Chris Wooding - The Black Lung Captain

It was the thought of Jez that made him move in the end. Sweet, sweet Jez. He imagined her whispering encouragement in his ear, and it made him brave enough to act.

'It's . . . well, it's nice outside,' he said soothingly. 'You don't want to spend the rest of your miserable life on an aircraft, do you? No. I mean, I'm going to set you free! All those tasty birds and mice! That'll be nice, hmm?' He lowered his voice to a mutter. 'And maybe something horrible will eat you, you vicious little slab of mange.'

He took off his cap and rubbed sweat from his scalp. There were too many dark corners here. Forgotten things loomed over him. Frey had been promising to clear them out for years but, like so many things aboard the Ketty Jay, it somehow never happened.

He swallowed his fear and moved steadily forward. A rustling, thumping, clanking noise attended his footsteps. He looked over his shoulder. Bess froze, caught in the act of creeping along behind him.

'You're not helping, Bess,' he whispered.

Bess sing-songed happily. She showed no sign of leaving, so Harkins decided she could come. He'd sacrifice stealth for some reassuring company.

He moved further into the aisles of junk. Bess tiptoed as best she could. His eyes moved restlessly among the shadows. Could the cat be among the pipes overhead? Was he watching them from some secret corner, ready to pounce? Harkins was seized with terror. He wanted to turn and run. Jez didn't ever need to know. He could come back and try again later.

You can do this, he told himself. You've lived through two wars. You can handle a small domestic animal.

Then he heard a rapid scratching, coming from a small gap between some crates and the bulkhead. He stopped still, and put his finger to his lips. Bess imitated him, clinking her finger against her face-grille. The scratching came again.

Slowly, Harkins lowered the box to the floor and took the blanket in both hands. It was Pinn's winter blanket, made of hide, thick enough to resist Slag's claws. With it, he'd smother that damned moggy, and stuff him in the box.

He took a deep breath. Scratch scratch scratch.

A huge black rat darted out of the gap. Harkins yelped in fright. It stared at him and scurried away.

Harkins let his breath out. He was trembling. False alarm. He turned to Bess and managed a nervous smile.

'That was close, eh?'

The cat dropped from the pipes above, landing on his head in a frantic scurry of claws. Harkins shrieked in panic, wheeling away down the aisle, beating at his head as if his cap were on fire. He spun past Bess, still trying to get a grip on his yowling adversary, then tripped over his feet and smashed his head against the corner of a crate.

The next few moments were a blur. He was lying on his back, unable to move, too stunned to work out what had happened. The cat padded over and leaned into his field of vision, peering into his eyes. Satisfied its foe was vanquished, it wandered away.

Jez ... he thought. Jez, I failed you . . .

The last thing he remembered was Bess squatting next to him and poking him, evidently wondering why he wasn't getting up. After that, everything went dark. It was better that way.

It was on a damp, cold morning that they buried Gimble.

The rain had stopped at dawn but the cloud cover was still unbroken, a low grey roof over the land. They put the dead man into the earth in the spot where they'd made last night's camp. An anonymous place among the trees and creepers, where the air was chill and fresh, rich with the scent of soil and leaf.

Grist said a few words in Gimble's memory while the others stood around sniffling and coughing. Most of them had caught colds in the night, and several were sipping a hot remedy that Malvery had whipped up. When Grist was done, they laid on Gimble's chest the severed claw of the creature that had killed him. It seemed fitting, somehow, to show that his death had been avenged.

Not that the poor sod'll know anything about it, Frey thought, as Gimble's crewmates began to fill in the grave.

Last night's other casualty, the eager young Tarworth, was in better shape. He was limping along, using a rifle as a makeshift crutch, but his spirits seemed high. Frey saw him joking with Ucke as they set out. Ucke grinned, showing his uneven mouthful of scavenged teeth.

Pinn looked shifty all morning, but nobody said a word about his little mishap with a pistol. Frey's own pistol had been lost during his flight from the beast, so he'd taken Gimble's twin revolvers. Nobody seemed to mind, and Gimble wouldn't need them.

Their pace was slow, for Tarworth's sake. Hodd assured them they'd be at the crash site by mid-afternoon, but even that seemed too long. Last night's attack had made them wary, and they jumped at every rusde of leaves. Yet despite the sound of animals all around them, they caught barely a glimpse of the local wildlife. The animals heard or smelled them long before they arrived, and made themselves scarce.

'See, boys?' said Grist. 'They're more afraid of us than we are of them!'

Speak for yourself, thought Frey. You didn't see what attacked the camp.

At midday, they found the village.

It was dug into a hillside, half-buried by the slope of the land. The trees had thinned out and there was little undergrowth. Sunken trenches with walls of stone blocks formed enclosures and yards. Oversized doorways led into passages, tunnelling into the hill. Scattered about were crude huts of rock and packed mud, their roofs fallen in. It was an abandoned place, empty of life.

'Your lost tribe?' Grist asked Hodd.

'Sadly not,' said the explorer. He blew his nose on a handkerchief. 'This is a beast-man village. Home to the savages that inhabit this island. I passed it last time I was here.' He swept the buildings with a disinterested gaze. 'They have been well documented by explorers before me. Come on. The craft isn't much further.'

They ignored him. Several of them wandered off to investigate the huts. Frey stayed back. Dead as it was, the village was uncomfortably roomy, built for people much bigger than the average Vard. He didn't like the size of some of those doorways. 'So there are beast-men?' he asked Hodd. 'That much is true?'

'Oh, indeed,' said Hodd. 'I have seen some from afar. They walk like men, but they are more like animals.'

'What are their women like? Are they like animals too?' Pinn asked, nudging Malvery in the ribs.

Hodd merely looked puzzled. 'Their . . . women?'

'What happened to the beast-men who lived here?' Frey asked, changing the subject before Pinn could get really lewd.

Hodd sniffed. 'Perhaps driven away by a rival tribe. They are a violent sort.'

'Cap'n!' Jez called. She was waving from the doorway of a hut.

Hodd rolled his eyes. 'Must we waste all this time? I told you, there's nothing you'll find that the Explorer's Guild doesn't already know. Beast-men have been thoroughly, thoroughly researched. There's simply nothing more to say! An exploratory dead-end!'

'Ah, let 'em have their fun,' said Grist. He spat out the butt of a cigar and put a fresh one in his mouth.

'Ooh, look at this! Look at that!' Hodd mocked sourly, in cruel imitation. 'There's nothing worse than watching amateur explorers at work.'

Frey walked over to Jez and joined her inside the hut. It was little more than a circular wall with a floor of mud and rotted rushes, but unlike the others, its roof was still mostly intact. Whatever had been inside had long disappeared.

Jez was crouching by a wall, holding a broken necklace of coloured stone. Frey took it from her.

'Genuine beast-man necklace,' he said. 'Nice work, Jez. Might be worth something.'