‘You are! I mean . . .’ Frey was getting frustrated. He was a supremely eloquent liar, but he struggled when he had to talk about things that he actually felt. It made him vulnerable, and that made him angry at himself. ‘I mean, you and Bess could just up and walk, right? It’s like you said back in Yortland: they’d never come looking for you. It’s me they’re after. And I’m sure you’ve other business you want to be getting on with, something to do with all that daemonism stuff you picked up.’
‘So what you’re saying is that you’d like us to stay around?’ Crake prompted.
‘Yes.’
‘And that you . . . well, that you need us.’
Frey didn’t like the triumphant tone creeping into Crake’s voice. ‘Yes,’ he said warily.
‘And what are you going to do next time someone puts a gun to my head and spins the barrel?’
Frey gritted his teeth. ‘Give them the ignition codes to the Ketty Jay,’ he said, glaring malevolently at the grass between his feet. ‘Probably.’
Crake grinned and gave Bess a quick buff on the hump. ‘You hear that, Bess? We’re pirates now!’ Bess sang happily, a ghostly, off-key nursery rhyme.
‘So you’ll go to the ball?’ Frey asked.
‘Alright,’ he said. ‘Yes, I’ll go.’
Frey felt a flood of relief. He hadn’t realised how much he’d been counting on Crake’s co-operation until this moment. He was about to say something grateful-sounding when he was interrupted by a cry from further up the valley.
‘Cap’n!’
It was Silo. The tall Murthian wasn’t in the engine room after all, but running down the valley towards them with a haste that could only spell trouble. He was carrying a spyglass in his hand.
‘Cap’n! Aircraft!’ Silo cried, pointing. The others - with the exception of Pinn -scrambled to their feet or ran to look.
‘I see it,’ said Jez.
‘Damn, you’ve got good eyes!’ said Malvery. ‘I don’t see a thing!’
‘Nor me!’ added Crake.
Jez looked around guiltily. ‘I mean, I can’t make it out or anything, not really. Just saw a flash of light, that’s all.’
Silo reached them and passed the spyglass to Frey. Frey put it to his eye.
‘She coming . . . from the south . . .’ he panted. ‘Think she . . . heading for the . . . hermitage . . .’
‘Then she’ll pass over us?’
‘Yuh-huh. See us for sure.’
Frey cast about with the spyglass, struggling to locate the incoming threat. It swung into view and steadied. Frey’s mouth went dry.
She was a big craft. Long and wide across the deck, black and scarred, yet for all her ugliness she was sleek. A frigate, built more like an ocean vessel than an aircraft: a terrible armoured hulk bristling with weaponry. Her wings were little more than four stumpy protuberances: she was too massive to manoeuvre quickly. But what she lacked in speed, she more than made up for in firepower. This was a
