Chris Wooding - The Black Lung Captain

Take the shot or run! he told himself. But he couldn't do either. He couldn't tear his gaze from hers. There was a longing there, he was sure of it. Regret.

I wish this were different, she said to him.

The Manes came into sight, a filthy tide of tooth and nail, and he knew it didn't matter whether he took the shot or not.

Then something moved. Dropped like a cat from an upper gantry, to land right in the path of the Manes. A jumpsuited figure with a dark brown ponytail. She threw back her head and howled. The horde, as one, came to a stop before her.

Jez.

Jez, and yet not Jez.

Sister.

Comrade.

Beloved.

The hurricane of joy that met her almost swept her away. A thousand voices, risen in greeting. At last their discordant song made sense. They were no longer terrifying, but wonderful. They were welcoming her. Welcoming her as one of them.

She'd fought the daemon inside her every inch of the way, in those long years since the day of her death. Frightened of the temptation it presented. Terrified of being subsumed. Desperate to keep hold of herself.

But when she saw the Manes break into the engine room of the Storm Dog , when she saw her crew - her friends - standing in the path of that savage fury, she abandoned her resistance at last. This time, it was no hostile invading force that took her against her will. This was a surrender.

Strength surged into her body. Confusion was replaced with clarity of thought. She sprang from the walkway where she'd lingered unnoticed, in a daze, while her friends shot down Grist's men. And the Manes halted before her.

But these Manes were not the horrors she knew. She saw past skin and muscle and bone, to the cascade of harmonics within, a music that could be seen and sensed in all its marvellous subtlety. Each Mane was a symphony to themselves, yet each had movements and passages in common. The daemon that possessed each of them was one entity split among many bodies. That was the uniting force. Otherwise, they were as different as earth and sky. The Manes were human, only more so. So much more, that they'd passed beyond the understanding of the beings they once were.

She was still herself. They welcomed her, they wanted her, but it was Jez that bathed in their love. The same Jez it had always been. It was a delight she could never have imagined.

What had she ever been afraid of?

She wanted to speak, but speech was impossibly clumsy. There was no need, anyway. Her thoughts were transparent to them. Yet still she tried, forming words with her mind, because she knew no other way.

Not these, she thought. You must not harm them.

And the Manes knew what she knew. They shared her memories of Frey, of her crew, her time aboard the Ketty Jay. They sensed her gratitude at being given a home when no one else would give her one. They learned how the crew had accepted her, even in the face of their own ignorance and fear of the Manes. They saw the beautiful simplicity of their friendships.

She knew, then, that they wouldn't be harmed. Not by any hand here.

And yet, for all this astonishing completeness that she felt, there was greater yet to come. She'd connected with them on the most rudimentary level. The intoxicating sense of kinship and understanding was only a fraction of what she might feel, if she took the Invitation wholeheartedly.

The daemon inside her had accepted her surrender, but only temporarily. It didn't want her unwilling. The Invitation was just that: an invitation. It could be refused. It was just that very few ever did, with this heaven of belonging within their grasp. Who, when offered this, would choose the lonely isolation of humanity?

Jez was only partway there. To be a Mane in its fullest sense meant accepting the Invitation. And she knew that there was no returning from that.

They spoke to her without words.

Will you join us?

Frey's gun was still levelled at Grist's head. Grist's gun was pressed against Trinica's, at a considerably closer range. Jez was on the far side of the barricade, crouched like a cat. The unearthly howl she'd made was dying away in her throat. The Manes stood at bay before her.

Nobody dared make a move.

What in the name of buggery is going on?

Then Jez straightened and turned. Frey saw the awful change that had been wrought in her, just like on the All Our Yesterdays. Her face was not physically different, but something else lived behind it now. Something feral and mad, something other. It was in her posture and her expression, and above all in her eyes. She jarred against his senses, and terrified him.

Then she spoke. Her voice was straining, gasping, horrible, as if she was unfamiliar with the workings of her own throat. A flock of whispers that coalesced into sound.

~ This one speaks for the Manes ~

'Jez?' said Malvery. 'That you?'

~ This one is she. She is our mouthpiece. We have lost your way of speech. You are mute to us, as we are to you ~

Frey felt his skin crawl. He summoned up a little defiance for form's sake. 'What have you done to her?'

~ Nothing she has not chosen. Be calm, Captain Frey. You and your crew will not be harmed. This one places great value on you ~

'Her, too,' Frey said immediately, pointing at Trinica. 'She's done you no wrong.'

Jez didn't reply to that. Instead, she said, ~ Captain Grist. Let the woman go. Bring us the sphere ~

'No funny business, Frey,' Grist warned.

Frey put up his weapon. Grist let go of Trinica, and she scrambled out of his grip and backed away from the Manes towards Frey. Frey moved closer, carefully, as if fearing a sudden move would lead her to be snatched from him again. Relief crashed in as his hand closed around her wrist and he pulled her towards him. He felt a fierce desire to take her in his arms and hold her, but something in her manner prevented it. She was no longer the kind to be held and comforted.

Grist had picked up his cutlass from where it had fallen during the struggle with Trinica, and shoved it in his belt. Now he retrieved the sphere from where it lay, bundled up in a coat. He stepped past the barricade and walked towards Jez, still clutching his pistol in his right hand. 'You know why I came here, don't you?' he said.

~ Yes ~

'Give me the Invitation.'

~ We know what you want ~ She took the sphere from Grist and stared at it, brow furrowed in concentration.

Frey felt the air go slack. It was as if some tight wire, that had been tugging at the edge of his mind, had quietly snapped. The sensation was noticeable only by its absence. He hadn't realised he was detecting the sphere, even in the faintest way, until it stopped broadcasting. Now, finally, it was silent.

'I brought you a thousand new recruits,' said Grist, eyeing Jez warily. 'My offerin' to you. All I want's to be one of you. To live always. It's all I want.'

Jez's gaze went from the sphere in her hands to Grist. ~ We came to find the sphere. We came believing that our long-lost brethren were in peril. But there were no Manes there ~

'I had to find you,' Grist said. A note of uncertainty had crept into his voice. 'It was the only way.'

~ Hundreds of our kind and yours have died today, Captain Grist. All so you could come here before us ~

'I did what had to be done,' he growled. Even in the face of a crowd of Manes, he prickled at having his decisions questioned. He addressed the horde defiantly. 'Don't pretend you're strangers to killin', yourselves!'