The Skinner

‘No blood in him,’ said Janer, ‘just fibres.’

‘Yes, I couldn’t even get a sample by opening his arm with a scalpel. Anyway, on we travelled with a sail hanging on the mast and frog whelks leaping on board, trying to take a chunk out of me, and even though I was truly begi

‘Ski

‘No. It’s the name of the occupant and his occupation.’

Janer waited for her to continue, and after a long pause she did.

‘We lost the sail again because the stored meat had worms in it. Even they were extreme, and I had to hide in my cabin until they were all removed from the ship. Ambel towed the Treader to a nearby island and he, Peck and A

‘Keeps the virus in abeyance,’ said Janer.

‘Oh yes,’ said Erlin. ‘But what happens to a human who doesn’t get to eat Earth food at all? You know, ever since ECS drove Hoop and his crew away, there has always been Earth food available here. Hoopers could only grow a few adapted varieties that Hoop himself established here, but they were still enough. If such food had not been available there would have been no humans here when the Polity returned.’

‘They die without it?’ Janer asked.

Erlin gave a humourless laugh and gazed out to where the sun was sinking into a mantel of grey clouds which almost had the appearance of floating mud flats.

‘It would be better if they did. They do not: they just cease to be human — we know this because Hoopers have been stranded and unable to obtain Dome-grown food… Peck, it seems, had been taken by one of these creatures that had once been human — a creature they called the Ski

‘So… you went ashore.’

‘Yes, we went ashore and we saw this Ski

‘What did it have in its hand?’ Janer asked, getting right to the point, even though he thought he might already know the answer.

‘It was Peck’s entire skin.’

‘Jesu! The poor bastard.’

Erlin gazed at him now with a slightly crazy look in her eyes. ‘Yes, he was. When you meet him you’ll have to ask him all about it,’ she said.

‘What,’ said Janer, ‘he survived?’

‘Oh yes. Ambel picked up his skin and we went to find him. When we found him, skinless, writhing in a bowl-shaped rock, I tried to put him out of his misery. Ambel knocked the laser out of my hand, then he, A

‘You’re kidding.’

‘Am I? You know what sticks in my mind the most?’

‘What?’

‘How they punched holes through his skin to let the air bubbles escape… so they could squeeze the air out through the punctures. They carried him back to the boat and out to the ship, but he managed to climb on board himself. There, you see, the raw extremes… those are what I saw.’

Janer watched her as she stared into the descending night. Perhaps she was a bit deranged. He did not want to openly call her a liar.

8

The turbid were all either dead or fled, and now the glisters fed with alacrity. As, one after another, they gobbled down turbid bodies, their own bodies expanded hugely to accommodate their gorging but, unlike the frog whelk which had caused all this furore, they had sub-shells which slid into place to protect newly exposed flesh swelling between original segments of shell. It was a rather hasty and frenetic banquet, for a glister feeding on one end of a turbul’s body was hard-pressed to eat half of it before coming nose to nose with the uninvited diners. On each occasion this happened the glister might snatch a between-meals snack of prill or leech before moving on to the next turbul — the fish’s flesh being so much sweeter and more tender, and definitely to be preferred.

Keech shook with fever. His nerves were regenerating very quickly and when he could stand the pain no longer, he shut down some of the co

N-FACT MESSAGE: BALM DRAINED. WATER REQUIRED — 8 LITRES.

The nano-changer program was fully online. Keech got unsteadily to his feet, picked up the cleansing unit and walked down to the edge of the rock. He stared out across the slow dark roil of the sea and thought for a moment that something further was wrong with his vision, until he realized that night was descending. He looked down and saw below the water’s surface, whelks of one kind or another, clinging to the stone, their shells seemingly formed of coiled gold and veined jade. He drew his pulse-gun before kneeling and dropping the unit in the water. No reaction from the whelks. Perhaps they became somnolent in darkness — or perhaps they did not consider him edible.

Immediately the unit began taking in water. He could feel it suffusing his flesh and cooling him. Was his bone marrow producing red blood cells now? What would happen first? In seeming answer, his arms began to itch intolerably. As he scratched at them, grey skin began to slew away. His hope of seeing pink skin underneath was dashed when flesh as white as fish meat was revealed. He stopped scratching and inspected his fingernails. Two of them were bent right back. He shook his hand and they fell out, pus now leaking from the ends of his fingers.

N-FACT MESSAGE: DANGER — TANK AMNIOT UNSUITABLE. ELECTROLYTIC REQUIREMENTS…

Keech turned the message off. He wasn’t in a tank. The nearest electrolyte he could immerse himself in was this sea, and that seemed a suicidal idea. He’d just have to pray that Erlin could help him. When his irrigator automatically moistened his already wet living eye, he reached up and unplugged it. Some things seemed to be working, anyway. Once the unit stopped drawing in water, he stood, picked it up, and headed unsteadily for his scooter. The nanites could still work on his body while he was in the air, so there was no point in waiting here any longer. He mounted his scooter and dropped the unit between his thighs. From the comlink came that familiar strange buzzing the instant he turned it on.