Retribution Falls

Seven

The eastern edge of the Hookhollows was full of hiding places. Secret valleys, sheltered ledges. There were folds in the crumpled landscape big enough to conceal a small fleet of aircraft. Freebooters treasured these bolt holes, and when they found a good one they guarded its location jealously.

Nightfall found the Ketty Jay and her outflyers in one of Frey’s favourite spots, a long tunnel-like cave he usually employed when he was running from something bigger than he was. It was wider than it was high, a slot in the plateau wall that ran far back into the mountainside. A tight fit for a craft the size of the Ketty Jay, but Frey had brought them in without a scratch. Now the Ketty Jay hunkered in the dark, its dim underbelly lights reflected by the shallow stream that ran along the floor of the cave. There was no sound but for a rhythmic dripping and the relentless chuckle of the water.

Inside the Ketty Jay, things were not so calm.

‘What in the name of the Allsoul’s veiny bollocks were you aiming at, you shit-wit?’ Pinn demanded of his captain, who punched him in response.

Slag, the Ketty Jay’s cat, watched the ensuing scuffle with feline disinterest from his vantage point atop a cabinet. The whole crew had gathered in the mess, crowding into one small room, and the comical jostle to separate Pinn and Frey involved a lot of bashing into things and knocking chairs over. The mess was a cheerless place, comprising a fixed central table, a set of metal cabinets for utensils and a compact stove, where Slag warmed himself when Silo chased him out of the engine room.

Slag was an ancient warrior, a grizzled slab of muscle held together by scar tissue and a hostile disposition. Frey had brought him on board as a kitten the day after he took ownership of the Ketty Jay, fourteen years ago. Slag had never known anything beyond the Ketty Jay, and never been tempted to find out. His life’s purpose was here, as the nemesis of the monstrous rats that bred in the air ducts and pipeways. For more than a decade the battle had been fought, generations of sharp-toothed rodents versus their indestructible antagonist. He’d seen off the best of them—their generals, their leaders—and hunted their mothers until they were near-extinct. But they always came back, and Slag was always waiting for them.

‘Will you two stop acting like a pair of idiots?’ Jez cried, as Malvery and Silo pulled Pinn from their captain. Pinn, red-faced with anger, assured Malvery he was calm so the doctor would release him, then made the obligatory second lunge at Frey. Malvery was ready for it, and punched him hard in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him.

‘What’d you do that for?’ Pinn rasped weakly, wide-eyed with the injustice of it all.

‘Fun,’ replied Malvery, with a broad grin. ‘Now calm down before I club your stupid block off. You ain’t helping.’

Frey shook Silo off with a baleful glare and dusted himself down. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Now we’ve got that out of the way, can I say something, nice and slow so everyone gets it? It—wasn’t—my—fault!

‘You did blow up the freighter, though,’ Crake pointed out.

‘If you knew anything about aircraft you’d know they always put the prothane tanks as deep inside as possible, well armoured. Otherwise people like us might be able to hit them and blow the whole thing to smithereens.’

‘The way you did,’ Crake persisted, out of malice. He hadn’t forgotten Frey’s behaviour when Lawsen Macarde had a gun to his head.

‘But I didn’t!’ Frey cried. ‘Machine guns couldn’t have penetrated deep enough to even get to the prothane tanks. Silo, tell them.’

The Murthian folded his arms. ‘Could happen, Cap’n. But it’s one in a million.’

‘See? It could happen!’ Pinn crowed, having recovered his breath.

‘But it’s one in a million!’ Frey said through gritted teeth. ‘About the same chance as you shutting up for five minutes so I can think.’

Slag unfurled from his spot on top of the cabinet and dropped down to the countertop with a thump. He thought little, if at all, of the other beings with whom he shared the craft, but he was feeling unaccountably piqued that nobody was paying any attention to him amid this puzzling furore. Harkins, who had been keeping his head down anyway, cringed into the corner as he caught sight of the cat. Slag gave him a stare of utter loathing, then leaped to the table so he could get into the middle of things.

‘The question isn’t whose fault it is—’ Jez began.

‘Not mine, that’s for sure!’ Frey interjected.

Jez gave him a look and continued. ‘It’s not whose fault it is. The question is whether we’re going to get blamed for it.’

‘Well, thanks to Harkins being a bloody great chicken, we probably will,’ Pinn said sullenly.

‘That guy was a good pilot!’ Harkins protested. ‘He was a . . . he was a fantastic pilot! Well, fantastic, or he had a death wish or something. What kind of idiot flies full throttle through mountain passes in the mist? The . . . the crazy kind, that’s what kind! And I’m a good pilot, but I’m not some crazy idiot! You said minimum escort, someone said minimum escort! No one said anything about . . . about four Swordwings and one of them being a pilot like that! What’s a pilot like that doing flying escort to some grubby old freighter?’

‘I’d have caught him,’ said Pinn. ‘I caught the one I was chasing.’

‘Well, yours was probably shit,’ Harkins muttered.

Jez was pacing around the mess as the pilots argued, head bowed thoughtfully. As she drew close to Slag, he arched his back and hissed at her. Something about this human bothered him. He didn’t understand why, only that he felt threatened whenever she was around, and that made him angry. He hated Harkins for being weak, but he was afraid of Jez.

‘What’s got into him?’ Crake wondered.

‘Ugly sack of mange,’ sneered Pinn. ‘It’s finally lost its tiny little mind.’

‘Hey!’ said Frey, defensive. ‘No bitching about the cat.’ He put out his hand to stroke Slag, and quickly withdrew it as Slag took a swipe at him.

‘Why not? Bloody thing’s only fit to use as a duster anyway. Wring its neck, stick a broom handle up it’s—’

‘Shut up about the cat!’ Jez said, surprising them into quiet. For such a little thing she’d proved herself unusually feisty, and she commanded respect far out of proportion to her physical size. ‘We’ve got more important things to deal with.’

She walked in a slow circle around the mess, stepping between them as she spoke. ‘We caught them by surprise. Even if that Swordwing got away—he might have crashed in the mist—then he’d have barely had time to work out what was going on before he ran. Harkins was on his tail almost immediately. He’d have had other things on his mind.’

‘You don’t think he could identify us?’ Frey said.

‘I doubt it,’ Jez replied. ‘There are no decals on the craft that identify us as the Ketty Jay, and we’re not exactly famous, are we? So, what do they have? Maybe he saw an Wickfield Ironclad accompanied by a Firecrow and a Skylance. You’d have to be pretty dedicated to hunt us down on the basis of that.’

‘Quail won’t say a word,’ said Frey, warming to her optimism. ‘Though it’s probably best if our paths never cross again. Just to be safe, let’s stay out of Marklin’s Reach. Silo, put it on our list of no-go ports. Scarwater, too.’

‘Aren’t that many ports left to go to,’ Malvery grumbled.

‘Well, now there are two fewer.’ He looked around the room. ‘Alright, are we done here? Good. Let’s keep our heads down, forget this ever happened, and it’s business as usual.’ He began to leave, but was stopped by a soft voice.

‘Am I the only one who remembers there were people on that freighter?’ Crake said.

Frey turned around to look over his shoulder at the daemonist.

‘That thing was hauling passengers,’ Crake said. ‘Not cargo.’

Frey’s eyes were cold. ‘It wasn’t my fault,’ he said, and clambered up the ladder to the exit hatch.

The crew dispersed after that, some still arguing between themselves. Slag remained in the middle of the table in the empty mess, feeling neglected. After a swift and resentful bout of self-grooming with his tongue, he resolved to make Harkins suffer tonight by creeping into his quarters and going to sleep on his face.

Frey stepped into his quarters and slid the heavy iron door shut behind him, cutting off the voices of his crew. With a sigh, he sat on the hard bunk and dragged his hand down his face, mashing his features as if he could smear them away. He sat there for a while, thinking nothing, wallowing in the bleak depression that had settled on him.

Every time, he thought bitterly. Every damned time.

Suddenly, he surged to his feet and drew back his hand to strike the wall, but at the last instant he stopped himself. Instead he pressed forehead and fist against it, breathing deeply, hating. A hatred without target or focus, directed at nothing, the blind frustration of a man maligned by fate.

What had he done to deserve this? Where was it written that all his best efforts should come to nothing, that opportunity should flirt with him and leave him ragged, that money should rust to powder in his hands? How had he ended up living a life surrounded by the witless, the desperate, drunkards, thieves and villains? Wasn’t he better than that?

That bastard Quail! He’d done this. Somehow, he was responsible. Frey had known the job was too good to be true. The only people who ever made fifty thousand ducats out of a deal were people who already had ten times that. Just one more way the world conspired to keep the rich where they were, and keep everyone else down.

The Ace of Skulls should never have exploded. It was impossible. What happened to those people . . . Frey never meant for that. It was an accident. He couldn’t be blamed. He’d only meant to hit the aerium tanks. He had hit the aerium tanks. It was just one of those things, like a volcano erupting, or when a craft got caught in a freak hurricane. An act of the Allsoul, if you believed all that Awakener drivel.

Frey sourly reflected there might be something in the idea of an all-controlling entity. Someone was certainly out to get him, intent on thwarting his every endeavour. If there was an Allsoul, then he sure as spit didn’t like Frey very much.

He walked over to the steel washbasin and splashed water on his face. In the soap-streaked mirror he studied himself. He smiled experimentally. The lines at the edges of his eyes seemed to have deepened since last time he looked. He’d first noticed them a year ago, and had been shocked by the first signs of decline. He’d unconsciously assumed he’d always stay youthful.

Though he’d never admit it aloud, he knew he was handsome. His face had a certain something about it that pulled women towards him: a hint of slyness, a promise of danger, a darkness in his grin—something, anyway. He never was exactly sure what. It had given him an easy confidence in his youth, a self-assured air that only attracted women more strongly still.

About the only piece of luck I ever got, he thought, since he was in the mood to be peevish.

Even men could be drawn into his orbit, sucked in by a vague envy of his success with the opposite sex. Frey had never had a problem making new friends. Charm, he’d discovered, was the art of pretending you meant what you said. Whether complimenting a man, or offering feathered lies to a woman, Frey never seemed less than sincere. But he’d usually forget them the moment they were out of his sight.

Now here he was, thirty, with lines around his eyes when he smiled. He couldn’t trade on his looks for ever, and when they were gone, what was left? What would he do when his body couldn’t take the rum any more and the women didn’t want him?

He threw himself away from the sink with a snort of disgust.

Self-pity doesn’t suit you, Frey. No one likes a whiner.

Still, he had to admit, it had been a pretty bad decade and his thirties had got off to an unpromising start. Waiting for his luck to change had worn his patience thin, and trying to change it himself invariably ended in disaster.

Look on the bright side, he thought. At least you’re free.

Yes, there was that. No boss to work for, no Coalition Navy breathing down his neck. No woman tying him down. Well, not in the metaphorical sense, anyway. Some of his conquests had been more sexually adventurous than others.

But damn, this time . . . this time he really thought he had a chance. The sheer disappointment had shaken him badly.

It could have been different, though. Maybe if you’d taken a different path, ten years ago. Maybe you’d have been happy. You’d certainly have been rich.

No. No regrets. He wouldn’t waste his life on regrets.

The captain’s quarters were cramped, although they were still the biggest on the craft. He didn’t keep them particularly clean. The metal walls were coated in a faint patina of grime and the floor was filthy with bootprints. His bunk took up most of the space, beneath a string hammock of luggage which threatened to snap and bury him in the night. A desk, drawers and cabinets were affixed to the opposite wall, with catches in the drawers and doors to prevent them opening during flight. In the corner was his mirror and washbasin. Sometimes he used the washbasin as a toilet in the night, rather than climb two levels down to use the head. There were advantages to being male.

He got up and opened a drawer. Inside, atop a mess of papers and notebooks, sat a tiny bottle of clear liquid. He took it, and returned to the bunk.

Might as well, he thought, sadly.

He unscrewed the stopper, which also functioned as a pipette. He squeezed the bulb and drew in a little liquid, tipped his head back and administered one drop to each eye. Blinking, he lay back on the bed.

Drowsy relief billowed over his senses. The aches in his joints faded away, to be replaced by a warm, cloudy sensation that erased his cares and smoothed his brow. His eyes flickered shut, and he drifted on the cusp of sleep for a long while before succumbing.

He dreamed that night of a young woman, with long blonde hair and a smile so perfect it made his heart glow like burning embers. But when he woke the next morning, he remembered none of it.