Windcheater flew on, heading for the horizon of Spatterjay, and all the new horizons he was now discovering. He was but a speck by the time the Batians beached their dinghy in a spray of sand and opened fire en masse on the rhinoworm that reared out of the sea behind them.

* * * *

The worm dropped, flaming, back into the sea, writhed there for a moment as if still intent on coming on to the beach after them, and then grew still. Shib let out a shuddering breath, then quickly wiped at the sweat that was stinging his eyes.

‘Great idea using an inflatable dinghy to get out here. Real classic, that one,’ he snarled.

‘Shut up, Shib,’ said Svan, as she watched the leeches surfacing to take apart the laser-cooked rhinoworm. ‘You know what would happen if we used AG here. The Warden would be up our asses with a thermite grenade about two seconds later.’

‘Yeah, but—’

Svan made a chopping motion with her hand. ‘Enough. You either handle it or you don’t.’

Shib shut up. He knew Svan wasn’t suggesting he could pay back the deposit and go home. Employment contracts with first-rankers like her either ended with a large payout or in a rather terminal manner. He nodded when she gestured towards the boat, then slung his carbine from his shoulder and headed over to the vessel. Upon reaching it, he immediately clicked on the little rotary pump. Joining him, Dime hauled out their packs and tossed them on to the pebbled beach. Shib detached and collapsed the telescopic outboard, and then he and Dime stood back as the dinghy quickly collapsed and shrivelled. The rolled-up dinghy was no wider than a man’s wrist, and with its motor locked beside it, formed a pack that could be tucked under an arm. Dime carried this to the head of the beach and slid it under a spread of sheetlike leaves growing there. Soon all four of them had loaded up their packs and were heading along the beach.

‘Why here?’ Tors asked after a moment.

‘A location easy to find - and our client has business here,’ Svan replied.

Half listening to the conversation, Shib kept his eyes on the dingle. A hideous bird-thing observed him from the branches of a tree with a hugely globular trunk. He had thought the creature dead and decaying until it had moved to follow their progress with its glistening eye-pits. He suppressed his immediate inclination to burn it from its branch. No doubt Svan would take that as one push too many.

‘Do you have any further information on this client?’ Tors asked.

‘Same one as has had the bounty up on Sable Keech for the last three centuries. No way of tracing the transaction without collecting, and no one has managed that yet.’

‘I don’t get how he’s lasted so long,’ said Dime, with an apologetic glance to Shib.