‘Forlam,’ said Peck. ‘He’s a bit buggered,’ he explained.

* * * *

When it was fully dark, Vrell finally summoned the nerve to pull himself from his muddy hideaway. This at first proved difficult because the mud had meanwhile dried into a hard crust over the top of him. When he eventually broke free, much of this crust still stuck to his carapace; a weight more difficult to carry now he was reduced to being quadrupedal.

With his extra burden, Vrell moved slowly down towards shore, anxious to make as little noise as possible. Even this proved difficult, since Prador were not by nature adapted for travelling through thick dingle; their home world consisted of shallow seas, wide and level tidal areas, and extensive saltpans. However carefully he moved, Vrell kept knocking over trees as he progressed, thus getting so many leeches swarming on him that every so often he had to stop to tip them off. The worst of it was that he was no longer invulnerable to the creatures. The sensitive burned flesh of his burst claw was open to their attack, as was the raw area on his side where his shell had been charred to powder. Every time he wrenched an eager leech from his wounds, he hissed like a steam kettle and cursed all humans.

Half the night, it took Vrell to reach the shore, and finally squatting on the beach there, he gazed out at the glowing lanterns of the ships moored in the cove. For a while he felt confusion, then he understood and lowered himself dejectedly to the sand. Of course: Drum. Somehow the Captain had foiled his father’s plan, which meant that he, Vrell, had also failed. Father would depart now and find some other means to accomplish his ends.

Vrell unfolded one of his remaining arms and gazed at the device held in his complex hand comprised of fingers and hooks. With the blanks all around him directly linked to his father, there had been, up till now, no need for this. But he had brought it along anyway, in the eventuality of all the blanks being killed. It was a communicator that linked him with his father’s destroyer. He could call now and speak. He could call now and ask his father for instructions. With a sinking depression, he lowered the communicator. He already knew what those instructions would be: something along the lines of, ‘Return inland, kill and die.’ This was not what Vrell wanted to hear. Instead of using the communicator, he slid himself down the beach into the sea to soak off the weight of mud on his back.

With the cool water soothing his wounds and the mud slewing from him, Vrell carefully studied his surroundings, noticing all the dead sea creatures floating on the surface. Seeing such a preponderance of dead leeches raised his spirits a little, till he began to think more positively. He had done all he could, and only failed because the odds were insurmountable. Perhaps his father would make the small diversion necessary to pick him up, before quitting the planet. Perhaps Vrell could get out to the destroyer and be taken aboard?