There she was. A dark, grey box with engines, sitting on the pad two hundred feet ahead of him. Not pretty by any measure of the word, but the most beautiful sight he'd seen in quite some time. Well, except for Imrhien, maybe.
He pushed that thought out of his head. He'd spent two days planning this, thinking how best to do it. But if he was to rescue Lys, then Vivienne was not enough boat to get the job done. He needed his old friend back. He needed the Unlikely To Fly.
Iskrin had kept an eye on the boat's flight plans ever since he sold her to Jian'Fo Gray's daughter, Lian. Some part of him had wanted to be sure that the old boat was being looked after. Lian seemed to be using her to run between Sihnon and Londinium on a two-weekly basis, and here she sat in the Bristol Docks on Londinium, where her flight plan had promised she would be. He shook his head, his eyes gazing with longing at the old boat. It would be so easy to just take her, he thought to himself. But he'd already decided not to steal her; decided that the last thing he needed if he could get to Lys was the law on his tail for a stolen boat. So he'd resigned himself to buying her back, likely at more than what he sold her for.
In that sense, the spice he'd brought from Al Raqis had truly been a gift from the Fremen god, Shai Hulud, the great sandworm. Iskrin had already sold it for a small fortune to the same merchant who'd taken Med's 'medicinal' tea off their hands a few weeks a go. Now, credits in hand, he was waiting for Lian.
All this, he thought to himself, for a girl who won't even recognise me. The flight from Al Raqis to the Core had given him ample time to go over and over his choices, his decisions, his mistakes. The further he'd flown from Imrhien, the worse he'd felt, both because the comforting touch of her mind faded to nothing, and because his heart was broken in two. Plain and simple. But Lys had been his focus for more than a decade and the message from Sam could not be ignored, not at any cost. He doubted Imrhien would ever understand.
And in the same vein, he wondered whether Lys would ever understand. Would she remember the boy she'd known; would she see him in the man he'd become? And would she forgive him for taking so long to come for her if she did? The day that the spacers had taken her, he had screamed to her, promising that he'd come for her even as the ropes tying him to the post rubbed his wrists raw in his struggles against them. He'd thought to keep that promise, but it had taken too long. Far too long.
Breaking him out of his thoughts was the vision of Lian Gray storming out of the Port Authority, cursing in Mandarin about port fees and stupid fat little jobsworths. Not a good start, Iskrin noted to himself as he stood up and made his way across the hot tarmac towards her. She took a moment to recognise him and then unleashed her pent up fury.
"You!" she shouted. "You scumbag! You ought to be ashamed of yourself selling me a boat like this," she said, her nostrils flaring. "Do you know the third fuel ventricle leaks?" she asked, barely pausing for breath. "And the attitude jets need regular adjustment. And she stinks like a spacer's toilet. She's a gorram rustbucket."
Iskrin nodded, smiling apologetically. "She has her troubles," he agreed. "Boat's old. I warned your da."
"Don't talk to me about my da," the half-chinese girl said, hands on her hips. "Old fool bought me the cheapest hulk he could find. My girlfriends hate this heap of junk."
Iskrin bristled at the venom in Lian's voice and her obvious hatred for his beloved Unlikely. He apologised silently to the boat in his head, promising that he'd save it from this spoilt little rich girl. He thought again for a moment about how to broach the subject of buying the ship back, and then decided that perhaps directness would be the best approach, given Lian's feelings. "Well, then I guess this might be your lucky day," he said, smiling warmly, hoping to charm her into agreement. "I want to buy her back."
Lian did a double-take, her eyes flicking to his, then away, then back again. "You want to what?" she asked, suspicion and hope mixed in her voice.
"Buy her back," he repeated. "Things didn't work out on the crew I joined. I need her back."
Lian was clearly relieved and Iskrin could almost see the cogs of possibility turning in her mind. "It'll cost you," she announced, crossing her arms over her small breasts. "Price I paid, plus some for the trouble you put me to, plus the price o' your need."
Iskrin nodded. "I'll pay you fair," he said. "But don't try too hard, Lian. Boat's a boat and sentiment has a limit."
She nodded back. "If you say so, Captain. Sixty thousand."
Iskrin's eyes widened. "That's twice what you paid me," he said carefully. "Thirty-five thousand."
She laughed. "Be serious, Captain. Please."
"OK, fourty thousand."
"Fifty."
"Fourty five."
"Done."
"Agreed."
They went back in to the Port Authority together to transfer the money, the paperwork and the port fees - Iskrin grumbled at this last, but it was his boat now sitting on the pad - and simple as that, the Unlikely To Fly belonged to Captain Iskrin Nightfire once again.
Lian said a terse farewell and went off to find friends who would put her up until her father could send a shuttle for her. Iskrin walked out to his old boat. He felt as though he were in a trance, the papers clutched tightly in his hand as he ran his other across the rough metal of her hull, tracing the blocky lines of her industrial construction, almost lovingly, tenderly. His access codes had been reinstated and as the ramp hissed down into position, that old familiar smell of grease, ozone and fuel came drifting out of the cargo hold. He made his way up the ramp, past the cargo that Lian had never bothered getting rid of. Seemed she hadn't really been doing much more than ferrying her girlfriends about. No wonder she hated the boat so much. The Unlikely was a working ship, not a pleasure cruiser.
Iskrin took the steps two at a time, entering the cabin and smiling as he cast his eyes about the familiar room. The fitted furniture he'd had installed on Sihnon was still there, though with a few feminine touches that he figured he do away with. The bookshelves stood empty, but he'd taken his books with him and would transfer them from Vivienne as soon as possible. In short, it was like he'd never really left.
For a moment, guilt stabbed at his heart - an agony to remind him of what he had done and what he had left behind for this boat; for this past. The past always wakes, he heard his father's voice saying. Face it and be strong. He thought of Chrysalis and her captain, of Imrhien Fargis who had turned his world on its head and woken him from the slumber of misery in which he'd passed the last ten years. Oh Imrhien, he whispered in his mind. Will you ever forgive me?
Shaking his head, the bitter pain of leaving his new friends and the woman he loved behind mixing with the excitement of owning the Unlikely To Fly again and the possibility of finally keeping his promise to Lys, he made his way down to the cockpit, easing himself into the flight chair, caressing the control stick, his heart hammering in his chest. I shouldn't be this fond of a ruttin' boat, he thought to himself and then laughed. For just a moment, nestled in the safe and familiar cockpit of the boat that had seen him through so much of his broken life, he felt sort of happy, sort of content. The calm before the storm through which he would pilot the Unlikely To Fly to the future; whatever that undiscovered country might hold.
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