Jez stepped out of her quarters and shut the door behind her.
They climbed down into the mess. Silo was in there, smoking a roll-up and drinking coffee. He was petting Slag, who was lying flat on the table. At the sight of Jez, the cat jumped to his feet and hissed. As soon as the way was clear, he bolted up the ladder and was gone.
Silo looked up with an expression of mild disinterest.
‘How’s the Ketty Jay?’ Frey asked.
‘She battered, but she tough. Need a workshop to make her pretty again, but nothing hurt too bad inside. I fixed her best I can.’
‘She’ll fly?’
‘She’ll fly fine.’
Frey nodded. ‘Can you give us the room?’
Silo spat in his palm and stubbed the roll-up into it. Then he got up and left. Since speaking with Silo, Crake couldn’t help seeing the Murthian’s relationship with his captain in a new light. They’d been companions so long that they barely noticed one another any more. They wore each other like old clothes.
‘Sit down,’ Frey said, motioning to the table in the centre of the mess. Jez and Crake sat opposite one another. The captain produced a bottle of rum from inside his coat and put it on the table between them.
‘She doesn’t drink,’ Crake said. He was beginning to get a dreadful idea what this was about.
‘Then you drink it,’ Frey replied. He straightened, standing over them. ‘Something’s going on between you two. Has been since you went to Scorchwood Heights. I don’t know what it is, and I don’t want to know, ’cause it’s no business of mine. But I need my crew to act like a crew, and I can’t have this damned bickering all the time. The only way we’re gonna survive is if we work together. If you can’t, next port we reach, one of you is getting off.’
To his surprise, Crake realised that Frey meant it. The captain looked from one of them to the other to ensure the message had sunk in.
‘Don’t come out of this room till you’ve settled it,’ he said, and then he climbed through the hatch and was gone.
There was a long and grudging silence. Crake’s cheeks burned with anger. He felt awkward and foolish, a child who had been told off by his tutor. Jez looked at him coldly.
Damn her. I don’t owe her an explanation. She’d never understand.
He hated Frey for meddling in something that didn’t concern him. The captain had no idea what he was stirring up. Couldn’t they just let it lie? Let her believe what she wanted. Better than having to think about it again. Better than having to face the memories of that night.
‘It’s true, isn’t it?’ Jez said.
He met her gaze resentfully.
‘What the Shacklemore said,’ she prompted. ‘You stabbed your niece. Seventeen times with a letter knife.’
He swallowed against a lump in his throat. ‘It’s true,’ he said.
‘Why?’ she whispered. There was something desperate in the way she said it. Some wide-eyed need to understand how he could do something so utterly loathsome.
Crake
