The Black Lung Captain - By Chris Wooding Page 0,115

for as much money as he could get.

'Your friend Smult,' said Frey under his breath, 'is quite a piece of shit.'

'If we ever get out of this,' said Trinica, 'I'm going to teach him the meaning of suffering.'

'Oh, I shouldn't worry about that. You take out the two in front, I'll handle the one behind me.'

'What?' said Trinica. 'How can I—'

But he wasn't talking to her. He was talking to Jez and Silo.

Gunshots. The heavyset man and his long-faced companion wheeled and jerked, eyes wide in shock. Frey was already moving as they fell, turning to face the man behind him. As he did so, he held out his arm, and his cutlass leaped from the ground of its own accord. He felt it slap into his palm just as his opponent raised his pistol and fired at his chest from a distance of two metres. The blade jerked in his hand; the bullet sparked off the metal. His attacker had only a moment to stare in disbelief before Frey cut his hand off at the wrist and beheaded him on the return stroke.

Three corpses slumped to the ground together. Frey turned to Trinica, raised an eyebrow at her, and then walked away towards Jez and Silo. The look of amazement on her face was priceless.

Jez and Silo hurried up to him from the direction of the landing pad. 'Everything okay, Cap'n?' Jez asked.

'It is now,' he said. 'Should I ask how you found me?'

Jez brandished Crake's compass. 'Followed the needle. We came looking for you after we dealt with the men on the roof. Thought you might need a hand.'

Frey held his hand up before him and studied the ring on his little finger. 'I keep forgetting about this thing.'

'I take it things didn't go so well with the whispermonger?'

'We've got enough to be going on with,' said Frey. He spotted Trinica walking over to them and added, 'If Trinica asks, I planned this whole crafty counter-ambush all along.'

'Right you are, Cap'n,' said Jez. Her eyes roamed his face uncertainly. Neither knew quite how to behave around the other. Frey felt that he was supposed to be mad at her, but it didn't feel right after what had just happened. And yet, when he looked at her, he still saw something he was afraid of.

'Thanks,' he said awkwardly. Then he looked at Silo, where he was on safer ground. 'Both of you.'

'Um,' said Jez. 'You're welcome.'

Then he walked off down the road, heading for the Ketty Jay. With every footstep, his good humour grew, and by the time she came into sight he was positively brimming with confidence. Smult might have tried to get one over on them, but they'd slipped the trap. And however he'd done it, he'd saved Trinica, and now she owed him. A pretty satisfactory day, all in all.

On the cargo ramp, he paused and looked back over the blasted, ramshackle settlement towards the town hall.

'Now who can't tie their bootlaces, you scabby son of a bitch?' he muttered under his breath. And with that, he headed to the cockpit for take-off.

Twenty-Five

Among The Civilised —

Kray lock's Revelations — Frey Joins The Dots

Bestwark University was one of the oldest and most prestigious seats of learning in all of Vardia. It had existed for over a thousand years. Kings and queens, dukes and earls had studied there. Great advances in science, medicine, and avionics had been made behind its enormous sandstone walls. Its shadowy studies and echoing halls had played host to conversation and debate between the greatest philosophers, artists and mathematicians in history. The very air was heavy with knowledge.

Frey sat at a table in the university cafe, rustled his broadsheet, and did his best to look educated.

The cafe was built into one side of a large, grassy quad. Tall, square windows looked out over a stone veranda laid with tables and chairs. It was a sunny day, and most of the tables were occupied, but Frey had snagged one near the edge where he could watch the students going to and from their classes. They hurried along the flagged pathways between the trees and ornamental pools, chatting amongst themselves, their faces alight with a kind of enthusiasm that Frey hadn't seen in years. Young men and women, brimming with dreams and possibilities. Young men and women who hadn't yet been let out into the world, all their protection stripped from them, and left to fend for themselves.

Just you wait, Frey thought. You wouldn't smile like