The Iron jackal

Thirty-Seven

The moon hung bloated and malevolent against a dense backdrop of stars. In all directions, to the horizon and beyond, was the deep desert. Endless dunes, utterly still. Not a breath of wind stirred the silver sand. It might have been the landscape of a dead planet.

The Ketty Jay lay at the end of a massive furrow, a scar in the pristine vista. Her nose was buried where the sand had braked her. Her tail end was tilted up into the air at a shallow angle. She’d come in on her belly, her armoured undercarriage taking the brunt of the impact, and it was only as she’d come near to a halt that her front end had ploughed into the sand. There was enough aerium still in her tanks to make her much lighter than her size suggested, and Frey had managed to take a lot of speed out of her in the seconds before they crashed. The Ketty Jay had taken a battering, but she’d held together.

All things considered, it was a damned fine landing. Not that that made Frey feel much better about things.

‘Ain’t no reason for it, Cap’n,’ said Silo, who was peering into a panel underneath the dash. He had an electric torch, attached by wires to a nearby battery pack, and he was shining it around inside. ‘Can’t see none, anyways.’

Frey crouched next to him in the semi-darkness with an oil lantern from the stores. The cockpit windglass was almost entirely covered by the tide of sand. Only a sliver of moonlight was left, and thoe Ketty Jay’s internal lights weren’t working. Not even the emergency backups.

‘How did this happen?’ Frey asked. ‘She just got overhauled.’

‘Ain’t nothing to do with the aircraft,’ said Silo, emerging. ‘Systems that ain’t even connected all went down at the same time.’

‘So it’s something from outside?’

The Murthian’s face was sinister, underlit by the torch. ‘Couldn’t say, Cap’n.’ He thought for a moment. ‘You got your pocket watch? Left mine with a friend.’

Frey brought it out. Silo shone a light on it. ‘Still working,’ said Frey.

‘Watch is pretty simple. Clockwork. So maybe it’s just the delicate stuff got muddled.’

‘Can’t you, I don’t know, reset the systems or something?’

‘Cap’n, there ain’t no reason why some o’ them systems ain’t working. But they ain’t. I reckon whatever did this to the Ketty Jay, it’s still doin’ it. We ain’t even gonna get the lights up till we sort that out.’

Frey was grim. ‘Do what you can, then,’ he said, and then carried his lantern to his quarters and shut himself inside.

He laid his lantern on top of the cabinet, after making sure it wouldn’t slide off due to the Ketty Jay’ s uncomfortable tilt. The weak light made the small, grimy room even smaller and grimier. The flame flickered in uneasy streaks on the metal walls. He washed his face in the tiny sink – the water was running, but it didn’t heat – and regarded himself in the mirror.

He looked haggard. There were dark bags under his eyes and he hadn’t shaved recently. How long had it been since he slept properly? Seemed like for ever.

He returned to the cabinet and unlocked the drawer where he kept his Shine. It was a small clear bottle with a screw-top pipette. He went over to his bunk and sat on the edge, tipping the bottle this way and that, studying the liquid inside.

Probably enough to kill him in there, he reckoned.

He snorted. Stop being dramatic. He’d never had the temperament for suicide. But a couple of drops of Shine seemed like a good idea right about then. Forget everything for a few hours. Dream the blissful, feathery dreams of the Shine-stoned.

No more scrabbling about in the gutter, he’d told himself. Time to make the big moves, he’d said. After all, that was the kind of thie kind ong the hero of Sakkan ought to do. The kind of thing that was expected of him.

And look where he’d ended up. Cursed by some rat-damned ancient blade that he couldn’t keep his hands off. Jez in a coma. Pinn shot for a second time. The Firecrow wrecked. The Ketty Jay crashed in the trackless desert a thousand kloms from anywhere. Very possibly his crew would all die of starvation if the ship didn’t get fixed, but he had a messy evisceration at the hands of the Iron Jackal to look forward to instead. He’d probably helped to kick off a civil war back in Vardia, and he was on the Century Knights’ hit-list after his little stunt at the Mentenforth Institute. On top of that, he’d ruined things with Trinica, and he didn’t know if he could ever make it right, even if he did manage to survive long enough to try.

When you stacked it all up, he’d done a pretty shabby job of things.

Maybe he just wasn’t cut from the right cloth. It seemed like there were people who carried the burden of the big decisions lightly. People born to a life of command: aristocrats and officers and leaders. Their choices saved lives and cost them, too. Those weren’t the kind of decisions that should be left in the hands of a shiftless orphan boy.

His whole command was a sham. Unwittingly, he’d tricked his crew into trusting him. By pretending to be a captain, he’d somehow become one, and for a time he believed he deserved it. But he didn’t. The evidence was pretty clear on that.

At least Trinica had the sense to turn her back on him before he destroyed her life a second time.

He dug into his pocket and brought out the compass that Crake had given him once upon a time. The silver ring was on his finger. The compass pointed at him now, accusingly. He tossed it onto his bunk and unscrewed the cap on the Shine bottle.

Damn it, what was the point? He’d tried to do everything right by Trinica and it still hadn’t worked. The first time, at least, had been his choice and his fault. When he ran out on their wedding, the overwhelming emotion was relief. Relief that he’d escaped her, and the child she carried. Relief that he was out of the trap. Regret had come later, and slowly. By the time he changed his mind it was too late.

But this time was like nothing he’d ever felt before. There was a tight point of pain just below his breastbone. He was taken by a sense of enormous absence and dumb bewilderment.

Everything around him had faded since she left him. The crew slid in and out of his world like ghosts. He barely listened to them and replied on automatic. Only when the Ketty Jay had been going down did he sharpen up, threat pulling him from torpor. But mostly he was mired in an exquisite misery, complex, layered and pervasive.

He looked at the bottle of Shine in his hands. A drop in each eye, and the cloudy joy of a drugged sleep. It was as good a way out as any. Was it really worth clinging to the faint hope that the Ketty Jay would cy woome to life again in time to get them to where they were going? It all seemed pretty futile, in the end.

You’ve been losing since the day you were born, he told himself. You’ll never be a hero. You’ll always be an underdog. So take the drug. Stop fighting. Stop trying to be something you’re not.

He nodded to himself. He was right. All this time, he’d been trying to be something he wasn’t.

He flung the bottle of Shine against the wall. It smashed with a tinkle and a splatter of clear liquid.

Time to stop pretending, then.

‘Ugrik!’ he snapped as he slid down the ladder into the mess.

The Yort coughed through a faceful of cake, spraying crumbs across the table. It was one of Malvery’s sugar-laden creations that had been sitting in the pantry since the dawn of civilisation. Ugrik quickly slobbered down some coffee straight from the pot, as if fearing it would be snatched away from him.

Frey regarded him with mild disgust. Ugrik was still dressed in the plain beige prison uniform they’d found him in, except now it was covered in coffee stains. He wiped his bearded chops with his sleeve and burped. The oil lantern in front of him flared briefly.

‘We had a deal,’ Ugrik said. ‘You were meant to take me back to where that relic came from. Wouldn’t have let you break me out otherwise.’

‘What do you think I’m trying to do, arse-for-brains?’ said Frey, who was frankly in no mood for any bullshit. He stamped over – an awkward process on the slanted floor – and stood across the table from the Yort. ‘Now I need some answers, and I need them now, and if I hear one cryptic comment out of you I swear I’m gonna take every piece of cutlery in this room and shove it up your arse!’

He slammed his hands down on the table, making Ugrik jump. ‘This place we’re going. How far?’

‘Fifty kloms or so,’ said Ugrik.

Now they were getting somewhere. Fifty kloms, though. Too far to get there before tomorrow night on foot.

‘You’ve been there before, right?’ he asked Ugrik. ‘Course you have, that’s where you got the relic. So how’d you get there the first time?’

Ugrik rolled his eyes as if it was a stupid question. ‘Ridin’ on a ka’riish. Out here with some Sammie nomads.’

‘A ka-what? That an animal?’

‘Aye.’

‘And how did you find it? Where did you get that relic, anyhow?’

‘I had an idea where it was,’ he said, answering the first question but ignoring the second. ‘Found some tracks and followed ’em.’

‘Tracks?’

‘Aye. I got lucky. It was a still day, no wind. The sand hadn’t covered ’em up yet.’

‘What kind of tracks?’

‘Tyre tracks.’

Frey slammed his hands down on the table again, this time in triumph. Ugrik jumped a second time.

‘Wish you’d stop doin’ that,’ he mumbled.

‘Can you find it again? This place?’

‘Aye. Due east. Can’t miss it. Well, actually you can, but I-’

‘Right,’ said Frey sharply. ‘Get up. We’re going.’

‘Can I finish me cake first?’

‘No!’ Frey snapped.

Ugrik gave a resigned sigh. He pushed out his chair, as if he was about to get to his feet. Then, suddenly, he lunged across the table and snatched up the cake, stuffing as much of it as he could into his mouth before Frey wrestled it off him. Ugrik glared at him resentfully, chewing.

‘Baftard,’ he said.

Frey filled a bag with supplies from the mess and then bullied Ugrik down into the cargo hold. He encountered nobody on the way. Crake was in his quarters, being nursed by Malvery for a mild concussion. Pinn and Jez were out of it. Harkins was hiding, Silo was working, and he had no idea where Ashua was.

Nobody to stop him, then.

He slung the bag in the back of one of the Rattletraps parked in the middle of the hold, then walked over to the lever that controlled the cargo ramp and threw it. The cargo ramp whined and screeched as it opened, letting in moonlight and the chilly desert breeze. It bumped to a stop several feet off the ground, due to the fact that the Ketty Jay’s tail was tilted in the air.

‘Get the straps,’ he told Ugrik. He pointed to a corner of the hold. ‘And grab some fuel from over there.’ Ugrik gotuo; Ugri to work on the restraining straps that stopped the Rattletrap from sliding about. Frey stalked purposefully towards Crake’s sanctum at the back of the hold. He threw aside the tarp and walked in.

The relic was lying in a tangle of wires and cables, where it had been thrown in the crash. The blade still sat in its cradle inside its smooth black case. Frey walked over, snapped the case shut and picked it up.

A curious cooing noise from behind him made him turn. It was Bess, hunched in the shadows. She stirred and the chips of light behind her face-grille glinted into life.

‘Only me, Bess,’ he whispered. ‘Go back to sleep.’

Bess sagged again, and the lights of her eyes went out.

When he returned, he found Ugrik putting canisters of fuel in the back of the Rattletrap, along with a bundle of tarp and some twine. He didn’t bother to ask why they needed tarp. He was just keen to be out of here before any of his crew happened along.

‘You reckon this thing’ll run?’ Ugrik asked, as they climbed in.

‘You said you saw wheel tracks. Silo says it’s only the delicate stuff on the Ketty Jay that’s gotten messed up. And these Rattletraps are about as basic as you get.’ He fired the ignition, and the Rattletrap growled into life. ‘Like I said.’

Ugrik looked around the empty hold. ‘Ain’t nobody else comin’?’

‘Reckon they’ve done more than enough on my behalf already,’ said Frey. ‘This is just you and me.’

‘Well, alright,’ said Ugrik with a grin. ‘I like a man who goes down swingin’.’

‘That’s the thing about underdogs,’ Frey replied. ‘We never know when we’re beaten.’

He stamped on the accelerator. The Rattletrap raced across the hold, down the cargo ramp, and leaped off the edge into the night.