Chris Wooding - The Black Lung Captain

'Here, wait a minute . . .' said Malvery, but his protest was halfhearted. None of them really thought he'd do it. Not until he swung the machete with all his might and buried it in the side of Hodd's neck.

Time stopped for Frey. The shock of the moment froze them all where they were. Hodd gaped blankly.

Then he coughed, and a flood of red spilled from his throat and over his lips. His hand came up and felt for the grip of the machete, as if trying to work out what it was. He made a feeble attempt to pull it free, but his hand slipped on the blood that had already coated the handle. It squirted from the wound in grotesque pulses.

His eyes had that terrible look in them. A look Frey had seen many times before. The look of a man who couldn't quite believe his time was up.

He keeled over sideways and was still.

Grist stared down at the explorer, his chest heaving. Nobody said a word. They watched him carefully, waiting to see what he'd do next.

'We're gonna get the sphere back,' he said eventually. 'We're gonna get it back, you hear? Your crew and mine. We'll track that woman down and we'll have what's ours and more besides. Nobody steals from Harvin Grist.' He took a breath, straightened, and looked over at Frey. 'You in, or not?'

Frey looked back at him. Trying to judge the depth of the mania in Grist's eyes. His first appraisal of the man had been seriously off. There was a blackness at his core that Frey didn't like at all.

To give up his shot at a fortune was no easy thing. This was the second time Trinica had stolen from him, and that was hard to take. But even so, he could have walked away. He was getting in over his head, and he knew it. Might as well play with dynamite as have a partner like Grist.

But she'd scarcely acknowledged him. That was what burned. All this time, all that had passed between them, and he meant less than nothing to her. He felt snubbed and humiliated, and he wanted to make her pay for that. He wanted revenge. She'd never walk all over him again.

'I get Hodd's five per cent,' he said, motioning toward the dead man.

Grist snorted in disgust. 'Fifty-fifty it is, you bloodsuckin' bastard,' he said. He turned his back and walked off towards the Storm Dog. Crattle followed him.

'Another mission ends in resounding success, then,' Malvery said sarcastically. He headed for the Ketty Jay. The others drifted away after him, all except Jez, who was eyeing the corpse of Hodd.

'You sure about this?' she said doubtfully.

'No,' said Frey. 'But we're doing it anyway.'

Jez nodded to herself. 'Right you are, Cap'n,' she said. Then she, too, walked off towards the Ketty Jay, and Frey was left alone.

Marlen's Hook stood between the Blackendraft ash flats and the Scourfoot Desert, an outpost of humanity in the most i. lifeless of places. To the west were the Hookhollows, their sharp tips peeping over the edge of the high Eastern Plateau. Restless volcanoes hidden among the mountain peaks filled the sky with a grimy haze which was carried on to the plateau by the prevailing winds. The land was gloomy and bleared.

The port was built on a blunt lump of black rock that thrust dramatically upward from the ash-crusted earth. The heart of the settlement was on the flat top of the rock, where there was a landing pad for aircraft. It was the only place in Marlen's Hook that had anything recognisable as streets.

Jez stood at Frey's shoulder as he brought the Ketty Jay in towards the landing pad. She'd been to Marlen's Hook twice since joining Frey's crew, and she never looked forward to returning. The place was a lawless den of thieves and cut-throats. The Coalition Navy ignored it because it was so remote from civilisation, and because the ash in the air clogged up engines and lungs alike. Just being here was bad for your health.

She turned her eyes to the horizon, where the day was burning down in shades of pink and yellow and purple. Still, she thought, at least it makes for a dramatic sunset.

Outside the central mass of the town, shanty dwellings had gathered in clots. Tents and lean-tos crowded for space. Buildings clung to the sloped flanks of the rock wherever they could, forming a rickety maze of plank walkways and chiselled stairs. Shadows stretched long fingers eastward, or pooled in the hollows.

The Storm Dog was ahead of them and below, descending towards the port. Powerful beam lamps shone up from the landing pad, cutting through the murk, guiding her in. The Ketty Jay followed, her outflyers trailing behind.

'Well,' said Frey. 'It may not be pretty, but if anyone knows where Dracken might be found, they'll be down there somewhere.'

'Let's hope so, Cap'n,' Jez said neutrally. Frey was just talking to fill up the silence. She could tell he was full of doubts, just as she was. The atmosphere on the return journey from Kurg had been strained. The crew had retreated to their quarters or occupied themselves with solitary tasks. Hodd's murder had sobered them. Nobody missed the explorer, but nobody thought he deserved what he got, and they were all wary of Grist now. They didn't like throwing their lot in with someone like that. They'd rather give up on this whole thing.

But the Cap'n had decided otherwise. He'd got the bit between his teeth, and he wasn't going to stop. Jez wished she knew what was going on in his head. He'd been different ever since Grist had turned up. The old Frey would have known when to retreat. He would have folded his hand and got out while they still could. But something had lit a fire under him. There was a kind of doggedness in his manner that she hadn't seen since they got tangled up in the Retribution Falls affair. She sensed they'd be following this through to the end.

But if Grist was a dangerous ally, then Dracken was an even more dangerous enemy. Her involvement was unlikely to be a coincidence. There was more to this than a simple treasure hunt. She just hoped the Cap'n knew what he was doing.

Meanwhile, Jez had preoccupations of her own. Now that the shock had worn off, she'd had time to process everything she learned aboard the dreadnought. Foremost among them was this: Manes were daemons. Daemons that took over the bodies of men and women.

She had a daemon inside her.

The thought was horrifying. Ever since she'd first realised she was dead, she'd thought of the Mane part of her as an infection, a disease that she must resist if she wanted to retain her humanity. But now it was different. Now she was possessed. The enemy was intelligent, and it was within her. Not some mindless force of transformation, but a malicious invader that knew her thoughts and plotted her overthrow.

She held up her hand in front of her and stared at it. The arrow wound she'd sustained on Kurg had already closed up. There was no trace of a scar, and her fingers worked fine. Once her ability to heal rapidly had seemed a useful side effect of her condition; now it was just more evidence of the dreadful entity within her.

Her skin no longer felt like her own. She was violated. Somehow, she had to expel the invader.

This can't go on, she thought.

For years she'd lived in fear of herself, hiding from her fellow humans, afraid to make friends or to stay in one place. She'd tried to resist the creeping influence of the Manes, hoping to drive it back by willpower alone. She'd told herself that she would have been consumed long ago if not for that.

Maybe that was true, maybe not. But the influence grew, nevertheless. Her trances came more easily and frequently now.

She hadn't been winning. She'd just slowed the speed at which she lost.