The Black Lung Captain

Five

The crew took the news well, with the exception of Harkins, who had to breathe into a paper bag for a while until his hysteria subsided. They had a few hours to make what preparations they could while they waited for Grist and his crew to sort themselves out. It was a day's flight to the coast and another half-day across the East Divide to Kurg. They'd be taking off as soon as everyone was ready. Grist was certainly in a hurry.

Frey went to see Crake in his quarters after he addressed the crew. The daemonist had been silent throughout, and Frey wanted to pick his brains in private about the strange barrier on the door that Hodd had encountered.

Crake's quarters, like the others on the Ketty Jay, were cramped and spartan, with bare metal walls and a sliding door to maximise space. They'd previously been the passenger's quarters, but they didn't take passengers these days, so Crake had the luxury of two bunk beds to himself. He used the upper bunk to store luggage and books.

'So what do you think?' Frey asked. 'You think you could break that barrier?'

Crake was sitting on the lower bunk while Frey leaned against the wall. 'Can't say without being there,' he said. 'I need to take readings. We'll have to haul my equipment through the rainforest.' His tone was lazy, disinterested. Barely bothering to pronounce his words properly.

'Can Bess do it?'

Crake made a face. 'Bess shouldn't come. She's too big and too heavy for tramping around in that kind of terrain. She'd sink to her knees in the mud the first time it rained. Not to mention she'd knock over every tree on the way.'

Frey hadn't thought of that. He cursed under his breath. Having along would have been their most effective defence against the monsters that were rumoured to dwell in Kurg. 'Just give me a best guess, then. Does it sound like something you could crack? The barrier, I mean.'

'It sounds like something a daemonist would put up to keep people out,' said Crake. His words had degenerated into slurring. 'Pretty basic, actually. Repulsion and nausea. But I won't know till we gel there. If it's some sort of unknown technology . . .' He shrugged. He made to get to his feet, but his hand slipped on the edge of the bunk and he flopped back down.

'Are you drunk?' Frey asked, surprised. It wasn't even midday.

Crake gave a guilty smile. 'Little bit,' he said. He reached under his bunk and pulled out a bottle. 'Want some? Trade you for some Shine.'

'Shine?' Frey said stupidly.

'Shine. We all know you use it, Cap'n,' Crake said, with an insinuating wink.

'Once in a while, sure, but—'

'Can I have some?'

'Crake, what is wrong with you? Used to be you felt like one of us. but you've been acting stranger and stranger for months. Now this? Drunk by midday? You?'

Crake just stared at him with an expression that said: are you finished? It made Frey angry all of a sudden. This wasn't the Crake he knew. Not at all.

'You're part of a crew now,' he said sternly. 'You stopped being a passenger long ago. I need my crewmen capable, got it? You're no use to me drunk.'

Crake gave him a surly salute. 'So can I have some Shine now. Cap'n?'

'No!' He grabbed the bottle out of Crake's hands. 'Sleep it off. Get your head straight, you bloody idiot. I want us all coming out of that rainforest alive. All of us. So you'd better sharpen up.'

He slid the door shut behind him with as much of a slam as he could manage, and stalked off up the corridor. The whole incident had enraged him unreasonably. It wasn't as if Malvery and Pinn didn't drink themselves silly at inconvenient times.

But it wasn't that. It was the sullen defiance, the mocking wink. That leering man begging for drugs had been a stranger. Damn, he knew Crake had been getting withdrawn recently, but he'd rather hoped it would sort itself out. Every man had their private daemons. Crake's were getting a hold on him, though.

Malvery stepped into the corridor ahead of Frey and eyed the bottle in his hand.

'Starting early, aren't we, Cap'n?'

'We're all coming out of that rainforest alive!' Frey snapped at him. Then he stamped off towards his quarters, leaving the bewildered doctor in his wake.

Harkins sat in the cockpit of the Firecrow, watching the coast slide away beneath him. He had a fine view through the windglass bubble on the Firecrow's nose as the dry, barren duchy of Anduss was overtaken by the sparkling blue water of the East Divide. The sun glittered fiercely on the waves, making him squint. He scratched his head under his pilot's cap and shifted in his seat.

Vardia was behind them. Kurg lay ahead. Harkins didn't feel good about any of it.

The Ketty Jay flew below him and to his left. Pinn's Skylance hung close by, its sleek body and wide, smoothly curved wings cutting steadily through the air. On his right was the Storm Dog. He wrinkled his nose and stared at it mistrustfully.

It was a Ludstrome Cloudhammer: a heavy frigate, manufactured in Yortland. Long, vaguely rectangular, with tiny wings for steerage set far back on its hull. Ten times the size of the Ketty Jay, it was built above all for toughness. A Cloudhammer could run any storm, suffer any weather. Slow and cumbersome it might have been, but it bristled with cannons, and its armour was thick enough to take the best that most aircraft could dish out.

Harkins didn't like it. He didn't like the ugly craft or its ugly crew. But more, he didn't like what they were doing. They were threatening to make everyone rich. And Harkins didn't like that idea at all.

There was only one thing in Harkins' life that he really enjoyed, and that was flying. The only time he felt anywhere close to normal was inside the cockpit of a Firecrow. If he couldn't fly, he didn't have much of anything.

Outside the Firecrow, the world was a frightening and hostile place. Harkins didn't deal well with people. Even before the Aerium Wars shot his nerves to pieces, he'd been a jumpy sort. People sensed his weakness and mocked or ignored him. But he'd always let his flying do the talking, at least until his aircraft was taken away.

It was Frey who rescued him from the misery of a land-bound life after he'd been discharged from the Coalition Navy. Frey who'd given him a Firecrow and, with it, another chance. The crew of the Ketty Jay were the closest thing to friends he'd ever managed. And now along came Captain Grist, promising them all riches and fame. Promising change.

What happened if they all did get rich? Did anyone think of that? Did anyone think what would happen to their little band then? Would things really carry on as they were?

No. Of course they wouldn't. Things would change. Everyone would leave. Pinn might even go back to his sweetheart. And Harkins would be left out in the cold. Because it didn't matter how much money he had. It wouldn't stop him being scared. He couldn't change the way he was.

What would he do, if he didn't have the Ketty Jay? He'd have to try and make new friends. The agony of strangers. Just the thought of it made him feel a little sick.

But there was another reason, too. Jez. Kindly Jez, who never said a cruel word to him. Lately, he'd begun to feel funny whenever he thought about her. An odd, warm sensation, like a smile inside. A stirring in his—

'Harkins!' said Jez in his ear. He jumped violently enough to crash his head against the windglass of the cockpit.

'Yes! Jez! Yes sir, ma'am, sir!' he burbled, blushing scarlet.

'Course correction. Three degrees south, okay?'

He looked around guiltily, as if someone might be there, observing him. 'Three degrees south. Yes! Got it! Erm . . . yes!'

He adjusted the cap on his head and waited for her to speak again, but there was nothing more. After a short while, he relaxed and made the course correction as instructed. He didn't trust those daemonic little earcuffs. He had a creeping suspicion that they let people read his thoughts.

Would that be such a bad thing, though? On reflection, maybe a little mind-reading would help him out. It would all be easier then. He might be able to talk to her, if it wasn't for the words in the way. He could tell her how humiliating it was to be him. How frustrating and infuriating it was, to be dominated by everything and everyone.

He wanted to be brave, but his bravery had been torn away in strips throughout his life. Too many near misses, too many crashes he'd walked away from, too many comrades lost. He wasn't much of a man, he knew that. But then she was a little strange herself, what with all those weird things she could do. Like how she healed bullet wounds in hours and how she was strong enough to lift crates that even Malvery couldn't.

None of that mattered to Harkins, though. He wasn't fussy. All that mattered was that she was kind to him. No doubt it was pity that motivated her, and nothing more, but a man like Harkins would take what he could get. Pity was a start. Perhaps, if he was just a little braver . . .

No. It was no good. What woman could respect a man who was bullied by a cat?

Maybe you just need to stand up to him. You are about twenty times his size, after all.

He burned with shame as he remembered the incident in the corridor. That cat. That damned cat.

If he wanted to be brave for Jez, he'd have to see about that cat.

Pinn, for his part, shared none of the concerns of his fellow outflyer. The idea of worrying about something that far in the future was alien to him. He only ever thought one step ahead, if that. He didn't really do consequences.

He didn't have any real idea what to expect of Kurg, but that didn't matter. Despite his near total lack of knowledge, he was confident he could handle it. The prospect of adventure, fame and riches appealed to him greatly. Artis Pinn, adventurer! Perhaps they'd make some pulp novels of his exploits, the way they did about the Century Knights. Pinn had never read any of them - he never read anything - but their covers looked exciting.

He let his mind drift as he sat in the cockpit of the Skylance, the sea below him, empty sky ahead. The roar of the thrusters, steady and unwavering, lulled him into a daze.

He pictured himself as the subject of a novel, his likeness on the cover. He was standing atop the corpse of some monster, pistol in hand, native wench hanging off his arm. He had no indication of what the native wenches might actually look like, and his imagination was too stunted to guess, so he settled on a Vardic woman wearing very few clothes, and mentally darkened her skin to match Silo's umber tones. Yes, that would do nicely.

He'd heard many stories about the strange and savage land of Kurg, and he believed them all. Tales of tribes of elegant seductresses, and of warrior women who sought strong men to mate with. What kind of exotic ladies might he find there? Surely they'd be fascinated by his foreign ways and amazing aircraft? They'd be fighting to get into bed with him.

Not that he'd sleep with any of them, of course. He'd resist their charms, and it would make them want him all the more. They'd be impressed by his utter devotion to his sweetheart Lisinda, who waited for him back home.

Of course, his devotion only ever lasted so long. In the end he'd give in. His body's needs were scarcely his fault. Any man worth calling a man had masculine urges too strong to control. The important thing was that his love was for Lisinda alone. It wasn't cheating if the women didn't mean anything.

He looked at the small, framed ferrotype of Lisinda, hanging from his dash. What was she doing now, he wondered? Was she thinking of him, even now, as he was of her? He traced her face with a fond finger.

Five years since he'd seen her. Five years since the eighteen-year-old Pinn left her to make his fortune. Five years she'd been waiting for him. At least, he assumed that was what she was doing. After all, she'd told him she loved him and, her being a woman, that meant for ever. Women didn't say that shit lightly.

Five years. That was devotion for you. What a lucky man he was.

It wouldn't be some down-and-out pilot she ended up marrying. It would be a hero. The kind they put on the cover of adventure novels.

Artis Pinn. Hero. He liked the sound of that.

'It won't be long, my love,' he said to the ferrotype. 'Soon I'll be rich, and everyone will know my name. Then I'll come back, just like I promised. You only deserve the best.'

'You only deserve the best,' mimicked Harkins in a soppy voice. Frey howled with laughter.

Pinn went pale. Nobody had spoken for so long, he'd forgotten half the crew could hear him through Crake's daemonic communicators. He ripped his earcuff off and threw it angrily in the footwell, cutting off Frey's gales of mirth, now laughing so hard he'd begun to choke.

'Bastards!' he snarled. Then he shook his head and started to chuckle himself.

Jez sat in her seat at the navigator's station, listening to the sounds of the Ketty Jay. The ticks and groans and creaks were familiar to her now. Silo's repairs on the engines were holding up, but she was bothered by the tone of the thrusters, which was slightly lower than usual. Frey had noticed it too, and it niggled at him.

Flying in a straight line through calm skies, there was little for a navigator or a pilot to do. Frey yawned. Jez felt like yawning too, but she couldn't. She hadn't been able to since the day she died.

She'd been thinking about that day ever since their meeting with Grist. Perhaps it was the talk of the Azryx and Professor Malstrom that brought it all back. If not for the Professor and his quest to unearth their lost civilisation, she'd never have gone to that blizzard-lashed settlement in the frozen north. How different things might have been then.

They came in their black dreadnoughts and their ragged clothes. The Manes. Feral ghouls from beyond the Wrack, the great cloud-cap that shrouded Atalon's northern pole. They captured those they wanted, turning them into Manes, and killed those they didn't. Jez was one of the captured, but the process of transformation was interrupted. Jez escaped, only to freeze to death in the night.

But by then, the damage had been done. She wasn't fully a Mane, but she was Mane enough. Though her heart had stopped beating, she lived. Or perhaps existed was a better word. She'd wandered for years, moving from place to place, until she found somewhere that would accept her. On the Ketty Jay, they didn't ask questions. They didn't know what had happened to her, they didn't want to, and she'd never told them.

Probably best that way. Manes struck fear into even the most reckless of men. The crew could deal with the fact that she was different, but she wondered how well they'd take the news that they had someone who was part Mane on board.

'How we doing, Jez?' asked Frey from the pilot seat.

Jez checked her charts. 'Coming up on Kurg now, Cap'n. Be at the landing site in six hours at this speed.'

Frey groaned and shifted his butt around to get comfortable. 'Six hours. Right.'

Jez smiled to herself. The truth was it was more like four, but it would give her captain a pleasant surprise when they got in early. Frey wouldn't mind the deception. He knew she could be pinpoint accurate if she wanted, which was more than he could say for any of her predecessors.

'Land, ho,' Frey said, without much interest.

Jez got up and went to stand by the pilot's seat to watch the coast approaching. A wall of black rock rose up out of the sea, as far as the eye could see. Waves smashed at its base. Thick forest crawled away from the clifftops towards barren mountain peaks. Smoke billowed from the mouth of a volcano in the distance, joining the misty clouds that hung over the vast island.

Even from high above, Jez thought there was something forbidding and dreadful about it. What would they find in there? What was waiting for them?

A prickling sensation swept over her skin. Here we go, she thought, and then the world flexed and everything became different.

A twilight had fallen, yet to her eyes everything seemed sharper than before. An unearthly clarity had come upon the world. She could see the hairs on the back of Frey's hand and sense their movement as they trembled. She could hear the Ketty Jay's engines, and pick out the sound of each individual part. Rats scurried in the hold. Crake snored drunkenly in his quarters. Slag dozed in an air vent, his heart thumping slowly.

Beyond the windglass of the cockpit, she could read the wind. The stirrings of the cloud and the ripples in the treetops told a tale that Jez, in her altered state, could decipher. Pressure changes, crosswinds and updrafts laid themselves out in her mind like a chart. She sensed the life beneath the canopy, millions of creatures, great and small, the growling heart of the island.

And in the distance, a terrible sound. The howling of the Manes. Calling for her. Calling her to be with them. To join them, beyond the Wrack.

Don't listen to them, she told herself. You're not one of them. You're human.

But the dread of their voices was too much. She had to retreat. In moments, the trance had passed.

She slipped in and out of that strange state easily and frequendy now. She'd learned to cope with the flood of sensation, to enjoy the thrill of it. But the Manes were always there, waiting for her, beckoning. She was afraid of their summons. She didn't know if she could resist it forever.

She'd experienced what it was to be a Mane, for the briefest of instants, during her aborted transformation. She'd felt their connectedness, the joy of their companionship. The link they shared, the togetherness they felt. After that, it was hard not to feel lonely. They wanted her, not to harm her but to embrace her.

That was why she was afraid. To embrace the Manes would be to give up her humanity for ever. To become one of them would be to surrender herself. And she wouldn't do that.

Frey stirred in his seat, glanced up at Jez, and then back at the island before them. 'There she is,' he said.

'There she is,' Jez agreed.

'You ever wonder if half the stuff they say about this place is true?'

'It's probably not,' she said. 'But still, the Coalition would rather colonise New Vardia - on the other side of the world and the other side of the Storm Belt - than colonise a land mass that lies a pleasant half-day's flight off their coast.'

'Hmm,' said Frey. 'That's not a good sign, is it?'

'Not really.'

'If I get eaten, you can have the Ketty Jay, okay?'

'That's very sweet of you. What if you get stamped on, poisoned, or die horribly from some unknown plague?'

Frey gave her a look. 'Just get back to your charts, why don't you?'

She grinned and saluted. 'Right you are, Cap'n!'