The Black Lung Captain

Eight

'Here, kitty. Nice kitty.'

The Ketty Jay's cargo hold was always gloomy. The electric lighting was pitiful and at least fifty per cent of the bulbs had burned out and never been replaced. Harkins wasn't a fan of dark places at the best of times, but tonight he was particularly on edge. Tonight, he was hunting.

In one hand was a small wooden packing crate, open at one end. In the other was a thick blanket. He stalked through the maze of boxes and junk machinery that had occupied the back of the hold for as long as anyone could remember.

This was the last time he'd be terrorised by a cat. By tomorrow morning, he'd be a man.

'Come on, Slag,' he murmured. 'Nice Slag. Harkins just wants to be friends.'

Bess was watching him curiously from the gloom. She moved back and forth to keep him in view, fascinated by his strange behaviour. Harkins did his best to ignore her, and concentrated on calming his hammering heart.

Slag was in here somewhere. He knew it. He'd spent the night lying in wait, down here in the hold, hoping for his chance. This was Slag's territory. He was bound to emerge sooner or later. To speed things along, he'd left a bowl of food out.

Finally the cat had appeared, slipping out of an air vent, and eaten the food. Harkins had meant to spring on him then, but he found that he couldn't. In the end, it took him half an hour to pluck up his courage, by which point the cat had long since slunk off into the labyrinth of junk.

It was the thought of Jez that made him move in the end. Sweet, sweet Jez. He imagined her whispering encouragement in his ear, and it made him brave enough to act.

'It's . . . well, it's nice outside,' he said soothingly. 'You don't want to spend the rest of your miserable life on an aircraft, do you? No. I mean, I'm going to set you free! All those tasty birds and mice! That'll be nice, hmm?' He lowered his voice to a mutter. 'And maybe something horrible will eat you, you vicious little slab of mange.'

He took off his cap and rubbed sweat from his scalp. There were too many dark corners here. Forgotten things loomed over him. Frey had been promising to clear them out for years but, like so many things aboard the Ketty Jay, it somehow never happened.

He swallowed his fear and moved steadily forward. A rustling, thumping, clanking noise attended his footsteps. He looked over his shoulder. Bess froze, caught in the act of creeping along behind him.

'You're not helping, Bess,' he whispered.

Bess sing-songed happily. She showed no sign of leaving, so Harkins decided she could come. He'd sacrifice stealth for some reassuring company.

He moved further into the aisles of junk. Bess tiptoed as best she could. His eyes moved restlessly among the shadows. Could the cat be among the pipes overhead? Was he watching them from some secret corner, ready to pounce? Harkins was seized with terror. He wanted to turn and run. Jez didn't ever need to know. He could come back and try again later.

You can do this, he told himself. You've lived through two wars. You can handle a small domestic animal.

Then he heard a rapid scratching, coming from a small gap between some crates and the bulkhead. He stopped still, and put his finger to his lips. Bess imitated him, clinking her finger against her face-grille. The scratching came again.

Slowly, Harkins lowered the box to the floor and took the blanket in both hands. It was Pinn's winter blanket, made of hide, thick enough to resist Slag's claws. With it, he'd smother that damned moggy, and stuff him in the box.

He took a deep breath. Scratch scratch scratch.

A huge black rat darted out of the gap. Harkins yelped in fright. It stared at him and scurried away.

Harkins let his breath out. He was trembling. False alarm. He turned to Bess and managed a nervous smile.

'That was close, eh?'

The cat dropped from the pipes above, landing on his head in a frantic scurry of claws. Harkins shrieked in panic, wheeling away down the aisle, beating at his head as if his cap were on fire. He spun past Bess, still trying to get a grip on his yowling adversary, then tripped over his feet and smashed his head against the corner of a crate.

The next few moments were a blur. He was lying on his back, unable to move, too stunned to work out what had happened. The cat padded over and leaned into his field of vision, peering into his eyes. Satisfied its foe was vanquished, it wandered away.

Jez ... he thought. Jez, I failed you . . .

The last thing he remembered was Bess squatting next to him and poking him, evidently wondering why he wasn't getting up. After that, everything went dark. It was better that way.

It was on a damp, cold morning that they buried Gimble.

The rain had stopped at dawn but the cloud cover was still unbroken, a low grey roof over the land. They put the dead man into the earth in the spot where they'd made last night's camp. An anonymous place among the trees and creepers, where the air was chill and fresh, rich with the scent of soil and leaf.

Grist said a few words in Gimble's memory while the others stood around sniffling and coughing. Most of them had caught colds in the night, and several were sipping a hot remedy that Malvery had whipped up. When Grist was done, they laid on Gimble's chest the severed claw of the creature that had killed him. It seemed fitting, somehow, to show that his death had been avenged.

Not that the poor sod'll know anything about it, Frey thought, as Gimble's crewmates began to fill in the grave.

Last night's other casualty, the eager young Tarworth, was in better shape. He was limping along, using a rifle as a makeshift crutch, but his spirits seemed high. Frey saw him joking with Ucke as they set out. Ucke grinned, showing his uneven mouthful of scavenged teeth.

Pinn looked shifty all morning, but nobody said a word about his little mishap with a pistol. Frey's own pistol had been lost during his flight from the beast, so he'd taken Gimble's twin revolvers. Nobody seemed to mind, and Gimble wouldn't need them.

Their pace was slow, for Tarworth's sake. Hodd assured them they'd be at the crash site by mid-afternoon, but even that seemed too long. Last night's attack had made them wary, and they jumped at every rusde of leaves. Yet despite the sound of animals all around them, they caught barely a glimpse of the local wildlife. The animals heard or smelled them long before they arrived, and made themselves scarce.

'See, boys?' said Grist. 'They're more afraid of us than we are of them!'

Speak for yourself, thought Frey. You didn't see what attacked the camp.

At midday, they found the village.

It was dug into a hillside, half-buried by the slope of the land. The trees had thinned out and there was little undergrowth. Sunken trenches with walls of stone blocks formed enclosures and yards. Oversized doorways led into passages, tunnelling into the hill. Scattered about were crude huts of rock and packed mud, their roofs fallen in. It was an abandoned place, empty of life.

'Your lost tribe?' Grist asked Hodd.

'Sadly not,' said the explorer. He blew his nose on a handkerchief. 'This is a beast-man village. Home to the savages that inhabit this island. I passed it last time I was here.' He swept the buildings with a disinterested gaze. 'They have been well documented by explorers before me. Come on. The craft isn't much further.'

They ignored him. Several of them wandered off to investigate the huts. Frey stayed back. Dead as it was, the village was uncomfortably roomy, built for people much bigger than the average Vard. He didn't like the size of some of those doorways. 'So there are beast-men?' he asked Hodd. 'That much is true?'

'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.'