The Spinner went into full stop and dropped anchor while the small ship-to-shore dinghy was lowered off the stern. A dozen of Harcourt’s electrical buoys were dropped around the ship and the dinghy towed them into a rough circle, connecting them with a thick cable – much thicker than the original one which had burnt out during their earlier field tests – which had been commandeered from an Oraillean signalling outpost engaged in the ceaseless task of repairing the great trans-Antaean clatter network. Harcourt had theorised that the vortices were an automatic and unthinking response to their presence in the subornation zone, like antibodies swarming at an invading pathogen (‘As if we were the disease!’ she’d snorted, indignant), and indeed it did seem that the more unobtrusively they acted, the less violent were the vortices. Their progress through the Flats was therefore painstakingly slow, but even at best the vortices only left them alone for a matter of hours.
The cable ran back up on deck to a series of huge, improvised capacitors which looked like a row of black beehives, and the dinghy hauled at speed back to the Spinner.
And they waited.
She ignored the shouts and pleas from those on the raft. They were not responsible for what they were saying, she reminded herself. They would be restored to rationality soon enough.
The waiting, as ever, was not long.
With a great roaring, sucking noise a vortex nearly a dozen feet in diameter opened just beyond the ring of buoys, with a second appearing seconds later just to one side. Their effect on the ocean nearby started to draw the ring out of true.
‘Steady!’ Harcourt ordered.
The crew stood on wooden duckboards to insulate themselves from the ship’s steel hull, and made sure that they carried no metal objects; several of them were already burned as a result of prior carelessness.
A third vortex popped into existence.
‘Contact!’
He threw a lever, the capacitors discharged with a purple flash and a deafening crack, and the vortices everted into three waterspouts which collapsed at a harmless distance. Moments later, dozens of electrocuted fish drifted to the surface. The buoys were reclaimed, the cable re-coiled, and the Spinner completed its destruction of Stray’s booms before turning towards the raft itself, followed all the while by a retinue of tiny floating corpses.
Numbly, the Strays huddled together and watched the metal ship churn to within hailing distance and stop, loosing a fat black belch of smoke and smuts. At its prow stood a woman in a high-necked uniform – she was scorched in places, static electricity made her cropped dark hair stand out around her ahead like a sea urchin, and her eyes burned with the fervour of absolute conviction.
‘I am Officer Berylin Hooper, of the Oraillean Department of Counter Subornation,’ she declared. ‘By the authority of King Alexander the Seventh, and in the name of all the peoples of this world, I command you to send out to me the dreamer who has caused this abomination.’ She smiled, and to Bobby and his friends it was the smile of death itself. ‘I have come to deliver you all from your nightmare.’
‘What gives you the right?’ yelled Lachlan, his face a mask of sorrow and rage.
She continued as if she hadn’t heard him. ‘Very well. My man will board soon with a sal volatile aerosol spray to determine which amongst you is the dreamer. I understand that you are frightened and confused, but please, violence would be unwise. Whilst I want to return you to your ordinary lives, my commitment is to the common good and I will not hesitate to use deadly force against any of you who endanger that.’
At her command, half a dozen members of the Spinner’s crew took up positions with rifles on the deck and the upper level of the wheel-house, where Runce stood to direct their fire. Even though the top of the Hub was still slightly higher, Stray had nothing to answer their threat – not even much by way of cover.
‘This is our ordinary life!’ Lachlan retorted. ‘This is our home, damn you!’
‘I know you believe that to be true,’ she replied with something like compassion. ‘But I’m afraid it simply isn’t. You are fisherfolk and traders with real lives somewhere out on those islands – all except one of you, and as soon as I know which one that is I can end this illusion and return you to those lives. You can’t see that now, but you will, I promise you. Trust me.’
‘Trust you!’ Bobby laughed. ‘What happened to you ending me where I stand?’
‘I had hoped to do this in a civilised manner,’ she responded, and her face turned cold. She raised a pistol and pointed it at him. ‘Though that is still an option.’
‘Look, wait. Hang on a second.’ Allie stepped in front of Bobby, alarmed at the way this was going. ‘This is ridiculous. You’re right, we don’t belong here. But we don’t have lives in this world, despite what you think. We don’t belong here at all. We’re not subordinated, or whatever you call it.’
‘Then where else could you possibly be from?’
‘We’re all dreamers.’
Lachlan hid his face. Berylin laughed in utter disbelief. ‘All of you? Really, my dear, think how ridiculous that sounds. Isn’t it more likely that it’s exactly what the dreamer has caused you to believe? Bring him out to me and I can end this delusion. And even if it were true, all the more reason for me to rid this place of you.’
‘But we’re not hurting anyone!’
‘In the name of Reason, listen to yourself! In the time you’ve been here nearly fifty individuals from the nearby islands have disappeared in the Flats. Those are fathers, mothers, and children. Gone. You’ve destabilised the politics of an entire region and drawn neutral countries like my homeland into a petty foreign squabble which may boil over into a full-scale war. And you claim to be hurting no-one? Did you really think you could come here and have no effect? In any event, what you’re doing or not doing is completely irrelevant. You could be healing the sick for all I care; it is your very existence which is an affront, and one which I intend to rectify. I will ask you a third and final time: send out the dreamer, and we can end this peacefully.’ Behind her, another half-dozen of the crew were readying themselves in the dinghy with ropes and cudgels.
Bobby threw up his hands in surrender. ‘Fine!’ he shouted. ‘You win! I’ll go and get her.’
Allie tried to catch his arm. ‘Bobby, you can’t give them Sophie,’ she protested, but he shook her off.
‘Why not? I’m certainly not going to die for her, after everything she’s done. You heard that woman. We have no choice! I’d rather go with something like a bit of dignity than be herded up like cattle.’
She followed him down the steps of the Hub. When he was sure that they were out of earshot he said to her quietly: ‘Of course I’m not going to give them Sophie. What do you take me for?’
‘Well what are you going to do, then?’
‘Something you’re going to like even less.’
2
Sophie was in her chamber, huddled by the edge of her pool and staring into it with red-rimmed, haunted eyes. The chain was taut in her hands and idling around in the water so that it looked for all the world like she was stirring it with a rod made of welded links rather than what was actually happening: that it was taking every ounce of her strength to simply keep it in one place. Every so often the chain would give a swift jerk as if the creature on the other end was testing her, playing her as if she were the fish and it the angler.
Bobby knelt beside her and took her wrists in his hands. He could feel the tension thrumming in them like electricity. Her sinews were metal rods.
‘Sophie.’
‘I told you. I warned you. Wake up while you can, I said. Now it’s too late.’
‘Sophie, you have to let it go.’
She looked directly at him, and he saw for the first time how much she desperately wanted to do that, as well as the furious turmoil of dread, pride and hatred which refused to let her. Its power took him
by surprise – how could someone so damaged be so strong? ‘No!’ she rasped. ‘Never! Never let it go. Starve it. Kill it.’
‘Sophie, it’s not your decision any more. It’s out of your hands. That Hooper woman is going to send you and me and the rest of us back no matter what we do, and the araka will get loose anyway. You’ve got nothing to lose. Let it go!’
‘NO!’ Her mind was set as rigidly as her arms.
He hunkered closer. ‘I don’t have time for this. I need the monster. I can’t help you, and I’m sorry about that, but I can’t let Allie get sent back either. I’m not going to allow it. I wish there was some other way of doing this, but I’m all out of options. Help me. Don’t make me do this by force.’ The string around her neck with the key to her chain was clearly visible and very thin. It wouldn’t take much to simply snatch it. He’d have to be quick, though – she was stronger than she looked.
She searched his face, considering and calculating. ‘Okay,’ she said finally. ‘On one condition.’
‘Name it.’
She told him.
He paled, but agreed without hesitation.
When he unlocked the manacle from her wrist, she unleashed a cry of such forlorn loss and ecstatic release that everything within hearing – even the araka itself – paused uneasily. Then she collapsed; he caught and eased her down gently, as the chain whipped past them and into the water in a furious bandsaw din so fast that the individual links were a blur. The manacle clattered over the edge and was gone.
3
He went back out to the dock, and to the astonishment of Strays and Orailleans alike, he put his hands up in surrender.
‘All right, then,’ he called to Berylin. ‘I admit it. I am the dreamer. You’ve caught me bang to rights. Well played, Officer. I will surrender to you aboard your ship.’
Runce’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. ‘Too easy!’ he called down to her.
‘Easy?’ Berylin shot back. ‘Exactly which part of this investigation would you describe as difficult?’
‘Then at least don’t allow him aboard. Zap him where he stands.’
‘Runce, caution is one thing, but I swear you are becoming paranoid. Look at him. He’s unarmed, injured – Reason’s sake, he’s virtually naked. Besides, think of what we can learn from him about the Realt; this is an unparalleled opportunity. It could be the making of our careers.’
‘Or the death of us all,’ he growled.
‘Now you are simply being melodramatic. Bo’sun!’ she called. ‘Bring that man aboard!’
They sent the dinghy for him, bound his hands in front so that he could climb, and before long he was being marched aboard the Spinner, the hot metal of the deck burning his bare soles. A crowd of nervous-looking crewmen hovered nearby clutching weapons, and Runce had made it very clear to Bobby that at the first sign of anything protean he would put a bullet between his eyes and see if he could redream the reality of that. Bobby didn’t know what ‘protean’ or ‘redream’ meant, but he caught the gist.
Captain Mair peered down at him scornfully from the balcony of the wheelhouse. ‘So this is the big threat we travelled a quarter of the way around the world to deal with, is it?’ he sneered. ‘Sorry bloody specimen, if you ask me. Somebody get the doctor to bind his wounds, would you? I’ll not have him bleeding like a stuck pig in one of my cabins.’
A crewman moved to obey, but Harcourt stopped him. ‘Wait. Let me see him.’ He peered at the cut on Bobby’s hand and the spiralling tentacle wound on his calf, both of which were bleeding freely. ‘Excuse me, Miss Hooper,’ he said uncertainly, ‘weren’t these bandaged up when he was waving to us earlier?’
Bobby smiled.
Their eyes followed the trail of his blood back along the deck to where he’d been brought on board, the smears of it on the ladder which he’d climbed from the dinghy, the spatters of it in the dinghy itself, and the ruby-red pearls of it sinking slowly through the water from when he’d allowed his tied hands to dangle over the side as they’d rowed him over from Stray. They were disappearing, like a string of fairy lights going out one after another, and something massive seethed in the water between the ship and the raft.
Buster raced to the foredeck and began barking at the shadow in the water.
‘Get him off the ship!’ shrieked Berylin. ‘Get him off now!’
The shadow in the water glided down the Spinner’s port side, following the trail of Bobby’s blood, and where he had climbed aboard, exploratory black limbs emerged from the water to examine the ship’s metal hull. They slithered over the rail and up the superstructure, stroking portholes and testing door handles. Tracking him. Some of the men standing by Runce murmured uneasily.
‘Steady, lads,’ he ordered, ‘it’s not after us.’ But it was already too much for somebody below. One of the crew jumped forward, yelling at the top of his voice and waving a boat-hook pole which he smashed down on the nearest tentacle. Runce cursed.
All hell broke loose.
The limb flinched, but only briefly, and then half-a-dozen more seethed forward to grab the engineer and haul him screaming into the air, where he was shredded into a bloody mess in moments. The other tentacles exploded into a whipping frenzy, ripping the railings apart and flinging around any objects they could seize on. The force of the araka’s sudden fury shoved the Spinner hard, rocking the deck and making people stagger for balance. Another crewman fell close, was grabbed by the legs, but managed to get a grip on the railing and hung there shrieking for his mates, two of whom cut at the limb with billhooks and knives until all three of them were dragged in, and the sea boiled a foamy pink. Alarm bells rang, and frantic orders were shouted all over the ship. Mair roared for full astern and the Spinner’s prop churned as she sluggishly began to obey.
Bobby took advantage of the chaos and ran for the other side of the ship.
Berylin cursed and gave chase.
From the upper level of the wheel-house, Runce ordered a volley of fire into the writhing shapes and was gratified to see them recoil, leaving splashes of stinking black-green blood. He ordered a second volley, and a third, at which the creature seemed to get the message and withdrew completely. Tempting though it was to simply tez the bugger, he couldn’t be sure that he wouldn’t electrocute half the crew in the process, himself included. He praised his boys.
‘Eyes open, lads!’ he said. ‘If you see it pop up again, don’t keep it to yourself.’
Somewhere in the back of her mind, Berylin knew that chasing after Jenkins so closely and so fast was a stupid idea, but something about the way he’d smiled at her when he’d held up his bloodied hands had lit a fuse in her head that she couldn’t put out. It had been laid a long time ago and had been getting shorter ever since. She certainly didn’t need the force of him barrelling into her from where he’d been hiding around the corner to tell her exactly how stupid it was – but she got it anyway. He shoulder charged her, his heavier weight easily pinwheeling her sideways off her feet, and her left hip struck the gunwale painfully as she flipped overboard.
It was only her reflexes which saved her: her outstretched left hand grabbed the gunwale as she went over, but the pistol flew from her right and was gone forever. She scrabbled for a hold with her now-empty hand, found it, and hung, barely a yard above the waterline. Then slowly she began to to pull herself back up.
‘Runce!’ she called.
He turned, saw, and pushed past the riflemen to throw himself down the metal stairs to the deck, skidding most of the way, and ran to help her.
‘Your gun,’ she demanded, once she’d regained her footing. He gave her his revolver without question. ‘I’ll deal with Jenkins,’ she continued. ‘Keep the tez and take care of that monstrosity.’
‘Aye, ma’am.’
Bobby, meanwhile, had run out of ship. Behind the wheel-house, a narrow strip of deck extended either side of the ship’s
superstructure – a long, blocky construction from which rose first the main engine funnel, then a series of hatches, grilles, vents, and finally the main engine compartment. He ducked past a couple of portholes before he reached the very stern, where there was only a raised wooden platform for launching the dinghy, and then the sea. He crouched in the small gap between the rear of the engine room and the platform and tried to catch his breath. The thought of trying to dive clear was tempting, except that unless he could untie his hands he’d drown.
The ship gave a sudden violent lurch. Were they ramming Stray? Strange sounds of groaning metal came up through the deck from below.
There was no time to puzzle it out, because from behind and around the corner to his left, a metal door clanged open. Shouts. An engineer stepped around the corner: soot stained, wild-eyed, with a heavy wrench held high. Bobby pistoned himself upwards and sideways into a clumsy headbutt which connected with the point of the other man’s chin, snapping his head back. The rear of the engineer’s skull bounced off the wall behind him, and he fell in a heap.
More shouts.
He saw riflemen on the wheelhouse balcony turning in his direction – at least they weren’t aiming at Stray anymore, he thought – and that insane woman clambering along the side towards him. She levelled a heavy pistol. Next to him, the open doorway of the engine room was a black hole. Christ alone knew what was in there.
Bullets spat at him, whining off steel.
He threw himself sideways, into the darkness.
The floor of the Spinner’s engine room was much lower than deck level and reached by half a dozen steps that he completely failed to see, a fact which almost certainly saved his life. He fell, twisting, and landed heavily on his shoulder, aware only that someone had swung something large at him by the reverberating clang it made when it missed and struck a pipe where his head should have been. Winded, all he could do was lie there and watch as the bearded mass of the Spinner’s chief stoker raised his shovel to drive it down into his skull.
He raised his bound hands feebly. ‘Wait,’ he tried to say, but all that came out was a pathetic wheezing noise. As last words, he’d been hoping for better.
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