Trinica, he thought. Here I am at last.
‘Trouble, Cap’n,’ Silo called down the corridor from the cockpit.
Rot and damnation, what now? Frey thought. He’d been staring critically at himself in the grubby mirror above the metal sink in his quarters. There were heavy bags under his eyes. He’d only snatched a few hours’ sleep since they set off for Korrene the day before yesterday. After flying all night, he looked fit for the knacker’s yard. Not the face he wanted to present to his long-lost love.
He tore himself away from the mirror — even at his worst, he found a ghoulish fascination in his own reflection — and went to see what the matter was. He found Ashua dragging Abley up the corridor at gunpoint. His hands were tied before him with rope.
‘I warned you, didn’t I?’ she told him. ‘Cap’n, where can we shoot this little bastard where he’ll make the least mess?’
‘Whoa, whoa! Don’t anyone shoot anyone till someone tells me what we’re shooting people about,’ said Frey.
Ashua pulled the terrified Abley to a halt, and pressed a pistol to the side of his head. ‘There’s a bunch of armed Awakeners out there, that’s what. And they want to come in. I call that quite a bloody coincidence, don’t you?’
‘Where’s Harkins and Pinn?’
‘Here! Here!’ Harkins said, stumbling out of his quarters in his long johns, with the imprint of a pillow stamped into one side of his face. ‘Thought I’d catch some sleep. Er, it was quite a long flight. Sorry, Cap’n.’
‘And Pinn?’
From the door behind Harkins, there came an intake of breath as if someone were cranking up a ballista, followed by a despairing wheeze like the lamentations of the damned.
‘Is he snoring or dying in there?’ Frey asked.
‘Er. . well. . when he’s asleep, it takes a bomb to wake him,’ Harkins said. Then he dropped his voice, glanced back through the door and covered one side of his mouth. ‘It’s probably because he’s an enormous lazy turd,’ he added bravely.
Well, that put paid to the idea of flying off. He wasn’t going to leave the Skylance and Firecrow behind.
Silo came out of the cockpit and into the corridor. ‘They lookin’ pretty impatient, Cap’n,’ he advised.
Frey was beginning to feel flustered. First bags under his eyes, and now this? ‘Where’s the doc, then?’
‘He won’t be getting up, Cap’n,’ said Jez, who’d appeared out of her quarters. ‘He was drinking pretty hard yesterday.’
Frey was glad to see her up and about. She’d put on new overalls and washed, and she looked more focused than he’d seen her in a while. That, at least, was heartening.
He made a quick decision. ‘We’ll have a pretty hard time explaining away a dead man if they come aboard,’ he told Ashua. ‘Bring him. Silo, you too.’
He headed into the infirmary. Ashua pushed the prisoner along after and Silo followed. Frey picked his way through Malvery’s medicine cabinet until he found a bottle with the right label. ‘Hold him still,’ he said absently.
‘I didn’t tell them! I swear! I did what you said!’ Abley was wailing, as Silo wrapped strong arms round him to secure him.
Frey found a wadded rag, tipped some of the bottle on it, and then slapped it over Abley’s nose and mouth. ‘That’s enough out of you,’ he said.
Abley struggled for a moment, but not hard enough to break Silo’s hold. His eyelids fluttered as he breathed in the chloroform, and then he went limp.
‘Give me a hand,’ he told Silo. Between them, they hauled Abley to the operating table and left him there.
‘If he’s shopped us, Cap’n, I’m coming back to shoot him, unconscious or not,’ Ashua promised.
There was a banging on the cargo hold door, faintly heard. Frey straightened, arranged his hair a bit, and went back out into the corridor. ‘Ashua, Silo, come with me. Jez, find Pelaru, make sure he stays quiet. I don’t trust him not to sell us out. Harkins. .’ He waved at the air, unable to think of anything useful that Harkins could possibly contribute. ‘I don’t know, get dressed or something.’
‘Cap’n!’ Harkins saluted smartly and disappeared back into his quarters. Frey shook his head. He couldn’t get used to that saluting thing.
They made their way down to the hold. Frey thought their numbers were thin for a confrontation, but he didn’t want a firefight here, which was why he’d given Jez a job to keep her out of the way. He didn’t need her making everyone nervous. And anyway, if it came to that, they always had Bess.
Oh, damn it. Bess.
He could hear her clanking around as they came down the stairs to the floor of the cargo hold. Without Crake’s whistle to put her to sleep they were going to have trouble hiding the fact there was a daemonist’s golem on board. And that would take some explaining to a bunch of Awakeners.
‘Ashua. Go back there to the sanctum. See if you can shut her up.’
‘How am I supposed to do that?’ Ashua protested.
‘I don’t know. You’re the smart one. Be creative.’
Ashua muttered something about how creative he’d feel with a rusty fork rammed sideways up his arse, but she did what she was told.
So now there were two of them. The captain and his first mate. He smoothed his rumpled clothes as Silo went over to the lever that opened the cargo ramp.
‘Let’s look like we’ve got nothing to hide, eh?’ he said. Silo pulled the lever and then returned to stand by his captain.
There were a dozen of them waiting outside, and most of them were carrying rifles. There were Sentinels in grey cassocks, an Acolyte in beige, and an assortment of men who looked like mercenaries. At the head of them was a tall man in a black cassock, high-collared and single-breasted like those of his companions. He had a long flowing moustache and a shaven skull, with the Cipher tattooed prominently on his forehead.
‘Brothers!’ Frey called out happily, throwing his arms wide.
‘That,’ thundered the man in black, ‘remains to be seen.’
They came up the ramp and into the cargo hold, spreading out to cover the area with guns. Frey didn’t count that an encouraging sign. The man in black walked up and stood squarely before him.
‘My name is Prognosticator Garin,’ he said. ‘And you are Captain Darian Frey.’
‘I’m pleased that my reputation precedes me,’ he said, though in this case he really wasn’t. If word had got back that he’d been robbing Awakener vessels, this wouldn’t go well.
‘We recognised your aircraft,’ said Garin. He glanced at Silo, then turned his attention back to Frey. ‘And now I’m wondering why you are here.’
Frey thought about playing the religious conversion angle, but he knew he’d never make it stick. So he went with what he knew. The best lies were closest to the truth.
‘Look, mate,’ he said confidingly. ‘I know you lot are into your Allsoul and stuff, but to be honest, that’s not for me. The idea of my destiny being mapped out before me and all that, I don’t much like it. I’m a simple man at heart. But I see the way the common folk rally round your banner, and I think, well, whose side do I want to be on? The Dukes and all those pompous city types? Or down here with the salt of the earth?’
‘Don’t try me with speeches, Captain Frey,’ said Garin, his arms folded.
‘Sod it then. We’re here for the mercenary work,’ said Frey, shrugging. ‘The only mercs the Coalition are hiring are Shacklemores. They want everyone on their side all disciplined and legal. Their loss. We reckoned you fellers might put up some coin for a few fighting craft and some experienced pilots.’
‘And so you found your way here. Very enterprising. I can’t imagine that would have gone down very well with the daemonist on your crew. A man by the name of Grayther Crake?’
Ah. That’s what this is about.
‘It didn’t,’ said Frey. ‘So we kicked him off. Bloke was a pain anyway.’
Garin raised an eyebrow. ‘That’s interesting. Rumour has it you were fast friends.’