‘Oh, Olian, we can chat about all this back in your wonderful tower. Then you can show me your wonderful museum. I’ve read quite a bit about it, and have always wanted to see it.’

Tay engaged the old grav motor and lifted the AGC into the air. She considered making a grab for the stranger’s gun, as up here might be her only chance. Perhaps this woman did not realize how long Tay had been a Hooper, and just how strong she was.

‘You know, Olian, you wouldn’t know how old this body is, just by looking at it, and how long it has been Hooper,’ said the woman.

Tay said nothing for a moment. This body. Not my body, not me. That one phrase was all the confirmation Tay needed. She felt suddenly very small and vulnerable, even though her captor seemed smaller and more fragile than she. She knew now who this person was, and that there wouldn’t be a lot she could do if she did get hold of the weapon. The woman sitting next to her could break her like a ship Captain could.

‘You’re Rebecca Frisk,’ she said.

‘Of course I am,’ said the woman.

As she brought the AGC in to land on the roof of her tower, Tay became absolutely certain that she would die if she was not very careful. And even then . . .

‘Out,’ said Frisk, once the grav motor wound down.

Tay climbed out of the AGC, calculating all the way how she might survive this. That Frisk had come to see her out of curiosity, she had no doubt; that she left death and destruction behind her wherever she went was a matter of historical fact.

‘What do you want here?’ she asked, as Frisk followed her to the stairwell.

‘I want to see your museum,’ said Frisk.

9

Prill and leeches had gathered in huge numbers, snapping up stray pieces of flesh while adding to the chaos by attacking each other - or the glisters, even though that gained them nought - and tearing the fragments into smaller fragments as they squabbled over them. Visibility in the water was now atrocious, what with all that activity disturbing the seabed and all the spurting spillage from tender organs. This detritus of broken bodies and stirred-up silt was also so thick in the water that little else could be tasted. And, what with the rattling and clattering of prill and the bubbling and hissing sussuration of leeches obliterating most other sounds, what happened next was predictably unfortunate.

‘Something coming,’ said Ron, his eye to his telescope.

Janer looked out over the sea but for a moment could see nothing. He then discerned a distant dot coming towards them and growing larger. He unhooked his intensifier and quickly focused on the object.

‘I’ll be damned,’ he said.

‘What?’ asked Erlin.