The Skinner (25 page)

‘I’m listening,’ said Svan.

‘Now, I know that somehow you’ve traced our mutual friend, Monitor Keech. He is not here anymore. The last I heard he was heading off to find some Old Captain to chat to. What I am
most interested in is how you managed to trace him
here
.’

Svan gave the other three a warning look. ‘If I tell you that you’ll let us walk out of here?’

‘I will allow that,’ said Tay. ‘Now perhaps you can explain yourself?’

Leaning her elbows on the rim of the granite outcrop, Tay stared down at her tower. She then studied the screen of her transponder and smiled at the way the mercenaries were frantically
gesturing to each other.

Their leader spoke up then. ‘We followed Keech with a purpose-built tracer that picks up on emissions from certain old designs of cybermotors,’ the Batian woman said, holding up some
sort of device she had pulled from her belt. Tay peered at her screen. The explanation seemed plausible but she didn’t believe it for a moment.

‘I don’t believe that for a moment,’ she said, enjoying herself immensely. Only a small seed of doubt marred her enjoyment: if they hadn’t traced Keech by the method they
claimed, how had they traced him? As she turned from the granite, with the transponder held up before her face, it occurred to her that maybe they were not here searching for Keech at all. No
matter. She walked over to her AGC and climbed into it. When these mercenaries finally went away, as their kind always did, she would return to her home. She dumped the transponder on the seat
beside her and reached for the control column.

‘Why, Olian,’ said the woman who climbed into the AGC beside her, ‘you’ve got it all wrong. They came here to meet me, and I came here to meet you.’

Tay did not recognize the face that smiled at her, but the gas-system pulse-gun pointed at her face had her fullest attention.

‘Who the hell are you?’ she asked.

‘Can’t you guess?’ the woman asked and, so saying, picked up Tay’s transponder and spoke into it.

‘Svan, this is your client here. I have Olian Tay and will be with you shortly. I must congratulate you on performing precisely as I expected.’

She clicked the transponder off, tossed it out of the AGC, and then looked at Tay expectantly. Before reaching out to take hold of the column Tay wiped sweat from under her chin and swallowed
dryly. Batian mercenaries . . . now there were many people prepared to hire these mercenaries, hence the entire culture of one continent, on an Out-Polity planet, revolving around that frowned-upon
profession, but factor in the recent presence of Sable Keech here on Spatterjay, and Tay’s own interests . . . Tay did not like where her thoughts were leading her. There had always been
something odd about one particular story concerning the demise of one of the Eight.

‘What do you want?’ she asked.

The woman gave a deprecatory smile and waved the gun at her. Tay could not keep her eyes off the wide silvered snout of the weapon. She knew that, even at its lowest setting, it could probably
take her face off.

‘Oh, Olian, we can chat about all this back in your wonderful tower. Then you can show me your wonderful museum. I’ve read quite a bit about it, and have always wanted to see
it.’

Tay engaged the old grav motor and lifted the AGC into the air. She considered making a grab for the stranger’s gun, as up here might be her only chance. Perhaps this woman did not realize
how long Tay had been a Hooper, and just how strong she was.

‘You know, Olian, you wouldn’t know how old this body is, just by looking at it, and how long it has been Hooper,’ said the woman.

Tay said nothing for a moment.
This body.
Not
my
body, not
me
. That one phrase was all the confirmation Tay needed. She felt suddenly very small and vulnerable, even though
her captor seemed smaller and more fragile than she. She knew now who this person was, and that there wouldn’t be a lot she could do if she did get hold of the weapon. The woman sitting next
to her could break her like a ship Captain could.

‘You’re Rebecca Frisk,’ she said.

‘Of course I am,’ said the woman.

As she brought the AGC in to land on the roof of her tower, Tay became absolutely certain that she would die if she was not very careful. And even then . . .

‘Out,’ said Frisk, once the grav motor wound down.

Tay climbed out of the AGC, calculating all the way how she might survive this. That Frisk had come to see her out of curiosity, she had no doubt; that she left death and destruction behind her
wherever she went was a matter of historical fact.

‘What do you want here?’ she asked, as Frisk followed her to the stairwell.

‘I want to see your museum,’ said Frisk.

‘Something coming,’ said Ron, his eye to his telescope.

Janer looked out over the sea but for a moment could see nothing. He then discerned a distant dot coming towards them and growing larger. He unhooked his intensifier and quickly focused on the
object.

‘I’ll be damned,’ he said.

‘What?’ asked Erlin.

‘He’s got an AG scooter,’ Janer replied. ‘Must have been all those investments he made before he shuffled off. Compound interest.’

Erlin laughed, and Janer chalked up a mental point as he hooked the intensifier back on his belt. It was good to know that he could touch her in some way.

The scooter came to a halt above the ship, and hovered there for a long while. Before anyone could wonder if it was just going to stay up there, it descended and came in to land on the clearest
part of the deck.

Janer gagged when he drew close to it. The crusted stinking thing sitting on the saddle was Keech all right, but a Keech somewhat changed since the last time Janer had seen him.

‘Too late, I think,’ he said.

Erlin approached the reif with her diagnosticer. She pressed it against his arm and the thick scab there cracked and oozed red plasma. She stared at the reading on the diagnosticer, then
abruptly took a step back. Keech’s head turned towards her, shell-like crust breaking away from his neck to reveal wet and bloody muscle underneath.

‘You’re alive,’ was all Erlin could manage.

Keech just looked at her with his single, weeping blue eye.

With the rest of the crew, Janer just stared. It was Ron who suddenly moved into action. ‘All right lads, get him below. Gently, mind,’ he said.

‘I ain’t touching
that
,’ said Goss.

Ron looked at her and raised an eyebrow – and Goss was the first one to reach for the reif. As they lifted Keech off his scooter, stinking crusts fell away from him to expose flayed
muscle. Something bulked in the front of his overall, and Janer had a horrible feeling that organs were floating about free in there. He was so involved with what was happening that he didn’t
notice the hornet had returned to his shoulder until Keech was taken below decks.

‘
He brought a package for us
,’ said the mind. ‘
It is in the luggage compartment of the scooter. Get it now.
’

‘You don’t order me any more,’ said Janer out loud, and Ron glanced round at him. Janer pointed at the hornet and Ron nodded, before following the others below decks.

‘
Please
,’ said the mind.

‘OK.’

Janer went over to the scooter and looked in the back. He instantly knew which package it was. He lifted it out and inspected it.

‘
Put it somewhere safe . . . please.
’

Janer headed for the hatch to his cabin. ‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘
Do you need to ask that?
’

‘No, I guess not,’ said Janer, since he had received deliveries like this before.

He took the package below, walking past the crammed cabin, where Keech was stretched out on a table. Reaching his own cabin, he was about to place the box under his bunk when the mind stopped
him.

‘
Wait one moment
,’ it said, as if something had only just occurred to it. In Janer’s experience things never ‘only just occurred’ to a Hive mind. He waited
anyway.

The hornet launched itself from his shoulder and landed on the box. It crawled round to the middle plane of its hexagonal front. Immediately a hexagonal hole opened and the hornet crawled
inside.

‘
You may put it somewhere safe now
,’ said the mind. Janer crammed the box under his bunk, and went to see what was happening with Keech. As he arrived, Erlin was clearing the
cabin.

‘Everyone out. Out,
now
,’ she said.

The disgruntled crew shuffled away. The medical technology of off-worlders always intrigued Hoopers simply because of its utter irrelevance to them. Their attitude was something like the
attitude of a hospital consultant to the trappings of shamanism. This was yet another strange Hooper reversal.

‘
You
can stay,’ said Erlin, and it took Janer a moment to realize that she meant him. He walked into the cabin, past Ron as the Captain went out. He stared down at the thing
that was Keech.

‘What can I do?’ he asked.

Erlin pointed at the autodoc. ‘That’s an idiot savant quite capable of dealing with injuries to a normal human. Right now Keech is making the transition from corpse to living man
with the aid of a nano-changer. He’s also infected with the Spatterjay virus, which is digesting dead tissue, just as it does in a living creature. The problem is that it started on Keech
when he was
all
dead tissue. We’ve also got a few hundred cybernetic devices to deal with.’

Keech made a clicking gurgling sound.

‘He keeps trying to speak,’ said Erlin. She seemed at a loss.

Janer did not know what to say. If
she
could not handle this, then there was no way he could. He looked at Keech and felt pity. The only option, it seemed to him, would be to load him
back on his scooter and head full-tilt for the Dome. He’d probably be dead by then, but even so . . . Janer focused his attention on Keech’s aug. There was an interface plug on it.

‘Back in a moment,’ said Janer, and ran from the cabin. In the crew cabin he searched his backpack until he had hold of what he wanted, and rushed back. He brandished the small
screen and optic cable, then walked over to Keech.

‘This should work,’ he said. ‘It has a voice synthesizer.’

‘It
does
work,’ said Keech, the instant Janer plugged him into the personal computer. ‘Erlin, do not concern yourself with the cybernetics. I will take them offline the
moment they interfere with physical function.’

Erlin came up and stood by Janer. She seemed calmer now, and the look she gave Janer made something flip over in his stomach.

‘Right,’ she said, ‘we’ve got a lot of work to do. We need to rig up some kind of tank. The nanites cannot function outside of a liquid medium, and that’s why
they’re failing to build his outer tissues. The virus needs to be inhibited by Intertox. Keech, I take it you’re blocking the pain?’

‘I am.’

‘Right, we need to make a tank.’

Erlin looked at her box of tricks for a moment, then looked at Janer.

Janer said, ‘There’s a monofilament mainsail stored in the rear hold. Goss told me it was a gift from some out-worlder who wanted to establish a business here by displacing the
living sails. Ron didn’t have the heart to warn the man that such replacement sail would require extra rigging as well as extra crewmen. They now apparently only use it to stretch around the
hull after an attack by borers. I don’t know what borers are, but I can imagine the effect. I should be able to rig something in about an hour.’

‘Do it then,’ said Erlin.

Janer turned to go, running through his mind the stored materials he had seen for the repair of any damage to the ship. He needed to construct a frame strong enough to support the weight of a
few hundred litres of water. Perhaps some sort of hammock arrangement? He did not need to worry about the strength of the monofilament fabric. He’d yet to see it ripped, and knew that little
short of a hit from a pulse-gun could puncture it.

‘Janer,’ said Erlin.

Janer turned at the door.

‘I don’t know how to say this . . .’ she began.

‘Then don’t,’ said Janer, and went on his way.

The four mercenaries were definitely unhappy. It had soon become evident that Frisk had been watching for some time before their arrival, and had allowed them to act as a crude
decoy.

‘The warning message – was that you?’ Tay asked.

Frisk continued to study the looming sculpture of the Skinner and replied contemplatively. ‘Oh no, that
was
the Warden. We monitored the signal and made sure there were no subminds
in the area. Now, tell me, how did you ascertain the details for this?’

Tay stared at the sculpture and wondered just who Frisk was referring to when she had said ‘We’. She also frantically tried to think of some story to turn to her advantage –
something to eke out the possibility of escape from this impossible situation. Then she remembered one aspect of the history of Frisk and Hoop: they had once been art thieves and both had an
interest in paintings.

‘A crewman going off-planet presented me with his collection of paintings. I never believed they were accurate until I went out to the Skinner’s Island and saw the
reality.’

‘Ah, you saw . . . the Skinner, in the flesh?’ said Frisk.