Chris Wooding - The Black Lung Captain

Why are you telling me this?

'Damn, I was sick with the rage after that. Like an animal. They had to chain me down for a week. But the madness passed, and when I was well again, things was different. Every time I saw her after that, with some other man in the camp, I'd think: That's what rage did for you. And I swore I wouldn't never let it out again.'

'And did you?' Jez had to ask.

'Only one time,' he said. 'Years later. Day I escaped the factory where they had us makin' aircraft. He had a gun, I just had fists an' teeth. Don't remember much of what happened after, but I'm here and he ain't.' He flicked away his roll-up, and it was extinguished by the rain. 'Sane man wouldn't have charged him like that. But I weren't sane, not then.'

He got to his feet. Standing, he towered over her.

'Point I'm makin' is, you ignore your bad side, it eat you up. Like my papa and my brother. You got to face it. You got to make it a part of you, control it. Maybe one day it save your life, yuh?'

Jez looked at him, startled. How did he know? How did he have any idea of the struggle within her, the push and pull between human and Mane?

He answered her question before she could ask it. 'Think I don't see you walkin' off on your own, worryin', workin' things out? I see you. You the same as everyone else, Crake 'n' me 'n' all of us. Think you better off keepin' it all to yourself.' He turned to her, eyes dark in the shadow of his hood. 'You ain't.'

Jez met his gaze. Of all the people to tackle her about this, Silo was the most unlikely. Of course, the others knew she was different, but they avoided the issue on purpose out of respect for her secrets. She'd been grateful for their consideration, but it also left her entirely alone. It occurred to her that she was doing exactly the same thing to Crake. Of all the crew she was the only one who knew the grief he carried, yet they'd only ever spoken of it once.

Perhaps she didn't have to deal with this all alone. Perhaps Crake didn't, either.

'Thanks, Silo,' she said.

He pulled back his hood and turned his face up to the rain. Water trickled over his shaven scalp. 'In Samaria I was a slave,' he said. 'In Vardia I'm the enemy. This might be the first damn place I ever been where I'm just a man.'

He smiled. An actual smile. Jez almost fell over with the shock.

'Freedom makes a feller talkative, I reckon,' he said.

That was when the screams began.

Frey dreamed of a meadow on a hill. He dreamed of a young woman with long blond hair and a smile of such innocent beauty that it melted him to see it.rey dreamed of a meadow on a hill. He dreamed of a young woman with long blond hair and a smile of such innocent beauty that it melted him to see it.

Trinica was her name. They were mad with the joy of first love, swept up in each other. He chased her through the tall grass, but she was always one step ahead of him, laughing. Finally he caught her, and she turned in his arms, her nose an inch from his as she leaned forward to kiss him . . .

Then she was screaming. Her mouth stretched open, grotesquely wide, exposing rotted teeth. Her breath stank of decay. Her green eyes darkened to black. Hair came away from her head in clumps, the dying locks slithering to the ground. He struggled frantically to let go of her, but his upper arms were gripped by some invisible force. She shrieked in his face, features distorted with horror, her skin white, corpse-like. Frey shrieked with her.

He thrashed awake to the sound of screams, shouting, rain. His arms were trapped inside his sleeping bag. Trinica's howling still echoed in his mind.

Rain hammered against the tarpaulin overhead. A fire flickered nearby, smoking up the air beneath their little shelter. Dark figures moved beyond it, barely visible in the downpour. Frey looked about, trying to reassemble his memories, and found himself in a lumpy, tangled landscape of empty sleeping bags. He'd gone to sleep as soon as he'd had his dinner, exhausted by the afternoon's trek.

What in damnation is going on?

'Over there!' someone cried. One of Grist's men.

'Over where?'

'That way!'

'I can't bloody see where you're pointing!'

'That way!'

'Which way is that way, shit-wit?'

Frey scrambled out of his sleeping bag, pulled on his boots and snatched up his revolver. Then he pulled his cutlass from where he'd lain next to it in the night, and thrust it into his belt. It wasn't the smartest thing to sleep with a naked blade - he didn't want any accidents where bits of his insides ended up on the outside - but he was paranoid about someone stealing it. That cutlass was his most precious possession after the Ketty Jay. a daemon-thralled weapon given to him by Crake as price for his passage. It made even an amateur swordsman into a champion. Which was good, since Frey was very, very amateur.

He emerged from the shelter into the open and was soaked to the skin in seconds. Wiping hair back from his forehead, revolver at the ready, he cast around for signs of his crew. It was dark beyond the firelight, and the rain made it seem as if everything was constantly in motion. A pistol shot rang out, making him jump. He turned towards the sound, but the trees and shadows foiled his sight.

'Sound your names, damn you all!' Grist cried from somewhere.

'Crattle!'

'Ucke!'

'Tarworth, sir! I'm shot!' The young crewman's voice wavered fearfully.

'Hodd! Where are you?' Grist demanded.

'Here!' the explorer replied.

'Gimble?'

Frey heard a rustle to his left and Pinn emerged from the undergrowth, eyes bright, chubby face flushed with excitement.

'I saw it, Cap'n! It's huge!'

' What is?' he asked, but then Grist yelled again.

'Gimble? Are you there?'

'Malvery!' This time it was Jez's voice. 'Someone get the doc over here!'

Malvery appeared out of the rain, hurrying past Pinn and Frey, a lever-action shotgun in one meaty hand, his doctor's bag in the other. 'Malvery!' Frey said. 'What in bastardy is happening?'

'Can't stop. Duty calls,' Malvery replied, heading off in the direction of Jez's voice.

'We're coming with you,' Frey decided. 'Come on, Pinn. Everyone, stay together.' They followed Malvery into the trees, slipping through the mud, pushing wet branches aside. 'Jez! Keep shouting!'

'This way!'

Frey's heart was pounding against his ribs as they forged through the forest. The sense of threat was overwhelming. The further they went from the fire, the worse it got. He could barely see far enough to avoid the trees in front of him. Everything was slick with rain. In seconds, the camp was nothing more than a faint smear of light in the distance.

They followed Jez's voice, and found her with Silo. The two of them were smeared in mud and kneeling over a fallen figure. Frey felt a surge of relief at seeing they were unhurt, but it faded as he remembered that Crake was still unaccounted for. That figure on the ground . . .

Don't be Crake. Don't be Crake.

It was Gimble, the scrawny, bad-humoured crewman from the Storm Dog. He was trembling, eyes glassy. One arm had been torn off at the socket. A knob of bone glistened there, washed clean by the rain. Three ragged, parallel claw-strokes were carved into his belly. Vile blue loops of intestine poked through the rips. Blood washed into the mud, coming from everywhere. He hadn't even had time to pull his revolvers from his belt.

Malvery knelt down next to him, wiped his round glasses, looked him over.

'He's done,' Malvery announced. 'Soon as the shock wears off.'