The Skinner (29 page)

Ambel came and stood beside Boris for a little while before turning to him. ‘I’ll take over in a couple of hours, but I’ll send Peck up with some rum tea before then,’ he
said.

‘Aye, Captain,’ said Boris, quite used to long lonely watches at the helm.

Ambel stood there uncomfortably for another moment, then asked, ‘You got any sprine, Boris?’

Boris gave him an odd look before replying. ‘Don’t carry it, Captain. Anything happens where I might need it, and I’d likely get no chance to use it,’ he said.

Ambel nodded, moving to the ladder.

‘Try Peck,’ Boris advised. ‘He’d be the one.’

Ambel nodded again, climbed down, and swung at the bottom to drop himself before the door of his cabin. Once inside he immediately opened his sea-chest. He didn’t attempt to open the box
containing theSkinner’s head – just stared at it for a while before closing the chest and leaving his cabin. Clumping across the deck, he opened the hatch leading down into the crew
quarters, and went through. As he descended, he could smell rum tea being made.

‘You got any sprine, Peck?’ he asked.

Peck looked up from the little stove, shook his head, and returned his attention to the kettle. Ambel reckoned he was lying. Any Hooper who had been through the kind of experience Peck had
endured would carry sprine just in case such a situation should recur.

Ambel didn’t push it. ‘Any of you others got some?’ he asked generally.

‘Got any what?’ asked Pland, who lay on his bunk with a book propped on his knees.

‘Sprine, you idiot,’ Anne replied, from the bunk above him.

‘I ain’t that rich,’ complained Pland.

Ambel looked next at Anne and she shook her head. He leaned back and glanced over to the junior’s quarters, then decided not to bother. No chance young ’uns like that had any sprine.
You didn’t really get to think much about dying until you were reaching the end of your second century.

‘We’ll have to refine some then,’ he said.

Nobody asked what for. They all knew what Ambel kept in his cabin.

‘We’d need a steady mooring for that,’ observed Pland.

Ambel said, ‘We’ll cross Deep-sea, pick up one or two more on the way across, then moor at the west atolls. We can do it there.’ He gave them an estimating look. ‘Take an
hour or so off, then I’ll want you up on deck and ready.’ And, with that, he climbed back above.

An hour later, he was up on the cabin-deck, scanning the sea with his ancient set of binoculars, when a humped shape slid into view.

‘We got one!’ Ambel yelled. ‘Hard to port!’

Boris drained the last of his rum tea, and hung his tin cup on his belt, before steering the ship towards the distant shape.

Windcatcher adjusted himself accordingly. The rest of the crew clambered up on deck, but as the
Treader
drew closer to the shape, they all realized something was wrong. There were no
prill visible there, and the hump was too steep, too immobile.

‘Yer molly carp again,’ said Peck.

They were silent for a while as they watched the great fish parallelling their course, then, because they were now on deck anyway, they slowly began to set about their normal duties. Anne
sharpened harpoons and knives. Peck had a couple of juniors helping him repair ropes, and making new ones from a bag of fibre beaten from sargassum stalks. Pland worked in the hold, salting
rhinoworm steak, and Boris had the helm, of course. Other crew continued with that constant round of tasks which kept their ship seaworthy: the constant repairs to the superstructure; the greasing
of chains and sprockets; the tightening of chains, cables, and bearing shells, besides the endless scrubbing and polishing.

As they worked, the crew-members considered what they already knew. They had all heard stories about molly carp – about their tenacity and the odd things they did. They were aware that to
have one hanging around while they were hunting giant leeches could be dangerous. Through his ancient binoculars Ambel watched the molly carp for a while longer, then turned his attention
elsewhere. The drizzle had ceased and the sun was burning the sky a lighter green, when he was able to yell out another warning. A group of three leeches had come into sight and they immediately
headed for the
Treader
.

‘Twenty degrees to starboard!’ Ambel yelled. ‘Hold it there.’

As the ship hove over, Pland came up on to the cabin-deck and quickly went to replace Boris at the helm. Boris meanwhile went to load the deck cannon with its powder charge and stones. The
others brought out their own weapons and readied them. Ambel slid down the ladder, dived into his cabin, and came out with his blunderbuss tucked under one arm.

He looked around. ‘All juniors below!’ he yelled, eyeing Gollow and Sild. The two men looked set to argue with him, before nodding acquiescence. It was fair enough: none of the
juniors was as strong as any senior, or anywhere near as strong as Ambel, so they could easily get killed during a leech hunt. Gollow and Sild, who had done well enough during a previous hunt, were
still suffering from the injuries they had received when going ashore with Ambel after the last rhinoworm – for juniors also did not heal as quickly as older crew.

Once they were gone, Ambel scanned those who remained. ‘We’ll take the last one, lads.’ He glanced up at Boris. ‘You hear that?’

‘I ain’t deaf, Captain.’

Boris sighted down the deck cannon at the last of the three shapes rapidly approaching. Ambel watched them for a moment, then turned his gaze to the right. Further out in the sea, the molly carp
held station and watched.

The incursion of prill from the first leech to arrive was short-lived and quickly repelled. The leech itself, after grinding at the wooden hull for a moment, lost interest and swam away with
most of its prill remaining on its back. The same happened with the second leech, but the third one arrived only moments after the second had turned away from the ship, so the attack of prill from
both was unrelenting. Boris managed to fire three times on the back of the final leech. Ambel managed to get off two shots before taking up the first of the harpoons and planting it in the huge
creature. He continued methodically planting four harpoons deep into its body, hauling tight the ropes to each, and bringing the leech hard against the side of the ship.

Prill were mashed and smashed and blown apart. Bits of prill still managed to crawl to the scuppers and drop through into the sea, but what remained on board no longer had any mobility. Anne and
Peck washed this mess out through the scuppers after the rest, where no doubt some of the larger pieces would grow into more prill again.

‘This is a good one, lads,’ said Ambel, rubbing his hands together.

He scrambled down the rope with his crampons fixed to his feet and hooks hanging from his belt. Pland followed with the knife and bar and they were soon out standing on the slippery mound of the
leech and making the first incision. At one point the leech convulsed momentarily, and Pland fell and began to slide down its side, before Ambel caught hold of his collar and hauled him back up.
Soon they had the incision braced open and Pland was inside groping about in the bloody morass of its intestines. The leech convulsed once again, sinking down at its tail end. Ambel looked back and
saw a large swirling in the water there. The humped crown of the molly carp suddenly surfaced. The creature regarded Ambel for a moment, then it sank out of sight again.

‘Crafty bastard,’ he muttered.

Meanwhile, the juniors, hearing that the shooting had ceased, came back out on to the deck to help in any way they could. But really, at this stage there was little they could do. They would
just get in the way, so they stayed back and watched.

Peck next threw out the rope and Ambel caught it and lowered the end of it to Pland. When the leech shook again, Pland let go a stream of curses. He was on his way out of the incision when the
molly carp got a firmer hold on the leech’s tail and gave a hard tug. As the bracing bar slipped, the incision closed on Pland like a wet mouth. Ambel slipped and fell and caught himself only
a metre from the sea’s surface by driving one of his hooks into the side of the leech. One harpoon came free with a sucking crackle, and the leech now had enough of its mouth end free to
investigate the damage being done to it. Luckily, that end oozed back past the creature’s main body, in the sea underneath Ambel, to where the molly carp was attacking it.

‘Pull on it! Pull on it!’ yelled Peck.

He and Anne took up the slack in the rope Pland had tied to the severed bile duct inside the beast. The tension on the rope reopened the incision enough for Pland to get one leg out, but
suddenly the leech rolled, snapping the remaining harpoons that secured it, and both Pland and Ambel went underwater. Boris grabbed hold of the rope as well, and the three crewmen pulled with all
their might. Sild and Gollow joined in as they heaved. The rope went slack for a moment, but they were soon hauling in their gruesome catch. The bile duct was a large one, and clinging to its outer
surface was Pland, with a carpet of small leeches clinging to him. They hauled him quickly up on deck.

‘Get ’em off! Get ’em off!’ yelled Pland.

The crew gathered round him and wrenched the leeches off, one after another. The larger ones they beat on the deck until they released the plugs of flesh they had taken. Pland began screwing
these pieces back into place, swearing angrily all the while.

Peck meanwhile leant over the rail with a rope in one hand, to which he had hastily tied a grapple. As he searched for his Captain, he muttered under his breath. The leech drew away from the
ship; its back end a ragged mess now where the molly carp still tore at it. Searching elsewhere, Peck turned his attention to the ship’s wake, where pieces of prill floated and writhed.
Abruptly he cast the grapple there, hauled it quickly in, cast again. On his fourth cast, he hooked something large.

‘Give us a hand, yer buggers!’ he yelled.

Anne and Boris were quickly at his side, hauling on the rope as well, while Pland leant back against the cabin wall, whimpering as the remaining leeches were removed from him. In a pool of
sticky blood round his feet, lay more plugs of flesh, and kneeling in that blood Sild collected them and passed them up to Gollow, who screwed them carefuly back into place – Pland himself no
longer having the strength to do it.

Hauling on the rope, the three seniors saw an indefinite shape reach the surface, and pulled it in.

‘It’s the Captain,’ croaked Peck.

They hauled it towards the side of the ship. Abruptly there was a swirl in the water behind the shape, and it was rapidly shoved right up next to the hull. The crew quickly pulled in the
remaining slack and, as they did so, they saw the swirl circle back round towards the leech.

Anne glanced questioningly at Boris.

‘Molly carp,’ he said, and shrugged.

It was indeed Ambel under a thick layer of writhing leeches. Once he was on the deck, the crew proceeded to do the same for him as they had done for Pland, except for screwing back plugs of
flesh. Ambel’s wounds closed too quickly for that, and there was no blood loss. When they had finished, Ambel lay still on the deck. The grapple was still hooked through his thigh, and it
took two of them pulling hard on it to get it out. His clothing was in tatters, there were new scars layered across the many he already possessed, and with the recent loss of flesh, he looked
smaller.

‘Captain?’ said Peck, tentatively.

No reaction for a moment, then Ambel abruptly opened his eyes and sat bolt upright.

‘You all right, Captain?’ asked Boris.

Ambel stood up and started for the rail. Peck tackled him before he could get there, and brought him down.

‘Bloody Hoop! Bloody Hoop!’ Ambel yelled, hammering Peck with his fists.

The others heard bones break in Peck’s body, and they quickly leapt on Ambel to hold him down – but to no avail. He threw them off as easily as bed covers, and was at the rail in a
moment. There he stopped, gasping heavily, his hands gripping and crushing the wood. As the others watched and waited, Pland came away from the cabin wall where he left a smear of blood, and stood
with them.

Ambel turned from the rail and stared at them. Then he walked straight past them and went into his cabin. He locked the door behind him.

‘That could have gone better,’ said Windcheater, as he turned himself into the wind and observed the crewman called Pland being helped below.

‘Well, it was your idea to move this damn molly up behind the leech,’ replied Sniper.

‘You wanted a bowel movement? You’ll soon get a bowel movement,’ said Windcheater, remembering the last time he had himself eaten a load of leech meat, and the unfortunate
effect of that meal. He also remembered the unfortunate consequences for the crew of the ship he was over-flying shortly after.

‘I think you’re right. There’s about a tonne of chewed-up leech sitting in this molly’s stomach, and some very strange sounds coming from there. Surprising it attacked.
Surely it knows the effect?’

‘Molly carp will attack anything that’s moving right in front of them, but they prefer glisters and prill,’ said Windcheater.

‘I’m aware of their love of crustaceans,’ growled Sniper.

‘Why the hurry to get out anyway? The Warden’ll only have you counting whelks again.’

There was a long pause before Sniper replied. ‘Something going down,’ said the war drone. ‘We just had a Prador ship blow in orbit. That’s probably why the Warden sent
you out here for a look. He’s always too cautious – should have this area covered by a network of war drones by now.’

‘Ah,’ said Windcheater, turning his attention back to the deck of the
Treader
. Peck and Anne were now draining the latest bile duct. The Captain was still in his cabin, and it
seemed unlikely he would be coming out for a while. The sail wondered if he had made the right choice in coming to join this ship.

‘What do you think’s happening?’ he asked.

‘Dunno, but sure as fuck that explosion was no accident.’