The Black Lung Captain (31 page)

Frey and Malvery were getting to their feet. They approached Jez carefuly, as though she were a dangerous beast that might spring up and lunge at them.

Already they were afraid of her. They'd seen the other side of their navigator, and nothing would ever be the same after that.

Damn it, Jez,
he thought.
Sooner or later they had to find out. But I wish they hadn't seen you this way. I wish you'd told them first.

Then his thoughts went to Bess, lying motionless on the battlefield, and he scrambled to his feet to help her.

Twenty-One

A Retreat — Uncertainties — The Interpreter —

Frey Stands His Ground — Down To Earth

'Get him off me! Get him off my tail!'

A chatter of machine guns, and the night was ful of tracer fire, ripping past Harkins' cockpit. He banked and dived, squealing al the way, and by some miracle he didn't catch any of it.

'Wil you shut your meat-hole, Harkins?' said the voice in his ear. 'I can't bloody think with you shrieking like a pansy.'

Pinn. How he hated Pinn. Of al the men and women and smal furry animals that mocked and humiliated him, Pinn was the worst. Wel, except for the cat. He'd rather have Pinn than the cat.

'What's there to think about? Just shoot him!' Harkins cried. He twisted in his seat, trying to locate his pursuer.

There was no sign. Hard to see anything in a storm like this. The Equaliser was probably somewhere in his blind spot, anyway. He went into a steep climb and roled to starboard. A smattering of bulets chased after him through the rain.

'Pinn? Pinn? Stop scratching your fat arse and help me!'

There was a dul boom, and the windglass of his cockpit lit up with reflected flame. He looked behind him and saw the unfurling flower of a mid-air explosion, yelow against the night. The Skylance went spinning past, its pilot whooping in triumph.

'That's five for me!' Pinn said. 'How many have
you
got, eh?'

Harkins slumped back in his seat and mopped his face with his sleeve. His heart was kicking against his thin ribs and his gorge had risen dangerously high.

'Three, I think,' he said weakly.

'Hah!'

He couldn't care less how many he'd shot down. Al he cared about was that he was stil breathing. His life was a miserable affair for the most part, scurrying through the shadows of other men, ignored or derided by everyone. But al the same, he clung to it with a fierce grip. Death was even scarier than life was.

Lightning flickered, iluminating the moors beneath. Harkins scanned the sky for potential threats. Al he could see was the motley of aircraft that formed the
Storm Dog's
squadron of outflyers.

'The
Delirium Trigger's
puling out!' Pinn yeled suddenly. 'Look! Dracken's running, that pasty-faced chickenshit bitch!'

Harkins banked to bring the frigates into view and saw that Pinn was right. The
Delirium Trigger
had broken off from the
Storm Dog
and was rising towards the clouds. The other was making no attempt to pursue. Both craft were battered and blasted, leaking smoke and flame. The Equalisers were scattering across the plain, racing away in different directions, no doubt to rendezvous at some pre-arranged location.

Harkins gave a broad smile at the sight. The battle was over! He'd made it through!

'Cap'n!' he said. 'Cap'n, did you hear that?' There was no reply. 'Jez?' he inquired tentatively, his voice softening.

'Jez? Jez?' Pinn mimicked in a simper. 'They're not listening. Must've taken out their earcuffs. Probably sick of hearing a grown man squeal.'

Harkins bit his lip.
Don't rise to it. That's what he wants.
But it stil hurt.

Once, he'd been a Navy pilot, and his nerve had been as strong as anyone's. What if Jez had met him then, uniformed and proud? He'd always been awkward and highly strung, never quite at ease in his own skin, but he'd been more of a man back then. At least until his comrades started dying in the Aerium Wars. Until he'd been shot down that first time, and then twice more. Until the miraculous escapes began to add up.

If Harkins had been an optimist, he might have thought himself a lucky man. He'd survived dozens of dogfights and got out of scrapes that left his companions dead in his wake. But he was no optimist. Instead, he fretted about how much luck he could possibly have left, and when it was finaly going to run out.

Not tonight, though. Not tonight.

Flying was al he knew how to do, but if he had his way, he'd never fight again. Al he wanted was an aircraft of his own, and the wide blue sky to fly in. Just to soar for ever. There would be no one to make him feel smal. Just him and the sun and the air. He wouldn't ask for anything more.

Wel, maybe
one
thing more. Maybe someone to share it with. Someone he trusted to be kind to him.

Jez,
he thought.
I wonder what she's doing now?

'Jez?' said Frey tentatively.

She wasn't moving. She lay on the ground next to the decapitated corpse of the Imperator, face down, her hair across her cheek. Frey crept up to her and gave her a poke with the toe of his boot.

'She's not going to bite you, Cap'n,' said Malvery, in the tone of someone who didn't much fancy finding out the truth of that statement for himself.

'How do you know?' Frey asked. 'You saw what happened! She ripped the Imperator's head off with her bare damn hands! One moment she was there, the next she was somewhere else! What
was
that?'

'That was Jez, and she saved our lives,' said Silo. 'Ain't the first time, neither.'

'That,' said Frey, pointing at her,
'wasn't
Jez.'

'Ain't the time nor the place, Cap'n,' said Silo. He picked up the navigator's limp body and slung her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. 'Let's get done here and go.'

But Frey couldn't shake the memory of her, feral and snarling, that terrifying look in her eyes. That wasn't anyone he recognised. She'd
changed.

Crake was at Bess's side. The golem was stirring, to Crake's evident relief. He was tearing up, and not just from the smoke. Wel, at least they hadn't lost anyone. At least there was that.

But could he ever look at Jez in the same way again? Would he be able to fly, knowing she was at the navigator's station behind him?

The Imperator's head lay a short distance away. The smooth mask had come loose, and was hanging off. Frey walked over to it. 'Keep an eye out for any more Sentinels,' he told his crew.

'Cap'n,' said Malvery, a warning in his voice.

'I've dealt with these Imperator bastards before,' Frey said, as if that was an explanation. The truth was, he was angry. This was the second time he'd been unmanned by an Imperator, forced to cower in fear like a whipped dog. He wanted to see the face under the mask. Somehow, he thought it would lessen his fear of them.

He was wrong. When he pushed the mask aside with the barrel of his revolver, the face beneath was enough to make him recoil with a shout. The cheeks and eyes were sunken, irises yelow like a bird of prey. The mouth was stretched open as if in a scream, showing sharp, uneven teeth in receding gums. White, dry skin; the septum of the nose rotted away. It looked like something you'd uncover in a grave.

'Blimey,' said Malvery. 'Someone needs to eat their greens.'

Frey screwed up his face in disgust and looked closer. A stump of a tongue, cut out at the root, showed between cracked lips. There was only a spotting of blood on the floor, despite the brutal nature of the Imperator's death.

'That,' said Frey, 'is not natural.' He turned away and looked at Jez, who was hanging over Silo's shoulder. 'Can anyone enlighten me as to what in buggery just happened to my navigator, by the way?'

'She's a Mane,' said Crake, coughing. 'Partly, anyway. I suppose she wasn't fuly infected.'

'You
knew
?'

'I guessed. Not long after she first came on board. No heartbeat, no need to eat, al of that. There've been other half-Manes, you know. They've come up in daemonist texts. Like I told you, there's always been a school of thought that said Manes were daemons. And realy, what other explanation was there?'

'I was trying not to think about it too much, to be honest,' Frey said. 'I didn't think she was a
Mane,
though.'

'Because you lot don't know anything about them, outside of the drunken tales you hear in bars.'

'Fair comment,' said Malvery. 'We are a pretty thick bunch, al in al.'

'You're supposed to be a doctor,' Frey accused. 'That makes you smart.'

Malvery shrugged. 'I bring up the average. It stil ain't great.'

'You do have Pinn on board,' Crake pointed out.

Frey waved his hands. 'Alright, alright! We'l sort this whole bloody mess out later. Malvery, you're with me. Crake, stay with Silo and Bess. Make sure nobody comes up behind us. Let's get what we came for and hoof it before Grist gets wind that we're planning to rob him.'

Beyond the barricade were scattered heaps of debris, and beyond them the corridor was aflame. Slicks of inflammable fluid sent up hazy curtains of black, foul-smeling smoke. Frey could dimly make out a doorway through the debris, uncomfortably close to the fire.

'You think that's where our sphere is?' Malvery coughed.

'One way to find out,' said Frey. He hurried through the steaming debris, his arm over his face to shield him from the heat. By the time he got to the doorway, it was too painful to be cautious, so he just ran right in and hoped nobody would shoot him.

The heat lessened to a tolerable degree once he was inside. It was a smal store room, with shelves of chests and rols of documents that were getting dangerously close to bursting into flame. A large lockbox in the centre stood open and empty.

Malvery hurried in after him, swearing as his moustache singed. He looked around the room, then grabbed Frey's arm and turned him.

'Wakey wakey, eh, Cap'n?' he said, pointing.

There was an elderly man huddled in the corner of the room, propped against the wal. Frey hadn't seen him. He was wearing Awakener robes, but they were not the white of the Speakers or the grey of the Sentinels, but crimson. That made him an Interpreter, according to Crake. Only one level below the Grand Oracles in the Awakeners' organisation. An important man, then.

A long brown beard tumbled over his chest, almost concealing the sphere he held in his bony hands. Blood ran from his nose and stained his lips. His eyes focused in and out uncertainly beneath the Cipher tattooed on his brow.

'Doesn't look good for him, Cap'n,' Malvery murmured. 'Probably got knocked around in the crash. Broke something inside him.'

'How did . . . ?' the old man said. 'The Imperator . . .'

Frey crouched down in front of him, arms crossed over his knees, looking him over. He tutted. 'You shouldn't play with daemons, you know.'

The Interpreter's eyes widened. Enough to tel Frey that Crake's theory was right. Frey put his hand out expectantly. 'I believe you have something of mine.'

The old man clutched the sphere closer to his body. His gaze became baleful. 'How dare you? Damn thieves!'

'You stole it first,' Frey said.

'You don't know . . .' the Interpreter began, then dissolved into violent coughing. Something rattled inside him with every breath. Blood glistened on his beard.

'You don't know what . . .'

'Alright, alright,' said Frey, holding up his hands. 'Easy, old man.'

'You're meddling with forces you don't understand!' he snarled.

'That?' asked Frey, looking at the sphere. 'I understand a lot of people want it. That makes it valuable.'

'It's more than valuable, you fool! Do you know what would happen if it fel into the wrong hands?'

'Far as I'm concerned, it's already in the wrong hands,' said Frey. He grabbed the sphere and puled it out of the Interpreter's feeble grip. The old man spluttered in outrage, and then he began to cough again, more violently than before.

'Hey!' said Frey, backing off. 'Calm down, eh? You're not in great shape there. Think of your health, or something.'

'Thousands . . .' the old man said, clawing at Frey's trouser leg. 'Thousands wil die!'

Frey didn't like the sound of that at al. "What does
that
mean?' he demanded.

The Interpreter had gone red in the face, his eyes bulging like they were going to pop out of his head. His coughs had become long, painful wheezes, horrible to hear.

Frey grabbed him by the shoulder and shook him. 'Hey! Hey! What did you mean,
thousands will die
? What
is
the sphere?'

'Thousands . . .' the Interpreter whispered. Then he gave one last, rattling breath and slumped to the floor.

Frey let out a little scream of frustration through gritted teeth. Malvery squatted down, felt for a pulse, lifted up the Interpreter's head and looked into his eyes.

Then he let the head drop unceremoniously to the floor with a dul thud.

'Dead,' Malvery said.

'Oh, realy?' Frey snapped. 'Is that your professional opinion?'

'Don't get ratty with me. I'm just doing my job.'

'Couldn't the old bastard have hung on for a few more sentences before he croaked?'

Malvery slapped him on the shoulder. 'Tough luck, Cap'n. We got what we came for, at least. Let's get going. Al this smoke can't be good for us.'

Frey stared at the body of the Interpreter, hearing his final words over and over again.
Thousands will die.

He had the unpleasant feeling that they'd drifted far, far out of their depth.

When they got outside, the
Storm Dog
was waiting for them.

She'd put down on the moors, a short distance from the
All Our Yesterdays.
She was scarred and battered, bearing signs of heavy cannon damage. Her crew were busy rounding up the evacuating Awakeners, who were surrendering without much resistance now that the
Delirium Trigger
had abandoned them. The prisoners stood in a loose group under guard, miserable and sodden in the rain.