‘Care to tell us all what you’re talking about?’ Crake prompted.
Ashua filled them in on the details, how Frey had opened the case they’d taken from the train and found the curious weapon inside. Frey noticed that she skipped over her part in the affair, the relentless goading which inspired him to pick it up in the first place, but he was too distressed to care.
His hand. He didn’t need the doc to tell him that he was probably going to lose it. The enormity of that thought was too much to handle.
Just a few hours ago, he’d been so happy. Why couldn’t he have just left the damned thing alone? Why didn’t he do what he was told for once?
‘You reckon it was poison?’ Pinn suggested. The sight of Frey’s hand had sobered him up fast.
‘If it was, it’s been in there too long to do anything about it,’ said Malvery. ‘If you’d come to me straight away, Cap’n…’
Frey turned to Crake. ‘You think this and the signal might be connected?’
‘It would be quite a coincidence if they weren’t.’
Frey stared at his hand again. It was so strange. It didn’t hurt or feel bad, yet the sight of it was appalling. The angry corruption beneath the skin made him feel sick.
‘I was just with Trinica. She didn’t notice,’ he protested, as if he could somehow disprove this thing and make it go away.
‘Maybe it just came on in the last few hours. Maybe she wasn’t looking,’ said Crake. ‘Does it matter?’
It didn’t matter. None of it mattered, because no one knew what to do. That was the most f rightening thing of all.
It was Ashua who shook them out of it. She strode over to Frey and pulled him up out of his seat.
‘You need help,’ she said firmly. ‘Come on.’
‘Come on where? ’ Frey asked.
‘This is my city, remember?’ she said. ‘Follow me.’
Ten
It was the dead of night, which meant little in Shasiith. The place teemed like an ant colony. People swarmed over each other, talking and arguing, shopping and stealing. The air was a stew of heat and sweat and noise. Spiced bread and sizzling meat gave off a muddle of scents as vendors fed the hungry.
Like Jez, this city never slept.
Groups of men sat in the electric light of cafe fronts, sipping thick dark coffee and watching the chaos. Giant beasts shambled among the crowds, dragging heavy loads, their riders perched behind their heads. They were called rushu in the local tongue. Their tusks and horns had been given decorative tips in a half-hearted attempt to make them slightly less dangerous, but Jez thought they could cause terrible carnage if they had a mind to. Still, that was ^r offthey hadthe way in Samarla. To foreign eyes, life here seemed disordered, frantic and cheap.
Jez had been filled in on the situation with the Cap’n, and she was deeply concerned. She’d come to feel protective towards him during her time on the Ketty Jay. He wasn’t very good at looking after himself at the best of times: this new, mysterious injury was only confirmation of that. But it was the state of his mind as much as his body that kept her fretting. He was just a boy in many ways. He might have been outwardly handsome and charming, but she saw through all of that, and knew him to be more sensitive and insecure than he admitted to himself.
His relationship with Trinica made her uneasy. Part of her admired him for it, the way he would plough through any and all obstacles in his pursuit of her. She’d never felt that strongly about anything, and she was jealous of his passion. He was not stubborn, or a man possessed of a great amount of willpower, but when it came to Trinica he absolutely refused to quit.
Yet Trinica had betrayed him before, and Jez saw no reason why she wouldn’t do so again. Her behaviour was no indication of her intentions; she’d proved that in the past. The last time it had hit Frey hard. The next time, he might not recover.
Oh, Cap’n. I hope you’ll be alright.
With the exception of Silo, Bess and Harkins, the whole crew had sallied out into the streets, and they’d gone armed. It was too dangerous for Silo and Bess to leave the Ketty Jay, and Harkins was asleep. No one wanted to wake him up. Lately, he’d been keen to include himself in any missions, where he was usually more of a hindrance than a help. She assumed he was trying to ape the Cap’n’s recent spate of reckless bravery, though she couldn’t imagine why.
Ashua led them on foot through the city for half an hour, through streets that became progressively more narrow and ramshackle. Jez didn’t trust her, even if she found her brash and cocky front preferable to Trinica’s quiet treachery. But Ashua seemed to know where she was going and, despite being drunk, she went with some urgency.
Where they went, their mysterious tail followed them.
Jez had sensed him before she spotted him. Even among the crowds, he moved with purpose. A Dakkadian, a plain-looking young man wearing a brown embroidered robe and sandals. Jez never caught him looking at them, but she observed him from the corner of her eye when she turned her head to talk to her companions.
At first she hadn’t been sure, but he’d stuck with them all the way into the slums. A man dressed so neatly had no business among these reeking lanes with their leaning shacks and steep narrow steps. Here, the air was a fug of petrol fumes from rattling generators, which powered the lights that shone behind tattered fabric curtains. Even the poorest of people in Samarla could lay their hands on petroclass="underline" the country welled with it. It was aerium they were starved of.
The slum dwellers w cum ca amp;ere a mix of Dakkadian and Samarlan, all of them wise enough to stay out of the way of the conspicuously armed group passing through. Many of the Samarlans were of the untouchable caste, their black faces mottled with white patterns to signify their low status. Many, however, were not. They were just poor. Jez had visited Samarla briefly as a navvie on other craft, but this was the first time she’d really become aware that most Samarlans didn’t live in luxury, as was popularly believed in Vardia. Crake, who had read Politics at Galmury University and knew a thing or two, had been educating her on the finer points of Samarlan society during their sightseeing excursions.
She caught up to Frey. ‘Cap’n,’ she said in a low tone.
‘The feller following us? Yeah, I know. He’s not very good.’
‘Who do you think he works for?’
‘Could be anyone.’
‘Think we should do something about him?’
Ashua, who’d overheard the conversation, leaned over. ‘Don’t bother. He won’t follow us where we’re going.’
Frey looked at Jez and shrugged. ‘What she said, I suppose.’
Jez wasn’t satisfied with that. The Cap’n’s mind was on other things, but she didn’t like the idea of not knowing. She ran through a mental list of possibilities. Awakeners? Yes, they had good reason. The Shacklemores? They didn’t usually employ Daks, but the Shacklemores were still after Crake as far as she knew. The man could even be spying for Trinica, although Jez suspected the pirate would have hired someone better.
She decided to try to find out.
The thought gave her a small thrill. She’d never attempted to read somebody’s mind before. It had always just happened, as it had on the train the day before yesterday.
Well, she had the ability. There was no denying that. She might as well learn how to use it.
And so, as they walked, she slid into a shallow trance. She could put herself into trances and bring herself out with relative ease nowadays. She no longer feared the Manes waiting for her. They didn’t howl and cry for her to join them any more. She’d been given the Invitation, she’d refused it, and they respected that choice. They still waited at the edge of her consciousness, but they never spoke to her.
With the trance came the familiar sharpening of the senses. Minute details became crisp and obvious; everything seemed closer somehow. Smells became distinct, so that she could separate out the different scents of her companions. She could hear the murmur of voices in distant shacks. She could never put her finger on the way that a trance made her feel, only that it ma cly murde her more here, more present in the world.