Chris Wooding - The Black Lung Captain

'None taken,' she said, sipping at her coffee.

"I suppose, at some point, you just have to make a choice and stick to it." he said, unconvincingly. 'Make the best of things.'

'So they say.'

'Hardly seems fair, does it? All that compromise. Never quite getting what you dreamed of.'

'No one gets what they dream of, Darian. That's why they call them dreams.'

'You think so?'

'Even if you get everything you ever wanted, it's rarely all it's cracked up to be. The rich are as unhappy and screwed-up as the poor. Just in a different way." She looked down into the black surface of her coffee. 'You can't get away from yourself.'

'What does that mean?'

'Well, wherever you go, whatever you do, you're still you . You can change your surroundings, start a new life, but you'll always fall into the same old patterns, make the same kind of friends, commit the same mistakes. The thing you need to change is yourself.'

'What's wrong with we?' Frey protested indignantly.

'I'm speaking generally. The thing a person has to change is themselves.'

'Like you did?'

'Like I did.'

'And you're happier?'

'No,' she said. 'But I'm alive.'

She gave him a sad sort of smile. Frey was overwhelmed by a surge of affection. That smile made him want to sweep her up in his arms, to protect her from all harm, to erase the damage of the past somehow.

'I forgot what it was like, talking to you,' he said. 'I mean, really talking, without all the threats and recriminations and stuff.'

'We have a lot to recriminate about,' she said.

He opened his mouth to speak, to say something complimentary, something to express his feelings, even in a small way. But she'd already detected the change in him. She'd seen the tenderness in his eyes and heard the softening of his voice.

'Darian, don't,' she said quietly.

So he didn't. The feeling curled up and died in the heat of bitterness and embarrassment. He got to his feet and threw some money on the table.

'Let's go see this professor, then,' he said.

Trinica nodded wordlessly, left her coffee, and followed him.

Professor Kraylock was a small, thin, elderly man, with a tidy white moustache and a bald head speckled with liver spots. Little round glasses perched on a nose purpled with broken veins: the sign of a man who enjoyed his hard liquor. He was dwarfed by his chair and a colossal desk of walnut and leather. Sunlight beamed through two tall, arched windows behind him, edging him in dazzling light and casting his face into shadow. Blazing dust motes hung in the air around him.

Frey and Trinica sat on the other side of the desk. Trinica and the professor were talking and laughing. Preamble stuff: greetings, inquiries about each other's health, that kind of thing. Frey had stayed largely silent. He wasn't good making small talk with educated folk.

Trinica was, though. She chatted pleasantly with Kraylock, asking him about his studies and the affairs of the university, commenting on some rare sculpture he had in an alcove. This was the Trinica he remembered. The Trinica who would charm the socks off her father's guests at some swanky dinner function. The Trinica who you could talk to for hours, because she made you feel that everything you said was fascinating and important.

Frey's eyes roamed the study, idly wondering if there was anything worth stealing. There was a lot of potentially valuable junk here. A brass orrery, an ornamental spyglass. Furniture that looked older than the planet. And books. Lots of books.

Frey distrusted books. He had a sneaking suspicion that most people only bought them to make themselves seem impressive. He couldn't possibly imagine anyone reading so many massive, boring tomes. Had Kraylock really ploughed through every one of the forty volumes of the Encyclopaedia Vardia? Or the whole of Abric's Discourses on The Nature of Mankind? He doubted it.

'I do appreciate you taking the time to speak with us,' Trinica was saying. 'But could I ask why Professor Grist wasn't able to meet us himself?'

'Because he's dead,' Kraylock replied. 'In fact, I was rather surprised you didn't know that yourself. It's been almost two years now.'

Great , thought Frey. Just great.

Trinica looked appropriately bewildered. 'I'm sorry. We didn't know.'

'You didn't, hmm? Your letter said you were interested in discussing his research. What research, exactly, were you interested in discussing?'

It was obvious by his tone that the game was up before it had begun. He didn't believe their cover story for a moment. Trinica was still searching for a response when Frey leaned forward. 'Look,' he said. 'We're not students. We're searching for Professor Grist's son, Harvin. He's stolen something from us and we want it back. Well, actually the Awakeners stole it first, but that's by the by. We were hoping to talk to his dad and get an idea where he was. But his dad's dead, so . . .' He spread his hands. 'Sorry to have wasted your time.'

He was getting out of his chair when Kraylock spoke. 'The Awakeners, you said. They stole something from you?'

'Right.'

'May I hazard a guess as to what it was?'

'If you like.'

'Something to do with the Manes?'

Frey became suddenly interested again. 'That's quite a guess.'

Kraylock motioned at him with one thin hand. 'Sit down.'

Frey did so. Kraylock regarded them both from behind his glasses. 'Do you intend to kill him? Harvin, I mean?'

Trinica leaned forward, her face solemn. 'He has a Mane artefact that could be extremely dangerous. We believe he intends to use it to cause harm to a lot of people. We're trying to stop him. But first we need to find him.'

Kraylock studied them, searching for a lie, finding none. Eventually he sighed. 'That boy,' he said. 'He was nothing but heartache for Maurin. I always knew he'd come to a bad end.'

'Can you tell us about Maurin Grist?' Trinica said. 'What was his field of research?'

Kraylock blinked. 'Isn't it obvious? Manes. He was foremost authority on Manes in Vardia. Perhaps the world.'

Frey and Trinica exchanged a glance.

'We were friends for thirty years,' he said. 'We spoke often about his research. He believed the Manes' condition was a result of daemonic possession. That is nothing new, of course. It is a theory that has been widely discussed in the scientific community. But his unique idea concerned the nature of the daemon itself. Do you know what a symbiote is?'

Trinica gave the answer. Frey suspected it was more for his sake than anything else. 'It's an entity that bonds with another entity for the mutual benefit of both.'

'Exactly. The daemon doesn't consume or destroy its host. Maurin had assembled witness testimonies from survivors of Mane raids. He—'

'Hang on,' said Frey. 'I though Manes didn't leave survivors? I heard they hunt down everyone. They say there's no point hiding from them; they even get you inside locked rooms.'

Kraylock snorted, irritated at being interrupted. 'It's true there have been cases where Manes have got into apparently impossible places. When the bodies are found, the doors are still locked from the inside. No one knows how the A lanes do it. But no, they don't hunt down everyone. There have been plenty of survivors over the years.' He glared at Frey. 'May I continue?'

'Sony,' said Frey meekly. He was having flashbacks to his days in the orphanage, when he'd be chewed out by teachers for interrupting in class.

'Anyway, Maurin saw evidence of free will, decision-making, even arguments and disagreements. In the past, it was popularly supposed that they were mindless puppets, all under the control of a single guiding force - the daemon. It was the only way we could make sense of the way they acted.'