The Black Lung Captain - Chris Wooding [135]
“I’ve done alright so far,” he said. He was on the defensive, and it came out snappy.
“You have. But now you need to do better,” she said. “Being a captain—it’s more than just making good decisions and giving the right orders. It’s about trust. You’re like the head of a family. They need to trust you, and you need to trust them.”
“They do trust me!” Frey protested. “Why do you think they’ve stuck with me?”
“It’s a testament to their loyalty that they have,” she said. “But it won’t last forever. You’re barely talking to your navigator. For what reason, I can’t tell, but it’s been going on for a month. The rest of your crew doesn’t really understand why they’re being dragged through town after town, because you haven’t explained to them why it’s important to you. And all of them are feeling the loss of Crake, but their captain doesn’t appear to care.”
“I do care!”
“But they can’t see that.”
Frey didn’t like the way this conversation had turned. He knew she was trying to help him, but he still didn’t like to be criticized. He bit back a sarcastic comment and tried not to look surly.
When she spoke again, her voice was gentle, cushioning the content. “You let things fester,” she said. “It’s your way. You’re not good at talking about the things that really matter, so you avoid them instead. You wait and hope that everything will turn out well.” She paused, gazing at the ground before her. “Remember when you left me, Darian?”
“Of course I do,” he said, prickling.
“You were unhappy for so long, weren’t you?” Her tone was sad, sympathetic. It confused him. He’d expected an attack.
“I just …” he began, but already the words were clogging up. Damn it, he could never say how he felt and make it sound right. “It was like I was trapped,” he managed at last. “I was nineteen.”
“You were angry with me for asking you to marry me. For getting pregnant.” She said it matter-of-factly.
“I wanted to be with you,” said Frey awkwardly, “but I didn’t want to marry you. That’s a big thing, you know? I was only a boy. I had a thousand things to do with my life.”
“But you didn’t say that. You didn’t say any of it.”
Frey was silent. He remembered how it was on the day of the wedding. How he’d left it until the last minute and, when there was no other way out, he ran.
“I’ve thought about that day a lot,” Trinica said, as they trudged down a slope between two clusters of houses. Back toward the tiny landing pad and the Ketty Jay. “I wondered what things would have been like if you’d spoken up earlier. Or if you’d married me anyway, despite your reservations.” She bit her lip, closed her eyes, shook her head. “I can’t see it. Any way you cut it. Wouldn’t have worked.”
“I was nineteen,” said Frey quietly. “So were you.”
“Yes. I was, once.”
The landing pad came into view. The lampposts were on. A dozen craft, none bigger than the Ketty Jay, rested there. As they approached, they could hear the sound of short, sharp impacts. Jez was there, buried inside a fur-lined coat, chipping ice from the landing struts.
Trinica stopped. Frey stopped with her. “What?” he asked.
“You should go and talk to her,” Trinica said.
“About what?”
“About whatever’s going on between you. I’ll walk a little more.”
Frey felt suddenly unwell. “I don’t know what to say,” he protested feebly.
Trinica was firm. “Anything’s better than nothing.”
Frey watched Jez working away in the yellow lamplight. Trinica was right, of course. She had always been smarter than he was. She never let him get away with anything. She decimated his excuses. Saw right through him when he tried to weasel out of things. He remembered that about her. She pushed him, always. She wouldn’t let him be weak.
You’re like the head of a family, she’d said. And that was true. He’d told himself that they were all adults, that they could handle their own problems, but in his heart he’d known that he just didn’t want to deal with them himself.
But a captain should lead by example. He couldn’t ignore