‘Oh yes, the virus optimizes survival, optimizes flesh growth: the leech’s harvest. This isn’t necessarily what’s best for humans, though. Flatworms are better survivors than us humans,’ she said.
‘Well, that’s nice to know,’ said Janer, thinking he really didn’t want to know any more. Erlin continued remorselessly as they followed the others away from the overnight camp.
‘The worst thing is when a human mind ends up in the body of a leech. That didn’t happen to Ambel, probably because he was fed upon too much to build up the energy to make that change; and when Sprage hauled him up out of the sea, he was fed Dome-grown food to prevent it. When the transformation does start to happen, and can’t be prevented, Hoopers feed the victim sprine. For all of them it’s their greatest fear: to end up being only able to feel vibration, heat, pain or hunger.’
‘Could there be many of them about?’ Janer asked, thinking with horror of the huge leech he’d burned during the night.
‘There could,’ said Erlin, offering no comfort.
As they stomped on, deeper into the dingle, Janer began to notice pronounced changes in the flora and fauna. The swollen trunks of the peartrunk trees were larger, and they often had large splits running through them, so that they seemed more like barred cages than solid trees. The leeches in their branches were dark red rather than the usual brown of coastal or seagoing leeches, and here the frogmoles were absent. After a time, Ambel no longer needed to use Ron’s machete, as the growth of foliage became steadily higher. The large flat leaves that grew at ground level near the coast now sprouted at the top of thorny trunks standing five metres tall. It was dark here and the ground was coated with soggy rolls of leaf and brittle white twigs. Fungi were scattered amidst this like droplets of orange blood. Now the leeches falling from above were not their worst problem; it was the leeches lurking in the fallen foliage that oozed towards one’s ankle if standing in one spot for too long.
When Ambel suddenly called a halt, Janer thought this a foolish place to choose, until he realized they were pausing only to allow another denizen of the dingle to pass.
Through the shady trunks came a huffing squeal and something huge moved painfully into view. To Janer it looked like a lizard made in the shape of a buffalo, but with some extreme differences to either creature. It did not have hooves or claws, but huge flat pads; the horns on its head were repeated in rows along its neck, and it had no tail. Janer mistook it as being four-limbed until he spotted the mandible limbs folded under its three-cornered mouth. Its tough hide was heavily pocked and Janer realized that the circular marks he had assumed were scales, were in fact healed leech scars.
The creature lumbered on past, flinging only a glance at them with its single double-pupilled eye. At the shoulder, it stood twice the height of a man and seemed a formidable creature. That it was a vegetarian, was evident when it halted by one of the thorny trunks and ground a lump out of it with its serrated mandibles. The vibration this caused had leeches falling on to it out of the tree. They immediately attached themselves and bored into its back. It grunted on finishing the mouthful it was chewing, then turning its head each way it used its mandibles to pull off any leeches it could reach. It then champed another mouthful — and more leeches fell.
‘We’ll go round,’ said Ambel.
‘Is that thing dangerous?’ asked Janer, his carbine held in readiness.
‘No, but they are,’ said Pland, pointing to the leeches wriggling on the ground or oozing back up the tree trunks.
‘What is it?’ Janer asked Erlin, as they gave the huge creature and the rain of leeches it was causing a wide berth.
‘Its name? I think it’s called a tree pig or something.’
‘Wood pig,’ Pland corrected her.
She nodded and went on, ‘It’s one of the heirodonts. There’s thousands of different kinds — some no bigger than a pin head. That’s one of the largest types you’ll find on land. It’s rumoured there are oceanic ones that grow larger, but that’s never been proven,’ she said.
‘Does it have any predators?’ asked Janer, wondering about some of the sounds he’d heard in the night.
‘There’s only two predators here on land: us’ — she pointed up into the foliage — ‘and them.’
‘Why only two?’
‘The leeches and the virus evolved together. There may have been other land predators at one time, but the leeches left no room for them. I’d guess that the leeches took to the sea only a few million years ago, so that’s why you find other predators there. Give this place another couple of million years and there’ll be nothing in it but vegetation, herbivores and leeches.’
‘A grim prospect.’
‘It’s life,’ said Erlin simply.
In time, the vegetation began to thin and sprouted closer to ground level again. Janer saw Pland pointing at something, and it took him a moment to distinguish, amid the surrounding trunks, what he was indicating. It was an octagonal metal post, half a metre wide and higher than a man, its surface thick with grey corrosion.
‘We’re closer than I thought,’ said Ron.
Janer glanced at him, then at Forlam who was now showing some interest, and staring at the metal post. ‘Perimeter,’ the crewman managed to utter.
‘What is it?’ asked Janer, puzzled.
‘Slave post,’ said Ambel.
Janer was still none the wiser, but he saw Erlin nodding in understanding. Before he could ask her what Ambel was talking about, the Captain led them out of the dingle, and she had moved back to escort Forlam.
They came out on to the crest of a hill sloping down to a valley. Below them, a river rumbled between red-brown boulders. On the other side of this stood structures built of the same stone: tall many-windowed buildings sprawled like a disjointed medieval fort. Crenellated walls stretched between them and there were signs, under thick vegetation, of what had once been a moat. To one side the ground had been levelled, and the vegetation there was having trouble getting a hold on the glassy surface. A wrecked landing craft of very old design stood decaying on that same surface.
Janer moved up beside Ambel and stared.
‘Hoophold,’ said the Captain.
‘And those posts?’ Janer queried, gesturing behind with his thumb.
‘The posts broadcast a signal to activate the explosive collars his captives and slaves wore. Here was where he kept them imprisoned, then cored them, and from here he shipped them out to the Prador,’ Ambel explained.
‘You think that… the Skinner has come back here?’ Janer said.
‘I don’t have to think,’ said Ambel, and pointed.
Squatting on a merlon of the nearest stretch of wall was something that could have been taken for a gargoyle — until it shifted its position and briefly opened its stubby wings. The head of Spatterjay Hoop was watching them approach.
It all came down to Prador politics, the Warden realized now. It continued observing through the many eyes of the enforcer drones below, and saw the ships of the Convocation fleet moving towards the Skinner’s Island, and far ahead of them the ship Frisk had seized. Of course: Ebulan wanted all living witnesses dead so he could claw back power in the Third Kingdom. One large explosion, when that fleet reached the island, and all the Prador’s problems, here at least, would be solved.
‘SM Twelve, I want four enforcers to get between the main fleet and that ship. If it shows any sign of moving from its present location I want it destroyed.’
Accessing Windcheater’s server took a little while longer, as the sail was deep into studying a political history of Earth and obviously quite fascinated. Though it might cause Windcheater a headache, the Warden broke the sail’s connection and linked in.
‘Windcheater.’
‘Yes, what, wadda y’want?’ snapped the disgruntled sail.
‘I want you to tell Captain Sprage that he should halt the fleet at least ten kilometres out from the Skinner’s Island. I myself will inform those captains who possess radios or augs.’