The Black Lung Captain

by Chris Wooding

  Grist's brow furrowed. 'Men like you an' me, Frey, it don't do us no good to be thinkin' that way,' he said. 'We live for today. The past don't mean nothin', and the future ain't worth a damn. We could all be dead by sunrise.' His dark eyes found Frey's. 'Ain't that how it is?'

  Frey stared at the ground. 'Yeah. That's how it is.'

  'Anyway, what's wrong with a little fun? You want to live for ever or somethin'?'

  'Actually,' said Frey, 'I kinda do.'

  Grist bellowed with laughter, which set off another coughing fit. 'Me, too!' he wheezed, slapping his leg, coughing and laughing fit to burst. 'Me, too!'

  The rain lessened slightly as night fell, but the clouds stayed in the sky, and there was no light from the moon. Under Hodd's direction, they pitched camp on a patch of high ground, and stretched a tarpaulin between several trees to act as a roof. Hodd arranged stones to make a raised platform and somehow managed to get a fire going on it.

  Jez had to admit, the man knew his survival skills. And he still appeared confident of the route. His manner and his history inspired mistrust, perhaps, but a man didn't spend a lifetime as an explorer without picking up a few things.

  The rainforest came alive at night. The treetops were busy with shrieks and wails. Insects clattered and hummed all around them. Bats flitted through the air. Repulsive things slunk and crept.

  Jez was among the volunteers for first watch, but she intended to take second and third as well. Her eyesight was better than anyone else's in the dark, and she had no need of rest. Usually she took pains to disguise her condition from strangers. She went through the motions of eating and sleeping so as not to arouse suspicion. But, just this once, she'd plead insomnia. The afternoon and evening had passed without incident, but she didn't trust their luck to hold. She didn't want anything sneaking up on them tonight.

  She stood with her back to the camp, her head bare to the elements, black hair plastered to her forehead. The hood of her coat was down, so as not to block her peripheral vision. Behind her, the men were cooking up the last of the soup. Some were huddled close to the fire. Others had already crawled into their sleeping bags, exhausted.

  Standing there in the rain, she tried to bring on the trance. When she slipped into that strange state of hyper-awareness, she'd feel the forest instead of merely seeing it. She'd be able to sense the animals and identify' any threats. In the past, she'd even shared their thoughts. Once, during a gunfight, she'd read a man's mind, just before she shot him.

  In the chaos of sounds from the forest, she fancied she could hear the cries of the Manes. But no trance came. She couldn't make it happen. They took her without rhyme or reason, and she didn't have the trick of controlling them. Perhaps she never would.

  She heard someone approaching from the direction of the fire. Looking over her shoulder, she saw Silo. Only his beak-like nose showed from the shadow of his hood. Without a word, he sat down on a rock next to Jez. He drew a shotgun from under his coat and stared out into the forest.

  They watched the forest together in comfortable silence for a time.

  Some of the crew found Silo awkward to be around, but Jez rather enjoyed his company. Everyone else talked a lot, usually about nothing important. Silo talked hardly at all, but she had the impression that he made up the difference by thinking.

  'There's rage in my family,' he said, out of nowhere. Jez didn't know what to say to that, so she didn't say anything.

  'My papa had it,' he went on. 'And his brother. And their papa, and my brother. All them dead now, but they had rage. It'd just come explodin' out o' them, and you better not be in their way when it did.'

  Jez was mildly surprised that he'd volunteered the information. She didn't even know he had a brother. She'd been aboard the Ketty Jay more than a year, but she still knew hardly anything about him. Neither did anyone else, as far as she was aware.

  Silo propped his shotgun against a tree and began making a roll-up, hunching forward to shield it from the rain. Jez wondered if that was the end of the conversation, but then he spoke again.

  'My brother, one time, he got the rage when we was all chained up in the pens. Broke his ankle against the manacles, tryin' to get at some feller. Weren't fit for work for a long while after, but he was a strong 'un, so they wanted to see if it'd heal.' He licked the paper and sealed the roll-up. 'Didn't. Bones knitted bad, gave him a limp, so they killed him.'

  There was a hiss of phosphorus as he struck a match, then the smell of acrid smoke.

  'Papa died the same. Picked a fight with some feller, Murthian like him, while they was haulin' rubble in a quarry. Smashed his head in with a rock. Sammies took him away and he didn't never come back.'

  Jez hadn't heard Silo talk at such length before. She was reluctant to speak in case she interrupted his flow, but she felt the moment demanded something.

  'Sorry about that,' she said.

  'Nothin' to be sorry about. There's what is, and what ain't.'

  Jez wished she'd kept her mouth shut. For a while, there was only the sounds of the forest and the rain. Then:

  'I got the rage, too.'

  Really? she thought. You? I've never seen you anything but calm. But she didn't say a word.

  'Used to be proud of it,' he said. 'They was afraid of me when I was young. I'd take on kids twice my age and give 'em worse than I got. Every day, I was angry. Angry that they kept us in chains 'n' pens 'n' camps. Murthians ain't like the Daks. Five hundred years and they still ain't tamed us.' He took a drag and blew it out. 'Lately, I got to thinkin' maybe that's the problem. We're so damn proud of defyin' the Sammies, they'll never let us out from them chains. Bit more smarts and a bit less angry, and they'd think we was tame. We'd be like the Daks, in their homes, runnin' their businesses, lookin' after their children.' A pause. 'That's when we'd kill 'em.'

  Jez kept her eyes on the forest. She'd always felt a faint bond with the Murthian. Both of them, in their own way, were exiles from their own race. She'd always suspected he felt the same. He spoke to her most out of all the crew, though usually about matters of engineering. Machinery was their common ground.

  Now it occurred to her that Silo was reaching out to her. Offering something. Making a connection.

  'There was a woman, once,' he said. 'We was both young, but old enough. I hadn't seen anythin' like her. Thought there weren't no finer thing in the world. And she thought likewise about me. That's what she said.' He shook his head, blew out a jet of smoke. 'Hard-headed woman. Loved her fierce but she drove me crazy. We'd fight and make up, over and over. Harsh 'n' sweet, harsh 'n' sweet. She had a temper, too.'

  Jez had a horrible feeling she knew where this was going.

  'One time we both went too far. The rage got me. Only for a second, but that was plenty. Won't never forget the look on her face, her holdin' her cheek like that. Saw it in her eyes. I'd lost her, right then. Didn't matter how I begged nor pleaded, she wouldn't look at me again. Never.'

  Why are you telling me this?

  'Damn, I was sick with the rage after that. Like an animal. They had to chain me down for a week. But the madness passed, and when I was well again, things was different. Every time I saw her after that, with some other man in the camp, I'd think: That's what rage did for you. And I swore I wouldn't never let it out again.'

  'And did you?' Jez had to ask.

  'Only one time,' he said. 'Years later. Day I escaped the factory where they had us makin' aircraft. He had a gun, I just had fists an' teeth. Don't remember much of what happened after, but I'm here and he ain't.' He flicked away his roll-up, and it was extinguished by the rain. 'Sane man wouldn't have charged him like that. But I weren't sane, not then.'

  He got to his feet. Standing, he towered over her.

  'Point I'm makin' is, you ignore your bad side, it eat you up. Like my papa and my brother. You got to face it. You got to make it a part of you, control it. Maybe one day it save your life, yuh?'

  Jez looked at him, startled. How did he know? H
ow did he have any idea of the struggle within her, the push and pull between human and Mane?

  He answered her question before she could ask it. 'Think I don't see you walkin' off on your own, worryin', workin' things out? I see you. You the same as everyone else, Crake 'n' me 'n' all of us. Think you better off keepin' it all to yourself.' He turned to her, eyes dark in the shadow of his hood. 'You ain't.'

  Jez met his gaze. Of all the people to tackle her about this, Silo was the most unlikely. Of course, the others knew she was different, but they avoided the issue on purpose out of respect for her secrets. She'd been grateful for their consideration, but it also left her entirely alone. It occurred to her that she was doing exactly the same thing to Crake. Of all the crew she was the only one who knew the grief he carried, yet they'd only ever spoken of it once.

  Perhaps she didn't have to deal with this all alone. Perhaps Crake didn't, either.

  'Thanks, Silo,' she said.

  He pulled back his hood and turned his face up to the rain. Water trickled over his shaven scalp. 'In Samaria I was a slave,' he said. 'In Vardia I'm the enemy. This might be the first damn place I ever been where I'm just a man.'

  He smiled. An actual smile. Jez almost fell over with the shock.

  'Freedom makes a feller talkative, I reckon,' he said.

  That was when the screams began.

  Seven

  A Commotion In The Camp — Crake Is Missing —

  Frey Takes To The Trees — A Worrying Discovery

  Frey dreamed of a meadow on a hill. He dreamed of a young woman with long blond hair and a smile of such innocent beauty that it melted him to see it.rey dreamed of a meadow on a hill. He dreamed of a young woman with long blond hair and a smile of such innocent beauty that it melted him to see it.

  Trinica was her name. They were mad with the joy of first love, swept up in each other. He chased her through the tall grass, but she was always one step ahead of him, laughing. Finally he caught her, and she turned in his arms, her nose an inch from his as she leaned forward to kiss him . . .

  Then she was screaming. Her mouth stretched open, grotesquely wide, exposing rotted teeth. Her breath stank of decay. Her green eyes darkened to black. Hair came away from her head in clumps, the dying locks slithering to the ground. He struggled frantically to let go of her, but his upper arms were gripped by some invisible force. She shrieked in his face, features distorted with horror, her skin white, corpse-like. Frey shrieked with her.

  He thrashed awake to the sound of screams, shouting, rain. His arms were trapped inside his sleeping bag. Trinica's howling still echoed in his mind.

  Rain hammered against the tarpaulin overhead. A fire flickered nearby, smoking up the air beneath their little shelter. Dark figures moved beyond it, barely visible in the downpour. Frey looked about, trying to reassemble his memories, and found himself in a lumpy, tangled landscape of empty sleeping bags. He'd gone to sleep as soon as he'd had his dinner, exhausted by the afternoon's trek.

  What in damnation is going on?

  'Over there!' someone cried. One of Grist's men.

  'Over where?'

  'That way!'

  'I can't bloody see where you're pointing!'

  'That way!'

  'Which way is that way, shit-wit?'

  Frey scrambled out of his sleeping bag, pulled on his boots and snatched up his revolver. Then he pulled his cutlass from where he'd lain next to it in the night, and thrust it into his belt. It wasn't the smartest thing to sleep with a naked blade - he didn't want any accidents where bits of his insides ended up on the outside - but he was paranoid about someone stealing it. That cutlass was his most precious possession after the Ketty Jay. a daemon-thralled weapon given to him by Crake as price for his passage. It made even an amateur swordsman into a champion. Which was good, since Frey was very, very amateur.

  He emerged from the shelter into the open and was soaked to the skin in seconds. Wiping hair back from his forehead, revolver at the ready, he cast around for signs of his crew. It was dark beyond the firelight, and the rain made it seem as if everything was constantly in motion. A pistol shot rang out, making him jump. He turned towards the sound, but the trees and shadows foiled his sight.

  'Sound your names, damn you all!' Grist cried from somewhere.

  'Crattle!'

  'Ucke!'

  'Tarworth, sir! I'm shot!' The young crewman's voice wavered fearfully.

  'Hodd! Where are you?' Grist demanded.

  'Here!' the explorer replied.

  'Gimble?'

  Frey heard a rustle to his left and Pinn emerged from the undergrowth, eyes bright, chubby face flushed with excitement.

  'I saw it, Cap'n! It's huge!'

  ' What is?' he asked, but then Grist yelled again.

  'Gimble? Are you there?'

  'Malvery!' This time it was Jez's voice. 'Someone get the doc over here!'

  Malvery appeared out of the rain, hurrying past Pinn and Frey, a lever-action shotgun in one meaty hand, his doctor's bag in the other. 'Malvery!' Frey said. 'What in bastardy is happening?'

  'Can't stop. Duty calls,' Malvery replied, heading off in the direction of Jez's voice.

  'We're coming with you,' Frey decided. 'Come on, Pinn. Everyone, stay together.' They followed Malvery into the trees, slipping through the mud, pushing wet branches aside. 'Jez! Keep shouting!'

  'This way!'

  Frey's heart was pounding against his ribs as they forged through the forest. The sense of threat was overwhelming. The further they went from the fire, the worse it got. He could barely see far enough to avoid the trees in front of him. Everything was slick with rain. In seconds, the camp was nothing more than a faint smear of light in the distance.

  They followed Jez's voice, and found her with Silo. The two of them were smeared in mud and kneeling over a fallen figure. Frey felt a surge of relief at seeing they were unhurt, but it faded as he remembered that Crake was still unaccounted for. That figure on the ground . . .

  Don't be Crake. Don't be Crake.

  It was Gimble, the scrawny, bad-humoured crewman from the Storm Dog. He was trembling, eyes glassy. One arm had been torn off at the socket. A knob of bone glistened there, washed clean by the rain. Three ragged, parallel claw-strokes were carved into his belly. Vile blue loops of intestine poked through the rips. Blood washed into the mud, coming from everywhere. He hadn't even had time to pull his revolvers from his belt.

  Malvery knelt down next to him, wiped his round glasses, looked him over.

  'He's done,' Malvery announced. 'Soon as the shock wears off.'

  'Can't you do anything?' Jez pleaded.

  Malvery grimaced regretfully and patted his shotgun. 'Best I could do is make it quick.'

  'Anyone seen Crake?' Frey asked, panicked. Something was out there, in the forest, and his crewman - his friend - was missing. He didn't give a toss about Grist's folk, but Crake was a different matter. He called into the night. There was no reply.

  Crattle appeared, having followed Jez's calls. He stared down at Gimble, then at Frey.

  'We need your doctor,' he said. 'Tarworth's shot.'

  Malvery got to his feet. 'Lead on.'

  'We need to stay together!' Frey insisted.

  'They've got wounded,' Malvery said. 'I can't help this feller, but I might be able to help the other. You lot find Crake.'

  'I'll make sure he gets back to you safe,' Crattle told Frey.

  'What about your crewman? You're just gonna leave him here in the mud?' Frey demanded of Crattle, slightly appalled.

  Crattle gave Frey a hard look. 'Don't matter what anyone does for Gimble now. My concern's with the living.'

  Jez looked up from where she knelt by Gimble. His ragged breathing had stopped while they argued. 'He's dead anyway,' she said, her voice flat. She got up. 'Let's find Crake.'

  'Good luck, eh?'Malvery said. He went off with Crattle and was swallowed up by the rain.

  Frey rubbed water out of his eyes. The forest looked
the same in every direction, but he could still vaguely see the firelight from the camp. 'Alright,' he said. 'He can't have gone far. We circle the camp. Keep that light on your left. And stay together. I'm not losing anyone to this forest, you all hear me?'

  'Yes, Cap'n,' mumbled Pinn, who'd been rather sobered by the sight of Gimble's guts.

  Frey led them away from the dead man. His mouth was dry and his temples throbbed. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt this exposed. The rain, the dark and the cacophony of animals and insects conspired to foil his senses. If something was out there, they'd never see it coming.

  When he was a child, he'd go sneaking through the corridors of the orphanage at night. Usually it was for a dare; sometimes it was because he needed the toilet and he hadn't gone before bedtime. Either way, the punishment for being caught out of bed was severe. But it was never the staff that he feared, or the prospect of a thrashing. It was the monsters that came out when the orphanage was dark and quiet. The whispering things that scraped and creaked and stalked him, waiting behind every door, hiding in the corners.

  That kind of fear, that unreasonable, primal, overwhelming fear, he thought he'd left behind with his childhood. But here it was again. And this time, there was no doubt the monsters were real.

  Damn it, Crake, where are you? he thought.

  Why wasn't he answering? Crake was a smart fellow, the smartest among them. He'd have a good reason for keeping his mouth shut. Was he being stalked, even now, and he didn't dare call out? Was he lying unconscious somewhere, having slipped on a rock or fallen down a hole?

  Or was he like Gimble, lying in a muddy tangle of himself, rain falling on his blind, open eyes?

  Frey's mind flinched away from the image. He didn't want to think about that. It was he who brought them to this place, and they were his responsibility. Time was, his crew would have told him to stuff it if they didn't feel like risking their hides on a treasure hunt. But that time was past now. They trusted him to lead them, and he felt the weight of that trust. Coming to Kurg had been his choice. If Crake died, it was on his shoulders.