The Black Lung Captain - By Chris Wooding Page 0,128
sour. With even uneasy greeting in the corridor, every hour passed in silence in the cockpit with the captain, her bitterness grew. She was sick of being sorry. She found it pathetic that the crew were all pretending that nothing had happened, and yet they couldn't look her in the eye.
Nobody made any move, whether to make peace or to kick her off the Ketty Jay. She waited even day for the axe to fall, but eventually it became apparent that no one was holding it.
Now, as the Cap'n stood next to her, she wondered if the time had finally come.
'Jez?' he said. 'Can we talk?'
She shrugged with an insulting lack of respect. 'Whatever you want.'
'And you can cut out the attitude, Jez, or we're never going to get anywhere.'
He wasn't usually so assertive. It surprised her, but not enough to make her drop the hostility in her tone. 'Where exactly are you trying to get to, Cap'n?' she asked.
He glared at her for a moment, then snorted. 'Forget it,' he said. 'This isn't worth it. Bad idea.'
He turned and began to stalk away from her. But that brief exchange had fired her up. All the pressure in her had just been given a vent. The Cap'n wanted to talk? Well, she'd talk.
'Cap'n!' she snapped.
He stopped and turned around. 'You got something to say?'
'Yeah, Cap'n, I do,' she said. 'I want to tell you I'm rot-damned tired of the way I'm being treated on board this aircraft. I'm tired of being a ghost to all you men just because you're too chickenshit to deal with your feelings. There's a sight too many secrets on the Ketty Jay. A little more conversation and a little less ducking the bloody issue would do us all a lot of good.'
She threw the hammer and chisel on the ground and spat after it. Felt good. Felt good to go past the point of caring what the consequences were. She strode up to the Cap'n. She was shorter than him, but so what? It was time he heard how it was.
'I got caught by a Mane,' she said. 'Didn't turn me all the way, but it turned me enough. I'm part Mane, but I'm still human. I think like I used to, and I feel like I used to. And I might add that my being a Mane accounts for my frankly phenomenal navigational skills, without which you'd be long dead and your precious craft would be a heap of slag.' She threw her hood back and glared up at him furiously. 'Do you get it, Cap'n? I'm part Mane. You deal with that or you kick me off, but I'm not living like this any more.'
Her words rang out into silence, swallowed by the cold wind that blew through the town. Frey's face was stony and grim.
'What happened on the All Our Yesterdays?' he asked.
'I don't know.'
'What if it happens again?'
'I don't know. I can't promise I won't.'
'I have a crew to think about,' he said.
'Yes!' she cried. 'And I'm part of it!' She paced away from him, smoothed her hair back, reded her ponytail. Something she did when she was anxious or upset. 'I'm in trouble, Cap'n,' she said. 'I'm turning. Into what, I don't know. How long it'll take, I don't know. Maybe I'll beat it. Maybe it's unstoppable. But I'm scared. I'm scared I'll lose my mind. And the only person who might have explained any of it to me was Crake, and now he's gone! Because of another damn secret that he couldn't share.'
'I don't think you'll lose your mind,' said Frey.
Her tone made it clear what she thought of his knowledge on the subject. 'You don't? Why not?'
'Because this professor guy told me so. He said the daemon was more like . . . like a sin-boat.'
'Symbiote,' she corrected automatically.
'Yeah, that. And it doesn't take you over or control you or anything. It just . . . well . . . kind of helps you out, I suppose. That and it makes you look like shit.'
She stared at him, aghast. 'You spoke to that professor a month ago!'
Frey looked like he wished he hadn't opened his mouth.
'And you didn't tell me?' she yelled.
'Things were . . . weird between us,' he mumbled. 'Wasn't sure how to.'
'The way you just did would have been fine!' She slapped the landing strut in frustration. "Spit and pus, Cap'n! You know what it would have meant to me? To know that?'