dumped the gas from the tanks and she dropped neatly into the vacant spot, landing with a heavy thump on her skids.
He sank back in the chair and let a slow breath of relief escape him. Jez patted him on the shoulder.
‘Anyone would think you were worried for a moment there, Cap’n,’ she said.
Water splattered in puddles on the landing pad as the crew assembled at the foot of the Ketty Jay’s cargo ramp, wrapped in slickers and stamping their feet.
‘Where’s Malvery and Crake?’ Frey asked.
Silo thumbed at the ramp, where a slurred duet could be faintly heard from the depths of the craft.
‘Hey, I know that one!’ Pinn said, and began to sing along, off-key, until he was silenced by a glare from Silo.
‘What are we doing here, Cap’n?’ Jez asked. The others were hugging themselves or stuffing their hands in their pockets, but she seemed unperturbed by the icy wind.
‘There’s a man I have to see. A whispermonger, name of Xandian Quail. There shouldn’t be any trouble, but that’s usually when there’s the most trouble. Harkins, Pinn, Jez, grab your guns and come with me. Silo, you take care of the docking permits, watch the aircraft and all that.’ The tall Murthian nodded solemnly.
‘Think I might need to do some diagnostics,’ blurted Harkins suddenly. ‘Check out the Firecrow, you know? She was all tick-tick-tick on the port side, don’t know what it was, best check it out, probably, if you know what I mean. Don’t want to fall out of the sky, you know, zoooooom, crash, haha. That wouldn’t be much good to anyone, now would it? Me dead, I mean. Who’d fly it then? Well, I suppose there’d be nothing to fly anyway if I crashed it. So all round it’d be best if I just ran my eye over the internals, make sure everything’s ship-shape, spickety-span.’
Frey gave him a look. He squirmed. It was transparently obvious that the thought of a gunfight terrified him.
‘Diagnostics,’ he said, his voice flat. Harkins nodded eagerly. ‘Fine, stay.’
The pilot’s face split in a huge grin, revealing a set of uneven and lightly browned teeth. ‘Thank you, Cap’n!’
Frey surveyed the rest of his crew. ‘What are we all standing around for?’ he said, clapping his hands together. ‘Get to it!’
They hurried through the drenched streets of Marklin’s Reach. The thoroughfares had become rivers of mud, running past the raised wooden porches of the shops and houses. Overhead, strings of electric light bulbs fizzed and flickered as they were thrown about by the wind. Ragged children peered from lean-to shacks and alleyways where they sheltered. Water ramped off awnings and gurgled down gutters, the racket all but drowning out the clattering hum of generators. The air was thick with the smell of petrol, cooking food, and the clean, cold scent of new rain.
‘Couldn’t we go see this guy tomorrow instead?’ Pinn complained. ‘I’d be dryer underwater!’
Frey ignored him. They were already cutting it fine. Being held up in Scarwater had put them behind schedule. Quail had been clear in the letter: get here before the end of Howl’s Batten, or the offer would go dead. Frey had been lazy about picking up his mail, so he hadn’t got the message for some time. With one thing and another, it was now the last day of the month of Howl’s Batten, and Frey didn’t have time to delay any longer.
‘Gonna end up with pneumonia, that’s what’s gonna happen,’ Pinn was grumbling. ‘You try flying when your cockpit’s waist-deep in wet snot.’
Xandian Quail lived in a fortified compound set in a tumbledown cluster of alleys. His house hulked in the darkness, square and austere, its tall, narrow windows aglow. The grinding poverty experienced by the
