The Black Lung Captain (49 page)

'You have to accept that,' Jez said. 'Accept it. Make it a part of you. Move on.'

'Easy for you to say,' he muttered. He clambered unsteadily to his feet, his face hard with disgust. 'I know why you're here. I know what al this is about. You've a daemon inside you, and you want it out.'

'Wel, yes, I—'

'Wel, nothing! You think I haven't considered that? Al this time when I suspected you were a Mane? I was your friend, Jez. You think I hadn't wondered if I could fix you?'

Jez had a sinking feeling in her guts. 'Can you?' she asked.

'No!' he crowed. 'No! No one can! Because you died, Jez! Because your heart doesn't beat! I could drive that daemon out of you, but it's the only thing that's stopping you being
actually
dead. Without that daemon, you're just a corpse. Accept
that!
Make
that
a part of you!'

Jez was shocked by the viciousness in his voice, the hate on his face, the glee with which he crushed her hopes. Tears prickled at her eyes. She struggled to maintain her composure. She'd hurt him, and he wanted to hurt her back. She understood that. It didn't make it hurt any less.

No wonder he left as soon as it was clear that she was a Mane. Maybe that was the spur he needed. He didn't want her to ask him. He didn't want to tel her that there was no help for her. That she was condemned to slowly turn into something else.

She fought to come up with some kind of argument, some way to persuade him that he was wrong. But his reasoning was infalible. In fact, had Jez not been so She fought to come up with some kind of argument, some way to persuade him that he was wrong. But his reasoning was infalible. In fact, had Jez not been so desperate to rid herself of the invader in her body, she might have seen it herself. Even someone who knew nothing about daemonism could have worked it out. But just like Crake, she'd believed what she wanted to believe, what was necessary to keep going. And just like him, she'd been doomed to failure from the start. Some things couldn't be changed, no matter how hard you wished.

But now that she came to it, she found there was none of the disappointment or sorrow or misery she'd expected. Instead she felt a bleak, sad sort of resignation. The peace of a prisoner as they walked to the galows, knowing that al possibility of reprieve or escape was gone. Maybe she'd always known, deep down, that there was no going back.

'Alright,' she heard herself say. 'I believe you.'

'Good,' he said.

She walked around the room. 'There's no chance.'

'None.'

'The way I am is the way I am.'

'Exactly.'

She shook herself, brushed a strand of hair back from her face, and nodded. 'Then that's how it is,' she said quietly.

Crake gazed mournfuly at the empty shel of the golem. 'That's how it is,' he agreed.

She raised her head. 'We'd like you to come back, Crake.'

The daemonist surveyed the room, strewn with the wreckage of his studies. 'Yes,' he said. 'I'm finished here.'

They held a smal gathering on a hilside on the way back to Iktak. There was nothing to bury, so they simply raised a marker: a slab of metal that they'd scored with one of Silo's screwdrivers.

Bessandra Crake

Beloved niece of Grayther Crake

DY138/32-147/32

The whole crew attended, except Pinn, who was no longer with them. Crake was glad of that. He'd only have asked moronic questions. The others understood wel enough, though. They didn't know the dead girl, nor why Crake was honouring her now when she'd died two years ago. But they came anyway and kept silent. Because he asked them to. Because he wanted them there, and they were his friends.

And though they couldn't have failed to notice the similarity between the name on the grave and Crake's golem, he knew they'd never guess the truth. It was too terrible, too impossible. Easier to assume he'd named the golem in her memory.

On reflection, Crake decided they were right.

Bess herself - the
golem
Bess - stood off to one side, her bal clutched in her massive hands, shifting restlessly. She'd picked up on the mood and made sad cooing noises, but he wasn't sure whether she realy fathomed what was happening here. If his niece truly was inside that armoured skin, he'd surely have seen more of a reaction. She was witnessing her own funeral, after al. But the way she behaved was no more than might be expected of a faithful dog.

The wind was warm, rippling the grass, and sunlight broke through the clouds to slide over the hils in great patches. Harkins had his cap scrunched in his hands.

Malvery's head was bowed. Jez had tears in her eyes. Frey and Silo stood solemn and grim. Even the
Ketty Jay,
visible nearby, was a witness to this.

She's dead,
he told himself. It stil didn't feel true. But, on some level, something had changed. He'd begun to feel that, if he repeated it enough, he'd believe it.

That was something, at least. That was hope.

No words were spoken. They simply stood and stared at the grave-marker. Silently sharing the emptiness of death.

After a time, Crake stooped and laid a smal toy at the foot of the marker. A dol that he'd bought in Tarlock Cove. Bess had always been enchanted by the toys he bought for her. He used to pretend he made them himself, in his secret basement. It explained what he was doing in the wine celar of her father's house, night after night. It had been her desire to see his mythical toy workshop that led her to sneak into his sanctum, on the night that was to end her life.

He heard the rustle and clank of leather and metal, and felt Bess arrive next to him. She looked down at the grave-marker, tiny glimmers of light glittering behind her faceplate. Then she bent down, and put her bal next to the dol.

Crake choked back a sudden sob. He rubbed his eyes with his fingertips and smiled at her, as best he could. He put his hand on the cold armour plate of her shoulder and patted it.

'Good girl, Bess,' he said.

Then he turned away from the grave, to face the sympathetic gazes of his friends. He puled in a deep breath, raised his head, and nodded.

'I'm ready,' he said. 'Let's go get Grist.'

Thirty-Three

Many Angles — 'She Doesn't Really Do Subtle' —

A Confrontation

Sakkan was a city of geometries, al slopes and angles. Situated deep in the frozen Duchy of Marduk, it didn't hide underground like many northern settlements, nor did it shelter in the lee of a mountain. Instead, it stood stern and resilient as the rock of the plateau it was built on. A summer dawn was breaking, hazy cloud choking a sky that was dul and bleached of colour. There was no wind, and no snow. The cold hung in the stil air and seeped like liquid into the bones.

A tractor rumbled and sputtered through the quiet streets, surrounded by a wary escort of fifteen men and two women. It towed a trailer behind it, carrying a large, lumpy shape, concealed under a tarpaulin. The men and women moved quickly, with hurried steps, their eyes darting this way and that, hands never far from their guns.

Time was of the essence here. Word of the arrival of the
Delirium Trigger
and the
Ketty Jay
would soon spread. The element of surprise would be lost. That wouldn't do. They needed to hit their target hard and fast.

Frey glanced around the faces of his crew. Harkins had remained behind but Jez, Malvery, Silo and Crake were with him. They were focused and determined.

There was a new confidence about them since Crake had returned and Jez had been accepted back into the fold. Malvery had even muttered about searching for Pinn once they were done with Grist.

Things were different between them now. The sense that their world was unraveling had faded, and that gladdened Frey immensely. The end was in sight.

Maybe they
would
track down that porky idiot Pinn once they'd mopped up here.

He was cold, and rather scared, and it was far too early in the morning to get kiled. But for al that, he felt a fierce kind of love for his crew right then. There was nothing quite like the cameraderie of men and women who faced danger together. It was a bond stronger than friendship. Going into battle with another person at your side was a level of trust altogether unknown in the world of the aristocrat or the peasant.

Besides, he realy liked it when they kicked arse.

Marduk's second city was built almost entirely from the grey-black stone of the region. It clung to the hily back of the plateau, rising in grim tiers above them, waled sections linked by sloping roads and winding switchback stairs. Stout towers stood defiantly against the threat of winter gales. The streets were austere but not bare. Monuments and statues of dukes and explorers looked down on neat squares and wide boulevards. Banks and powerful trading houses competed for the most impressive premises. Sakkan was a dark and hard place, but it hadn't forgotten how to be grand.

The tractor's engine sounded eerily loud in the quiet of the dawn. The man driving it was Balomon Crund, Trinica's bosun. He was a squat, ugly man with dirty, matted hair and a burn scar on his neck. Not too easy on the eye, but Trinica thought highly of him. He'd been her most loyal supporter in the mutiny that deposed the
Delirium Trigger's
previous captain.

Frey could see why she trusted him. Though he was a taciturn sort, the signs were clear to a man of Frey's experience. Crund adored her. He'd seen it on the faces of several of her men: a certain sort of veneration, somewhere between affection, respect and awe. She'd made herself untouchable, put herself on a pedestal, and made them love and fear her. She couldn't rule by raw strength, so she'd fashioned them a cruel goddess, and let them come to her altar.

But the woman they knew wasn't the one Frey knew. That one had disappeared, it seemed, just as he feared she would.

The sight of Trinica in her make-up and black attire was jarring after a month of seeing her without it. But worse was the change in her behaviour. She was distant now, closed off from him. Her black eyes were empty and showed nothing. He told himself she had to be that way in front of her men, but he wasn't sure that was the whole truth. Perhaps she wore her personalities like a coat, to take off and put on as necessary. Perhaps the feelings he'd thought were growing between them had been the same: another woman's feelings, not those of a pirate queen.

He caught himself. Damn, what was happening to him? Since when had he spent this much time fretting about a woman?
Don't be such a sap!
he told himself.

The streets began to thin out as they came to the eastern edge of the city. Trinica's men led the way. She'd sent scouts ahead while Frey was off picking up Crake, and their reports had been encouraging. They'd found the warehouses Roke had spoken of, and apparently they'd seen Grist as wel, and spotted the
Storm Dog
in its hangar.

The news made Frey restless with excitement. He'd wanted to fly in there and blast the place to pieces. Trinica had persuaded him otherwise. The Coalition Navy might not take kindly to an aerial assault on one of their major cities, she pointed out. Better to make it a ground assault. Take them by surprise. Catch Grist before he could even get his craft into the sky.

There were five in the assault team from the
Ketty Jay
, the rest from the
Delirium Trigger.
Harkins had been left with the aircraft, and instructed to stay in contact via the earcuffs. Frey would need the pilot's eyes in case things went airborne. The
Delirium Trigger
stood ready to take off at a moment's notice, at a signal from a flare gun Trinica carried. Just in case the
Storm Dog
got out of its hangar. Grist wasn't going to slip away again.

They passed early risers and late revelers, drifting through the streets. Many had heard of Trinica Dracken, and recognised her. They kept their distance, sensing trouble.

There'll be trouble for someone, alright
, Frey thought.

The further from the landing pad they went, the more the city flattened and spread out. Eventualy, they reached an industrial district of factories and warehouses.

The roads became narrow, bleak and dirty. Wals crumbled, cracked by frost. The air smeled of chemicals, and the buildings were sooty with residue.

Crund brought the tractor to a halt just before the crest of a rise. Beyond, the road dipped down towards a group of blank brick warehouses huddled round a large aircraft hangar. The warehouses were surrounded by a formidable metal fence, ten feet high and tipped with spikes. A pair of guard towers stood overlooking the compound.

Frey got a better view with his spyglass. They were Yorts, their beards and hair knotted and braided, faces tattooed and pierced in several uncomfortable-looking places. They were carrying heavy repeater rifles, and appeared generaly unfriendly.

He scanned the compound while the others puled the tarpaulin off the trailer and checked their weapons. There were fifteen guards that he could see. One guard each.

Not good enough. Fair fights were for suckers. It was time to employ their secret weapon.

He walked around the side of the trailer, where Bess now lay uncovered. 'Wake her up, Crake,' he said.

Crake put a brass whistle to his lips and blew it. No sound was made, but Bess stirred and sat up. Trinica's men stepped back uneasily. Some of them remembered the golem from her rampage through the
Delirium Trigger
when she was berthed in Rabban during the Retribution Fals affair.

'Come on, Bess,' said Crake. The golem clambered down and the trailer groaned in relief. Trinica's men set about detaching it from the tractor they'd hired from the landing pad.

'Are your people ready?' Frey asked Trinica.

Trinica gazed at him in that cool, half-amused way she had. 'They'l do their part.'

The group split into two. Five of Trinica's men were staying behind with the tractor. The rest were coming with Frey and his crew, Trinica and her bosun included. Frey didn't feel good about Trinica fighting alongside him - he'd have preferred her safe and out of the way - but she wouldn't be dissuaded and he knew better than to try. She was hungry to get her own back on Grist. She wanted to be there in person when the big man went down.