The Black Lung Captain (11 page)

Frey dumped the paw in front of his amazed audience and then sat down by the fire, feigning nonchalance. They gathered beneath the tarpaulin, out of the rain.

Grist was working on a fresh cigar. Hodd was wide-eyed with awe.

'That,' said Grist, 'is a big paw.'

'You . . .' Hodd gaped. 'You . . . That's tremendous!'

'I wouldn't go
that
far,' said Malvery, eyeing the paw. 'It would have been tremendous if he kiled the
rest
of it.'

'Ah, clam it, Malvery,' said Jez. beaming. 'The Cap'n just slaved his first monster!'

'It's probably not even dead!' Malvery protested, but nobody listened.

'How's your man?' Frey asked Grist.

'He'l live. Flesh wound. Bled a lot, but no real harm.'

'That's good news, at least,' he said. He got to his feet. 'Speaking of crew, I'd better go see to mine.'

'He's over here,' said Jez. She led him to the far side of the shelter; Malvery and Silo came trailing after. Hidden among the packs, trussed up in a sleeping bag, was Crake. Snoring. No one had seen him in the confusion.

Frey leaned close. The stink of rum was on his breath. He puled open the neck of the bag and saw that Crake was clutching an empty bottle.

'He slept through the whole thing,' said Jez.

Frey harumphed and scratched the back of his neck. It should have been a relief to see him unhurt, but somehow it wasn't. Not like this.

'Can you talk to him, Jez?' he said.

'I'l talk to him,' she promised.

'Me, too,' said Malvery. He thumbed at Jez. 'After al, what does
she
know about being an alcoholic?'

'Alright,' said Frey. 'I'l leave it to you two. Fix him, or something.' He waved a hand vaguely. 'You're al better at this stuff than I am.'

'Wil do, Cap'n,' said Jez. Frey saw her exchange a glance with Silo. The Murthian nodded gravely at her.

Something meaningful there? He didn't know. He didn't know what half his crew were thinking. Talking about feelings -
real
feelings - had never been something he was comfortable with.

His hand fel to the hilt of his cutlass. Even blind drunk, the daemonist had saved his life. He desperately wanted the old Crake back. He just didn't know what to do about it. But maybe Jez and Malvery did.

They're looking out for each other,
Frey thought to himself.
By damn, my crew are actually looking out for each other. Could you have ever imagined
it, a year ago? I must be doing something right.

Wel, perhaps and perhaps not. He was just glad that no one had died. But there was stil a good distance to go before they could count themselves safe again.

Some things are worth riskin' everythin' for,
Grist had said to him. After the close shave they'd just had, Frey was beginning to wonder if this expedition was realy one of them.

Eight

Harkins On The Hunt — A Funeral —

The Expedition Finds A Village — Jez's Correction

'Here, kitty. Nice kitty.'

The
Ketty Jay's
cargo hold was always gloomy. The electric lighting was pitiful and at least fifty per cent of the bulbs had burned out and never been replaced.

Harkins wasn't a fan of dark places at the best of times, but tonight he was particularly on edge. Tonight, he was hunting.

In one hand was a smal wooden packing crate, open at one end. In the other was a thick blanket. He stalked through the maze of boxes and junk machinery that had occupied the back of the hold for as long as anyone could remember.

This was the last time he'd be terrorised by a cat. By tomorrow morning, he'd be a man.

'Come on, Slag,' he murmured. 'Nice Slag. Harkins just wants to be friends.'

Bess was watching him curiously from the gloom. She moved back and forth to keep him in view, fascinated by his strange behaviour. Harkins did his best to ignore her, and concentrated on calming his hammering heart.

Slag was in here somewhere. He knew it. He'd spent the night lying in wait, down here in the hold, hoping for his chance. This was Slag's territory. He was bound to emerge sooner or later. To speed things along, he'd left a bowl of food out.

Finaly the cat had appeared, slipping out of an air vent, and eaten the food. Harkins had meant to spring on him then, but he found that he couldn't. In the end, it took him half an hour to pluck up his courage, by which point the cat had long since slunk off into the labyrinth of junk.

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 . . . wel, 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! Al those tasty birds and mice! That'l be nice, hmm?' He lowered his voice to a mutter. 'And maybe something horrible wil 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 swalowed 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 smal gap between some crates and the bulkhead. He stopped stil, and put his finger to his lips. Bess imitated him, clinking her finger against her face-grile. 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, stil 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 stil 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 chil 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 kiled 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 fil 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 al 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 al around them, they caught barely a glimpse of the local wildlife.

The animals heard or smeled 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 vilage.

It was dug into a hilside, half-buried by the slope of the land. The trees had thinned out and there was little undergrowth. Sunken trenches with wals of stone blocks formed enclosures and yards. Oversized doorways led into passages, tunneling into the hil. Scattered about were crude huts of rock and packed mud, their roofs falen 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 vilage. 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 wel 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 vilage 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 realy lewd.

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

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

Hodd roled his eyes. 'Must we waste al this time? I told you, there's nothing you'l 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 wal with a floor of mud and rotted rushes, but unlike the others, its roof was stil mostly intact. Whatever had been inside had long disappeared.

Jez was crouching by a wal, 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.'

'Have it if you want, Cap'n, but that wasn't what I caled you over for. Look.'

He crouched down next to her. There was a smal circle of stones on one side of the hut, and a shalow fire-pit with the remains of a fire inside. She held her hand over it. 'Stil warm.'

Frey tried it too. Faint heat came from the embers. He sat back on his haunches. 'Huh,' he said, neutraly. 'Place isn't as deserted as we thought, maybe?'

'I think they were passing through. Took shelter here last night.'

Frey thought about that for a moment, then got to his feet. 'You want this necklace or not?'

Jez waved him away. 'It's yours.'

Frey walked back to Grist, running the necklace through his hands. Grist was smoking, as ever. Hodd tapped his feet impatiently and looked skyward.

'Oh! A necklace!' Hodd crowed. 'Just like the other
thousand
in the Explorer's Guild archives.'

Frey ignored his tone. 'How much do you think it's worth?'

'That? Next to nothing. If it doesn't come with an Explorer's Guild Seal of Certification, there's no way to convince anyone it's not some fake.'

'Seal of Certification?'

'And they'l only give you that if they've first given your expedition a Seal of Recognition.'

'Seal of Recognition?'

'And they only give
that
to people who can afford their extortionate membership fees and who are wiling to pay them a tithe on al expedition profits.'

'And I'm guessing you haven't been paying?'

Hodd sniffed. 'I'm a little behind.'

Frey roled his eyes and tossed the necklace over his shoulder.

'Might I have a word, Frey?' Grist said. He and Frey walked away a short distance.

'What's on your mind?' Frey asked.