Retribution Falls - Chris Wooding [31]
Crake sipped at his beer as Pinn and Malvery recovered. His companions were all merrily drunk, except Harkins, who radiated discomfort despite having sunk three flagons already. Crake was still working on his first. They’d given up bullying him to keep pace once he’d convinced them he wouldn’t be swayed. He had other business tonight, and it didn’t involve getting hammered on cheap alcohol.
How easily they forgot, he thought. As if Macarde holding a gun to his head was a trifling matter not worthy of comment. As if the mass murder of dozens of innocent people was something that could be erased with a few nights of heavy drinking.
Was that their secret? Was that how they lived in this world? Like animals, thinking only of what was in front of them? Did they live in the moment, without thought for the past or concern for the future?
Certainly that was true of Pinn. He was too dim to comprehend such intangibles as past or future. Whenever he spoke of them, it was with such a devastating lack of understanding that Crake had to leave the room.
Pinn rambled endlessly about Lisinda, a girl from his village, the sweetheart who waited for him back home. His devotion and loyalty to her were eternal. She was a goddess, a virginal idol, the woman he was to marry. After a brief romance—during which they’d never had sex, Pinn proudly declared, as if through some mighty restraint on his part—she’d told him she loved him. Not long afterward, he’d left her a note and gone out into the world to make his fortune. That had been four years ago, and he’d neither seen nor contacted her since. He’d return a rich and successful man or not at all.
Pinn saw himself as her shining knight, who would one day return and give her all the wonderful things he felt she deserved. The simple truth—which, in Crake’s opinion, was obvious to anyone with half a brain—was that the day would never come. What little money Pinn had was quickly squandered on pleasures of the flesh. He gambled, drank, and whored as if it were his last day alive, and he flew the same way. Even if he somehow managed to survive long enough to luck his way into a fortune, Crake had no doubt that the bovine, dull-looking girl—whose picture Pinn enthusiastically showed to all and sundry—had long since given up on him and moved on.
In Crake’s eyes, Pinn had no honor. He’d lie with whores, then lament his manly weakness in the morning and swear eternal fidelity to Lisinda. The following night he’d get drunk and do it again. How he could believe himself in love on the one hand and cheat on her on the other was baffling. Crake considered him a life-form ranking somewhere below a garden mole and just above a shellfish.
The others he couldn’t so easily dismiss. Harkins was a simple man, but at least he knew it. He didn’t suffer the same staggering failure of self-awareness that Pinn did. Malvery had a brain on him when he chose to use it, and he was a good-hearted sort to boot. Jez, while not luminously cultured, was very quick and knew her stuff better than anyone on board, with the possible exception of their mysterious Murthian engineer. Even Frey was smart, though clearly lacking in education.
How, then, could these people live so day-to-day? How could they discard the past and ignore the future with such enviable ease?
Or was it simply that the past was too painful and the future too bleak to contemplate?
He finished his drink and got to his feet. This was a question for another time.
“Excuse me, gentlemen,” he said. “I have to pay someone a visit.”
His announcement was greeted by a rousing wa-hey! from the table.
“A lady friend, eh?” Malvery inquired, with a salacious nudge that almost unbalanced Crake. “I knew you’d crack! Three months I’ve known him and he’s not so much as looked at a woman!”
Crake managed to maintain a fixed smile. “You must admit, the quality of lady I’ve been exposed to hasn’t been terribly inspiring.”
“Hear that?” jeered Pinn. “He thinks he’s too good for our sort! Or maybe it’s just that women aren’t to his taste,” he finished with