The Black Lung Captain by Chris Wooding

  'Oh, indeed,' said Hodd. 'I have seen some from afar. They walk like men, but they are more like animals.'

  'What are their women like? Are they like animals too?' Pinn asked, nudging Malvery in the ribs.

  Hodd merely looked puzzled. 'Their . . . women?'

  'What happened to the beast-men who lived here?' Frey asked, changing the subject before Pinn could get really lewd.

  Hodd sniffed. 'Perhaps driven away by a rival tribe. They are a violent sort.'

  'Cap'n!' Jez called. She was waving from the doorway of a hut.

  Hodd rolled his eyes. 'Must we waste all this time? I told you, there's nothing you'll find that the Explorer's Guild doesn't already know. Beast-men have been thoroughly, thoroughly researched. There's simply nothing more to say! An exploratory dead-end!'

  'Ah, let 'em have their fun,' said Grist. He spat out the butt of a cigar and put a fresh one in his mouth.

  'Ooh, look at this! Look at that!' Hodd mocked sourly, in cruel imitation. 'There's nothing worse than watching amateur explorers at work.'

  Frey walked over to Jez and joined her inside the hut. It was little more than a circular wall with a floor of mud and rotted rushes, but unlike the others, its roof was still mostly intact. Whatever had been inside had long disappeared.

  Jez was crouching by a wall, holding a broken necklace of coloured stone. Frey took it from her.

  'Genuine beast-man necklace,' he said. 'Nice work, Jez. Might be worth something.'

  'Have it if you want, Cap'n, but that wasn't what I called you over for. Look.'

  He crouched down next to her. There was a small circle of stones on one side of the hut, and a shallow fire-pit with the remains of a fire inside. She held her hand over it. 'Still warm.'

  Frey tried it too. Faint heat came from the embers. He sat back on his haunches. 'Huh,' he said, neutrally. 'Place isn't as deserted as we thought, maybe?'

  'I think they were passing through. Took shelter here last night.'

  Frey thought about that for a moment, then got to his feet. 'You want this necklace or not?'

  Jez waved him away. 'It's yours.'

  Frey walked back to Grist, running the necklace through his hands. Grist was smoking, as ever. Hodd tapped his feet impatiently and looked skyward.

  'Oh! A necklace!' Hodd crowed. 'Just like the other thousand in the Explorer's Guild archives.'

  Frey ignored his tone. 'How much do you think it's worth?'

  'That? Next to nothing. If it doesn't come with an Explorer's Guild Seal of Certification, there's no way to convince anyone it's not some fake.'

  'Seal of Certification?'

  'And they'll only give you that if they've first given your expedition a Seal of Recognition.'

  'Seal of Recognition?'

  'And they only give that to people who can afford their extortionate membership fees and who are willing to pay them a tithe on all expedition profits.'

  'And I'm guessing you haven't been paying?'

  Hodd sniffed. 'I'm a little behind.'

  Frey rolled his eyes and tossed the necklace over his shoulder.

  'Might I have a word, Frey?' Grist said. He and Frey walked away a short distance.

  'What's on your mind?' Frey asked.

  Grist pointed with the two fingers that held his cigar. A short way off, Crake was leaning against a tree, throwing up.

  'Your daemonist. He is gonna be able to do what he says, ain't he?'

  'Don't worry about that,' said Frey. 'Not a lock in the world that Crake can't get through, given time and tools.'

  'Aye,' said Grist, doubtfully. 'Well, I hope so.'

  'Did you know there are still beast-men around here?' Frey asked.

  'Fascinatin',' said Grist, not fascinated at all. 'If they show their faces, we'll kill 'em. Now round up your crew, eh? We'd best get going.'

  Hodd hadn't been exaggerating his skill at pathfinding. He strode confidently ahead of the group, leading them through passes, across streams, up slopes. 'Ah, yes,' he'd say to himself. 'Quite, quite.' After several hours of that, he stopped on a low ridge and put his hands on his hips. 'Here we are.'

  Frey was next to join him on the ridge. He swung off his pack, dumped it on the ground and stretched. 'So we are,' he said. 'Good job, Hodd.'

  The ridge was six or seven metres above the forest floor. Before them was a narrow, tree-choked defile hemmed in by steep mountain walls on three sides. Clearly visible in the undergrowth was the vast black flank of an aircraft.

  It was the size of a Navy frigate at least, and possibly bigger. Most of it was obscured by the trees that had grown up around it, but Frey could clearly see a great split in its hull, bent girders rusting beneath. There was the edge of the foredeck, rimmed with spikes, some of which had broken off. Huge rivets studded the bow. A chain snaked out of the trees, the links thicker than a man's arm. It lay there like some fallen edifice of dirty iron, the sad remains of a time long past.

  There were gasps as the others made their way up to the ridge.

  'Behold!' Hodd cried. 'A vessel of the mighty Azryx!'

  Frey had to admit, he'd never seen anything like it, and he'd seen just about every aircraft there was. But the more he looked, the more he thought that it wasn't that old. How long had it been lying here? Thousands of years? Not at the rate the rust was eating it. Frey didn't know much about trees, but he reckoned it wouldn't take more than thirty or forty years for them to regrow after the devastation caused by the crash.

  He surveyed the damage to the craft. It had almost torn in half, but that suggested to Frey that it had gently, inexorably, sunk to the ground rather than ploughing bow-first into the defile. It had broken under its own weight on the uneven ground. A crash at speed would have ripped the craft into twisted chunks, and caused much greater destruction.

  Jez walked up next to Frey. He turned to her to ask her opinion, but he stopped when he saw the look in her eyes, the horror on her face.

  Jez, pale at the best of times, had gone white.

  'What's wrong?' he asked.

  'That's no Azryx craft,' she said, quietly. But Hodd heard her anyway.

  'Of course it's an Azryx craft!' he protested. 'What else could it—'

  'I've seen one of those before.'

  'Preposterous!' Hodd trilled, indignant.

  Grist held up a hand to silence him. He was staring intently at Jez, brow furrowed. 'You've seen one? Where? When?'

  'Years ago,' she said. 'In the north.' She looked away, and suddenly she seemed very small. 'That's a dreadnought. It's a Mane craft.'

  Nine

  The Dreadnought — Curious Cargo —

  Frey Gets A Shock — Jez Sneaks Off — Flashbacks

  Manes, thought Frey. What in all damnation have I got us into?anes, thought Frey. What in all damnation have I got us into?

  The narrow passageways of the dreadnought swallowed the light of their oil lanterns. Rusty iron and tarnished steel pressed in on them. Grim metal walls. Pipes streaked with mould. They'd only gone a few dozen metres from the rip in the hull where they'd entered the craft, but already it was like they were entombed. Lightless, hopeless. There was a scent in the air, beneath the tang of burning oil from the lanterns and the smell of Grist's cigar. Decay, and something else. A dry, musky, unfamiliar odour that set his senses on edge.

  Hodd led the way, followed by Grist and his bosun Crattle. Frey, Silo, Crake and Jez brought up the rear. The rest stayed outside on lookout duty.

  Nobody spoke. The only sound was the shuffling of feet and the sniffle and snort of runny noses. Anxious eyes strained in the lantern light. Pistols twitched this way and that. The forest had been hard on their nerves, but this was worse.

  Frey was scared. There were things that man wasn't meant to mess with. Like daemons, for example. Seemed dangerous to play with forces like that. He'd never had a big problem with Crake doing it, but that was mostly because he made sure not to think about what the daemonist was up to. Thus far, Crake's tricks had b
een useful and generally harmless. Like the ring Frey wore on his little finger, or Crake's golden tooth that could bewitch the weak-minded, or his skeleton key that opened any lock.

  But Manes? There wasn't a freebooter alive who didn't give a secret shiver at the tales of the Manes. Stray too far north and you might get caught in the fogs. And with the fogs came the Manes, inhuman ghouls from the Pole. Shrieking and howling, riding their terrible dreadnoughts. They'd kill you on sight, or worse, turn you. You'd be one of them to the end of your days. And that might be a very long time indeed. They all knew the story of the boy who lost his father to the Manes, only to meet him and kill him thirty years later when the Manes returned to his hometown. Changed though his father was, he hadn't aged at all.

  Manes. Their nature was mysterious, their purpose unknowable. That frightened people. More than the Sammies who might be building a great air fleet to the south, more than the strange and hostile people of Peleshar with their bizarre sciences, more than the rumours that came out of New Vardia, of disappearing colonies and sinister portents. Nobody knew for sure what the Manes were, or what they wanted.

  He checked his crew. Silo was typically inscrutable. Crake looked ill. But it was Jez who worried him most. She had a stricken expression on her face. Maybe he should have left her outside with Malvery and Pinn, Ucke and Tarworth. But no: he wanted clear-headed and reliable people in here with him, and these three were the best he had.

  'You alright?' he asked her quietly.

  She gave him a distracted nod and a false smile. 'Fine, Cap'n. Place just makes me jumpy.'

  'Keep it together, all of you,' he said. 'There's nothing here but bad memories.'

  He wished he could be half as sure as he sounded.

  The bow end of the craft had listed away from the stern half, making the floor slope awkwardly. Frey had to concentrate to stop his feet from sliding. He glanced down black passageways, imagining Manes at the end of them, with crooked teeth and hateful eyes.

  It was cold here, among the metal and the pipes. Empty. No animals had crept in, even after decades rusting in the rainforest. No insects. Something about this place made them stay away. Frey thought he sensed it too. There was an unease about the dreadnought that troubled his instincts. A feeling of wrongness in the stale air.

  It seemed they were on some sort of maintenance deck, though it was hard to tell. There were no signs or similar indicators. The dreadnought's interior was relentlessly bare. Their lanterns pressed light through shadowy doorways, illuminating the flanks of unfamiliar machines beyond.

  'Through here,' Hodd announced, and Frey saw that they'd reached the end of a passageway. A heavy iron door was half-open there, wide enough for a slim man to slip through. Hodd struggled to open it further. 'Let me just . . . see if I can . . .'

  'I'll do it,' said Grist. He took hold of the door and shoved it open with a squeal of hinges.

  'Watch your step,' Hodd advised, as he led the way. 'It's quite a fall.'

  Frey understood what he meant when he entered the room beyond. They were on a walkway overlooking a cavernous cargo hold. Due to the slant of the craft, the floor of the walkway tilted them towards that gaping abyss. Only a railing stood between them and the dark. Ahead of them, Hodd was shuffling along carefully, one hand fixed to the railing.

  Frey peered over the edge, but whatever was down there was beyond the range of the lanternlight. 'I'd like to take a look at what they're carrying,' he mused aloud. His voice echoed back to him faintly.

  'In time, in time, Cap'n Frey,' said Grist. 'First port o' call is this door that Mr Hodd spoke of. The one with the invisible barrier. Somethin' worth guardin' is somethin' worth stealin', I reckon.'

  'Fair enough,' said Frey. He turned to Jez, who was close at his shoulder, and whispered to her, 'What can you see down there?'

  'Building materials,' she replied quietly. 'Girders, slate, joists, stuff like that. Metals like I haven't seen before.'

  'Building materials?' Frey was disappointed. He'd been hoping for piles of gems.

  'Manes have a thing about disassembly. They can strip whole factories in a couple of days and carry them off. I mean brick by brick. They used to do that all the time in the North.

  'They steal factories?'

  'Hangars, refineries . . . anything, really,' she said. 'They'd come in fleets, pull everything apart, load it up and take it away. At least, they used to. Not so much nowadays. Now it's mostly people they come for.'

  Frey nudged her to get her attention. Grist was watching her with interest, evidently wondering why she was gazing into the impenetrable blackness. Her uncanny vision was something Frey wasn't keen on explaining. 'Don't be too obvious, eh?' he muttered.

  'Sorry, Cap'n,' she said, looking away.

  'So what's in the hold is the remains of something the Manes disassembled?'

  'I don't think so. Everything's all too neat and new-looking. Looks more like they're going to build something. They've got carts, pumps, piping . . . You want my guess? Down there, you've got everything you'd need to set up a small colony.'

  Frey didn't like the sound of that at all. 'A colony? You've got to be kidding.'

  'In case you haven't noticed, Cap'n, this isn't exactly the place for jokes.'

  It really wasn't funny. The only good thing about the Manes was that they generally stayed behind the permanent wall of cloud that hid the North Pole. If they ever moved out of their frozen hideaway, things were going to get pretty grave.

  They came off the walkway and joined another passage. A short distance further on there was a room off to one side. Hodd led them into it. It was a small antechamber, empty of decoration or seating. In one wall was a riveted metal door, much like the others they'd seen.

  'That's it,' said Hodd.

  Grist's brow furrowed as he stared at it. 'That?'

  'The impassable door.'

  It looked rather innocuous. Crake shrugged. 'Well, let's get to it then,' he said. He motioned to Silo and Crattle, who were the only ones still wearing backpacks. The rest of them had left their burdens outside. 'Put down the equipment - carefully - and I'll get started.'

  'Shouldn't we try the door first?' Frey suggested. 'I mean, to see if it's actually the right one, before we waste all this time?'

  Crake was busy unpacking a box of wood and metal covered with gauges and dials. 'Be my guest,' he said.

  'Any volunteers?' Frey asked.

  The faces he saw in the lanternlight were not volunteer's faces.

  'I'll do it, then,' he said impatiently. He strode up to the door, reaching for the handle. It was just a door, after all. What could possibly—

  The next thing he knew, he was upside-down, in a contorted heap on the other side of the antechamber. His head was whirling and he wanted to be sick. His buttocks slid down the wall and he twisted to fall on to his side. Silo helped him upright. He swallowed as his gorge rose, and managed to keep his lunch down with a heroic effort.

  'That's the door, alright,' he wheezed. 'Have at it, Crake.'

  He sat down again and concentrated on making the room stay still. Nothing else they'd come across had so much as a lock on it, but this door had been barricaded with some unearthly force.

  What are they guarding?

  There was little to be done while Crake set up his instruments. Jez found the lack of distraction unbearable.

  This place was both horrifying and fascinating. She felt drawn and repelled at the same time. The evidence of the Manes was in everything, all around her. There was something familiar here, a faint, lulling scent. It soothed her, the same way the smell of an aircraft sometimes evoked fond, warm childhood memories of her father in his hangar. She was appalled that she could draw a comparison between that time and this, but she couldn't deny it. The feeling was the same. Safety. The unquestioning faith and trust of a little girl in her father.

  A trick. This was not the same. It couldn't be.

  Ever since she'd laid eyes on the dreadnought, she'd fe
lt like she was about to tip into one of her trances. But the moment hadn't come. Instead she hovered agonisingly on the edge. Wanting to fight it off but not knowing how. She didn't dare slip, not here. The Manes were all around her. If she let them get a hold of her, who knew what might happen? Maybe she'd lose herself for good. Maybe she'd become one of them.

  Maybe she'd turn on her friends.

  She wished she could explain to the Cap'n what she was, what a danger she might be to them, especially here. She wished she could tell him how she was trying so hard to stay human, how she was afraid it was a battle she'd one day lose. But she couldn't say a word. She was too afraid he'd send her away. The Ketty Jay was the only home she'd found in her years of wandering since the change. She couldn't lose that.

  She was standing at the back of the antechamber. Everyone was watching Crake as he assembled various rods and connected them to a complex brass device. Unnoticed, she sneaked away from the group.

  She carried her lantern with her, for appearances' sake, even though she had little need of the light. Manes didn't need it, after all. There were no electric lamps in the walls or ceiling. Even in the midst of a battle, this place would be dark as a mausoleum.

  This craft was empty, but it still resounded with the feel of them. She was searching for something, but she didn't know what.

  I'm part of them. They're part of me. But I don't understand them at all. I don't know what they are.

  She found a set of stairs and climbed them. Light grew as she neared the top, and she stepped into a long room. Six huge auto-cannons lay dormant before her, ranged along the port side of the hull. Grey daylight crept in through the open gunnery hatches in the dreadnought's flanks.

  She approached the nearest autocannon. There was a seat for the operator mounted on the side, and a rusted control panel. She ran her hand over the seat, her fingertips scoring trails in the dust.

  How do they live, these creatures? Do they argue, hope, love? What do they think? Do they think at all?

  She pulled her hand away. Risky to even consider questions like that. The temptation was too great. She remembered the feeling of connection, of kinship, that she'd experienced when she was on the verge of turning. In that moment, she'd known how lonely and isolated she really was. How lonely all humans were. The Manes were linked, each one to every other. To be included in that was intoxicating.