The Black Lung Captain - By Chris Wooding Page 0,101

she couldn't disguise all the evidence of the pounding the Delirium Trigger had taken. Outside in the corridor there were the sounds of running feet, and the air smelled of burnt oil.

'You shouldn't have robbed me,' said Frey. 'I let you off the first time, on account of our previous good feeling towards each other. But twice? Not a chance.'

She gave a derisive snort. 'Yes, Darian. Grist has run off with your treasure and your crew is languishing in my brig. You've certainly come out on top this time.'

'You didn't do so well yourself.'

'I'll survive.'

'So will I.'

'Ah, but that's my decision now, isn't it?' she said. Her black eyes hardened. 'You've inconvenienced me greatly.'

Frey made a do-I-look-like-I-care face. 'I didn't ask you to get involved. Actually, I seem to recall I had the sphere first.'

'You've cost me men and fighter craft. Good men, some of them.'

'Oh, piss off with your threats, Trinica,' Frey snapped. He was suddenly irritated at her. Just the sight of her wound him up. 'What would you have done? You robbed me again.''

'I rather expected you to chalk it up to experience and move on,' she said.

'Well, you expected wrong,' he said sullenly. 'I thought you'd have learned by now: you don't know me half as well as you think you do.'

He tapped his fingers on the arm of his seat. Impatient, agitated. It was hard to keep his cool around her. She had a way of making him lose his temper. It frustrated him. He could be the soul of charm around other women, but her mere presence was enough to have him behaving like a surly adolescent.

'I wish you'd scrape that shit off your face,' he said at length. 'You always had great skin.'

Trinica made a distracted noise of agreement. 'I did take very good care of myself, back then. You remember my dressing table, I'm sure. Groaning under the weight of my cosmetics.'

'You'd spend an hour making yourself look like you weren't wearing make-up.'

'It's easy to become obsessed with the unimportant, when nothing you do means anything.'

Frey made a sweeping gesture to indicate the Delirium Trigger. 'And this does?'

'Oh yes. The power of life and death. I'm very important to you right now.'

Frey couldn't argue with that, but he didn't like to concede the point. He was still bitter about the way she'd snubbed him back on Kurg.

Trinica was watching the rain pouring down the outside of the window. The storm had eased and the sky had lightened a fraction. It was nearing dawn. Frey had spent hours in the brig, awaiting an audience. The second night he'd had without sleep. He needed a big dose of Shine and a day-long nap.

'The Awakeners are baying for your blood,' she said. 'They're not at all happy about what you did to their aircraft. I gather your golem notched up quite a bodycount in there.'

Frey shrugged, picking at the arm of his seat with a fingernail. 'I gave them a chance to surrender,' he said. Then he looked up. 'What are you doing working for the Awakeners again? Don't tell me you're starting to believe that junk about the Allsoul?'

Trinica laughed: a cold, humourless cascade. 'Please, Darian. Me, a warrior of the Allsoul? It was money. Just money. They pay extraordinarily well for someone reliable and discreet. And they were very impressed with the work I did for Duke Grephen on their behalf.'

'As I recall, that didn't work out too well for Grephen.'

Trinica tilted her head, staring at him curiously, as if she'd only just noticed him. 'He paid me to catch you. I caught you. What happened afterwards was no concern of mine.'

Frey didn't want to hash out the past any more than he had to. 'So the Awakeners hired you again. Presumably so they wouldn't get their hands dirty?'

'They were very keen that their involvement was known to nobody except me.'

'What's their interest in the sphere?'

'I didn't ask,' she said.

Frey waited expectantly. When she said nothing more, he prompted her. 'Come on. You must know something. Indulge my curiosity. It's not like it makes any difference now.'

Trinica considered that for a moment, and evidently decided he was right. 'They told me an explorer named Hodd had approached one of their faithful, a rich patron called Jethin Mame. He came begging money for an expedition to Kurg to find a crashed aircraft. Mame sent him away, but eventually it was mentioned to someone important at a party somewhere, and the Awakeners suddenly became interested.'

'Enter