It was Frey that worried him. The Cap’n hadn’t been all there since he came out of the Awakeners’ base camp. This new blow might have been too much. He always was a self-destructive sort, but he’d always been defiant. Silo didn’t like what he saw in the Cap’n’s eyes at the mess table. It reminded him of people he’d known in the slave camps. The ones who’d been pushed too far, who’d lost too much. The ones who gave up, lay down and died.
At the base of the engine assembly was the curious device that Prognosticator Garin had attached while they were resident at the Awakener camp. Silo had taken the casing off some days before, but once he’d seen what was inside, he’d decided not to touch it. Most of it was familiar technology, but at the core was a small, spindle-shaped glass chamber. Coloured smoke swirled slowly inside, and little sparks of miniature lightning flashed within.
Azryx tech.
The tiny core was rigged up to simple broadcasting device. As to what it did, he had a good idea. They’d been fitting similar devices to every aircraft that joined the fleet. Common sense said that it had to be a countermeasure to their secret weapon. Otherwise, the Awakener fleet would fall out of the sky at the same time the Coalition fleet did. A guard they captured in the Azryx city told them once how the Sammies could fly certain craft in and out of it, ignoring the invisible field that sent delicate systems haywire. The Sammies must have sold that secret to the Awakeners too, along with the parts needed to make it work.
Having guessed its purpose, Silo didn’t want to fiddle with it in case he broke it. He reckoned it might come in handy.
He made his way up stairs and along walkways, stopping here and there to check on the machinery. Everything was running smoothly now the Ketty Jay had warmed up.
Least something runnin’ smoothly round here, he thought.
He spotted Slag among the pipes, curled up in his favourite spot. No doubt he’d been in the bowels of the craft the last few days, tucked up in the Ketty Jay’s core where the cold was kept at bay by heaters designed to protect the delicate machinery. Now the craft was running, he’d returned to the warmth of the engine room. The sight of him gave Silo a measure of comfort. In chaotic times, the cat was a reassuringly permanent fixture.
On impulse, he walked over to the pipes and reached out to tickle Slag behind the ears. Probably Slag would take a swipe at him for the liberty, but he was never fast enough these days.
Just before he touched him, he stopped. There was something profound in the cat’s stillness. A creeping suspicion came over him.
He reached out and laid his hand on Slag’s flank. It was cool, and no breath swelled it.
Silo bowed his head. He let out a long breath, let the surprise of it pass him by and the reality sink in. He knew death, knew that sense of departure when a living being became a framework. This one had been long expected, but still strange when it arrived. Eventually he felt a sort of peaceful melancholy, an acceptance of the inevitable.
‘You lived more ’n your share,’ he said slowly, his palm still flat against Slag’s flank. ‘Took on the world in your own way. Rest up now, old friend. You was a warrior. They never beat you.’
After that, he didn’t have anything to say. He took his hand away, and stood back from the pipes, and looked around the engine room. It all seemed different now. Something vital had departed the Ketty Jay, something indefinable. Yesterday she’d been alive to him; now she was just machinery.
Better the crew don’t know, he thought. Not on top of everythin’ else.
‘Rest up now,’ he said again, this time quietly, almost to himself. He picked up the dead cat, cradling him gently in his arms, and headed off into the maze of the stairways and walkways, until the clank of boots on steel was lost in the roar of the engines.
Thirty-Five
Crake stood in the cockpit of the Wrath with Samandra by his side, and looked down on a sea of lights.
Grudge was in the pilot’s seat, a hulking, silent presence. Kyne was still in his sanctum, finishing up a few things. The daemonists had done all they could in the time they had. They’d thralled several amulets with daemons that would theoretically negate the power of the Imperators. Crake went to the cockpit afterwards, to see Samandra, and to watch the city of Thesk come rolling out of the night.
He was tired down to the bone. The terror of the Imperators was only hours old, and he hadn’t had a moment to rest since. Working with Kyne had energised him briefly — practising the Art always did — but now he felt twice as weary as before.
While he’d been occupied he’d avoided thinking about Jez, but now her fate weighed on him again. He saw her in his mind’s eye, a small charred thing, lying in a black tarp body bag on the operating table in Malvery’s infirmary. He’d seen her heal wounds with uncanny speed before, and it had always been impossible to tell whether she was dead or alive when comatose; but nobody was fooling themselves this time.
At least we know the best way to kill a Mane, he thought, with bitter irony.
He spared a thought for Pelaru, too. It seemed someone should. Belatedly, he remembered how he’d seen the whispermonger take an object from the shrine in Korrene, a metal casket that he seemed to recognise. Crake had meant to talk to him about that, but then the Shacklemores had kidnapped him and it had slipped his mind entirely. Well, that secret died with Pelaru. He didn’t have the energy to care about it now.
But despite exhaustion and grief, he felt no despair. There was a rightness to things that he hadn’t known for a long time. For once the crew of the Ketty Jay were doing something moral, something correct. He was in no doubt that the path they’d taken was the one they were meant to.
Malvery would have agreed, if he’d been in the meeting to lend his voice. Harkins too, he was sure. The Cap’n wasn’t so keen, but he’d see in the end. Sometimes you had to trust in the higher powers, the institutions and hierarchies that Frey so despised. They couldn’t take on the world on their own. And Crake wouldn’t let Frey’s irrational distrust of authority put the whole Coalition at risk.
Then there was Samandra. There was a rightness to her beyond all expectation. He’d never felt such certainty about a woman. She was gregarious where he was reserved, uncouth where he was refined, violent where he was gentle: the opposite of everything he thought he wanted. Yet they fit like puzzle pieces; their uneven edges locked them together.
His love for her was simple, uncomplicated by the expectations of his upbringing. He marvelled at his fortune that she should return his feelings. Would he have been capable of this, if not for his time on the Ketty Jay? Probably not. His sense of privilege would have prevented it. But he was a different man now.
Strange the way life takes us, he thought.
The city spread beneath them. Now they could see the lighted boulevards, the monuments, the bell towers and galleries. In the distance was the Archduke’s palace, perched on a crag that rose high above the streets, a beautiful Third Age clutter of green copper domes and sloping rooftops of coloured slate. Coalition frigates slid through the sky and small personal flyers buzzed about. Crake watched them with dread in his heart. None of them knew the doom approaching them.
Seeing Thesk from above, as a net of stars cast out over the black earth, Crake felt all the beauty and fragility of the city and the civilisation it represented. He was suddenly terrified. Thesk was the pinnacle of Vardic culture, home to all its great museums and libraries. By this time tomorrow, it might all be different, the streets in ruin and the land in other hands. Science would be driven aside by superstition, humanity replaced by the inhuman.