Chris Wooding - The Black Lung Captain

~ We kill to survive. What your kind call kidnapping, we call recruitment. We must grow in number, and we have no other way of reproduction. But the sight of us inspires terror in your kind. They are apt to resist. We are forced to defend ourselves ~

'Aye,' said Grist. 'But it all adds up to a whole heap o' bodies, whichever way you cut it.' He swept the Manes with a hard stare. He wasn't a bit afraid of them. 'Now, I've proved myself, ain't I? I want the Invitation.'

~ No-

Grist's face darkened. 'No?'

~ We are not monsters. We do not want you ~

Grist drew a cigar from his pocket, put it in his mouth, and lit it with a match. A dangerous calm had settled on him. 'Am I to understand,' he said, puffing, 'that after two years of searchin', after turnin' over every rock and stone in Vardia, after I lost my whole damn crew and chased you to the North bloody Pole . . . That ain't enough?'

~ It will never be enough. We do not give the Invitation to everyone. Some are unsuitable ~

'Unsuitable, you say? You realise, o' course, that by refusin' me, you're condemnin' me to death from the Black Lung?'

~ You should not concern yourself. Your death will come considerably sooner than that. You are far too dangerous to be allowed to live ~

Grist surveyed the ranks of ghouls before him. 'I reckon you're right, at that.' Then he turned around and looked over his shoulder. His eyes met Frey's across the barricade between them. Frey could see the suppressed anger there, his fury at being thwarted at the last. He'd come all this way, and lost.

Grist gave him a grudging salute. Frey returned it just as grudgingly. Both of them knew that he'd reached his end, but Frey couldn't help respecting him for the way he faced it.

'Well,' he said, 'death, then.' He spun around, switching his pistol to his off-hand and drawing his cutlass. 'Which o' you bastards wants it first?'

With a roar, he ran at the Manes, firing his pistol as he came. They fell on him in a howling frenzy as he plunged into them, cutting and slashing this way and that, shooting point-blank at his opponents until his bullets ran out. With long nails and crooked teeth they tore at his skin and raked at his face, but he shook them off time and again, bellowing his defiance. He hacked off limbs and heads to his left and right, a gory and fearsome figure amid the thrashing mass. All control had left him now: he was berserk with rage, more animal than man, a force of nature. As feral as the Manes that surrounded him. At last they pulled him under, overwhelming him by weight of numbers, but a moment later he struggled to his feet again, throwing them back with irresistible strength. They flung themselves at him, biting and scratching, rending strips of flesh from his arms and shoulders, but he battered them away.

' Come on! ' Grist howled. ' You ain't even tryin'! '

Frey stared, appalled by his courage. Grist was surrounded by pieces of dead Manes, a butcher in a slaughterhouse, bleeding from dozens of wounds. He was visibly weakening, but he still kept his feet. No matter how they fought, they couldn't bring him down.

In the end, it was his own blood that did it. He slipped on the slick floor, and disappeared beneath the tide. This time, he didn't come up again.

They savaged him as he struggled on the floor. They plucked out his eyes and tore out his tongue. They ripped his belly open and pulled his innards from them in great loops. They gnawed his hands while he still thrashed, peeled muscle from bone, shredded him.

Frey had never heard screaming like it.

Then, at last, it was over. As much as Frey had hated Grist, he was glad when they were done, and silence returned. As if at a signal, the Manes began to retreat, melting away into the depths of the craft. What was left of Harvin Grist was scarcely recognisable as human, a bag of red and broken bones connected by strips of sinew.

Malvery cleared his throat. 'In my professional opinion,' he said, 'that feller is dead.'

Jez, who'd stood apart from the fighting, walked up to Frey. ~ The sphere is deactivated. The vortex is closing. You must move with haste ~

'What about Jez? You ain't keeping her!' Malvery said.

~ We do not hold her captive. She has chosen her path ~

'Oh, aye? And what path is that?'

~ She was given the Invitation. She refused ~

'I didn't know you could refuse ,' Frey said. 'Of course she refused, then! Why wouldn't she?'

~ Few do. You cannot understand the choice she has made ~

Frey wasn't going to argue about it. But the creature before him was still not Jez, his navigator. 'Then what is she, if she's not one of you?'

~ A half-Mane ~

'Wasn't she one already?'

~ It is different now. She has accepted her Mane side, as we have accepted her humanity. She no longer resists us. In time, she will learn to control those aspects of us that she bears, or find others to teach her ~

'There are others?'

~ Some are agents of our cause in the world beyond the Wrack. Others tread their own way. One day our kind and yours will meet, in war or peace. On that day, there may be need of those who can bridge the gap between us ~

Frey was too tired and numb to take it all in. It was all too much for him right now. He just wanted to go. He wanted to take his crew and Trinica and leave as fast as he bloody well could.

~ She chose you over us, Captain. That is a rare honour indeed ~

Then a shadow passed from her, some dark alter ego departing, and she sagged and staggered. When she raised her head, the feral look was gone from her. The shift in her aspect was subtle but unmistakable. She was back. She pushed some loose hair away from her forehead and gave them a wan smile.

Malvery thundered over to her and swept her up in a bear hug, planting a huge kiss on her cheek. Silo came next, and laid his hand on her shoulder. Their eyes met, and a certain understanding passed between them, something that Frey had no knowledge of. But whatever it was, the half-Mane navigator and the silent Murthian shared something in that moment. Unless Frey was mistaken, Silo was proud of her.

Frey joined them, and hugged her too. She was the smallest on his crew, but sometimes she was tougher than all of them. To have her back, to be chosen by her, filled him with a nameless gladness. She was precious, like all of his crew, and it was only then that he truly realised what a loss it would have been if she'd left them.

Jez laughed as she pushed him away. 'Give a girl some space, you bunch of lunks!' she said. 'We don't have time for all this. That big hole in the sky isn't going to be there too much longer, and I for one am not staying. So anyone who doesn't want to spend the rest of their lives stuck at the North Pole . . . run for it!'

By the time they came up on the deck, the dreadnought was detaching itself and pulling away from the Storm Dog. Other dreadnoughts were in the sky, droning out of the grey mist, shadows that took on shape and detail as they approached. Returning combatants from Sakkan, some smoking from wounds in their hulls.

Frey and the others sprinted back to the Ketty Jay. The crew fanned out to their posts, fired by their captain's urgency. Frey put Jez in the pilot's seat.

'Get us out of here!'

Jez didn't need any further invitation. She released the magnetic clamps and had the Ketty Jay airborne in moments. It was only when she lit the thrusters that Frey realised something was badly wrong.

'Silo!' he called. He pushed past Trinica and Crake, who were just arriving in the cockpit, and headed down the corridor towards the engine room. He stuck his head through the open door. 'What's that noise?'