The Black Lung Captain

by Chris Wooding

  Grist gave her a slow look. 'Now you get it.'

  'You,' said Frey, 'are bloody well cracked in the head.'

  'Think so?' Grist walked slowly around the daemonist's cage at the centre of the sanctum. 'Live for ever, maraudin' the skies?' he cried, his growling voice echoing into the darkness. 'Part of the greatest crew in existence? Possessin' who knows what supernatural abilities?' He pulled on his cigar and blew out a plume of dirty smoke. 'Damn, I'll have my own craft in no time, mark my words. Man of my experience.' He nodded to himself. 'I can think of worse ways to spend eternity.'

  Frey appeared to consider that. 'Nope,' he concluded at length. 'Still cracked.'

  Grist gave him a look. 'Some things are worth riskin' every thin' for.'

  'Why do it this way?' Jez asked. 'Why do you need the sphere?' She felt panic clawing at her. She saw what was coming.

  'You know how hard it is to find a Mane when you want one?' Grist said. 'They come without warning, and they're gone in a flash. No pattern, no rhyme or reason. Here's a man desperate to meet 'em and, even with my dad's notes, I couldn't get close. So I'll bring them to me.'

  'But why Sakkan? We could do this out in the snows. There's no need to unleash the Manes on all these people!'

  'It's a gift,' said Grist. 'Best to announce myself with a bang, I reckon. "Here I am," I'll say. "And here's a thousand new recruits, an' all". I'll come to 'em as a hero.' He grinned. 'They won't be dyin you know. Those who don't resist, they'll be turned. And you of all people should know that ain't so bad.'

  Jez looked around at Grist's crewmates, hoping that some of them would react to this insanity. What she saw was not doubt but excitement. These few were Grist's inner circle. Perhaps they, too, dreamed of immortality. At any rate, Grist had persuaded them to his way of thinking. There would be no help there.

  'And what about you?' she said to Trinica. 'Presumably you don't care if a whole city is taken by the Manes.'

  'You presume correctly,' said Trinica.

  'You think he's going to just let you go after explaining all this to you?' she demanded, pointing at Grist. 'He'll betray you, just like he did everyone else.'

  'Actually, ma'am, the only reason I'm explaining it at all is for Cap'n Dracken's benefit,' said Grist. 'Someone needs to know what happened here. Someone who can tell the tale of Cap'n Harvin Grist.'

  He smiled nastily. 'Otherwise, how will they know me when I come back for 'em?'

  Jez stared. He wasn't just after immortality in the literal sense. He wanted to be a legend. The smuggler who destroyed a city. Who'd joined with the Manes. And who one day might return at the head of a fleet of dreadnoughts. A man to strike fear into the hearts of everyone. They'd use his name to scare children. Be good, or Cap'n Grist will come for you.

  'I'm a Mane,' she said. There was desperation in her voice. 'You don't need to do this. I can turn you!'

  'Can you?' said Grist, sceptically. 'A half-Mane like you? I don't reckon so. I know what you are, Miss Kyte. You ain't the first. I had my suspicions back on the dreadnought, and I knew for sure on the Flashpan, after we'd dealt with the All Our Yesterdays. Should've taken you then, saved us all a lot of trouble. But I got you now.'

  'Let me try!' she begged.

  'You ain't capable of giving the Invitation,' he said. 'You ain't even accepted it yourself.'

  'The Invitation?' said Frey. 'Is that what you call it?'

  'Ain't what I call it. That's what it's called. But I got another use for a half-Mane.' He tossed the sphere to Jez. She caught it automatically. 'Make it work.'

  Jez gazed at the sphere clutched in her hands. Just holding it made her nerves crackle. She'd known this moment would come, ever since Grist had confessed his desire to summon the Manes. No wonder nothing had happened during the month when they were searching for him. They'd been expecting news of some catastrophe all that time, and questioning why Grist, who finally had his prize, wasn't using it. Here was the answer. He didn't know how.

  But nor did Jez.

  'I can't,' she said.

  Grist motioned to two of his crewmen. They seized Frey and pulled him over to a nearby table. One of them pressed a pistol to his head; the other was carrying a machete, and forced his hand down on to the wooden surface. Frey struggled and swore, but they were too strong for him. Trinica folded her arms and watched, not a flicker of distress on her face.

  'Try,' said Grist. 'I done everything I could, but there ain't no notes on this thing in my father's research. And what I come to conclude is, it takes a Mane to activate it. You're only half o' what I need, but you'll do, I reckon.' His eyes were dark chips of stone beneath his heavy brows. 'So now I'm gonna give you one minute, then I'm gonna chop off your Cap'n's hand. Then I'll do the other one. Then I'll start on his feet. When I run out of limbs, I'm really gonna start hurtin' him. So I suggest you put your mind to the task, ma'am.'

  Jez barely heard him. The crackling in her nerves had got stronger and stronger. The power in the sphere was reaching out to her, flowing into her, overwhelming her. She could feel the onset of a trance, the flip into the surreal other world of the Manes. She fought against it.

  I can't be responsible for this.

  Thousands of lives. All that death would be on her head. Because she was a Mane. Because of the daemon that dwelt inside her.

  I can't.

  The Manes would come, and they'd give the Invitation to anyone they could, and they'd kill everyone else.

  But there was Frey, still struggling, even with a gun to his head. Frey, her captain, the man who'd given her a home on the Ketty Jay when she'd despaired of ever finding one again.

  'Thirty seconds,' said Crattle, who was consulting a pocket watch. Trinica looked on, unmoved by Frey's plight.

  It wasn't a matter of making it work. It was a matter of preventing it from working. The sphere wanted to be used. Its power leaped eagerly to her, threatening to tip her, to bring on the trance that she knew would be the final step in activating it. Once she let her daemon have its head, it would call its brethren. The eager voices from the Wrack howled encouragement, battering at her resistance.

  All those people on one side of the equation. Frey on the other.

  'Twenty seconds.'

  How could she watch his hand chopped off, then another, then a foot? If she held out now, could she really hold out till the end? What if she crumbled halfway through? That would be worse than death to Frey, to leave him without hands, and she'd still have lost.

  It came down to a choice. Between the man she knew, and the thousands she didn't.

  'Ten.'

  All those people. Because I'm a Mane. I should have died back there in the snows that day.

  But she hadn't. And that was part of her now. For better or worse.

  'Five.'

  She gave up her resistance. The sphere took her like a flood. The trance was almost instantaneous. Between blinks, the world turned to a hyper-real twilight. Her senses became superhumanly clear. She could hear guns firing in the hangar, a sound that had been muffled by the rock until now. Something was up. Bess was awake. She could hear her footsteps.

  'Four.'

  But whatever help might come, it would come too late to stop Frey being maimed. And she wouldn't allow that.

  'Three.'

  The silver lines on the sphere glowed with a spectral light, beaming out from within. Crattle stopped counting. He stared, entranced.

  Then there was a terrible shriek, a hurricane of sound that tore through the room and blasted her senses white.

  And with that, it began.

  Thirty-Five

  No Ordinary Storm —

  Bedlam In The Sanctum — Frey's Authority

  Harkins clutched the shotgun tight as he came down the stairs into the cargo hold of the Ketty Jay. He was trembling with fear and an awful, nauseous excitement. Every shadow could be the one hiding his enemy. Part of him dreaded the sight of that damned despicable cat. Another part, that voice which sometimes
got defiant when there was nobody around to challenge it, was hoping Slag would show his face after all. A squeeze of the trigger, a bloody puff of fur, and all his troubles would be over.

  Oh, who was he kidding? The noise alone would probably scare him witless. He'd deliberated for a long time between pistol and shotgun, on that basis. In the end, he'd picked the one that most suited his shooting style. He always closed his eyes and cringed away whenever he fired at someone, so accuracy was impossible. The shotgun was louder, but the scatter effect made it a bit more likely that he'd actually hit something.

  He swallowed and made himself go down the stairs. Crates and boxes and vents: all possible ambush points. He wished he hadn't come aboard at all. But he had to get a gun. That was the thing. He had to get a gun, to save Jez.

  He'd sat with his heart in his mouth, listening via Crake's daemonic earcuff to the gunfight at Grist's warehouse. He thrilled every time she spoke. She was so strong, so capable. He imagined himself battling alongside her, grim-faced, felling guards with a keen aim. And after they'd won, she'd be kind to him. She'd offer soothing words and encouragement, the way she sometimes did.

  But then he'd heard the hangar doors slamming. Jez's voice. 'It's a trap!' And he knew they were betrayed.

  After that, there was little more than a garble. The earcuffs had been taken off them, it seemed. The signal, weak at this distance, became weaker still. Sounds were muffled. It was hard to tell what was going on. Once in a while, he heard voices he knew. The Captain's, for one. And Jez. Sweet Jez.

  She was still alive. She was in trouble. And he was the only one who could help her.

  The past month had been hard on him. He'd spent the majority of it in the Firecrow's cockpit. It would have been easier if they hadn't been hopping around towns in the arctic, but the Firecrow had no heating when the engines weren't running, so he spent his nights cocooned in blankets, shivering. Harkins wasn't a reader - in fact, he didn't do much of anything except fly - so a large proportion of his time had been spent staring into space and thinking of nothing. The need to relieve himself drove him out now and then. He'd head into whatever town was nearby and use what facilities he could find. His contact with the crew was minimal. The only person he saw with any regularity was Jez, who brought him his meals.

  He'd looked forward to those visits with a mixture of anticipation and dread. He loved to see her. She'd usually inquire how he was doing, even though she was often distracted. He'd babble something, and his tongue would run away with him, and eventually he'd stumble to a stop. It was embarrassing that she should see him that way. She knew why he was hiding. He was afraid of the cat. He thought that maybe she seemed a little less kind to him nowadays, and wondered if it was something to do with that. Had he failed her? Or did she have other things on her mind? After all, it must be a burden being a Mane.

  Pinn had told him the news, gleefully, during one of the rare moments when he wasn't depressed about his own sorry love life. 'Your girlfriend's a Mane!' he crowed. 'She's the walking dead! How'd that be, eh? Humping a dead one!' He leered horribly and made a pumping motion with his hips. 'I always pegged you as a necromofelliac.'

  Harkins had never heard of one of those before, but it didn't sound like something he wanted to be. Still, he wasn't particularly concerned by the news. Alive or dead or some combination of the two, she was the same old Jez to him. What did concern him was how the rest of the crew began to talk about her after it became known that she was a Mane. They were mistrustful and uncertain. She didn't deserve that.

  He tried to keep her spirits up when she came to visit him, but he always got tongue-tied. Did she think he was like the others, muttering behind her back? He hoped not, but it was hard to tell. Damn, why couldn't he just make his mouth say what his heart felt? Why was he born with a knot between his brain and his voicebox?

  Well, actions spoke louder than words anyway. And he needed to be brave. That fat fool Pinn had deserted them good and proper, so there was no one left but him. He needed to be strong for Jez. Somehow, he was going to save her.

  He wondered how he'd possibly find the courage to single-handedly defeat Grist's gang of smugglers, if he couldn't deal with one elderly cat.

  He hurried down the stairs, across the cargo hold and down the ramp. The Cap'n would have chewed him out for leaving it open, but he needed his escape route clear. He'd left the hood of his cockpit up as well, just to be extra sure. If he spotted Slag, it would only take him seconds to reach the safety of the Firecrow.

  He scampered off the Ketty Jay and came to a halt with a sigh of relief. The cat wouldn't follow him out here. Stupid animal. He closed up the ramp and locked it by punching in a code on the exterior control panel, located on one of the Ketty Jay's rear landing struts.

  That was when he saw what was happening to the sky.

  The morning had been chilly and grey when he entered the Ketty Jay in search of the weapons locker. A shapeless haze of cloud had hung overhead, and the sun had been low on the horizon, shining with a sharp, glittering light.

  But things were different now. The sky had curdled and darkened. The wispy, inoffensive sheet of cloud had turned thick and black. Pulses of light flickered in its depths. A strong, icy wind had struck up, blowing the ear flaps of Harkins' cap against his cheeks. Despite the gathering storm, the sun was still visible in the east, between the cloud and the horizon: a shining pupil in a slitted eye. It cast a spectral light over the bleak vista.

  Harkins didn't like this. Not at all. There was an eerie, oppressive quality to the atmosphere. He had keen senses when it came to detecting threats. He'd had a lot of practice at being scared, and he was good at it.

  This was no ordinary storm.

  The clouds were moving, but it wasn't the wind that was pushing them. They were swirling, slowly at first but getting faster, as if stirred by a spoon. Gathering, becoming dense, drawing inward towards a single spot. At that point, the pulses of light had reached a frenzy. The cloud roiled and turned. Silent lightning threw out giant sparks.

  Harkins became aware that he was making a low, distressed moan. His feet were rooted to the tarmac. The crewmen of nearby craft had stopped their work and were looking up. Tractors sputtered to a halt as their drivers tipped back their caps and squinted skyward.

  This was bad. Somehow, he knew this was very, very bad.

  The pulses of light at the point where the clouds were gathering became faster and more frequent. They accelerated to a flickering strobe, and finally to a dazzling burst of whiteness that bleached the city below. The observers shielded their eyes and turned away.

  The cloud had collapsed in on itself, and was being sucked away like water down a drain. It was as if the very sky was being consumed, eaten up by the hungry maelstrom.

  And out of this sky, through the tunnel of the great, swirling vortex, came the dreadnoughts.

  Frey blinked. For a few seconds, all he could see was white. Then darkness began to soak into the picture, giving form to the shapes around him. Fuzzy shapes and blurred colours made themselves known.

  Uh? he thought, which was pretty much the best description he could come up with for his mental state at the time.

  His body was pins and needles all over, numb and painfully a-tingle at the same time. His tongue lolled in his mouth, barely under his control. There was a loud whistle in his ears.

  Gradually he came back to the world, as his overloaded senses restored themselves.

  He was in the ancient sanctum somewhere beneath Grist's compound. People were picking themselves up off the ground. Grist was nearby, shaking his head, dazed. Trinica was getting to her feet, leaning heavily on a table in case her legs betrayed her. Jez lay on her side, eyes open, staring into space. The metal sphere was no longer in her hands.

  Then he heard something. A rapid thump, growing louder. Like someone running. Someone very heavy.

  He looked up.

  Bess.

  The sanctum doors were set horizontally in t
he roof of the sanctum. The golem plunged through them like a cannonball, crashing on to the stairs with a roar. Her tiny eyes glimmered behind her face-grille, bright in the gloom.

  Bess was in a rare fury this morning.

  Panic seized the room. Grist's men scrambled to their feet, flailing and disoriented, desperate to escape the terror that had descended on them. But there was no way out except past Bess.

  She thundered down the steps and backhanded the nearest man into the wall with enough force to shatter the brickwork. Her charge brought two more men within her reach, who were too slow to get out of the way. She snatched them up by their necks and smashed their heads together, splattering herself in blood, bone and brain matter. Frey winced. That had to hurt.

  Grist and his men had found their guns by now, and were rushing for whatever cover they could find, aiming futile shots at the enraged golem in their midst. Crake, Silo and Malvery came scrambling through the ruined doors and opened up with their own weapons, picking their targets. One of Grist's men caught a bullet and went down, clutching the back of his leg. He fell into Bess's path, and she stamped him flat.

  Frey didn't know how his crew had got out or how they'd got their guns back, but he was damned pleased to see them. He turned his attention to Jez, who was still immobile, eyes unfocused. He went to check her breathing, then realised there was no point. He poked her in the nose instead. She blinked. A sign of sort-of life. Good enough for the moment.

  The sphere. Where was the sphere?

  He cast about for it. There! It had rolled free of Jez's hands and was lying near the base of the pedestal, beneath the daemon cage.

  Grist had seen it too. Their eyes locked across the distance between them. Then both ran for it at the same moment.

  Frey raced through the corridor of gunfire. Bullets scored the air around him. Bess was a bellowing mountain in the gloom, flinging furniture this way and that. But all his focus was on that sphere. He wasn't even sure what he'd do with it, now that it had been activated. But he knew he didn't want Grist to have it.