The Black Lung Captain - By Chris Wooding Page 0,120

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.'

'How's that?' Frey asked.

'Well, for example, their manner is savage and they are never heard to speak. But during a raid they will all retreat together back to their dreadnoughts, without any signal being seen or heard. That, we thought, was evidence of control. They build and fly aircraft of their own, using technologies that even we don't understand. But they seemed so bestial, we had to believe that some other intelligence was responsible for that.'

'And Maurin thought otherwise?' Trinica prompted.

'He came to believe that the Manes were not being controlled at all. Instead, they were communicating silently. Speaking without words. He deduced from the evidence that each Mane always knew where the other A lanes were, even if they could not see or hear them. From this, he decided that they were connected in some way. The daemon forges that connection between its host bodies. But it does not control them. You've heard the story, perhaps, of the boy whose father came home a Mane?'

'I know it,' said Frey. 'It was thirty years later, but his father hadn't aged a day. The boy killed him.'

'Yes. The tale is true. But before the boy killed him, the father tried to reason with him. Father to son. Tried to persuade him to become a Mane. Spoke of brotherhood and belonging. The Navy has records of the son's story.'

There was a moment's silence while they digested that.

'So why do they look like they do?' Frey asked. When Trinica raised an eyebrow at him, he rolled his eyes. 'Yes, yes, I judge by appearances.'

'It may be supposed that the daemon wreaks some physical change. Maurin never knew why. It differs from Mane to Mane. But there are certain advantages to having longer teeth, specialised vision, and so on. The daemon protects itself by enhancing its host.'

'Enhancing? By making them ugly?'

'They have no need to mate, as far as we can tell. They reproduce by converting other humans. Infecting them, like a virus. So why would they need to look pretty?'

Frey shrugged. 'I dunno. Just because.'

'Maurin theorised that mind-speech means that facial expressions and verbal communication become redundant. Perhaps they lose the finer facets of communication while keeping the more primal, animalistic ones, like snarling.'

Frey thought of Jez, back on board the Ketty Jay. What about her? Would she lose the power of speech? Was she part of this . . . connection that Kraylock was talking about? What if she was speaking to the Manes, even now? Feeding them information from all over Vardia while they waited eagerly to invade? How could he be sure where her loyalties lay?

'What happened to Maurin?' he asked.

The professor looked momentarily uncomfortable. The sun went behind a cloud, and the light from the windows dimmed.