Retribution Falls - Chris Wooding [147]
And the voices. The dissonant voices, the crew of that terrible craft, which loomed out of the endless fog of the Wrack. She could hear them now, their faint cries blowing on the wind that rushed past the hull of the Ketty Jay. Calling her. Calling her home.
Why not? Why not just go to them? Turn this crate to the north and get it all over with.
She was tired of this life. The last three years had been spent discarding one crew and joining up with another, never putting down roots. She kept her distance from the men and women she worked with because she knew, sooner or later, they’d find her out. It had been the same with the crew of the Ketty Jay. Eventually she always had to run. Now that moment had come again.
Why stay in a world where you’re not wanted?
Every day it got a little harder to resist the call of the Wrack. Every day eroded her willpower a little more. Was it only stubbornness that made her stay among people who would kill her if they knew what she was? Was it simply fear that prevented her from going to the north, where they lamented her absence, where she’d belong? Like the distant howl of a wolf pack, their cries stirred her, and she ached to go to them.
What’s stopping you, Jez? What’s stopping you?
What, indeed? Where else could she go from here? Did she imagine she could effect some kind of daring rescue in the Ketty Jay? No, that would be suicide. She wasn’t even very good at flying her. It would take a long time to get used to the many quirks of a craft as patched together as this. And even if she did somehow save Frey and the others, what then? How would she explain how she’d convinced Dracken’s crewman that she was dead?
It was just like all the times before, with all the other crews. The small things were adding up: her fantastically sharp eyesight; the way she never seemed to need sleep or food; how animals reacted around her; the uncanny healing after she got shot in Scarwater; the way she’d been unaffected by the fumes in Rook’s Boneyard.
And now there was this new ability to convincingly imitate a corpse. The first time, only Crake had seen it, and he hadn’t said a word. It could have been passed off as the Shacklemore man’s mistake. But twice?
Now the suspicious glances would begin. She’d start to hear that wary, mistrustful tone in their voices. Even on the Ketty Jay, where you didn’t ask about a person’s past, questions would be raised. They could accept a daemonist, but could they accept her? How long before Malvery insisted on giving her a checkup to solve the mystery? How long before they found her out?
The reason Fredger Cordwain thought she had no pulse was because she had no pulse.
The reason Dracken’s man thought she was dead was because she was.
IT HAD HAPPENED THREE years ago.
The first Jez knew of the attack was when she heard the explosion. It was a dull, muffled roar that shook the ground and spilled the soup she was eating, scalding her fingers. A second explosion sent her scurrying to grab her thick fur-and-hide coat. She pulled up the hood, affixed the mask and goggles, and headed out of the warmth of the inn, up the stairs and into the blizzard.
She emerged onto the main thoroughfare of the tiny, remote town in Yortland that had been her home for a month. The dwellings to either side were low domes, built mostly underground, barely visible. The light from the small windows and the smoke from their chimneys pushed through the whirling snow.
There were others already outside: some were Yort locals, others were the Vard scientists who used this town as a base while they worked on the excavation nearby. All eyes were on the bright bloom of fire rising from the far side of the town. From the landing pad.
Her immediate thought was that a terrible accident had occurred, some tragic