The Skinner s-1

by Neal Asher

  ‘Should be ready by tomorrow morning,’ Ambel stated.

  ‘Aye, the bugger,’ said Peck in the same grim tone that all of them had taken on this day. It was a serious business planning to kill something a thousand years old, no matter how evil it might be.

  * * * *

  SM12 scanned the three ships and found nothing to make it suspicious. It recognized the crews of each vessel, having come across them many times before in its travels. Completing its circuit of Tay’s island, it experienced dronish frustration. Where was she? The Batian’s deflated dinghy still lay under the sheet-leaves where they had beached and there had been no signs of any other landings on the other beaches. Nothing in the air either, so that left one choice. The iron cockle dropped out of the sky with the aerodynamics of a brick, entered the sea with a huge splash, and switched on its sonar. Immediately it picked up signs of movement all around it, but nothing with a metallic signature. It accelerated, kicking up a cloud of silt behind, and ran electrostatic scans for as far as it could. It really needed some help. Taking an instant decision, it shot out of the water and broadcast.

  ‘Where’s SM Thirteen?’ it asked.

  ‘SM Thirteen is hypersonic and will be with you directly,’ said the Warden. ‘You are having trouble locating Rebecca Frisk?’

  ‘Has to have gone into the sea. She’s not on the island,’ Twelve replied. It then dropped, and started scanning once again. It was soon tracing something it thought might be promising when there was a splash above it, and soon an iron seahorse was cruising along beside it.

  ‘Want a hand?’ asked Thirteen.

  ‘Yes, I’m on to something now,’ said Twelve.

  ‘You realize that hammer-whelk shells have a slight piezoelectric property?’ said Thirteen.

  In chagrin Twelve said, ‘Well, aren’t you the whelk expert. Take the north side. If she’s using an escape pod as a submersible, there should be ionic traces. She’s probably heading away fast. We need to get on to this.’

  SM13 tilted and shot for the surface. Shortly after it was gone, SM12’s underspace transceiver opened.

  ‘Anything?’ asked the Warden.

  ‘Nothing yet, but I’m sure we’ll find her,’ replied Twelve.

  ‘I’m glad you’re so confident,’ said the Warden. ‘I have to wonder if there’s not something we’re missing. No matter — she will never leave.’

  * * * *

  ‘They’ve gone to the atolls,’ said Captain Ron, thumping a finger down on the chart.

  ‘How can you be sure?’ asked Erlin.

  Janer stood back and didn’t question. His concerns were all with Keech, strapped in his bunk below, fighting to regain control of his body. His convulsions had not let up for twenty hours and it seemed his return to life might only be temporary.

  ‘Ambel’s got his own refining gear. If he’s having a good hunt this early, he’ll want to refine what he’s got, then see if he can get some more before the season ends. For refining he needs a stable mooring. Anyway, we’d have found him by now if n he’d been here.’

  Erlin shrugged. ‘I bow to your superior knowledge,’ she said.

  ‘And so you ought,’ said Ron, tipping Janer a wink.

  As they left the cabin, Janer asked, ‘What now, when you find your sea captain?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Erlin. She looked Janer up and down. ‘It could be nothing has changed, and it could be everything has. I won’t know till I find him.’

  Janer nodded. He wasn’t about to argue with her. So they’d had sex a few times: it had been fun, but nothing to get all emotional about. He liked Erlin and he found sex with her intensely stimulating, but there would be other Erlins and there would be other sex. Just a little more thought along those lines, and he felt sure he would convince himself.

  Janer followed Erlin below decks, to the cabin where Keech lay strapped to his bunk. The monitor’s convulsions were less severe now. But perhaps he just didn’t have the energy to fight any more. Erlin stood over him and started to lift one of his eyelids. Both Keech’s eyes abruptly flicked open and he looked from one to the other of them.

  ‘Getting it,’ he managed, before the next convulsion hit.

  Erlin checked the reading on her diagnosticer then plugged it into her drug manufactory. In a couple of seconds it provided her with a drug patch, which she slapped on Keech’s chest. He relaxed; his arched back settling to the bunk and his jaw unclenching.

  ‘How’s he doing?’ Janer asked.

  ‘Getting it, as he said. He seems to have control of his limbs now. I should think in another ten hours or so he’ll be able to get up and move about. If he lives that long,’ she replied.

  ‘Why the doubt?’

  ‘He took a hell of a risk using that nano-changer. They shouldn’t be used without AI supervision with full and constant scan. All it would take is one rogue factory in his bloodstream, and he could end up with nanites floating about doing untold damage. That could happen at any time in the next week or so, until the changer programme has run its course.’

  ‘He’s been dead before,’ Janer observed.

  Erlin went on without acknowledging his comment, ‘The nanites could do anything. Rogue bone-repair nanites could ossify his entire body. Nanites building blood cells could turn him into a pool on the floor.’

  ‘You don’t have much confidence in them, I take it.’

  ‘I do not. The more miraculous a technology is, the more prone it is to catastrophic breakdown.’

  Janer studied her very carefully. Sinking back into her didacticism, she had abruptly become distant from him. He considered taking her in his arms there and then, and rejected the idea. He didn’t really need the complications. Without a word, he left her alone to tend to Keech, and returned to his bunk in the crew quarters.

  Once there, Janer pulled the box that Keech had delivered earlier from under his bunk. He studied it for a while, then pressed his fingertips against the touch-plate on its side. When nothing happened, he lay back on his bunk, holding the box up before his face.

  ‘Why here?’ he said.

  There was no reply.

  ‘I could easily take this box and throw it over the side of this ship. I wouldn’t be killing anything, as no doubt the contents are in stasis. In fact, I think I’ll do that now,’ he said, and began to sit up.

  ‘Why not here?’ the mind asked him.

  ‘I can think of a number of reasons. This is a primitive world. Hornets have to be adapted to survive here… The main reason, of course, is that it’s not a Polity world and that you’d piss off an awful lot of people,’ said Janer.

  ‘Not half so many as on a Polity world,’ the mind replied.

  ‘OK, let me reiterate: why anywhere?’

  ‘Humans establish their colonies where they will. Why should I not?’

  ‘No answer to that, but it’s not often you establish a nest without a reason, beyond that of colonization… Tell me, the remaining hornet was successful here, wasn’t it?’

  ‘It was.’

  ‘So you had it transfer its genetic imprint to our friend here in this box.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘How long will this queen live?’

  ‘As long as any other. The adaptation completely prevents any invasion by the fibres. For that I took a snip from a glister — a creature that also exists here without the viral fibres in its body.’

  ‘So what’s the point?’ Janer asked, weighing the box in his hands.

  The mind warned, ‘If you throw the box over the side I’ll have another brought in by another agent.’

  ‘You’re not going to tell me,’ said Janer.

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Now, why do I get the distinct feeling that you’re up to something you shouldn’t be up to?’

  The mind did not reply, and Janer snorted, then reached over and placed the box on the floor beside his bed — before closing his eyes and settling down, intending to sleep. Before sleep could claim him though
, he opened his eyes again.

  ‘The hornet with me possessed the pattern for survival here. OK, it’s imprinting the queen — but that’s not enough, is it? You have some other edge?’ he said.

  ‘You will be told eventually,’1 said the mind.

  For a while, Janer stared at the bunk above him. It occurred to him that he might live to regret not throwing the box over the side, then reporting things to the Warden. It also occurred to him that the AI probably knew a lot more about what was going on here than he did. Soon, he slept.

  * * * *

  From the promontory, Olian Tay watched the three ships slide over the horizon and come in to moorage beyond the reefs. She continued to watch for a while, expecting that once a rowing boat put out from one of them she would have plenty of time to wander down to meet it. That Sprage had come here for her was unsurprising to her, as they had been friends for many years and he was one of the few Captains ever to visit her and acquaint her with the doings of the rest of the Old Captains. That those same Captains had done nothing in which she felt interested for many years had never really interfered with their relationship. Now, of course, the Captains were involved in something very interesting. To capture coming events, Tay had all her portable recording equipment with her, hooked on her belt.

  Still no rowing boats left the ships, and Tay was getting fidgety when she observed the sail circling above her. Soon it came lower and, with a booming of wings and a stirring of dust clouds, it landed further along the promontory. She knew that sails had landed here in the past. This fact was evinced by the scattering of broken glister shells, and the black spinal columns and articulated skulls of rhinoworms. She had only ever seen them from a distance, though, and they had always departed immediately at her approach.

  This sail did no such thing. After folding its wings, it waddled over to her and gazed down upon her with its demonic eyes.

  ‘Sail, you have an augmentation,’ Tay said, trying not to sound as nervous as she felt.

  ‘The name’s Windcheater,’ said the sail, and Tay immediately clicked a switch on her belt. From the top of a flat rectangular box attached there, a device the shape and size of a candy bar launched into the air and began slowly to circle the two of them. The sail tracked the course of this device for a moment.

  ‘Remote holocorder,’ he declared. ‘X-ten-fifty, full spectrum plus anosmic, with a transmission range of five hundred kilometres. Why do you want to record me?’

  ‘Because you’re a legend, and obviously part of the whole story,’ Tay replied.

  Windcheater shook his head. ‘If you like,’ he said. ‘Right, you ready?’

  ‘What?’

  The sail made a low growling sound, then abruptly launched itself. Tay yelled in shock and closed her eyes against the dust. The next thing she knew, long bony claws had closed around her waist and her feet had left the ground.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

  Windcheater gave no reply.

  ‘Put me down, dammit!’

  Windcheater snickered. ‘You sure about that?’ he asked.

  Tay looked over her shoulder and down, to see her island rapidly receding.

  ‘OK, don’t put me down,’ she said. Even though angry and not a little frightened, she felt some satisfaction in seeing her holocorder speeding along beside them, recording every moment.

  * * * *

  Sprage drew deep on his pipe and chuffed out a cloud of smoke that drifted down the length of the Vengeance like a confused djinn. He rocked back in his chair, clumped his boots up on the rail of the foredeck, and gazed across the white water marking the reefs around Olian Tay’s island. Though now certain that Rebecca Frisk was back on Spatterjay, he was in no screaming hurry to find her. A brief conversation with the Warden had confirmed that she would never be leaving the planet. He and the rest of the Captains could take their time, in deciding how to deal with her — not that there would be a lot of debate on that, as she would most certainly end up in a fire — then slowly and inexorably they would hunt her down. Sprage gave a grim smile at this thought.

  ‘That sail’s got something,’ said Lember from the cabin-deck.

  Sprage glanced at the creature winging out from the island. It had probably caught a rhinoworm, though why it was heading out from a landward direction he couldn’t say, unless it had flown with its prey from the sea on the other side of the island. Watching its continued approach as he pondered what must happen in the coming days. The Jester and the Orlando were moored up, and by now, through the slow message-carrying of the sails and, in some cases, through Polity-issued radios, nearly all the Old Captains should know — barring those still out in Deep-sea. Soon the rest of them would be arriving, and it would be time for the Convocation. Before then, Sprage would send for Olian Tay, as she would be a pain for years if he let her miss this. Then would come a slow but sure search, island by island, atoll by atoll. Sprage felt sure it would be the Warden who would detect Frisk first, but that would not stop the Captains from searching, even though the Warden had assured him that they could have her eventually. All of those who had once been slaves of Hoop carried just too much emotional baggage to keep out of it all.

  ‘Hey, it’s carrying someone!’ shouted Lember, now gazing through Sprage’s tripod-mounted binoculars. Sprage dropped his feet from the rail, stood, and walked to the front ladder of the forecabin, puffing on his pipe. Soon he was up standing beside Lember.

  ‘Spot who it is?’ he asked.

  Lember jumped back from the binoculars, and glared at his Captain. Sprage might be ancient, but he certainly moved soft.

  ‘Can’t really see,’ said the crewman.

  Sprage gently pushed past him and, moving his pipe so it jutted sideways from his mouth, he put his eyes to his binoculars.

  ‘Olian Tay,’ he said, and stepped back to watch the sail come in to land.

  This sail was a big one, and the boom of its wings had its smaller kin on the spars flinching back. It deposited Olian on the main deck then, hovering above her, it stretched out its neck towards the other sail.

  ‘Bugger off,’ it said succinctly.

  The smaller sail hurriedly released its grip on the spars, furled its wings, hauled itself higher up the mast and launched away from Windcheater. The bigger sail now descended and quickly settled himself into position.

  ‘Interesting,’ said Sprage.

  Lember watched as Olian climbed to her feet then came stomping towards the forecabin.

  ‘Yeah,’ he agreed. ‘You don’t often see them doing that.’

  Sprage faced him, pointed a finger to one side of his own neck, then pointed down at the sail’s head.

  ‘Ah,’ said Lember, squinting at the aug Windcheater had acquired.

  Sprage moved away to the ladder and climbed down to the main deck. As Tay approached him, her face was flushed and there was a touch of exhilaration in her expression.

  ‘I was just about to send for you,’ he said. ‘Interesting times.’ He turned to regard the new sail, that had swung its head round the mast to watch the two of them.

  ‘They are that,’ agreed Tay.

  Just then, Sprage spotted the holocorder sliding around them in a wide arc.

  ‘I would guess you know about Frisk?’ he said with a raised eyebrow.

  ‘I know about her — and I want to be in at the kill.’

  ‘Like you were with Grenant?’ Sprage asked, fixing his attention back on the sail.

  ‘If possible,’ said Tay, trying to keep an impassive face.

  Sprage nodded as he once again puffed at his pipe. After a moment he said, ‘Welcome aboard, sail, how are you called?’

  ‘The name’s Windcheater,’ said the sail. ‘And I’ll want paying for this.’

  * * * *

  The sun edged over the horizon, and turned umber clouds to turquoise silk. About their business over the sea, three sails glided across the face of this orb as its light revealed a ship far out on the water, an
d decked it blue with gleams of emerald. Ambel stared at the vessel for some time, then turned to Peck, crouching by the rail and staring down into the water. Peck looked distinctly unwell in this morning light. The scars on his face were livid and his eyes were dark with blood.

  ‘What is it, Peck,’ Ambel asked him at last.

  ‘Bugger,’ muttered Peck.

  Ambel waited for him to continue. It took him a while.

  ‘It calls me, Captain,’ Peck said.

  ‘It calls to us all. It’ll call to any who listen.’

  ‘It called and I went,’ Peck confessed.

  ‘What have you done, Peck?’ Ambel asked calmly.

  Peck rested his forehead against the rail. ‘Wouldn’t stop. It had its hunger. I fed it to shut it up,’ he said.

  Ambel glanced back at his cabin and considered, having spent the night in there, how the head had been strangely silent.

  ‘Did you release it?’ Ambel asked.

  ‘No, Captain.’

  ‘What did you give it, then?’

  ‘Remains of the baiting steak.’

  Ambel was about to make a reply to that when Boris yelled down from the nest, ‘It’s the Ahab!’

  Ambel shaded his eyes to gaze out at the distant ship.

  ‘Now what’s Ron doing out here? Last I heard he was off after a load of turbul,’ he observed.

  ‘Maybe it calls him, too,’ said Peck.

  Ambel stared down at his crewman and wondered if that might be true — for the Skinner called in different ways. Perhaps Ron was coming to deliver some long-avoided Convocation decision on the matter. But he would soon know, as the Ahab was heading straight towards them. Ambel walked back to the door of his cabin and locked it. The next time he went in there, he would take with him a harpoon wet with sprine. He didn’t like to think about what might be going on inside his sea-chest.

  ‘Get a cask up, lads,’ he yelled generally. ‘You know how thirsty Ron can be.’