success does not equate to satisfaction.
’

Janer had gone at this discussion from every angle since he had been indentured to this mind. It knew all his answers, but he had yet to know all its questions. It kept asking them in different
ways to try and gain a further nuance of understanding. He noted the change of ‘interest’ to ‘success’.

‘Satisfaction, for us, is only a brief thing. The man who acquires wealth does not reach a point where he has enough. Success for us is more like acceleration than speed. Interest cannot
be maintained at a constant level.’

Let it wrap its antennae round that one, Janer thought. But the mind was quick with a reply.

‘
You cannot stop, then?
’ said the mind.

‘No,’ said Janer. ‘Except to die.’ He climbed the ladder back up on to the deck.

On the other ship, lanterns and braziers had been lit and the smell of roasting meats was drifting tantalizingly across the sea to them. As the sun finally drowned behind the horizon, the pale
orb of Coram slowly became visible through thin cloud, and everything turned to shades of green and silver blue.

‘You ready?’ Erlin asked him as he moved to the rail to stand between her and Captain Ron. Janer nodded, and watched Ron as the Captain snorted in the air and licked his lips.

‘I smell roasting turbul, boiling hammer whelk and, best of all, I smell barbecued glister. Captain Drum lays on a good spread for his guests.’ Ron looked at Janer. ‘I’ll
bet he’s got a barrel of sea-cane rum on board as well.’

Janer grinned at that and ignored the muttering that came over the Hive link.

Roach and two other crewmen lowered a rowing boat to the sea then quickly scrambled down a rope ladder to get into it. Ron turned to another crewman who had come out on deck.

‘Keep an eye on things, Forlam. I don’t want us back drunk to a shipload of prill.’

‘Aw, Captain,’ Forlam protested.

Janer studied him. He appeared perfectly fit and able only days after having half his hand cut off and his intestines pulled out.

‘You do it, Forlam,’ said Ron. ‘I lost money on you this time and I reckon we might have to go after sprine to compensate.’

There was a sudden silence after this comment.

‘Is that a good idea?’ asked Erlin, eventually.

‘Probably not,’ said Ron, turning to the rope ladder and clambering down.

‘What’s sprine?’ Janer asked Erlin before she followed Ron down to the boat.

Quickly Erlin said, ‘What’s most valuable on a planet is what’s most rare. Think about Forlam and what happened to him.’

Janer halted where he was for a moment while he put the question to the Hive mind. Hopefully he would get a straight answer from it.

‘OK, what’s most valuable here,’ he whispered.

‘
I would have thought that obvious
,’ replied the mind.

‘Well it isn’t to me. What is it?’

‘
Death
.’

Janer climbed down to the boat, sat down, and gazed over the side at the oil-dark water. Glisters and prill bedamned.