[Danny]

*sigh* here's another chapter, you ungrateful wretches...

CHAPTER 21

I never understood why, but Vint never again mentioned the events that had occurred in the Navigation Room. At first I thought that he’d blocked out the memories, but I noticed that he still gave me the occasional odd glance, and seemed slightly suspicious of me for a long time afterwards. I think he probably just recognised that this was something that I wouldn’t like the others all to know about, so he respected what he saw as my secret. I still don’t know if any of them asked him about the bloodstains, and what his reply was.

We confirmed that Carthag was indeed the next stop, and that we should reach it in two more days, if I’d correctly counted the number of days we’d been here for. It was a port in the far southern part of Mudos, not far from the edge of the Great Forest. Verkat wasn’t on the map, and the map covered all of Mudos and some of the outlying islands. This made us all the more determined to leave at Carthag, as it meant that Verkat was probably on Pardos or even Samdos, and probably had tight security.

We decided to set up a kind of shift system like the one we’d had in Cyrcit; one of us would go up on deck, and keep an eye out for land, one would keep an eye out for the crew, and the rest would sleep, unless we needed more food.

It was early morning on the second day of the shifts that Yan woke me up.

“Ulven?”

I stirred, mumbling, and felt a hand closing over my mouth. I opened my eyes to see Yan crouched over me, with one hand over my mouth and the other holding a finger to his own lips. I nodded, acknowledging his finger, and he released my mouth.

“What’s up?” I whispered.

Yan bent closer to me. “The Crew have got patrols out all over the hold. They must be getting ready to catch us when we try to leave the ship.”

“Who’s up top?”

Yan thought for a second. “Rixx, I think.”

“How long have the patrols been out there?”

“They just appeared a few minutes ago. I don’t think they’re quite ready yet, so I thought it might be best to wake you now, and see what people wanted to do.”

Vint, lying beside me, stirred. I stood over him, with my finger over my lips. He moaned a little, but stopped when he saw me. He mouthed the word: ‘What?’

“Crew. Wake the others.”

I climbed up the side of a crate, and peered over the top. I couldn’t see anything at first, but I could hear the rapid tapping of the crew’s hard-soled boots. I climbed back down, to see that Ulp and Olek had been awoken. Quiss slept on; they’d made no attempt to awaken him.

“What should we do?”

Vint looked up at me. “We could wait here, until the crew disembark. Then we leave before their replacements arrive.”

Yan shook his head. “They wouldn’t leave the ship before the replacements get here, especially not now that they know we’re here.”

Ulp spoke up. “We should leave the Hold and get up on the Deck, before the patrols get themselves sorted out.”

Yan nodded, and Vint began to pack his backpack.

I stepped into the centre. “Do we have any weapons?”

Ulp looked up at me. “I think we’ve got a few rifles we nicked from the crates.”

“How many?”

Ulp opened his pack. “I’ve got three.”

Yan was holding another two. “And I’ve got two.”

Ulp smiled. “We only need four, so we’ve got more than we need.”

“What about Rixx?”

Ulp shot me a disgusted look. “We’re not giving the slig a rifle.”

“He hasn’t betrayed us yet.”

“And we’re not giving it the chance. Where is it now, might I ask?”

Yan looked out. “Up top.”

Ulp stood. “You let it go out alone? It’ll betray us to the crew first chance it gets!” He began to climb out.

“Ulp! Don’t start this; we don’t have time.” Vint’s wearied call came too late; Ulp was gone.

Sighing, Yan picked up his pack and followed. “I’ll follow him; you guys join us on deck when you’re ready.”

“Wait.” I threw Yan three of the rifles; one each for him, Ulp, and Rixx. “You’ll probably need these.”

Yan smiled. “Thanks.” And he was gone. I turned to the others. “Olek, could you carry Ulp’s bags; we’ve got our own to carry, and Quiss to help along, not to mention rifles.”

Olek sighed and stood up, which was a complicated manoeuvre for a Glukkon. “Sure. Whatever.”

Vint and me helped him to put on Ulp’s bags, and then we lifted Quiss, with one arm each across our shoulders.

I looked at Vint. “We ready?”

He nodded, so we left the crate for the last time. We normally walked on top of the crates, but that would have been too risky, considering the patrols up there. I felt surprisingly calm and collected. In a way, I suppose my actions in the Navigation Room had built my confidence; whatever happened, I would be able to deal with it. It would be risky, but it was possible that I might be able to… to harness the Killer, and use him for my own purposes. The difficulty would be in getting him to let go, and not to overdo it, as he had in the Navigation Room. But that time, he had taken total control; I wouldn’t be letting him get that far in future: he would go as far as I needed him to, then I would rein him in. I was quite excited at the prospect of attempting to control the Killer, rather than being controlled by him. There was, of course, a rational part of me that knew that I’d never be able to control the Killer, but I pushed that down within my mind.

To my relief [and disappointment] we reached the Hatchway without incident. Vint let me take Quiss’s weight, while he quickly spun the wheel to open the hatchway. We didn’t see the guards at first, and they let us all get out of the hatch before they fired a warning shot over our heads. Spinning around, I saw two mudokons standing on the roof above the hatchway, and found myself staring down a rifle barrel. My own rifle was slung on my back, as was Vint’s, and we were both encumbered by Quiss’s limp form.

“It’s the end of the line for you, now!” The mudokon who had spoken tightened his finger on the trigger of his rifle, which was the one aimed at me. The other mudokon reached over with his free hand and stayed him.

“Hold on, we shouldn’t just kill them. The Captain’ll want to see them, and we’ll be cautioned for killing them without a hearing or anything.”

The first mudokon stared at him. “Did you see what they did to the First Officer? They slit his throat with his own arm bone!”

The other mudokon, who seemed to be in charge, sighed. “I know, but we have to give them a chance. It was self-defence, after all.”

His companion stared at him in disbelief. “You didn’t see the bodies. That was NOT self-defence.”

While his crewmate kept his gun levelled at me, the sympathetic guard approached us, and began to disarm us.

I tried to make contact with the Killer, to bring just a part of him to the surface. Nothing. It was as if he wasn’t even there within me. I was about to give up in frustration, when I felt something. I saw, in my mind’s eye, the Killer before me, his bloodstained fingers still clutching the gleaming fragment of glass. I pictured myself holding my hand out to him, through my revulsion, entreating him to help me. I saw him look at my hand, then grin. Knocking my hand aside, he charged into me, knocking aside the barriers that I had constructed within myself to contain him. All of my plans to allow him limited access to my mind were useless – there was no point in trying to limit him; he would take whatever he wanted of me. He would rape my mind, and leave it to drown in the blood of his victims. I felt my body move under his control, but my nerves seemed to be fading; I could no longer control what my limbs did, and even the sensations were numbing...