Within a few minutes the sickness had receded enough for him to realize he badly needed to empty his bladder. Luckily he had noticed the lidded bucket underneath his bunk, and did not have to look far for relief. Afterwards, feeling somewhat better, he returned up to the deck.
‘There’s fresh water over there,’ called Erlin, as Janer stood blearily surveying his surroundings. He went to the barrel by the back wall of the forecabin and gulped down a couple of ladlefuls. The water tasted coppery, and accelerated the effect of the detox in his stomach. Abruptly he felt buoyant, happy, and it occurred to him that the water might also be helping residual alcohol from his stomach into his bloodstream. He peered up at Erlin, who was leaning on the rail staring down at him.
‘Where are we heading?’ he asked, when at last he felt able to speak.
‘The Sargassum,’ she told him. ‘Last known destination of the man I’ve come here for: Captain Ambel.’
‘Oh.’ Janer paused to gulp another ladleful of water and then gazed around the deck. ‘Where’s Keech?’
Erlin shrugged. ‘Gone his own way, as far as I can gather. He wasn’t in the hotel this morning, but left a message saying he had certain things to attend to, and that perhaps we would meet again some time. I’d say that’s the last we’ve seen of him.’
‘Shame, he was interesting,’ said Janer, remembering something the mind had said. He dropped the ladle back into the barrel, scanned about again then went on, ‘What’s a sargassum?’
‘Where the turbul gather to breed,’ Captain Ron interrupted from behind Erlin.
Erlin eyed Janer sympathetically. ‘It’s an area of the sea where sea-cane and sea nettles grow thick enough to form into islands. Turbul are a kind of fish, and they deposit their nymphs on the underside of those islands. Ship Hoopers always head out there at this season to harvest the turbul,’ she explained.
‘Harvest?’ Janer asked, vaguely recalling a previous conversation.
Erlin smiled, turned to say something to Ron, then made for the forecabin ladder, and climbed down to get nearer to Janer. She inspected him with amused sympathy then pointed towards the stern of the ship.
‘Roach is hand-lining for boxies for our lunch. Come and see, and perhaps you’ll begin to understand.’
Janer followed where she led, giving the sail’s head a wide berth as he went. He saw now that not only did the creature control the movement of the fore and aft masts by some hidden linkage, but it also adjusted the fabric sails with cables gripped in some of its spider-claw hands. Janer swung his gaze along the full length of the ship, estimating it to be at least fifty metres long, with a beam of fifteen metres. There weren’t many crew visible but, knowing nothing about sailing ships, he did not know how many might be required to navigate it, nor how many were unnecessary because of this weirdest of rigs.
Roach was a short raggety Hooper with a furtive look about him. He sat like a pile of dirty washing at the edge of the deck where there was no rail. He glanced up at Erlin and Janer, then hauled in the line het had trailing over the side of the ship. It came up with a boxy on the end, which he removed from the hook and tossed into the wooden bucket at his side. Boxy was an apt name for this fish, Janer thought. It had a purple and white cube-shaped body with eyes at the front and a tail sticking out the back.
With a gesture at the boxies already caught, Erlin asked Roach, ‘You mind?’ Roach looked sneaky for a moment as if estimating what he could get for one of the fish. He then glanced towards the Captain, thought for a moment, and made a noncommittal gesture. Erlin picked up one of the fish.
To Janer she said, ‘Spatterjay life forms have evolved to survive being fed upon by the leeches — to have their flesh harvested by leeches.’ She dug her finger in behind the boxy’s eyes, hooked and pulled. The eyes, at the wide point of a small triangular head, the spine and sack of internal organs, and the tail, pulled from the surrounding cube of flesh like a cork coming out of a bottle.
‘Look,’ said Erlin, and threw the essential part of the boxy back into the sea. Janer watched it hit the surface of the water and lie there for a moment. He was just about to ask what she meant when the boxy wriggled, then wriggled again, and shot away into the emerald depths. ‘They don’t die,’ she told him, and to his horror she took a bite out of the cube of flesh she held. ‘Here, try some.’
Janer took the still-warm lump of flesh and stared at it. He glanced down at Roach, who was watching him with a ratty smirk, then he took a small bite and, gritting his teeth against his rebellious stomach, chewed and swallowed. The meat slid down and seemed to settle there with a sudden heat that dispelled his nausea. He was surprised at the effect and took another bite. After swallowing this too, he tried to identify the taste.
‘Spicy… like curry… and bananas,’ he said.
‘It’s loaded with vitamins, proteins and sugars — and the virus of course, but don’t worry about that. The virus can’t survive human digestion, just as it can’t survive long exposure to the air. Your usual methods of contracting it are either through a leech bite or by sexual transmission.’ Erlin seemed uncomfortable at mentioning the latter method. ‘Are you on Intertox?’
Janer shrugged. ‘I’ll take my chances,’ he said, then remembering part of a drunken conversation the night before he asked, ‘Tell me, with food like this so easily available, why do they bring out here what they call “Dome-grown” food?’
Erlin smiled at a memory of her own, and Janer felt almost jealous of it. She said, ‘Dome-grown foods are Earth foods and the varieties grown here contain many natural germicides — toxins even — that inhibit the growth of the viral fibres. Hoopers have possessed the facilities for growing them since the days of Jay Hoop himself, and lucky they did or they wouldn’t have survived. They enjoyed more variety when the Polity finally arrived. Garlic is particularly good. Hoopers like garlic. They’ve grown it here for nearly a millennium.’
‘You’d have thought they wouldn’t want to inhibit the growth of those fibres.’
‘Slow growth is better than fast — that way you don’t go native,’ Erlin replied.
Janer waited for an explanation but none was forthcoming. He finished off the boxy meat first, and was about to pursue the matter when he heard a pitiful squeaking and looked down. Roach had opened a cast-iron bait box and was now baiting his hook. The creature wriggling in his fingers, in its attempt to escape being impaled, had the appearance of a miniature trumpet with a wading bird’s legs and webbed feet.
‘Let’s leave him to it,’ said Erlin. ‘It can be dangerous for an off-worlder to stand near a Hooper while he’s fishing.’
‘What do you mean?’
Erlin pointed at the bait box.
‘One of those things could chew into you like a drill bit. They’re difficult to remove once they get started.’
Janer nodded and stepped back. The little trumpet-things were leaping up and down in the box and, though they had no eyes, they seemed to be watching him. Roach showed no particular caution of the creature he held as he finally impaled it on a gleaming hook. As it let out a bubbling squeak, Janer saw the others in the bait box quit their squeaking and sink out of sight. He nodded to the crewman before following Erlin, but so intent was Roach on getting his line out, he did not notice.
Erlin went on, ‘Besides, there’s all the other things Roach might bring up on his line. There’s frog whelks and hammer whelks down there, not to mention glisters and prill. And there’s always leeches of course.’