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away from the whaleboat.
Ryan watched the creature, which looked like a cross between a small rabbit
and a large rat, but with a skin that glistened in the dawning as if it were
covered in scales. It ignored the two dories and paddled across the cove,
quickly reaching deeper water. It passed only a few feet in front of Ryan,
head held back, little eyes twinkling like polished buttons, whiskers perkily
aloft, paws twitching up spray.
Its teeth were bared with the effort of its exertions.
There was a swirl and a flash of dull white sandpaper skin, and teeth, row
upon serrated row, as the shark rolled belly-up in its attack. The little
animal vanished, and the water cleared once more. It was as though nothing had
happened.
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One single bubble of dark maroon blood came plopping to the surface and burst,
the color spreading and dissipating.
"Not a good place for swimming, Mr. Ogg."
"Not a good place at all, Captain."
"Fucking get on!" Jak shouted.
"Language, laddie!" the woman reproved. "Mebbe thou should wash out thy mouth
with good salt water. Ample under thy feet, cully."
"It's only me, you sick bitch! Let the others go."
"That an order to the captain, Outlander Deadman?" Ogg grinned at Ryan. "Well
named, art thou not? Deadman. Outlander Deadman."
Ryan was trying to work out the odds. There wasn't much doubt that the first
volley from the mate and the woman would put at least two and probably three
of them over the side. And that meant death with the sharks cruising by, jaws
gaping.
One of the friends might snatch up a blaster and chill them both, but all the
pointers were for a lot of dying.
A triangular fin broke the water near their boat, causing a wave to rock them
from side to side.
Another appeared in the entrance from the open sea, and then a third. At a
guess
Ryan figured there were now at least a half dozen of the mutie monsters in the
constricted waters of the narrow cove.
Their ceaseless swirling was raising a swell, water lapping at the jagged
walls of the mollusk-covered rocks.
Ryan's boat, grounded in the shingle, only moved a little from the waves. The
blasters rattled and jostled in the bottom. Near Ryan's hand, where he
steadied
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himself on the thwart, was the shaft of one of the long killing harpoons, its
curved end glittering in the dawn.
"Bastard belly-rippers," Pyra Quadde said. "Canst thou not make 'em hold still
or go out into the open Lantic, Mr. Ogg?"
"Do better," he said, firing three spaced rounds at the nearest shark.
The weaving killer that Ogg had fired at disappeared for several seconds.
Allowing for the deflection effect of the clear water, it wasn't likely that
the first mate had harmed it.
But to everyone's shock and amazement, the shark surfaced, trailing a ribbon
of blood behind it. The long tail thrashed at the water, kicking up a spray of
blinding foam. Ryan saw two of the other creatures, tasting blood, sensitized
to the faint electrical emanations of the wounded beast, dart in, the sound of
their rending teeth clearly audible as they entered a feeding frenzy.
One lashed out with its tail as it rolled, teeth locked in the flesh of its
comrade, throwing a huge wave across the cove.
Pyra Quadde's boat careened sideways, sending Cyrus Ogg tottering into his
skipper, arms clasping her as he fought for balance. Petrified by the sudden
hazard of toppling into the frothing sea, the woman also staggered, hands
waving and pushing at her first mate.
For a crazed second, they were both helpless.
Ryan reacted first and fastest.
The blaster was too far off. By the time he'd stooped and risen again, a
bullet from the Astra would be shredding his flesh. His fighting brain raced
in overdrive as he dropped his hand to the narrow wooden shaft of the whaling
iron, drawing it smoothly from the bow of the boat. He braced himself and
aimed in a single, fluid movement.
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Muscles exploded into action, the breath hissing through his teeth as he
released the harpoon at Pyra Quadde's stocky figure. The woman had seen him go
for the lance and was opening her mouth to scream at Ogg. Off balance,
struggling in the bow of the pitching dory, she still managed to snap off two
shots at Ryan before he'd let go of the harpoon.
One gouged a long splinter of curling wood from the seat, less than a foot
from his leg, the other whistling past his right ear, close enough for him to
feel the heat of its passing. It struck the boulders at the base of the cliff
and howled off into the last fingers of mist.
But the iron was thrown.
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