Tors saw it first and laughed at it, as it tracked him with its stalked eyes. He pointed it out to Shib who laughed too, until it jumped the entire length of the deck to land next to him, then leapt again to take off a couple of his fingers. Shib yelled, swung his weapon to bear one-handed, and blew the whelk to pieces just as it jumped again. Later, as Shib stomped about the deck with a dressing on his hand, Frisk wondered how, some time soon, she might lure in a prill or two. That would make things more interesting.

‘We have something,’ said Svan, coming up the ladder.

Frisk turned from the rail with her gun still in her hand. Tors had been giving her some funny looks lately, and she didn’t like it when people came up behind her so quietly. For a moment, she aimed the weapon at Svan’s chest, then she gave a flat smile and holstered it.

‘What do you mean, you “have something”?’

‘All the equipment we brought along, we also brought a spare for,’ said Svan, keeping her expression blank. ‘So we brought a spare biomech detector - to replace the one you trashed.’

Frisk considered killing her right then, but decided that would be wasteful. Anyway, she could later do the job at her leisure, when Svan was no longer of any use to her. Perhaps just an injury for now . . . ? Then she comprehended what Svan was telling her.

‘What have you detected?’ she asked.

‘Somebody is using cyber-joint motors about two hundred kilometres north-west of here. We had an intermittent signal for some time, but we couldn’t pin it down. It has since become constant.’

‘Show me,’ said Frisk, tempted to berate Svan for not informing her earlier.

Svan pulled from her pocket the twin of the detector Frisk had smashed and flipped out its screen. She turned it round to show to Frisk. On the screen was a definite trace, with slowly drifting coordinates. Their source was not a ship under sail then, and if they were quick, they could reach it today. Frisk swivelled to face Drum’s back.

‘Turn the ship to the north-east and increase speed,’ she ordered.

Drum swung the helm and pushed forward the throttle lever. The ship began to drone as the newly installed motor opened up. It left a foaming wake behind it and the wind pushed the sail back against the spars, belling rearwards.

‘Is this as fast as it can go?’ Frisk demanded. When Svan did not answer right away, Frisk turned to glare at her.

Quickly Svan said, ‘This is about half speed, but go any faster and the ship might break up. It’s not made for this kind of treatment.’

‘Might?’ asked Frisk.

‘There’s no way to—’

‘Full speed ahead!’ Frisk yelled.