The Black Lung Captain - By Chris Wooding Page 0,52

His face was red; he was almost choking with rage. 'How did she find us? How did she know?' He turned and faced the group. 'Which one of you told her?'

Frey was intimidated enough to take an unconscious step back, but Malvery was uncowed. 'Calm down, mate,' he said. 'We've not been out of your sight since you came to us with the job. It's hardly gonna be one of us.'

Hodd raised a quivering hand. 'Remember that I, ah, approached several people before I came across your good self, Captain Grist. It's entirely possible that—'

He got no further. Grist gave a bellow of rage, and punched him in the face with appalling force. Hodd squealed as he fell to the ground, holding his bloody mouth, eyes wide with fear and distress. Grist stamped over to the heap of weapons, scooped up a machete, and stamped back towards Hodd, who'd got to his knees and was making incoherent shrieking noises through his hands.

'Here, wait a minute . . .' said Malvery, but his protest was halfhearted. None of them really thought he'd do it. Not until he swung the machete with all his might and buried it in the side of Hodd's neck.

Time stopped for Frey. The shock of the moment froze them all where they were. Hodd gaped blankly.

Then he coughed, and a flood of red spilled from his throat and over his lips. His hand came up and felt for the grip of the machete, as if trying to work out what it was. He made a feeble attempt to pull it free, but his hand slipped on the blood that had already coated the handle. It squirted from the wound in grotesque pulses.

His eyes had that terrible look in them. A look Frey had seen many times before. The look of a man who couldn't quite believe his time was up.

He keeled over sideways and was still.

Grist stared down at the explorer, his chest heaving. Nobody said a word. They watched him carefully, waiting to see what he'd do next.

'We're gonna get the sphere back,' he said eventually. 'We're gonna get it back, you hear? Your crew and mine. We'll track that woman down and we'll have what's ours and more besides. Nobody steals from Harvin Grist.' He took a breath, straightened, and looked over at Frey. 'You in, or not?'

Frey looked back at him. Trying to judge the depth of the mania in Grist's eyes. His first appraisal of the man had been seriously off. There was a blackness at his core that Frey didn't like at all.

To give up his shot at a fortune was no easy thing. This was the second time Trinica had stolen from him, and that was hard to take. But even so, he could have walked away. He was getting in over his head, and he knew it. Might as well play with dynamite as have a partner like Grist.

But she'd scarcely acknowledged him. That was what burned. All this time, all that had passed between them, and he meant less than nothing to her. He felt snubbed and humiliated, and he wanted to make her pay for that. He wanted revenge. She'd never walk all over him again.

'I get Hodd's five per cent,' he said, motioning toward the dead man.

Grist snorted in disgust. 'Fifty-fifty it is, you bloodsuckin' bastard,' he said. He turned his back and walked off towards the Storm Dog. Crattle followed him.

'Another mission ends in resounding success, then,' Malvery said sarcastically. He headed for the Ketty Jay. The others drifted away after him, all except Jez, who was eyeing the corpse of Hodd.

'You sure about this?' she said doubtfully.

'No,' said Frey. 'But we're doing it anyway.'

Jez nodded to herself. 'Right you are, Cap'n,' she said. Then she, too, walked off towards the Ketty Jay, and Frey was left alone.

Thirteen

The Butcher's Block — Pinn Gets A Letter —

Advice From A Drunkard

Marlen's Hook stood between the Blackendraft ash flats and the Scourfoot Desert, an outpost of humanity in the most i. lifeless of places. To the west were the Hookhollows, their sharp tips peeping over the edge of the high Eastern Plateau. Restless volcanoes hidden among the mountain peaks filled the sky with a grimy haze which was carried on to the plateau by the prevailing winds. The land was gloomy and bleared.

The port was built on a blunt lump of black rock that thrust dramatically upward from the ash-crusted earth. The heart of the settlement was on the