The shouting had settled. Some people were still having a little cry, but quietly, not wanting attention. Others were talking about how well we’d done in getting Stinky away in time.

‘I think we should swap the bodies,’ said Kate. And she said it quietly again, like she didn’t really want even us to hear.

‘Swap the bodies?’ I said.

‘Swap them for us,’ she said.

Having just seen Stinky almost get battered to death, trying anything involving those corpses, or even getting close to them, seemed like a very bad idea. ‘Explain,’ I said.

Kate’s cheeks and neck were flushed and blotchy red, and her voice wobbled with the struggle of what she was trying to say. ‘Well, if it can tell where we are because of our weight, then the Jellyfish hasn’t weighed them yet, because they haven’t been on board, so it doesn’t really know they’re here, I don’t think? So if we can get them on board at the same time as we get four people off, then it might not realize those four people have gone.’

‘Wait,’said Lana. ‘No . . . that’s literally the first intelligent thing you’ve said in your entire time here. Because that would also work if it’s tasting us, smelling us and touching us too, wouldn’t it? Because we’d be still swapping humans for humans.’ Her eyes went wide with excitement. ‘So everything that everybody’s arguing about now is completely pointless bollocks, because we’ve got a solution.’

‘Well, we’ve got to get them, then,’ said James, standing up quickly. The bodies hadn’t moved much, but they were slightly further away from us than they’d been five minutes ago. They were slowly drifting towards the shore. ‘Come on. Quick!’

He ran to Stinky and started untying the rope from around his waist. Stinky looked round in confusion for a minute, but then lifted up his arms to let James remove the taut plastic.

‘Hey,’ Lana stood up, and waved her arms around to show everybody she wanted them to listen. She didn’t really need to do that, because most people were quiet now anyway, and everybody’d turned to her the minute she’d spoken, but I think she was really excited.

‘Hey! We’re going to swap those rotting dead bodies, for four of us. It’s Kate’s idea. Kate, you say it.’

‘I might be wrong, though,’ said Kate.

‘You might also be right,’ said Soldier John. ‘So tell us this plan.’