‘It wouldn’t have been poison,’ Prozor said. ‘Poison’s hard to use on a ship. You can’t get rid of it easily and there’s a risk of it poisonin’ the ones you don’t want to poison.’

Drozna settled his gaze on her. ‘Were you thinking of poisoning him, then?’

‘No more than the rest of you were,’ Prozor answered.

‘Fura?’ Trusko asked.

‘I didn’t like him,’ I said, steering the closest path to the truth I could think of. ‘And I’d be lying if I said I was going to shed any tears now. He didn’t like any of us, did he?’

‘He had a certain . . . way,’ Trusko said. ‘But murder is murder, and I can’t countenance it. Besides, I hardly need remind any of you that he was our Assessor. Our only Assessor.’

I glanced at Prozor. Wisely, she was saying nothing for the moment.

‘Look,’ Surt said, with a quiver in her voice. ‘There’s something in his throat. Something coming out of his throat.’

‘Back,’ Trusko said. ‘Everyone.’

I didn’t need the captain’s suggestion for that. I was frightened enough as it was. With his mouth jammed open the way it was, we could see right down past his tongue. And there was something coming up from his gullet, bubbling up into daylight. It was a milky, silvery presence, and it seemed to be climbing up his gullet in deliberate steps, almost putting out feelers each time, like a thief hauling themselves up a chimney.

‘Tweezers,’ Prozor said. ‘Now. Before it gets out.’

‘What is it?’ Trusko asked, while Strambli dashed away to find something that met Prozor’s requirements.

‘Don’t know,’ she said. ‘But it’s alive and inside him, and it’s ten to one this is the thing that had him bawlin’. What we don’t want is it gettin’ out and causing more mischief. Hurry up!’

Strambli was back inside thirty seconds, but it felt like minutes. The milky thing was nearly at the top of Gathing’s mouth by then. The rest of him was still, so it wasn’t some gastric tide coming up from his stomach. It was more like a thing that had climbed into him that was now intent on climbing back out.

Prozor took the tweezers. They were long-handled, which was good. She used one hand to lever Gathing’s jaw a little wider, and then dipped the tweezers in with the other. She poked around a bit, then drew them out with a jerk and a slurp, biting down on her lip with the concentration.

Pinched on the end of the tweezers was a squirming milky ball, with arms and feelers thrashing around and trying to grow away from it. Prozor held it up for us all to see, keeping her fingers safely clear of those feelers.

‘What . . .?’ Trusko said, trailing off.