The Shoal interrogators within the chamber itself occupied bubbles of water prevented from dissipating by tiny disc-shaped field-generators that formed a protective sphere around each of them. Trader flicked one of his manipulator-tentacles, and in response dozens of identical discs freed themselves from nooks set into the walls around the entrance, whirling chaotically before – each equidistant from the next – finally forming the outline of another sphere with Trader at its centre.
He swam forward and through the barrier, the discs keeping pace and retaining the water he needed to breathe. Water splashed and pattered down onto slime-slicked metal as he entered.
The Bandati spy was trembling, his remaining wings twitching feebly but still held in check by the hooks tearing through their gossamer-fine flesh. Blood from the prisoner's wounds stained the panel on which he had been so brutally mounted. One recently severed wing lay on the deck to one side, and Trader could see that the knot of muscle and tissue where it had been severed was blackened and burnt. A streak of green-blue liquid directly below the panel suggested that the spy had defecated involuntarily.
The Bandati chittered, and the Shoal-member responsible for running the interrogation studied the creature's response as it was automatically translated into some approximation of Shoal-speak. Trader watched as another interrogator operated a set of mechanical, vaguely arachnoid arms attached to a device mounted on the ceiling directly above the prisoner. The device's arms were variously tipped with blades, probes and the hissing jet of a blowtorch, this latter now directed towards another of the unfortunate Ban-dati's wings.