‘What’s your interest, Prador?’ asked Svan. ‘Her I can understand. She wants Keech off her back. She wants him dead. What’s in it for you?’

‘Friendship,’ said Speaker.

‘Answer the question then I’ll do what you ask,’ said Svan with contempt.

‘You don’t believe I do this for friendship’s sake?’ asked the Prador through its Speaker.

‘No, I don’t.’

‘Very well - politics. Our Kingdom is slowly but certainly developing closer ties with the Polity. As these ties grow, I become ever more of an outcast in my own society because of my connections with the trade in cored humans. I have come here to sever all such connections.’

‘But Frisk is one of those connections,’ said Svan.

‘I do have a certain affection for her,’ said Speaker.

‘Keech is also one,’ said Shib, ‘but surely you could have left him to her, to us.’

‘There are others too,’ said the distant Prador.

‘Who?’ asked Svan.

‘Anyone who was once a slave here when the coring operation was being run. They are still here, many of them. They are people like Drum: the Old Captains.’

‘All witnesses,’ said Svan, nodding in understanding. Shib eyed her questioningly. She explained, ‘It’s the nature of Prador politics. Since anything written or recorded can be falsified, only the verbal statements of witnesses are given any credence in law. It basically works out that you can get away with anything so long as you leave no living witnesses to it.’

‘In this you are correct,’ said Speaker.

‘Be difficult tracking them all down,’ said Shib.

‘For really important events, all the Old Captains come together in Convocation. The presence of Hoop’s mistress here would certainly bring about such a Convocation.’

‘Then what?’ said Shib.

‘They are very primitively armed here.’

‘Point taken,’ said Shib.

Svan pulled her stun gun from her belt and altered the setting. Shib watched her for a moment, then did the same with his own.

‘Let’s go put our leader to sleepy-byes then,’ she said.

Up on deck Frisk was still blasting away at this and that - and giggling at things only she could see.

* * * *

‘I can’t even begin to imagine such suffering as he experienced,’ said Janer, watching the sun descend into dull sunset.

‘None of us can,’ replied Erlin. ‘It’s beyond even his understanding - which is why his mind died, why he became Ambel.’

‘I’m confused,’ said Janer.

‘That’s not surprising,’ said Erlin. ‘It’s a very long and involved story.’

‘No, not about that - just about a couple of other points,’ he said.

Erlin watched him and waited.