The Black Lung Captain (12 page)

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, doubtfuly. 'Wel, I hope so.'

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

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

Hodd hadn't been exaggerating his skil 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 wals 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 hul, 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 falen 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 triled, 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 smal. '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 al damnation have I got us into?anes, thought Frey. What in al damnation have I got us into?

The narrow passageways of the dreadnought swalowed the light of their oil lanterns. Rusty iron and tarnished steel pressed in on them. Grim metal wals. Pipes streaked with mould. They'd only gone a few dozen metres from the rip in the hul 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 smel of Grist's cigar. Decay, and something else. A dry, musky, unfamiliar odour that set his senses on edge.

Hodd led the way, folowed 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 been useful and generaly 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 kil 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 al knew the story of the boy who lost his father to the Manes, only to meet him and kil him thirty years later when the Manes returned to his hometown. Changed though his father was, he hadn't aged at al.

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 typicaly inscrutable. Crake looked il. 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, al 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 tel. There were no signs or similar indicators. The dreadnought's interior was relentlessly bare. Their lanterns pressed light through shadowy doorways, iluminating 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'l 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 fal.'

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 carefuly, 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' cal 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 al the time in the North.

'They steal factories?'

'Hangars, refineries . . . anything, realy,' she said. 'They'd come in fleets, pul 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 al 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 smal colony.'

Frey didn't like the sound of that at al. '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 realy wasn't funny. The only good thing about the Manes was that they generaly stayed behind the permanent wal 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 smal antechamber, empty of decoration or seating. In one wal 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. 'Wel, let's get to it then,' he said. He motioned to Silo and Crattle, who were the only ones stil wearing backpacks. The rest of them had left their burdens outside. 'Put down the equipment -
carefully
- and I'l get started.'

'Shouldn't we try the door first?' Frey suggested. 'I mean, to see if it's actualy the right one, before we waste al 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'l do it, then,' he said impatiently. He strode up to the door, reaching for the handle. It was just a door, after al. 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 wal and he twisted to fal on to his side. Silo helped him upright. He swalowed 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 stil. 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 repeled at the same time. The evidence of the Manes was in everything, al around her. There was something
familiar
here, a faint, luling scent. It soothed her, the same way the smel of an aircraft sometimes evoked fond, warm childhood memories of her father in his hangar. She was appaled 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 felt 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 al 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, especialy here. She wished she could tel 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 al. There were no electric lamps in the wals or ceiling. Even in the midst of a battle, this place would be dark as a mausoleum.