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abattoir. There were servo-powered exoskeleton suits fitted with huge circular saws and long serrated blades designed specifically for flensing whale flesh. There were dicing machines you could have driven a van through, with a grid of criss-crossing filaments that reduced whatever was shoved into them to neat, manageable metre-wide cubes. A network of channels carried the spilled blood aft to the ramp.
    The stench of rotten meat permeated the air. The channels held a tarry black residue like grisly molasses. The exoskeleton suits stood at attention, hollow executioners awaiting the order to start chopping.
    An external staircase led up to the bridge. The hoverdrones remained outside, keeping lookout, while Dev and the Marines entered.
    The bridge was unoccupied, but there were indications that whoever had been here had not left willingly. Some of the consoles bore bullet holes, one window had been smashed, and there were still-wet blood spatters on the walls.
    Dev noticed something else: a patch of charring on the vinyl upholstery of the captain’s chair.
    “Flash discharge?” he wondered aloud. “From a plasma beam weapon?”
    Sigursdottir shook her head. “Nope. Seen this before. It’s a bioelectric burn.”
    “Huh?”
    “Sea monkeys,” said Milgrom. “I knew it had to be. Fucking sea monkeys did this.”
    “Hold on. Sea monkeys?”
    “Tritonians,” said Sigursdottir. “We’re not supposed to call them that,” she added, shooting a look at Milgrom.
    Her subordinate merely shrugged her massive shoulders. “Tritonians, schmitonians,” she muttered. “Sea monkeys is what they are.”
    “That” – Sigursdottir pointed to the charring – “is what you get when a Tritonian fires a shock lance at point blank range, in air. See the star-shaped scorch?”
    Dev recalled the two Tritonians who had saved him from the thalassoraptor. The female had been carrying a weapon which was an amalgamation of coral and a softer organic material. He was guessing that that was a shock lance.
    “Tritonians boarded this ship,” he said.
    “Seems so. A raiding party.”
    “They’re amphibious? My understanding is they can’t breathe out of water.”
    “They can for short periods. As long as their gills stay moist enough, they can extract diffused oxygen from the air. Like mudskippers do, and climbing perch. Crabs too.”
    “Not the type of crabs you’ve got, Blunt,” said Francis.
    “Hey, fuck you.”
    “From fraternising with Master Chief Reynolds.”
    “That was you. In your dreams.”
    “Before settlers came along, the Tritonians never had any reason to leave the sea,” said Milgrom. “They probably didn’t even realise they could, until they decided they needed to attack humans in their own element. They learned the knack of air breathing pretty fast.”
    “They can last half an hour, an hour tops,” said Sigursdottir. “It’s enough.”
    “So Tritonians were here,” said Dev, “but they must have gone by now. The Egersund ’s been beaming out that mayday for a couple of hours. They did whatever they did, then left.”
    “Assume nothing.”
    “The question is, where’s the Egersund ’s crew?”
    “That’s the biggie, isn’t it? I think our next step should be to go below and eyeball what’s down there.”

 
    15
     
     
    S IGURSDOTTIR LED D EV and her team into the bowels of the whaler. She and Milgrom took point; Blunt and Francis had the rear. Dev, in the middle, felt like a VIP being protected by a phalanx of bodyguards. The hoverdrones had returned to their roosts on Milgrom’s and Blunt’s arms like well-trained hunting falcons, folding themselves neatly away into the wristlets.
    The Marines held their rifles high, sighting along them, quartering every corner they turned and every room they entered. The four women moved with practised speed and precision, each aware of the others’ whereabouts at all times. They were pure military efficiency, a symphony of teamwork.
    The Egersund