Manipulator arms lifted a thick section of the hull away, and another arm reached in and picked up Uzoma, almost gently, around the waist. Once they were pulled out through the hull, another manipulator reached in, its claw unfurling with dozens of intricately jointed digits, and immediate fear overcame stunned horror sufficiently for Elena to race after Sebastien as he slammed the door open and rushed into the corridor.

He stabbed the door-close button, and the claw clattered against it from the other side. “Come on. We have to get to the control room. Robin, do you know how to make the ship explode from there?”

“I can talk you through it. You should be able to set up a chain reaction and escape before it blows. I found some kind of access tunnel or duct or… I don’t know what. I’m in the walls. We might be safe here. It’s too small for that big bug thing to follow.”

Elena and Sebastien made their way to the control room. The panels had been ripped open, wiring exposed, and something was rooting around inside, audibly clattering. “What’s happening in there?”

“I don’t know–” Sebastien said, and then something dropped from the ceiling onto his head, driving him to the ground. Elena shouted in alarm and jumped back.

It was the crab-spider-thing Uzoma had described, its body no bigger than a dessert plate, but bristling with manipulators, one of which plunged into the back of Sebastien’s head.

Elena reared back and kicked the robot as hard as she could, and managed to break half the spider’s legs, making them stick up at jagged angles. The other half of the legs held on, though, and dug deeper into Sebastien’s head, the spider clamping itself on to his scalp like a tight-fitting skullcap.

There was a clank, and a piece of metal covered the hole the spider had dropped through. Were the machines out there re-sealing the Anjou’s hull? But why?

She knelt to look at Sebastien, whose eyes fluttered. She tugged at the spider-thing but couldn’t wrench it free; it was set deep in the bones of his skull. “Sebastien? Are you all right?”

He groaned and rolled over. He looked at her, blinking. One of his eyes was filmed and glowing red, but the other was clear. “I– Elena, you look so strange…” Silver tendrils began to crawl around his scalp and the sides of his face.

Elena moved away. “Don’t worry, Sebastien, we’ll– whatever that thing did to you, we’ll fix it, OK?”

Robin was shouting over the tablet, but Elena couldn’t make out what she was saying, and it couldn’t be more important than whatever was happening to Sebastien, anyway.