Neal Asher - The Engineer Reconditioned

Ambel rowed the boat into the green sand beach, then with two more strokes of the oars brought it up onto the sand. He did it effortlessly, as if it made no difference to him what substance was supporting the boat. They climbed out and Ambel hoisted out his blunderbuss and rested it across his shoulder. There it was again. The thing probably weighed about a hundred kilograms. Ambel ambled up the beach.

“See if we can get another rhino worm. Boxies ain’t that filling, and we need the meat for a sail,” he said. They walked along the green strand ignoring the rustlings and gruntings from the dingle. Erlin was jumpy. Every time anything moved in the tangled undergrowth she had the nib of her laser pointing in that direction. The life forms of Spatterjay seemed to have a propensity for taking chunks out of one, and she would not heal as quickly as crew. Abruptly they all drew to a halt around Ambel, who had stopped and was peering at something in the sand. Erlin took a look and wondered what the problem was. All that lay there was a piece of screening from an old re-entry vehicle. Ambel raised his gaze from the yellowing glassite and stared down to the shoreline. There was quite a distance between.

“Oh shit, I thought it was further west,” said Boris, with feeling.

“Are we… is this… you know?” said Peck.

“Yes,” said Ambel. “Back to the boat.”

At that moment the dingle parted and an arm came out. It was six metres long, thin, and seemed as hard as bone. The long long hand stretched two metres from wrist to fingertip. It was a blue that was almost black. It plucked Peck from the sand and pulled him into the dingle. Erlin stared at what was on the other end of the arm and wasn’t sure she believed what she was seeing. Peck was shrieking as loud as he could. The noise he was making was joined by a loud maniacal laughing and giggling as the dingle closed, then both sounds receded.

“Damn and buggeration!” said Ambel.

Erlin thought that an understatement.

“Back to the boat now, yes?” said Boris eagerly.

“You go,” said Ambel. “Take the Earther back with you.” With that Ambel entered the dingle.

“What was that?”

Boris forced a grin. “Oh, the Skinner. Let’s go now shall we?”

“No,” said Erlin, and quickly followed Ambel. By the time she caught him up she wondered if she had gone insane. The Skinner? The names on Spatterjay were usually quite apt, so what did the Skinner do?

“You should’ve gone back to the ship,” said Ambel, then glanced over her shoulder. “You too.” Erlin looked behind to see Boris approaching, his grin turned rictus on his face.

“Just couldn’t miss the fun,” he said.

They moved on into the dingle, pear-trunk trees ashiver, and suspicious looking vines draped in the branches of something like an inverted pine tree. In all direction the undergrowth tangled all into darkness, yet it was easy to follow the Skinner’s path of crushed vegetation.

“Big one,” said Boris, and they all crouched down at Ambel’s signal and kept very quiet. A giant leech oozed past nearby, waving its wad-cutter at them for a moment.

“They normally don’t bother,” said Ambel. “But if they do you don’t get it back. One got Pland a year or two back. Been a bit cranky ever since.”

Erlin tried to make sense of that. Surely not? The leech’s mouth had been half a metre across.

“Keep away from the pear-trunk trees,” Ambel told her as they moved off again. Pear-trunk trees? She looked up into the branches and saw things hanging there, but they did not look like pears. Of course, the trunk. It was squat and pear-shaped. The bark was real strange though. She wondered about its structure…

“I said keep away—”

The pear-trunk tree shivered and Erlin screamed.

“All right, I got it!” yelled Boris. He tugged on the leech attached to her back and she screamed some more. It took Ambel’s help to pull the leech off. She lay face down in the mould sobbing. She could feel the hole in her back.

“Don’t worry,” said Ambel. “I got it.” He beat the leech on the ground until it released the lump of flesh it had unscrewed. Erlin regarded him with tears streaming from her eyes. God it hurt. Until now the whole process had seemed so unreal.

“That won’t work,” she said as Ambel approached with part of her back between his forefinger and thumb.

“’Course it will,” he said.

He screwed it into her back and the pain immediately started to fade. Slowly she got to her feet and tried to reach around to the wound. There was blood, but she couldn’t quite reach…

“You’re one of us now,” said Boris.

Erlin stared at him. Of course, the leeches. It all made sense now. She had to get her blood under the nanoscope as soon as she could.

“Come on,” said Ambel, shouldering his blunderbuss.

When they reached the putrephallus stand at the edge of the dingle, Erlin refused the mask Boris offered her until the smell hit her, then she snatched it from him and quickly placed it over her face. The weeds were green and, again, well named. There was an Earth fungus that looked similar, but that did not throb quite so disconcertingly.

“See the hill. He lives up there,” said Ambel.

Boris eyed him suspiciously."You’ve been here before.”

“Couple of times. Chopped him up last time and spread him all over the island. Reckon it took him a century or two to pull himself together.”

“Someone tried burning once,” said Boris. “Wouldn’t burn.” The conversation went completely over Erlin’s head. Beyond the putrephallus the hill rose up into a gentle pimple in the centre of the island. Ambel unshouldered his buss and began walking up the slope, his head darting from side to side. Definitely bluer, thought Erlin. Then she looked upslope just as the nightmare loomed into view and came screaming and giggling down towards them, something flaccid, and which she had no wish to identify, held in its long fingers. It was like a man who had been put on a rack for a hundred years, every joint and muscle stretched out impossibly. It was huge blue and spidery and came capering down the hill as if to welcome them. Ambel’s blunderbuss boomed and a great cloud of smoke wafted away. The Skinner went, “Oh!” and fell on its back.

“Quick!” shouted Ambel, drawing his knife. Boris did likewise and followed him. They reached the Skinner just as it sat upright, reached round behind itself, and threadled its long hand through the hole Ambel had made in its chest. Ambel and Boris skidded to a halt.

“Shit!”

“Bugger!”

Erlin ran past them and swiped with her laser scalpel. The Skinner’s long head thudded on the ground and looked at her accusingly. She laughed a little crazily and proceeded to cut the rest of the monster into pieces.

“That’s the ticket!” bellowed Ambel, and proceeded to pick up bits and hurl them in every direction. Boris joined him and soon the Skinner was scattered all over the hillside and in the jungle below, barring the head that Ambel held onto, and the flaccid thing it had been carrying. Erlin saw it direct for the first time and immediately threw up.

“Oh God! Peck!”

It was Peck, outwardly.

Ambel looked at Boris and nodded towards the skin. Boris picked it up and shook it, then turned it around and peered at the split from the circle cut around the anus to the one cut around the mouth.

“He’s gonna be a bit cranky for a while,” said Boris.

Ambel nodded in agreement. Erlin turned away. They had both gone mad, she had to get help for them. When she turned back they were walking back up the hill. She quickly followed. She had nothing left to throw up when she followed them into the basin in the top of the hill. She just retched a little. The rest of Peck was jammed between two rocks, writhing about and making horrible noises. Erlin followed them down and watched in horror as they dragged him down and dropped him on the ground. All his muscles she could see, all his veins. His lidless eye-balls glared up at the sky. She advanced with her laser switched on. It was the only merciful thing to do.