The Black Lung Captain (7 page)

'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 al 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 sily at inconvenient times.

But it wasn't that. It was the sulen 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 Damn, he knew Crake had been getting withdrawn recently, but he'd rather hoped it would sort itself out.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 al 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 mistrustfuly.

It was a Ludstrome Cloudhammer: a heavy frigate, manufactured in Yortland. Long, vaguely rectangular, with tiny wings for steerage set far back on its hul. Ten times the size of the
Ketty Jay,
it was built above al 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 al.

There was only one thing in Harkins' life that he realy 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 wel 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 al riches and fame. Promising change.

What happened if they al
did
get rich? Did anyone think of that? Did anyone think what would happen to their little band then? Would things realy 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 al be easier then. He might be able to talk to her, if it wasn't for the words in the way. He could tel 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 al those weird things she could do. Like how she healed bulet 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. Al 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 bulied 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 felow 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 realy 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, luled 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 actualy look like, and his imagination was too stunted to guess, so he settled on a Vardic woman wearing very few clothes, and mentaly 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 al. 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 al 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 caling 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 smal, 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 al, 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'l be rich, and everyone wil know my name. Then I'l 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 footwel, 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 al 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 kiled 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 fuly 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 wel 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 wal 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 bilowed 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 falen, 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, milions of creatures, great and smal, the growling heart of the island.

And in the distance, a terrible sound. The howling of the Manes. Caling for her. Caling 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.