The Black Lung Captain

Forty-Three

The Yort engineer led the way up the Ketty Jay's cargo ramp. Frey and his crew followed him in, looking around curiously, as if they'd never seen their own aircraft before. A blast of icy air and a flurry of snow chased past them. Beyond, in the grey glare from outside, there were tractors and hangars, and Yorts walking back and forth. They were in dock at Iktak, where the Delirium Trigger had recently been repaired, and the Ketty Jay more recently still.

'We had to put in a whole new engine assembly,' the engineer was saying. 'Fixed up your thrusters, too, but the guts of 'em were good, so we kept most of it. Blackmore P-12s.' He grinned. 'They don't make 'em like that any more.'

The engineer was a short man, but stout, making up in width what he lost in height. A well-attended gut hung over his belt, but his shoulders and arms looked stuffed with cannonballs. Orange hair fell down his back in braided ropes, and his jawline was outlined with studs of metal.

'We did over your control system and some of the internals. She ought to fly better now, at any rate. Don't know how you kept her together all this time. Your Murthian's a bloody genius.' He thumbed at Silo.

Frey was finding it hard to keep up with his accent. All Yorts spoke Vardic, but it was so heavily inflected that you had to pay strict attention to get any meaning out of it. He suspected they did it on purpose, thorny buggers that they were.

'Sounds like you did a thorough job,' he said uneasily. He was worried that the Ketty Jay wouldn't be the same old girl he knew. After fifteen years of flying her, he'd learned to compensate for all her little tics and problems. They were part of her character. He felt bad about losing them.

The engineer didn't notice. 'Lot of environmental damage on the hull, so we gave her a patch and weld, scrubbed her out. Basically did her over, top to bottom. She'll be better now than when you bought her.'

That's what I'm afraid of, Frey thought. Then he told himself to stop being a grouch. He'd just had his aircraft given an all-over service by one of the best workshops in the North, and it hadn't cost him a shillie. That put a smile on his face.

'I can't wait to fly her,' he said. 'She looks great.'

She did look great. She'd been polished up so she looked factory-new. And Frey had never seen the cargo hold so tidy. His crew looked amazed. Like him, they'd never realised there was so much space in here.

'Anything you couldn't fix?' Frey asked, half-hopefully.

The engineer pointed to an air duct, where Slag was hiding, watching them malevolently. 'Your cat's disposition,' the engineer replied. 'Damned thing kept attacking us whenever we went near the vents.'

'The cat?' Harkins scoffed loudly. He made a lunging movement towards the vent. Slag took fright and disappeared in a scrabble of claws. Harkins crossed his arms and looked smug. 'Who's scared of a cat? You are about twenty times his size, after all.'

Everyone turned to look at him. The engineer gave him a flat glare.

'Er . . .' said Harkins.

'Don't mind him,' Frey told the engineer. 'He laughs in the face of danger.' He slung his arm around Harkins' shoulders. Harkins tensed up, as if expecting to be hit. 'May I introduce my outflyer, "Fearless" Harkins. You know, one time, he played chicken with a dreadnought and won!'

'Him?' the engineer asked.

'Hey, I could have done that, if I'd got there in time!' Pinn protested. 'I'd have won, too!'

'I'll leave you all to have a look around, eh?' the engineer said, somehow making it a threat directed at Harkins. Then he stomped off. Frey took his arm away and Harkins relaxed visibly.

' "Fearless" Harkins, eh?' he said, glancing sidelong at Jez.

'Don't let it go to your head,' Pinn grumbled.

The crew scattered throughout the craft, keen to see what had been done. Only Malvery stayed behind with Frey.

'I bet they even cleaned the infirmary,' Frey said.

Malvery snorted. 'About time someone did.'

'How's the shoulder?'

'Fine. Crake's hand's healing up okay, too. It won't lose any mobility.'

'He seems better these days,' said Frey. 'Happier. So does Jez.'

'We all do, Cap'n. Been through the wars, come out alive. This is the second time we pulled off something we really shouldn't have got away with. The lads are getting confident, I reckon.'

Frey and the doctor considered the empty hold. The subdued clamour of the docks filled up the silence.

'Thought I was losing you lot for a while there,' Frey said eventually.

'Who, us? Nah.' Malvery said. 'Where would we go?'

'Off to find new sweethearts, like Pinn?'

Malvery roared with laughter. 'Chance would be a fine thing.' Then his laughter tailed off and he harumphed uneasily.

'What is it?' Frey asked, sensing something wrong.

'Actually, Cap'n,' he said. 'About that. I've got a confession to make. You know that letter from Lisinda that Pinn got?'

Frey groaned. 'Oh, Doc. You didn't.'

'Well, you know. I thought he was full of it, always talking about that bloody girl of his. Thought I'd call his bluff. To tell you the truth, I posted it a couple of months ago, when I was leathered. Forgot all about it till it turned up in Marlen's Hook.'

Frey pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation.

'Well, I never thought he'd actually go, did I?' Malvery protested. 'I'm fond of the lad, myself.'

Frey took a deep breath before replying. He thought about all the trouble he'd have faced if Pinn hadn't come back, and he'd been forced to find a new pilot. He wondered if their fight over Sakkan might have turned out differently. Harkins might have been shot down by the Blackhawks. They might never have made it through at all.

But they had come through. They were all safe and well. Given that, it was hard to be angry at Malvery, even if he thought he probably should. The doctor was too much of an affable sort. Besides, no harm was intended, and Pinn seemed more spry than ever since his return.

'I think, on balance, you did him a favour,' he said. 'But keep it to yourself, eh? And don't do it again.'

'Aye, Cap'n.' Malvery said with a grin. 'I'll be good.'

Frey sighed. His aircraft might have been fixed up like new, but his crew were just as they'd always been. Argumentative, dysfunctional and ill-disciplined. Yet for all that, he was glad of them. Individually, they were hopeless. But somehow, when they were all together, they became something greater than the sum of their parts.

He couldn't believe there had been a time when he'd almost let them slip away from him. What had he been thinking? It was a dirty world out there, and these were the only true friends he had. You didn't throw that away. Not for money, fame or anything else.

He heard quiet footsteps on the cargo ramp. Malvery turned. 'You've got a visitor,' he said.

It was her. Trinica. Without her make-up, without her contact lenses. Not the pirate queen, but the woman beneath. She'd come as herself. Just the sight of her warmed him.

'Morning, ma'am,' said Malvery, as she joined them.

'Good morning, Doctor.'

Malvery looked at Frey, then back at Trinica. 'Think I'll make myself scarce. See what they've done to the infirmary.' He slapped Frey's shoulder and strolled off, whistling.

Frey barely noticed. All his attention was on her. Her hair was still uneven and ragged, but she'd made the best of it for his sake. She was wearing a hide coat and furs against the Yortland cold. There was nothing of glamour about her, but still she mesmerised him.

Her eyes searched his with that strange curiosity he'd noticed in her gaze ever since he'd rescued her from the Storm Dog. As if she'd never seen him before. As if he was some fascinating artefact that she was trying to puzzle out.

Then she looked away, and began to examine her surroundings. 'I came to see if everything was to your liking.'

'Haven't taken her up yet,' he said. 'But they told me they did a complete overhaul. Reckon she'll fly like a dream now.'

'You're disappointed,' she said, with a tiny smile. 'You'll miss her quirks.'

'Yeah, a little.'

'You always did like to do things the difficult way.'

'Can't argue with that,' he said. 'Thanks for fixing her up. Really. I bet they did a fine job.'

'It was the least I could do,' she said. The space between their sentences felt heavy with unspoken words. Then, as if it had just occurred to her, 'I have some things I should return to you.'

She produced a handful of small objects from her coat. Crake's paraphernalia, that she'd taken from him in Grist's hangar. The earcuffs, the skeleton key, the brass whistle, the compass and pocket watch. When she'd given them to Frey, she began to take the silver ring off her finger.

'Not that,' said Frey, holding up his hand. 'That's yours.'

She hesitated. 'And the compass?'

'That's mine.'

She smiled reluctantly. 'Very well, Darian,' she said. 'As you wish.' And she slipped the ring back into place.

'So where now for you?' he asked, before he could begin to feel mawkish.

'I believe I might pay a visit to Osric Smult, a certain whisper-monger of my acquaintance. He and I have unfinished business. And you?'

'Bestwark University. We'll go see Professor Kraylock. Reckon he'll know what to do with Maurin Grist's research.'

'It'll be a powerful blow to the Awakeners. Have you thought what will happen if they discover you were behind it? Are you certain you want to stir up the big fish?'

'Crake would never forgive me if I didn't,' he said. 'Besides, I got kind of sick of all this small-time grubbing about I've been doing. You have to take a risk now and then, right? That's the point. If you don't take a risk, you'll never do anything worth half a shit.'

In fact, the idea of stirring up the big fish had begun to hold a certain appeal for him. He was a man who'd always tried to avoid the notice of everyone stronger than he was. He'd always preferred to deal with bottom-feeders, the dregs of the world, people who he reckoned he could safely outwit. He'd considered it a sensible strategy, since it had kept him alive thus far. But just staying alive wasn't enough any more. It wasn't sufficient to drift through a middling existence, making little impact on anyone, to slip quietly into an obscure death with only the fond memories of a few friends to mark him.

He wanted to be someone. He wanted to make a difference. It was a feeling he hadn't had since he was a boy.

He'd been haunted by a sense of worthlessness for some time now, but no longer. He'd done something extraordinary, and all of Vardia would know it. This time wasn't like the last, at Retribution Falls, when his involvement was secret and he'd been only interested in saving his own hide. This time he'd done something no one had ever done before, and what was more, he'd done it for someone else's sake.

What will I leave behind? he thought to himself. A damn good story. A tale they'll tell over and over. And that's enough.

She seemed to catch his thought. 'You know, they're all talking about you in the taverns. What you did.' She raised an eyebrow. 'They drew their own conclusions as to your motives. I suppose it appeals to the doomed romantics.'

'I thought you wouldn't want it getting out. Can't be good for your reputation.'

'Men will talk,' she said. 'I can't stop that. My crew have rather revised their opinion of you, it seems.'

'And what about you?'

She didn't answer that, but her gaze flickered awkwardly away from him. Frey cursed himself. He'd meant it to sound light, but the conversation had taken a sudden turn into territory that neither was comfortable with.

'Darian,' she said softly. 'I'm not what you imagine me to be.'

'I know,' he said. 'And you've done your damnedest to prove it.'

'What you feel . . . It's meant for somebody who died a long time ago.'

'She didn't die. She changed, that's all.'

'Yes. She changed. Into something you don't want.'

'Don't tell me what I want. I know what I want.'

She looked up at him, and a wry expression creased the corners of her eyes. 'That's not like you at all, Darian.'

What he wanted was to gather her in his arms. It was a physical need. The barrier between them was almost unendurable. But he felt that to do so would be to shatter something that had been built between them, some delicate and fragile understanding. He knew what she'd been through in those years they'd been apart. The touch of a man, any man, would most likely not be welcome. And he had no right to her, anyway, after what he'd done. As hard as it was to stop himself, it would be worse if she rejected him, or coldly suffered his embrace.

So he didn't reach out to her, as much as he was desperate to. He resisted, for her.

'You came after me,' she said quietly. 'Even after all my cruelties. You didn't let me go.'

Frey didn't know what to say to that.

'You won't stop trying, will you? No matter what I do.'

'No.'

Slowly, tentatively, she raised her hand, brushed her fingertips down his chest. She stared at the buttons of his coat, as if contemplating them fiercely. Then she slipped closer, and pressed her body against him. Her arms slipped around his waist, and her head leaned against his shoulder. She breathed in the smell of his coat and sighed.

'Don't,' she said.

It was as if it had only been minutes since he'd last held her, instead of a decade and more. The feel of her was familiar and new all at once. She fitted into him perfectly. For a few precious moments, everything was tranquil, and a wonderful peace spread through him. Then, as if afraid to let it last, she stepped away from him. She gave him one last look, and there was something of sadness in her gaze, but something of happiness too. Then she left him.

He stood in the empty cargo hold, staring after her. Back she went, back to the Delirium Trigger, back to being the pirate queen whose body she inhabited. He knew he should have felt bereft, but he didn't. Instead, a broad smile broke out on his face.

There was hope. After all this time, there was hope. The thought of it lit him up on the inside.

His friends were alive and well and together again. His craft had been made over, better than new. The drunks were singing his praises in every tavern from here to the Samarlan border. And maybe, just maybe, Trinica didn't want to kill him any more.

'Frey, my boy,' he said to himself. 'Things are looking up.'

Darian Frey is down on his luck. He can barely keep his squabbling crew fed and his rickety aircraft in the sky. Even the simplest robberies seem to go wrong. It's getting so a man can't make a dishonest living any more.

Enter Captain Grist. He's heard about a crashed aircraft laden with the treasures of a lost civilisation, and he needs Frey's help to get it. There's only one problem. The craft is lying in the trackless heart of a remote island, populated by giant beasts and subhuman monsters.

Dangerous, yes. Suicidal, perhaps. Still, Frey's never let common sense get in the way of a fortune before. But there's something other than treasure on board that aircraft. Something that a lot of important people would kill for. And it's going to take all of Frey's considerable skill at lying, cheating and stealing if he wants to get his hands on it...

Strap yourself in for another tale of adventure and debauchery, pilots and pirates, golems and daemons, double-crosses and double-double-crosses. The crew of the ketfyjay are back!