Chris Wooding - The Black Lung Captain

'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.

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 that if you knew.

But for all his silent, smug warnings, he was jealous. They reminded him of when he was their age, when he thought the way they did. He'd imagined himself as a dashing freebooter, or a rich and famous explorer like Crewen or Skale, the men who discovered and mapped New Vardia. He remembered that first couple of years with Trinica, when he'd believed he was the luckiest man alive, and he'd been unable to imagine any obstacle they couldn't overcome together.

Sometimes he wished he could be that naive again.

He sipped his coffee and made a show of studying his broadsheet, just for effect. He was acutely aware that he didn't belong here. He couldn't shake the suspicion that he'd only been permitted to enter by mistake and that he'd be escorted out at any moment. Even the waitress who served him the coffee had given him a frankly insulting once-over. Although she might have just been eyeing him up. Frey's instincts were all off in this place. Academia intimidated him.

There was plenty of drama in today's broadsheet. The big news was that the Archduke had announced that his wife was pregnant. The country was in raptures, apparently. Celebrations planned in the cities, and all of that.

An heir, to replace poor dead Earl Hengar. That was bad news for the Awakeners. The Archduke and his wife were staunch opponents of the organisation, and even more so since Hengar's death. The Awakeners had had a hand in that, even if they'd never been held to account for it. They might have hoped the Archduke would die childless, to pass the reins of power to a more sympathetic member of the family. But that hope was now extinguished.

The other news also concerned the Awakeners. A vote was to be taken in the House of Chancellors on a new proposition to ban Awakener activity in the cities. Just the thing that Grand Oracle Pomfrey had been complaining about, shortly before Frey robbed him at the card tables. Frey suspected it had been timed to ride the wave of public support in the wake of the Archduke's announcement. The Archduke didn't actually need the approval of the House to pass any laws, but there were a lot of people out there who'd get angry about the Archduke messing with their religion. The House was the voice of the people, traditionally, even if it was only the aristocracy who got much of a say in it. Their support would make things much easier.

Strange times, he thought. But times had been strange since the Aerium Wars began. Frey didn't trouble himself with the big picture too much. Let the world take care of itself, and he'd do the same. That was his usual philosophy, anyway. Yet, somehow, here he was at Bestwark University, waiting to meet a colleague of Grist's father. All in the name of chasing down that Mane sphere before Grist did anything too terrible with it. And where was the profit in that?

Nowhere. Except that maybe he'd be able to sleep at night, knowing he'd at least tried to prevent a disaster he'd had a hand in causing.

Smult's information had given them a few leads, even if the scumbag had subsequently sold them down the river. Grist was likely on the northern coast somewhere. That was the best place to start asking after him. But before they went flying about, freezing their pods off in the arctic air, Frey wanted to have a word with Daddy. See if he could narrow the search a bit.

So they'd flown over to Bestwark. Trinica had composed a polite letter of introduction. They didn't want to alarm Grist's father, so they pretended to be scholars, interested in discussing his research. She gave false names, just to be safe.

They'd had the letter delivered to the university. The next day, they received a reply from a man called Professor Kraylock, inviting them to meet him. Trinica was surprised at the speed of the response, but neither of them were of a mind to question their luck.