The heavy resinous yanwood of the ship was not buoyant. Like a steel hull holed in the same manner, it started to go down, water breaking through smashed timbers and gouts of steam blasting from the deck hatches. Boris emerged from one of those hatches, hauling up two sprine carboys on a rope behind him. Once on deck he danced about and swore as he beat out his smouldering clothing. When the ship suddenly lurched and tilted he grabbed the carboys and slid them to the edge, pounded the corks to make sure they were secure, then tossed both containers over the side, down to where the drone floated below. Lying by the shattered rail, to which he had crawled, Roach peered down into the water.

‘This a good idea?’ he queried.

‘The only one,’ confirmed Boris as he helped him to his feet.

Roach was about to say something more when the ship lurched again. Without more ado, they leapt into the sea and splashed towards the carboys. Near the fizzing seahorse the water tingled with an electrical charge and was warmer than expected.

‘Aargh, that smarts,’ yelped Roach.

Boris just grunted an acknowledgement and stared at all the creatures swarming beyond an invisible perimeter. He looked beyond them to where the water swirled occasionally as a large rhinoworm cruised by, snapping up stray leeches.

‘Must tell the Captain he needs floats,’ said Roach.

‘You’ll have to tell him he needs a new ship,’ said Boris. As if to reinforce his words, the ship groaned, slowly tilted further to one side, and water surged inside it, extinguishing the last of the fires. Soon its whole deck was awash, and as if making one last attempt to stay afloat the ship righted itself as it went down. The two masts slid last into the sea, and the water was turned into foam all around by escaping air - not just the activity of leeches and other creatures as they moved in to investigate. For a little while there were remarkably few of these in the water immediately surrounding the two men, but they knew this situation would not continue.

Roach looked alternately thoughtful and sneaky.

‘Ain’t my fault,’ said Roach, both reflection and sneakiness in his tone.

‘No, I guess not,’ said Boris, peering at the little man in the halflight and thinking how it didn’t really matter any more, as he’d soon be joining Goss and the rest of the crew, chewed up in the stomachs of leeches and prill. He checked again that the laser was still in his belt, though exposure to water might prevent it from working.

As the leeches returned from inspecting the empty ship, their cordon appeared to be narrowing and it seemed to Boris that the fizzing around the seahorse had subsided - either that or the leeches were becoming inured to it and slowly moving in on them.

‘Cavalry’s back,’ said Roach, pointing.