The whelk’s shell stood as high as the highest branches and, while scraping by, knocked showers of leeches down from them. He noticed how its stalked eyes now extended out sideways from its main mass as if triangulating on him. Its flesh skirt spread for many metres ahead of it, and extending from that its main two tentacles were nearly in reach of Ambel. Yet it hesitated.
‘Come on! What are you waiting for!’ the Captain bellowed.
The monster began to ease forward again, and Ambel began to move back. Then Drum stepped into view from the right, hefting a leech harpoon. He let out a growling shout and hurled the weapon, hard. The point of it struck the whelk’s main body, but only penetrated deep enough for the barbs to engage. Behind Drum, Roach took up the rope and hauled it taut, while behind him two juniors wrapped the end of it twice around a peartrunk tree. The creature slapped its tentacle down, aiming for Drum, but clipped the rope instead. With a wrenching sound the tree tilted, and one of the juniors still clutching the rope was jerked hard against the trunk. He bounced once and landed limply on the ground.
‘Over here!’ shouted Anne from the other side and, firing her carbine, began to cut smoking lines across the monster’s flesh. It swung towards her, further loosening the tree. Another crewman ran forward eagerly, swinging his machete at a nearby tentacle. The blade just bounced off it, and while the man stared with puzzlement at his weapon, the same tentacle shot up and hit him with a sound like a sledgehammer hitting a peach. He left the ground and disappeared into foliage, five metres up.
‘Ready, lads,’ said Ambel, taking up the harpoon at his feet. Pacing forwards, he threw this second weapon with all his might. It struck a soft spot just below shell, and penetrated deep. Behind the Captain, Silister and Davy-bronte took up the harpoon rope and wrapped it around a rocky outcrop. Ambel began running to the left, spying Drum heading to the right. The other Captain snatched up another harpoon.
‘We need to get in closer!’ Ambel shouted to him. ‘We can’t afford to have any of these come loose!’
On the other side of the creature from Drum, Boris carted his dismounted deck cannon out of cover. As he fired it, the recoil flung him over onto his back. Striking the whelk’s shell, its projectiles exploded glittering shards all over Drum, who was now charging in with his harpoon held level. Peck, pumping cartridge after cartridge into his shotgun, covered Boris as he struggled to his feet and recovered the cannon. Drum struck, driving the harpoon half a metre in below the whelk’s eye, then with a bellow and another massive shove, thrust it in a full metre. The whelk’s bubbling squeal was painful to hear.
Another harpoon from Ambel, this time straight through the end of a major tentacle. A group of five hauling on the rope, trying to draw the limb down and immobilize it. Someone screaming on the other side, the ragged remains of a human thumping down onto the earth. Yet another harpoon from Drum, but snapped off before its rope could be secured. A peartrunk tree, ripped out of the ground, slammed down on two fleeing Hoopers. More harpoons. More ropes. Someone suspended high, crunched up like paper, discarded. Another Hooper dragged in to disappear underneath the fleshy skirt. Now came Ambel’s tenth harpoon. He ran in while crew opposite him fired on the creature, again distracting it. He swore when one badly aimed shot thumped into his stomach, then drove the harpoon down hard into the base of a large tentacle, rested his full weight on it, and shoved again. The weapon went right through into the ground.
Ambel looked up to see one dinner-plate eye observing him from only a metre away, just as the tentacle twisted, smacking the harpoon haft hard against his shoulder. He felt his collarbone break, staggered back, then turned to run. He caught sight of Crewman Pillow struggling to tie off this latest rope, then a tentacle wrapped around Ambel’s waist, jerked him to a halt, and lifted him off the ground.
The whelk now reared, exposing its serrated beak and, on the ground below, what was left of a crewman it had grabbed earlier. The Hoopers kept firing on it from all sides as it drew Ambel in, champing that beak in anticipation. Some shots penetrated, most just bounced off. Black lines crisscrossed the tentacle holding Ambel, along with the glowing pockmarks of pulse-gun fire. Drum charged forwards with another harpoon, aiming for the same limb. He hurled it just as another tentacle swept his feet from under him, missed his target, but the harpoon struck and penetrated shell. Ambel heard a hissing, and smelt something rank.
‘Fire at the shell!’ he shouted. ‘Fire at the shell!’
Anne was the first to transfer her aim, perhaps realizing Ambel’s intent. And that was all it took, as her shots ignited the methane now hissing from the shell. There came a drawn-out roaring explosion, the shell splitting to spew out a sheet of flame that ignited the surrounding foliage. As the whelk screamed, Ambel found himself hurtling through the air above.
‘Oh shit and buggeration,’ he managed, before coiling himself into a ball as he crashed back down.
It was some hours later that Silister and Davy-bronte found him, and helped him back to join the others. He stood and observed the whelk, its shell still smoking, pinned tight by thirty harpoons securely roped down. One of its eyes was missing. The other blinked at him.
‘Gulliver,’ he muttered, pointing a shaky finger, but later found that his fellow Lilliputians had not done too well. Two of them were dead—sprine was administered to them because their head injuries were so bad that little remained inside their skulls. Seven others would be severely immobilized until their backbones healed; one was missing his legs, which were somewhere inside the whelk; and not one of them had come through this without broken bones.
‘It could have been worse,’ he said, finally.
He understood why Drum nearly ruptured himself with laughter.
19
Boxy:
this fishlike creature obtains its name from the cubic shape of its body. Like the turbul, the boxy carries a sacrificial outer layer of flesh but, due to its odd shape, is unlike the turbul in being slow-moving. That boxies manage to survive and prosper was originally put down to their breeding rate: after mating, one fully fleshed female will convert all her outer flesh into upwards often thousand eggs, and she can do this as often as eight times a year. The true reason for their flourishing remained misunderstood until their behaviour was studied by the Polity Warden’s submind drones. Boxies habitually swim together in large shoals, and when an attack by leeches is unavoidable, they clump together to neatly form a large cubic mass. Those carrying the least outer flesh congregate towards the centre. Should an attack continue, this basic mass will rearrange, continuously positioning the more fleshy boxies to the outside. This is classic herd-like behaviour — putting the more vulnerable individuals to the centre. Some types of whelk have also evolved similar herding behaviour, specifically the frog whelk—
Bloc knew he could not hold it together for much longer. New error messages kept flashing up in his visual cortex every few minutes, and if he did not get himself into a tank soon, he would end up like Bones and have no body to resurrect. Also, since it was becoming evident that the Prador ship might soon be on the move, things were getting a bit tense here on the bridge.
‘If it comes straight up, we’re buggered,’ announced Captain Ron. ‘Let’s start the engines so, if we get a chance, we can pull clear.’