was trouble. Their estimation of the length of the operation had been off: they’d allowed themselves far too much time.
In the end, they got lucky.
Rather to his surprise, Silo had emerged from the engine room to help him patch up Bess. The Murthian was a silent, solid presence around the Ketty Jay, but because he rarely offered an opinion and never socialised, Crake had unconsciously begun to ignore him, as if he was one of the servants back home. He suspected that Silo was simply curious, and saw an opportunity to get a closer look at the golem, to work out what made her tick. Whatever his motives, Crake was glad of the help and the quiet company. Between them, they pulled out bullets, stitched up leather, and soldered her wounds.
Though the damage was all superficial, Crake was wracked with guilt. He’d allowed Bess to be used as an object. What if they had dynamite? What if they had a really big cannon? Could she have stood up to that? For that matter, what would actually happen to her if she was destroyed?
Bess was a shell, inhabited by a presence. That was as much as Crake knew. A vacant suit of armour, a skin surrounding nothing. Where did the presence truly exist? What exactly was in there? Did it occupy the skin of the suit, or was it somewhere inside? Those glittering eyes in the emptiness - did they mean something?
He didn’t know. He didn’t even truly know how he’d made her. Bess was an accident and a mystery.
‘Does it hurt her?’ Silo asked suddenly, rubbing his finger across a bullet hole in her knee. His deep, molten voice was heavily inflected. Doors eet hoort hair?
‘I don’t know,’ said Crake. ‘I think so. In a way.’
The Murthian stared at him, waiting for more.
‘She was . . . upset,’ he said awkwardly. ‘When they were shooting her. So I think she feels it.’
Silo nodded to himself and returned his attention to his work. Bess was sitting quietly, not moving. She was asleep, he guessed. Or at least, he called it sleep. In these periods of catatonia, she was simply absent. There were no glittering lights inside. She was an empty suit. Where the presence had gone, or if it had really gone anywhere at all, he couldn’t have said.
The silence between them returned, but Crake felt a pressure to say something now that Silo had. It seemed momentous that the Murthian should be out here alongside him, asking him an un-prompted question. He began to feel more and more uncomfortable. The rising chorus of birds from the trees all around seemed unnaturally loud.
‘The captain seems in good cheer,’ he said at length.
Silo only grunted.
‘How do you and he know each other?’
Silo stopped and looked up at him. For a few seconds, Silo regarded him in the pale dawn light, his eyes unreadable. Then he went back to his task.
Crake gave up. Perhaps he’d been wrong. Perhaps Silo really didn’t want to talk.
‘I escaped from a factory,’ Silo told him suddenly. Arr scorrpt fram a fack-truh. He kept working as he talked. ‘Seven year back. Built aircraft there for the Samarlans. My people are slaves down there. Bet you know that, yuh?’
‘Yes,’ said Crake. He was shocked to hear such a torrential monologue from Silo.
‘The Dakkadians gave up. Stopped fighting long ago, joined their masters. But those of us from Murthia, we never give up. Five hundred year and we never give up.’ There was a fierce pride in his voice. ‘So when the time comes, some of us, we kill our overseer and we run. They come after us, yuh? So we scatter. Into the hills and the forest. And pretty soon, there’s just me. Starved and lost, but
