The Engineer ReConditioned Part 14

"He asked us then. You will back me on this."

Pallister nods and glances at Cheyne who nods also. Cheyne tests the point of his stiletto with a callused thumb. A bead of blood falls to the waxed deck. Above; stillness. The one in the crow's nest watches. The four who are closer pretend concerns elsewhere. It is a hot and sultry day with not a breath of wind. There is little need for them to be up, but there the air is fresher in the rigging and the responsibility is nil.

"I cannot order you, Cheyne."

Cheyne nods, then steps past to stoop down next to Chaff. Pallister and Hinks stand between him and the Captain. There is a crunch as of a vegetable being segmented. There is the spastic kicking of legs, then stillness. Chaff no longer suffers.

"Man born of Earth who strives upon this sea ... "

The prayers are sincere and the sermon long and boring for the crew. The Captain a.s.suages the guilt he feels at missing Chaff's death by reading the man's last rights. What remains of Chaff has been st.i.tched into an old sailcloth and weighted with lumps of salt. Hinks watches it slide into the sea, a small splash, nothing really. Below decks the Barrelman cuts ligaments and drops Chaff's bones into the maggot barrel. As is the way, his bones will be fas.h.i.+oned into a great knife along with the skin of the jable shark his other remains will summon. The shark is not long in coming.

"Fin. Fin. Fin."

Pallister thumps the haft of his great knife against the deck. The chant is taken up by the rest of the crew as a fin a yard high slices their slow wake and takes the cloth-wrapped b.l.o.o.d.y morsel before the salt can take it right down. It is bad luck, but they are used to that.

"Fin. Fin. Fin."

"Second Boat!" yells the Captain, and the windla.s.ses are manned. With a clatter of bone ratchets the boat folds out level. The twins leap aboard to stow the coils of rope and floats. They are not allowed to touch Pallister's barbs for he believes it is bad luck for them to be handled by women. Cheyne is not so superst.i.tious and hands his down. As the boat is loaded the Barrelman comes out on deck and the chant becomes quieter in deference to him. He has the black skin that marked him for his position from birth, for only by the hands of those born of the dark may the dead be handled before their last pa.s.sage into it. His face and shaven skull are dyed white and his eyes are blue. All the crew fear and love him.

Six crew board the longboat: the twins, Pallister and Cheyne, Hinks and the Captain. The Barrelman has charge of the s.h.i.+p, but then, he always has had charge.

"Lower away!"

The ratchets clatter again and the boat drops to the sea. As it hits the surface the fin turns and moves in. Who is hunting whom? Hinks wonders as four scapula oars dig into the water and shoot the boat forward.

"It comes!" The Captain clutches a wax-proofed copy of the book to his chest as he shouts. "First knife!"

Cheyne stands with a great knife ready. Behind the blade he has mounted one of the detachable barbs from which a rope coils to a sea-cork float. The sunlight glints on the waves and the jable shark approaches in a tide of golden bands. They can all see its dead b.u.t.ton eyes.

"Steady." The Captain is firm. Cheyne is firm. The shark's expression is all tooth-bone and flesh-ripping horror.

"Now!" The Captain, a second after Cheyne has made his cut.

The boat is rocked at the edge of a strike. The fin clips an oar as it is raised. The rope thrums as it goes out and the float hits the water with a dull flat smack. Cheyne stands with his knife emptied of its barb and the shark paints a red line from behind its right eye, a curving line, as it turns.

"Second knife!"

Pallister has his place and is ready. Soon two lines of blood flee the boat, turn, return, three lines then four, until at last the shark has had enough and tries to dive.

"Row, boys, row!"

They pursue the bobbing and jerking floats that reflect the shark's struggles. Down below; a cloud of blood at the nexus of four taut ropes. Then out of the cloud the toothed horror comes again, slowed and tangled. Cheyne's unbarbed cut is true and the great knife goes in behind the shark's head and severs its cartilaginous spine. The shark is held on the surface in the tangle of ropes and floats, and the blood spreads.

"Heave, boys, heave!"

The Captain holds the Book in his hand, the proper book, the s.h.i.+p's book. One of the twins mutters something filthy about his continual use of 'boys'. There was no proof to the rumour, though.

By slow increments and ratcheting clicks they hoist the jable shark from the sea using the same windla.s.ses used to lower the boat. The weight heels the s.h.i.+p over and b.l.o.o.d.y water rains down its side. No fins are in sight, but there is time yet. Hinks hauls with the crew. Two sharks snapping at a dead one on the side of a s.h.i.+p is enough to pull that s.h.i.+p over. He knows. He has seen. In the long boat Cheyne and Pallister keep ready to drive sharks away, but only adapted squid swarm around the s.h.i.+p. Even so, they will not be was.h.i.+ng their b.l.o.o.d.y hands in the water as Chaff did.

The white water of an approaching fin is seen as they lower the corpse onto the deck and open the blood drains. Cheyne and Pallister soon attach lines to the boat and the new shark only manages to nudge it once before it is hauled up the side of the s.h.i.+p.

"Open her up, boys. Let the shark soul free."

It is Cheyne's honour under the sight of the Barrelman. He uses the hull metal great knife in one flamboyant slice. Steaming guts avalanche across the deck at the unzipping. The opening of the stomach at the last spills a hundred weight of turtle crabs, an almond-shaped sh.e.l.l the size of a barrel, the remains of Chaff and, what appears to be the corpse of a small boy until it convulses and spews salt water from its lungs.

"Shark soul," hisses Pallister as the Captain hauls the boy to his feet. Hinks glares at the Knifeman, then turns to one of the twins as she speaks.

"Sea people?" she wonders.

Hinks stares at her. Is she Jan or Char? He has never known as they deliberately confuse. He turns back as the Captain pushes away damp fair hair to inspect the boy's neck for gill slits.

"Not of the sea people," he tells the crew. "Where are you from, boy? How is it you come live from the belly of this shark?"

The boy stares at him with blue and innocent eyes and Hinks does not like the expression that twists the Captain's mouth.

"Deal with this shark. I shall question him in my cabin."

He pulls the naked boy away and the twins nod an affirmative to each other.

"That is not a boy. That is the soul of this shark come to avenge. We must cast it back in the sea."

"Pallister, why so sure of this?"

"Always 'release the soul' and we see nothing. This time, something. A reason for the words. We always throw the innards and their contents back though they could be used."

" 'Tis no soul of a shark." They turn as the Barrelman comes upon the deck. "Yet it seems not likely it is a boy."

"What should we do?"

"As the Captain instructs. As always: by the Book of the Sea."

With great knives and small knives they cut the shark. The innards go back into the sea after, with cursory ceremony, the remains of Chaff. The hull thumps with movement below the waves: squid and the b.u.t.ting of sharks. Barnacles never grow on the hull of a jable hunter, but weed often grows on the teeth left jammed into the wood.

They skin the shark and the Barrelman takes its skin to preserve and prepare for lamination - one of the many uses of a skin with a colour and a texture called jable. The salted meat they store in the barrels he marks, the fat is rendered for oil, and the cartilage stored in brine for later use in the manufacture of glue. When all is done, they wash the deck clean and replace the blood drains. All around the sea foams and great dark bodies surface and dive. All around, fins.

Night seems to drive the last of the sharks away or perhaps another jable hunter has cast a bucket of blood into the sea. Hinks knows there are those who prefer to hunt by the light of the moons, those who make it a mystic thing of ceremony and sacrifice, and toast each kill with shark's blood drunk from whelk-sh.e.l.l cups. As he pulls in nacreous glitters of green mackerel and snaps their necks with his forefinger and thumb he wonders what questions the Captain might be asking now. It has been some time since he took the boy to his cabin. No matter, no concern. Hinks casts his line of lures back into the sea as the two yellow moons the twins have their names from break over the horizon like glaring eyes.

"He b.u.g.g.e.rs an innocent while Pallister talks of shark souls, Cheyne sharpens all his knives, and you catch mackerel we don't need."

Hinks stares the pile of mackerel next to him then looks up at one of the twins. "Are you Jan?"

She ignores the question. "In Piezel they would crush his t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es and throw him to the jable. We sit idle while he gratifies l.u.s.t."

"Many would, given opportunity."

She steps more into the moonlight and stands with her hands on her hips. "I might give you opportunity, Hinks. It is for me to say yes or no and for you to accept or not. This boy has been given no such choices."

Hinks reels his handline back onto its frame then climbs tiredly to his feet. It is his responsibility, just like with Chaff. They all know what the Captain is doing and they all know it is wrong, but only he can do anything, by the Book.

"Back me up then. Where is your sister?"

"She is testing the point of Cheyne's most important knife."

Hinks is surprised. In all the time the twins had been on board he had never known either of them to bed another member of the crew. The rumour was that they preferred their own s.e.x, but then that was always the rumour when men's egos are bruised.

"A strange night, and I wonder why you told me ... Is she recruiting to your cause?"

"No and yes. She has been with Cheyne since the season began and he is in agreement about the Captain."

"I heard nothing."

"Cheyne does not gossip."

Hinks shakes his head. Of course Cheyne does not gossip. Cheyne does not speak at all and has not spoken since the excision and cautery of the fungal infection in his mouth and throat.

Through the double moon shadows they walk to the forward hatch and the single stair that goes down to the Captain's cabin. As they slip below decks, Hinks shakes a biolight to luminescence and carries it before him. Soon they are before the door of shark skin stretched on its frame of manbone. They listen. Nothing. Hinks reaches to scratch on the door, but it opens, unlatched. They enter.

"It is murder. Murder has been done here."

Hinks nods agreement, the rich smell of slaughter in his nostrils. What else could this be? The Captain lies sprawled across his bunk in a tangle of b.l.o.o.d.y sheets. Driven up through his groin and into his guts is a spike made of solid gla.s.s, like an icicle. But maybe this was not the first cause of his death, since neat as a cylinder his right eye-socket has been reamed out to the back of his skull. Hinks knows the horrible fear of the supernatural. They heard nothing, perhaps a shark soul was loose on this s.h.i.+p.

"Man overboard!"

The yell is from above and breaks into their nightmare reverie. Hinks gains some command over himself and pushes the unnamed twin back to the door. What now? Another murder, or a murderer seeking to escape? Past the twin he rushes up on deck. The Barrelman is there leaning over the rail and Pallister is beside him.

"Who is it?" Hinks asks.

"I do not know. I do not know." The Barrelman's voice is strange, as if surprised at itself.

"Pallister?"

"I don't know, but he is done." Pallister points to the floating body and to the fin slicing moonlit water just beyond it. Hinks watches the inevitable: the fin disappearing, the body s.n.a.t.c.hed from below.

"Dead or unconscious when he went in, like as not," says Pallister, then after glancing to the twin, "or she."

"Get the crew on deck, all of them you can find, find that boy if you can, bring them all, bring them all here. Murder has been done. The Captain is dead in his cabin and who knows who the shark took."

It takes little time for them all to be roused and a.s.sembled as many of them were coming onto the deck as Hinks made his speech. He counts and he appraises. Cheyne and the other twin look flushed. Cook has certainly been sampling the sea apple wine again and the others seem no different from normal. All are here but the boy and the Captain. Hinks wants to be sure, though.

"I want the s.h.i.+p searched forward to aft, every unsealed barrel checked and every sail locker. Check the crow's nest as well." He turns to the Barrelman. "What say you, Barrelman?" The Barrelman shakes his head and goes below to his own kingdom. Cook follows him.

No boy is found, just as Hinks expected. He speaks with Pallister and Cheyne as allies always and knows a loneliness when he realises he cannot trust even them. In the end he must ask those questions.

"Pallister, did you throw the boy back into the sea?"

"As the Book is my witness, Hinks, I did not."

Hinks inspects the rest of the crew who stand nervously around. Which one of them? Which of them committed murder? It could be any, even the twin who had him go to the Captain's cabin might have come from there earlier.

"Somebody cast the boy into the sea, dead or alive, no difference. Somebody has murdered our Captain."

"The boy," says Pallister. "The shark soul. It killed him and returned to its element."

"You talk like a Reader," spat one of the twins.

Hinks stares at her. "Which one are you? Tell me now."

"I am Jan."

The rest of the crew study her carefully. So, Hinks decides, Jan is the one with her hair tied back and Char the one who was bedding Cheyne, this night, anyway.

"She may be right, Pallister. What matter? If what you say is true then there is no blame or guilt to attach anywhere and I will be glad. But I must be sure."

"What are your thoughts?" asks Pallister.

"I think one of you killed the Captain, and the boy, in disgust," he gazes at all the crew, "or fear," he now looks particularly at Pallister. "And the boy was thrown into the sea to bring belief in your story."

"It could have been you," says Jan.

"Yes, but I know it was not," says Hinks. "Now you and Pallister will come with me and we will once again view the body before it is pa.s.sed on to the Barrelman. The rest of you prepare sail for the morning wind. We head directly for Piezel."

"What weapon is this?" Pallister braces his foot against the Captain's groin and tries to pull the spike from him. His hands slip along the gla.s.sy surface. "Too deeply imbedded, perhaps in his spine. It was put there with some force." Hinks, suspicious of every action now, tries to remove the spike himself. He cannot.

"And what weapon caused this?" asks Jan, pointing at the neatly reamed hole in the Captain's head. Hinks has no answer for her.

"Hinks." Pallister has moved back by the door and is pointing at the floor. "This is not the work of a man." Hinks looks down and sees a trail of slime leading to the door. He turns to the table beside the Captain's bed and picks up the Book of the Sea. As he opens it to the first page there is a scream of horror, turned rapidly to one of agony.

Crew, and he lies in a pool of blood upon the deck. Hinks turns him over gently. Holes have been bored into his neck. Another scream from below just as four more of the crew come onto the deck, amongst them are Cheyne and Char. Cheyne s.n.a.t.c.hes up the metalled great knife and stares at the hatch to the crew quarters.

"What is it? What is happening?"

"Something ... Something killing them," Char replies to her sister.

"What does it look like? Tell me, tell me now," demands Hinks.

"It is a man sometimes, and it crawls. There is slime and a tube like a wood bore ... I cannot ... "

Hinks curses and in the moonlight he opens the book. He searches down the first tissue-thin page and finds the sea-life section: Dangers of the Sea. There are more sharks than he realised, giant squid and flatworms capable of ingesting a man. It is there. He finds it only a few pages in under 'Sea f.a.ges and Related Mullusca'. There is a picture of the gla.s.s dart; a love dart used during mating. It is barbed hence the reason Pallister could not remove it. Another scream just as Hinks reads the section which tells him of the sh.e.l.l they found in the stomach of the shark. Just then the hatch crashes open and out come the Barrelman and two others. All now watch the hatch and wait for what might come next. Pallister has armed himself, and the remaining great knives are shared. Only Barrelman, Hinks, and Jan are without weapons.

"What is it Hinks? Tell us?" asks Pallister, terror barely suppressed in his voice.

"It is a f.a.ge. A kind of mollusc. That was its sh.e.l.l we saw inside the shark," Hinks tells them all, and some of the terror departs. It is named. It is in the Book. Hinks continues to read, moving his finger from word to word, some of them unfamiliar, metamorph and s.h.i.+fter, syphon and ovipositor. He begins to feel a greater dread. The boy ... He turns the page and sees the picture of a man, and something next to it that is half a man.

"Dear G.o.d ... "

He looks up directly at the Barrelman standing behind the shoulder-to-shoulder crew. Out of the corner of his eye the Barrelman returns his regard, but does not turn his head. His head is deforming, pus.h.i.+ng forward and taking on a goatish shape, lips peeling back from something that glistens. The Barrelman is not. It is the f.a.ge.

"Look out!"