The Black Lung Captain

Twenty-Six

The hospital stood on a hill on the edge of town. It was an old building with many windows, some of them lit to fend off the night. Sills crumbled at the edges; panes were cracked here and there; the walls were weathered and mossy. The darkness hid the worst of the dilapidation, but not enough of it.

Crake gazed bleakly at the scene from the back seat of the motorised carriage. The cab driver was hunched over on the bench up front, his shoulders squared and a cap pulled down hard over his head, as if he was driving through a thunderstorm. But the night was warm and still. Apart from the rattle of the engine, it was eerily quiet.

A long, curving gravel drive led away from the walled perimeter and the iron gates that squeaked with rust. The grounds that it passed through were badly kept: the grass was long, the trees overgrown and shaggy. The carriage pulled up outside the hospital. Crake checked his pocket watch - right on time - and got out.

'Wait for me here, please,' he said to the driver. 'I shan't be long.'

The driver touched his cap in response, then returned to his previous position and stayed there, unmoving, like some dormant automaton from a science-fiction novel. The man made Crake uneasy. He didn't like the driver's silence, his stillness, the stoic way he went about his job. On another day, it wouldn't have bothered him, but lately he found such small oddities hard to bear. Little things made him angry without reason. Sometimes he'd become over-emotional, and the slightest matter would make him want to weep. Even Plome had commented on it, and taken to avoiding him whenever it was decently possible to do so. Crake, for his part, passed most of his time in the sanctum beneath Plome's house. The longer he stayed there, the less inclined he was to deal with the world outside.

But sometimes sacrifices were necessary.

Crake paused for a moment, to arrange himself and marshal his courage. He was heavily bundled up, despite the lack of a chill in the air, and he clutched his coat tightly around him as he entered the hospital reception area. It was brown and dull and smelled faintly of bleach, but it was clean and orderly, which eased Crake's nerves a fraction. He'd always taken comfort in the signs of an efficient civilisation. Banks, theatres and high-class restaurants were a balm to the chaos in his life. At least this place, despite its seedy reputation, looked organised.

It was quiet at this time of night. A middle-aged nurse sat behind the reception desk, talking to a doctor. Both looked up as he entered.

'Visiting hours are over, I'm afraid,' said the nurse, once she'd established that he was not obviously maimed in any way. Her tone was sharp, calculated to persuade the listener that there was no point in arguing.

Crake tried anyway. 'Yes, I'm . . . er . . . I'm afraid I couldn't get here any earlier. It's my uncle Merin. He's very sick, I understand.'

'I'm sorry, but—' the nurse began, but the doctor overrode her.

'You must be Mardrew,' he said, walking over to shake Crake's hand. 'He said you were coming. He's very keen to see you.' The doctor turned to the nurse. 'It's alright, I'll take him through.'

The nurse shook her head and went back to her paperwork. 'Don't know why we bother having visiting hours at all,' she muttered sourly.

'This way, please,' said the doctor, showing Crake through a swing door. He was a short, thin man in his early thirties, with black hair oiled back close to his scalp and a small, tidy moustache. Crake followed him down a corridor until they were out of earshot of the nurse.

'You have the money?' the doctor asked him.

'Yes,' said Crake. And after that, nothing more was said.

So simple. They were past the nurse and in before Crake had time to think twice. A good thing, too. He felt sure that his deeply ingrained fear of authority would have got the better of him if he'd been forced to stand there and wait. He'd have crumbled under the nurse's gaze and turned back. But the doctor was in the reception, just as Crake's contact said he'd be. All Crake had to do was ask for his uncle Merin. The whole thing had gone like clockwork.

So why did he feel more scared than before?

They came across a sign indicating the way to the wards, but the doctor ignored it and went the other way down the corridor. The hospital was sterile and hushed. Nurses padded by, wheeling trollies. Janitors mopped the floors. They passed a hurrying doctor, who exchanged a quick word of greeting with Crake's escort. At any moment, Crake expected someone to challenge him. Surely they could sense he was on forbidden business? Surely it was obvious in his quick, roving gaze and his petrified expression?

But nobody took any notice.

Presently, they came to an door marked simply: ACCESS. The doctor checked to make sure nobody was in sight, then pushed it open and led Crake through.

There was a tight, dim stairwell beyond. They went down one level and through a metal door into another corridor.

The atmosphere here was less savoury- than the floor above. The walls were grimy, and there were bits of litter in the corners. Electric lights buzzed overhead, their surfaces smeared with oily thumbprints. There was no smell of disinfectant here, only a hint of mould. It was chilly, and Crake was glad of his coat.

I shouldn't be doing this, he thought to himself. The closer they got to their destination, the more sick and terrified he felt. It hadn't seemed real until he'd got through reception. He'd half-expected to be turned away. But the act of tricking the nurse had committed him. Even though he'd done nothing illegal yet, he felt that it was too late to back out. He looked around nervously, seeking an escape and finding none.

The doctor walked ahead of him, his polished shoes tapping on the stone floor. Leading him on, silently. They both knew why he was here. Crake despised him for being a witness to his shame.

How had it come to this? He'd set out with such high hopes, such optimism. He'd met with men who traded in daemonist texts and held fascinating conversations with them about the nature of the Art. He'd acquired rare tomes at great expense and devoured them greedily. For a time he'd felt like he did when he first discovered daemonism at university. He was a repository, ready to be filled with knowledge. In a few short weeks he'd learned more than he had in the last few years.

But his joy hadn't lasted. He bought book after book but none had contained what he needed. He'd hoped to find a method to extract Bess from the metal suit he'd put her in. If not instructions, then even hints and pointers would have sufficed. But he was disappointed again and again. Plome's credit was not unlimited, and his own money was not sufficient to keep buying valuable, illegal texts. With each book that failed to provide the answers he sought, the stakes got higher, and he found it harder and harder to relax or sleep.

Things had become strained between him and Plome. Crake hated having to beg him for money that he had no realistic prospect of ever paying back. Plome's constant fretting about his state of mind became tiresome. He began to stay down in the sanctum with Bess, and kept himself occupied by teaching her new commands with his whistle. But Bess had picked up on his mood too, and when she was awake she was fidgety and withdrawn. Almost as if she was scared of him. Angrily, he put her to sleep and left her like that; but the sight of the silent, empty armoured suit was like an accusation.

The old feeling started to creep back in. That sense of being trapped. Wherever he turned, he was oppressed. There was nowhere he could get any peace. He became too agitated to study, and that made him more agitated. He ransacked his books with increasing desperation for clues on how to proceed. He bought apparatus and did experiments based on hearsay and rumour. Nothing worked. No one could help him.

But there was Bess, looming hugely in his mind, demanding that he save her.

He refused to fail. And if none of his learned peers had any advice for him, then he'd damn well have to do it himself. His time on the Ketty Jay had taught him a little about how to handle the underworld, and it was to the underworld he went. He talked to some people, greased a few palms, and all of it led him here.

Yet, for all that he felt he'd taken matters into his own hands, he never quite felt in control. And now, as he followed in the footsteps of the doctor, he wondered what he'd been thinking.

It's not too late to turn back, he thought. You don't have to do this.

But he did. He had to do it for Bess.

The basement level was mostly used for storage and was deserted. They walked a little way and took another set of steps down. The level below was dirtier than the last, and barely lit at all. There was a deep thrumming noise from somewhere nearby: a massive boiler, vibrating through the walls. Despite the boiler's proximity, it was freezing down here, and it stank of something unpleasant that Crake couldn't identify, something dank and cloying and vile. He could hear rats scurrying in the dark.

He began to jump at shadows. Each step took him further into a nightmare. If the cab driver was bad, this was worse. What had he got himself into? Where was this doctor taking him? The clean corridors he'd passed through seemed like a distant memory now. Ahead, a ceiling light flickered, turning itself on and off at random. Crake could barely keep still. He desperately wanted to be gone from this place.

Be strong, he told himself. Don't fail her.

The doctor stopped in front of a metal door and unlocked it with a key.

'This is the deal,' he said. 'After we're done here, I lead you out of the front door, past the nurse on reception. I'll meet you at the back entrance at midnight. Half the money on acceptance of the merchandise, half on receipt. Are we understood?'

'Understood,' said Crake. He could barely force the word out through the dread that took hold of him.

'I need hardly remind you to be discreet,' said the doctor.

'No,' he said. 'You needn't.'

The doctor gave him an uncertain look, noticing his distress. He made no comment. Instead, he opened the door and went through. Crake followed.

The room was tiled and white and grubby. Three gurneys were positioned against the far wall, three shapes underneath, covered by white cloths. The doctor passed from one to the other, pulling the cloths away.

Lying there were three little girls, their skin white, eyes staring upward. All of them Bess's age when she died, or thereabouts. Each had a Y-shaped row of stitches, running from shoulders to breastbone to pelvis. So appallingly young and innocent. Crake stared at them, horror constricting his throat. Shame and self-loathing filled him. He reeled and steadied himself against the door frame.

I can't do this, I can't do this, I can't. . .

'Well?' said the doctor, indicating the corpses. 'Which one did you want?'