The junior crewmen attended Boris’s explanation with dubious expressions, before being shepherded back to their tasks by Pland, now the excitement was over. Anne leaned close to Boris and muttered, ‘You don’t really know, do you?’
Boris scratched at his moustache. ‘Nah, haven’t a clue.’
Peck chose that moment for another yell. ‘That’s it, y’bugger!’
He was waving his fist, but it was still unclear at whom or what he was gesturing.
‘Never been the same since,’ said Boris, shaking his head.
‘Oh, he only goes a bit funny sometimes,’ said Anne. She pointed at the island to which Ambel was again towing them. ‘It’s islands — they remind him of the Skinner’s Island. He never feels safe near them.’
‘He knows he can’t be got again,’ said Boris, looking meaningfully towards the Captain’s cabin.
‘Not the point. It ain’t logical, but he’s convinced it’s going to happen again.’
‘Well it can’t,’ said Boris, looking towards Ambel as the Captain continued to tow the ship on in.
In Ambel’s cabin the Skinner’s head lay still in its box; still and silent, and attentive.
The remaining hornet had been gone for two days now, and the mind had not spoken to him much since his voicing of his concerns about Erlin. Quite dryly, it had asked him just what he found so unbelievable about her story and, when he had tried, it had pointed out all the clues that pointed to the ‘extremity’ Erlin had described. Since then Janer had been contemplative and had nothing to ask it. Since then the mind had very little to say to him either. It was almost as if an embarrassed silence had fallen between them. When it was broken, Janer jerked as if he had been slapped.
‘Now, there’s an interesting sight,’ said the mind.
‘Mind, where are your eyes now?’ Janer asked, confused as to why he should have been surprised at the voice. After a pause came a flat reply, without the usual complementary buzzing. He realized this was the reason he had jumped: the buzzing had always served to forewarn of a communication.
‘I’m on a rock in the sea. Sails live on it,’ the mind said.
‘Why are you there?’
There was no reply for a long time and, standing at the rail, Janer started to fidget uncomfortably. He glanced up at Ron, who had a telescope to his eye, then at Erlin, whom the sail had lifted to the nest. Other members of the crew were slowly moving about their business on the deck: Roach, Forlam, a thickset blonde called Goss, who kept giving him the eye, and others he had no name for. Janer studied Goss speculatively. This journey was starting to get a little boring. Perhaps it was time to spice things up a little. Just then, the Hive mind came back to him, but this time the buzzing had returned.
‘Look to the north,’ it said.
Janer did so, and observed a red glow sheeting up behind cloud, wavering like an aurora.
‘What is it?’
‘An antimatter explosion. The Warden is most reticent about its source,’ said the mind.
‘Antimatter?’
The mind was silent for a while before continuing.
‘I will be with you soon. Keech is coming. Tell Erlin to prepare her equipment.’
‘What do you mean, Keech?’ Janer looked in confusion from the light in the sky back to the activity on the deck.
Others were gazing out at the redness and talking to each other in muted tones. But already the light was beginning to disperse, to fade. The buzzing that had accompanied the mind’s message faded also, and it gave no reply. Janer looked at Goss again, then he looked up at Erlin. He called to her.
‘What did it mean “Keech is coming”?’ Erlin asked him, once Janer had related the mind’s message.
‘I can only think he’s in trouble, if it means you’ll need your medical equipment,’ said Janer.
‘What the hell am I supposed to be able to do for him?’
‘He is a little past your services, I have to admit.’ Janer shrugged and grinned at her. ‘Perhaps we should prepare anyhow. The mind doesn’t normally get things wrong.’
‘OK. I suppose you’re right.’
Erlin headed for the deck hatch and Janer watched her for a moment.
‘Let me help you. I’m a bit of a spare wheel here anyhow.’
Erlin gestured for him to follow.
Once below decks, Erlin pulled one of her cases from a storage locker, then put it on the floor and opened it. Janer looked at the mass of gleaming apparatus neatly packed inside. He recognized a nanoscope, portable autodoc, and one or two other items.
Erlin pointed at the autodoc. ‘You know how to assemble that?’ she asked.
Janer pulled the doc out of the case and proceeded to clip together the hooded cowling and the insectile surgical arms. Erlin allowed a little surprise to enter her expression, nodded an acknowledgement to him, then turned to something else. She took out a flat box with a gun-shaped object fixed in its upper surface. Janer immediately identified the ‘gun’ as a hand-diagnosticer, and the box it was plugged into as a portable drug-manufactory.
‘Oh hell,’ said Erlin. ‘I haven’t got a clue.’
‘Let’s just be as ready as we can,’ said Janer.
They got ready.
Windcheater flew in a world constructed of information. Eyes crossed and toes clenched he gazed with wonder on a virtual galaxy dwarfing the incontestably vast Human Polity. There was so much to know, so much to see — great minds moved past the sail like sun-bright leviathans, and the financial systems of worlds were complex hives he could lose himself in for centuries. It was wonderfuclass="underline" there was so much to do, so much to have. But Windcheater, with a self-discipline and intelligence beyond that of his brothers and sisters, gradually shut all that out and concentrated on the specific. He curled his lip and growled when he located the minuscule antiquities site based on Coram and surveyed the price list. Perhaps Sniper believed the sail would be too dazzled to pick up on things like that.
‘Windcheater.’
The voice came from close by and Windcheater uncrossed his eyes and looked around. His fellow sails were all gathered at the other side of The Flint, watching him warily. It had not been one of those that had spoken.
‘Sail, I’m speaking to you through your aug. Do you understand me?’ asked the voice.
‘I hear you,’ said the sail. ‘But I don’t know who you are.’
‘Of course… you’ve never heard my voice. I am the Warden.’
‘Ah,’ Windcheater managed. He noticed then that his fellows were edging even further away from him and were observing him all the more warily. There was nothing he could do about that just now.
‘Well, what do you think of the human virtual world?’ the Warden resumed.
‘It is… useful,’ replied the sail. ‘What do you want?’ it then asked, thinking it might be less disconcerting for his fellows if he quickly terminated this conversation. He did not want them thinking him any crazier than they did already.
‘Like yourself I want many things — and like yourself I understand that there is little to be had without paying a price,’ said the Warden.
Windcheater showed his teeth and waited. The Warden continued.
‘I see that your business arrangements with Sniper have provided you with some income. I see no reason to prevent that arrangement continuing. It could easily be argued that any artefacts accessible to you are legitimately the property of your people…’
‘Our property?’ Windcheater asked.
‘You are, after all, the autochthons of this world,’ the Warden observed.
‘Does that mean we own it?’ the sail asked, a couple of strange ideas occurring to him all at once.