“Three, two, one,” she growled at herself and threw her weight down and back. The beast moved an inch. She raised her bottom, reached further down the rope and repeated the process. After three tries, her leg was screaming in agony. Dawn pierced her eyes.
In the distance, the chop of another airboat took up the noise that her own had abandoned. Drak! That Nick, or someone worse, would find her here, wrestling a dead loricator. Amusing him was the last thing she wanted to do.
She clambered to the other side of the pole and pulled again and again and again, until the seven-foot loricator occupied most of her deck and only its tail trailed off the edge.
Just to be safe, she lashed its claw-ropes to the floorboards. Then she began to clean her skin and her tools in the muddy water on the op
