Part 13 (1/2)
”Better get some more meat,” said Ambel.
Erlin wondered how it was they ever got anywhere if this was the rate they always travelled. And was it her imagination, or were they all looking a lot more blue than they had before? She sat against a rail and watched as they unhooked the rowing boat and Ambel lowered it into the water. The island was a distant speck and she wondered about going with them this time. When Ambel rowed the boat out still attached to the s.h.i.+p with a thick hawser, she realised what he intended to do. She stared with her mouth falling open as he began to really dig in with the steel oars. Slowly he pulled the s.h.i.+p around and began towing G.o.d knows how many tons of timber and metal towards the island.
It took most of the day and the sun was going into fade-out by the time Boris dropped the anchor and peered with deep suspicion down the length of its chain. Ambel turned the rowing boat back to the s.h.i.+p and leaving it on the water he hauled himself up the hawser onto the deck.
”I want to come with you this time,” said Erlin.
Ambel shrugged. ”Morning,” he said then turned and bellowed down the deck, ”Pland, boxies here, get a line out.”
Pland, a squat little man who spent most of his time at the helm muttering to himself and chewing bits of purple seaweed that squeaked when he bit them, glared at Ambel then slouched off to one of the rail lockers. He removed a line coiled around a wooden frame. It had a weight at the end of it and two small side lines bearing hooks.
”What about bait?” he asked.
Ambel went below deck and came up with their last steak held away from his body on his knife.
”Aw, come on,” Pland wailed.
”Just do it,” said Ambel.
Erlin watched while Pland tapped at the steak until a worm poked its head out. He reached out to it and it quickly sank its teeth in his hand. Grimacing and swearing he drew his hand away, pulling the worm from the meat. Once it flopped free he pulled it from his hand, a small squirt of blood hitting the deck, then he impaled the worm on a hook. The worm squawked and writhed about, but Pland tied it in place with another piece of line. He did the same again for the other hook then dropped the line over the side. His hand had healed by the time Erlin approached him.
”Do you often get the bait like that?” she asked.
”Better than some ways. Least we ain't the only meat on board.”
Erlin was contemplating that when Pland stepped on a worm, which was trying to sneak away from the meat, and grinned with satisfaction. The worm writhed about and bit at his boot.
”You next you little b.a.s.t.a.r.d,” he said.
Erlin walked to her cabin, suddenly feeling the need to lie down for a little while. When she returned to the lamplit deck Pland had quite a catch. Boxies were another aptly named Spatterjay life form. They were simply cube-shaped fish with eyes on one face of the cube and a tail sticking out of the other. Pland had stacked a number of them next to him like building blocks. Ambel was standing behind him biting chunks out of one like an apple. As he ate it the boxy blinked at him mournfully. Between bites Ambel was giving Pland his considered advice.
”Gently now, don't tug so hard or it'll be off again.”
He did and it did. Pland swore as the line slid through his hands until he was unwinding it from the frame again. Erlin walked up and stood beside Ambel, trying not to meet the boxy eye to eye.
”Reckon he's got a turble on,” said Ambel. He picked up a boxy and held it out to her. ”Want one?” Erlin tried to refuse, but she was really hungry. She held her hand over its eyes and bit into it. It was like eating curried squid with pieces of banana in it. Rather palatable really, if only all those other boxies wouldn't look at her so.
”Wouldn't it be kinder to kill them first?” she asked.
He stared at her shocked. ”Kill boxies?”
She noticed he had eaten his one down to its spine. All that remained was the tail at one end and a little face at the other. He tossed this back into the sea and she watched in amazement as it swam away. For a moment she thought she was going to vomit. When she did not, and in fact took another bite out of her boxy before she could think about it, she was almost startled. Is this what they called going native?
Come sunrise Erlin, Ambel, Peck and Boris were in the boat heading for the sh.o.r.e. Erlin had a pack of equipment and in her pocket a surgical laser the case of which she had managed to open, to remove its safety governor. It was completely illegal, but she felt a d.a.m.ned sight safer with a weapon that could cut through anything within two metres of her on this crazy world. Anyway, Polity law was supposed to apply here, but it seemed to go no further than the security fence around the gating facility. Hoopers seemed to find the ideas of law and justice nearly as amusing as politics. They just got on with things. She often wondered about Ambel. Was he the captain of the s.h.i.+p, or was he deferred to because he could settle an argument by ripping people's arms out of their sockets?
Ambel rowed the boat into the green sand beach, then with two more strokes of the oars brought it up onto the sand. He did it effortlessly, as if it made no difference to him what substance was supporting the boat. They climbed out and Ambel hoisted out his blunderbuss and rested it across his shoulder. There it was again. The thing probably weighed about a hundred kilograms. Ambel ambled up the beach.
”See if we can get another rhino worm. Boxies ain't that filling, and we need the meat for a sail,” he said.
They walked along the green strand ignoring the rustlings and gruntings from the dingle. Erlin was jumpy. Every time anything moved in the tangled undergrowth she had the nib of her laser pointing in that direction. The life forms of Spatterjay seemed to have a propensity for taking chunks out of one, and she would not heal as quickly as crew. Abruptly they all drew to a halt around Ambel, who had stopped and was peering at something in the sand. Erlin took a look and wondered what the problem was. All that lay there was a piece of screening from an old re-entry vehicle. Ambel raised his gaze from the yellowing gla.s.site and stared down to the sh.o.r.eline. There was quite a distance between.
”Oh s.h.i.+t, I thought it was further west,” said Boris, with feeling.
”Are we ... is this ... you know?” said Peck.
”Yes,” said Ambel. ”Back to the boat.”
At that moment the dingle parted and an arm came out. It was six metres long, thin, and seemed as hard as bone. The long long hand stretched two metres from wrist to fingertip. It was a blue that was almost black. It plucked Peck from the sand and pulled him into the dingle. Erlin stared at what was on the other end of the arm and wasn't sure she believed what she was seeing. Peck was shrieking as loud as he could. The noise he was making was joined by a loud maniacal laughing and giggling as the dingle closed, then both sounds receded.
”d.a.m.n and b.u.g.g.e.ration!” said Ambel.
Erlin thought that an understatement.
”Back to the boat now, yes?” said Boris eagerly.
”You go,” said Ambel. ”Take the Earther back with you.” With that Ambel entered the dingle.
”What was that?”
Boris forced a grin. ”Oh, the Skinner. Let's go now shall we?”
”No,” said Erlin, and quickly followed Ambel. By the time she caught him up she wondered if she had gone insane. The Skinner? The names on Spatterjay were usually quite apt, so what did the Skinner do?
”You should've gone back to the s.h.i.+p,” said Ambel, then glanced over her shoulder. ”You too.”
Erlin looked behind to see Boris approaching, his grin turned rictus on his face.
”Just couldn't miss the fun,” he said.
They moved on into the dingle, pear-trunk trees as.h.i.+ver, and suspicious looking vines draped in the branches of something like an inverted pine tree. In all direction the undergrowth tangled all into darkness, yet it was easy to follow the Skinner's path of crushed vegetation.
”Big one,” said Boris, and they all crouched down at Ambel's signal and kept very quiet. A giant leech oozed past nearby, waving its wad-cutter at them for a moment.
”They normally don't bother,” said Ambel. ”But if they do you don't get it back. One got Pland a year or two back. Been a bit cranky ever since.”
Erlin tried to make sense of that. Surely not? The leech's mouth had been half a metre across.
”Keep away from the pear-trunk trees,” Ambel told her as they moved off again.
Pear-trunk trees? She looked up into the branches and saw things hanging there, but they did not look like pears. Of course, the trunk. It was squat and pear-shaped. The bark was real strange though. She wondered about its structure ...
”I said keep away - ”
The pear-trunk tree s.h.i.+vered and Erlin screamed.
”All right, I got it!” yelled Boris. He tugged on the leech attached to her back and she screamed some more. It took Ambel's help to pull the leech off. She lay face down in the mould sobbing. She could feel the hole in her back.