Chris Wooding - The Black Lung Captain

Trinica had disappeared from the Ketty Jay early that morning, to 'make some preparations'. She left word that she'd meet Frey at the university cafe. So Frey went alone, rather nervously. The gate guard had his name on a list, and he was allowed through. He made his way in, and settled there to wait, feeling slightly cowed by the whole experience.

He looked around for Trinica, saw no one, and returned to hiding behind his broadsheet. His eye fell on an article which caught his interest. The Meteorologist's Guild in Thesk was predicting a resurgence in the Storm Belt, the vicious weather system that ran across the Ordic Abyssal and separated the continent of Pandraca from the islands on the far side of the planet. The Aviator's Guild feared that New Vardia and Jagos could become even more isolated if aircraft were forced to take the eastern route instead. That would involve circumnavigating almost two-thirds of the globe, and it was prohibitively fuel-expensive, not to mention dangerous.

'Anything interesting?' It was Trinica's voice. He closed the broadsheet and looked up at her. And kept on looking.

'Darian, you're staring,' she said. A gentle admonishment. Her expression was a little awkward, uncertain, embarrassed. Not exactly the emotions he'd associate with Trinica Dracken, pirate captain.

But he couldn't help it. Whoever this was in front of him, it was not the woman he'd last seen on the Ketty Jay.

She'd transformed herself. The chalk-white pallor and vulgar red lipstick had gone. She wore only the slightest hint of make-up now. Her hair, that had been butchered as if with a blunt knife, had been cut into a short, fashionable style. The black contact lenses had disappeared. Her eyes were green, the way he remembered them. She was wearing a light, summery dress that exposed her pale collarbones.

It was like the past come to life. A vision of the woman he'd loved all that time ago. Oh, there were differences: ten years had passed, after all. Tiny lines at the corners of her eyes. Her face a little leaner than before, cheekbones a fraction sharper. And her hair was different, of course. But none of that was anything to him. Damn, his heart was actually beating harder at the sight of her.

'Are you alright?' she asked. 'You seem a little out of sorts.' There was a smile in her tone. She was flattered by his reaction, even if she didn't want to be.

'You . . .' Frey fought for something witty to say. 'You clean up pretty well,' he managed.

'Seemed foolish to advertise myself, given the circumstances,' she said. She sat down with practised elegance. 'Osric Smult taught me a lesson I won't soon forget. I have you to thank that I'm still alive to learn from it.'

The waitress who had served Frey drifted over to the table. Frey was grateful for the chance to gather his wits as they ordered more coffee and some pastries.

'I missed breakfast,' Trinica confessed with a smile.

Even her manner was different. Not so hard, not so cruel. That outer layer of her disguise had been scraped away. Neither of them were quite certain what lay beneath it.

She leaned back in her chair and looked out over the quad. Watching the students, as he had done. 'I would have gone to a place like this,' she said. 'Bestwark or Hoben or Galmury. I was a good student, you know. And with my family's money, well . . .' She let the sentence drift. 'I wonder what things would have been like, then.'

'At least you would have got in,' said Frey. 'Orphan boy like me, no family name ... I wouldn't have got within fifty kloms of this place, no matter how well I did.'

Trinica laughed. 'You hated studying. You told me so.'

'Well, maybe if I'd have thought I might get to university, I'd have had more of a crack at this "learning" thing,' said Frey, making quotation marks with his fingers.

'You can't blame everything on the circumstances of your birth, Darian,' she said. 'Besides, you didn't do badly for a poor orphan boy. You were a hair's breadth from marrying into a fortune, I recall.'

Frey watched her for signs of an accusation, but she wasn't making one. She seemed in a good mood, in fact. She closed her eyes and lifted her face to the sun. The first time she'd felt it on her bare skin in years, perhaps. Frey found himself worrying that she might burn.

You're worrying? About her? You should worry about yourself!

The voice of reason. He reminded himself not to be beguiled. Just because she'd changed her appearance, it didn't make her any more trustworthy.

The waitress arrived with their drinks and a plate of pastries. Trinica took one and bit into it. Frey realised that he'd never seen her eat while she was aboard the Ketty Jay. She'd taken her meals in her room, perhaps aware that her presence was poisoning the atmosphere in the mess. She had a fussy, precise way of eating that Frey had always found sort of adorable.

He ate a pastry himself. For a short while, they didn't speak. Absurdly, Frey began to feel comfortable. Like they'd known each other for ever. Like it was no big thing that they were sitting together in the grounds of an ancient university eating pastries on a sunny day. The whole situation was bizarre in its normality.

'Trinica, do you ever question what you're doing?' he said.

She peered suspiciously at the pastry in her hand. 'Should I?'

'No, I mean, do you ever wonder if you're on the right road?'

'My road chose me, rather than the other way around.'

'But, I mean . . . You're rich, right? Even without your family. You could sell your craft, retire. Do anything you wanted.'

She laughed a little laugh. 'Like what? Keep bees? Potter about my manse looking at the flowers?'

'You could read. You always liked to read.'

Trinica gave him a look that was midway between indulgent and patronising. 'I rather think it's you we're talking about here, not me.'

She was right. It had begun as an idle thought, but it had always been heading somewhere. He knitted his fingers behind his head, trying to think of a way to explain the empty, directionless feeling he'd had ever since this whole affair began.

'Let me guess,' said Trinica. 'You're looking for something, but you don't know what it is.'

He was amazed that she'd summed it up so neatly. 'How'd you know?'

'Because you've been saying the same thing since you were seventeen.'

Frey looked blank. 'Have I?'

'Yes!' she said. 'When I met you, you were flying for my father. You'd mortgaged yourself to the eyeballs to afford a second-hand rust bucket called the Ketty Jay, but you were regretting it already, because you'd decided you wanted to join the Navy and fly a frigate.'

Frey did dimly recall wanting to join the Navy at some point, but it seemed unimaginable now.

'Then you decided you were in love with me, and you wanted to be with me for ever, and we all know how that turned out.'

Again, there was no hurt or accusation in the tone. Simple fact. He was a little offended that she could talk about it so lightly.

'I did join the Navy!' he said, suddenly remembering. 'Second Aerium War, flying cargo to the front.'

'You didn't join the Navy ,' she said. 'You flew a lot of insanely dangerous freelance missions with the intention of getting yourself killed. And when you almost did, you blamed the Navy and you've hated them ever since.'

She had him there. He tried to think of a rejoinder and couldn't.

'Sorry, Darian. I don't mean to rake over old coals. I'm just making a point. You don't know what you want. You never have.'

Frey thought of Amalicia Thade, how he'd run away from a life of luxury with a beautiful woman. 'Things just seem so much better in theory than in practice. I even wanted to be a pirate for a while, like a real pirate. But it turns out I'm just not that cold-blooded. No offence.'