The Black Lung Captain - By Chris Wooding Page 0,23

and Harkins had volunteered with great enthusiasm to stay with Bess on the Ketty Jay. Bess was the Ketty Jay's watchdog, ensuring that nobody but the crew came aboard with all their limbs still attached. But the Cap'n needed somebody human to keep an eye on things while they were away, and he was happy to leave Harkins behind. The pilot was a liability in a firefight and he had a jumpy trigger finger at the best of times. In the rainforest, he'd be a disaster. More likely to shoot himself in the foot than kill one of the enemy.

Along with Hodd and Captain Grist came the Storm Dog's emaciated, bug-eyed bosun, Edwidge Crattle, and three crewmen called Gimble, Tarworth and Ucke. They were a seedy-looking trio, but then Crake had hardly expected anything else.

Gimble was a thin, scowling fellow who said little. Tarworth was short, baby-faced and eager. Ucke had a more eccentric appearance.

He was bulky, with hair sticking out everywhere, and he had offensively bad teeth in all shapes, sizes and angles. When Pinn rudely commented on them, Ucke informed the group that they were actually a false set. Dentures. He'd made them himself from teeth he'd collected from a multitude of bar brawls.

Once the introductions were done, they shouldered their packs, checked their guns and made ready to set off.

'Now I don't want none of you believin' all that talk you might have heard about Kurg,' Grist told them. 'There'll be beasts, for sure, but probably not half as horrible as the tales tell.' He slapped Hodd on the shoulder. 'This man's been in there and come out without a scratch. If he can do it, then us rum sons of bitches ought to be able to. What's in there should be afraid of us, not the other way about!'

Yes, he came out without a scratch, thought Crake. It was the rest of his expedition that died.

Crake loathed Hodd on sight. Frey had told him about his first meeting with the explorer, which was enough to convince Crake that they were dealing with a shiftless rich boy who'd spent his life living on Daddy's money, utterly detached from the realities of the world. Crake had grown up amongst the aristocracy, and he was never afraid to apply stereotypes. In his experience, they turned out to be true more often than not.

Besides, Hodd reminded Crake of himself, and Crake hated that.

Crake had been that way, once. A life of privilege, sheltered from trouble by his father's money. Mixing only with his own kind. He treated lowlier folk with politeness because that was what people with good breeding did, but they weren't the same as him. He couldn't have said why, and he'd never have admitted it aloud, but they just weren't.

It had been the discovery of daemonism at university which had prompted his awakening. Before long, he'd grown bored with the vacant twitterings of the social classes. While they were talking about mergers and marriages, inheritances and infidelities, he'd been communicating with entities from another dimension. In the face of that, their preoccupations seemed rather juvenile.

But he'd still possessed the arrogance of the aristocracy. The knowledge that no matter what he did, he'd never not be rich. Whatever trouble he got into, someone would look after him.

Maybe that was why he did what he did. He'd not known what sorrow or torment or hardship meant until then. But he learned those lessons well in the time that followed.

'Right,' said Hodd, clapping his hands. 'Are we all ready?'

Belts were tightened, coats buttoned, bootlaces tied and retied. Pinn took a few test steps to check the weight of his pack.

'Off we go, then!' Hodd cried.

'Where are we headed?' Jez asked.

That stumped Hodd for a moment. 'Er ... to the crashed Azryx aircra—'

'No, I mean . . . Don't you have a map? Directions?' Jez asked. 'You said it would be over a day's walk. I just wondered how you were intending to find it again.' She looked around the group and shrugged. 'Sorry. Navigator. I just want to know.'

Hodd smiled broadly and tapped his head. 'It's all in here, Miss.'

'You remember the way,' Jez said, doubtfully. She eyed the forested flanks of the mountains that surrounded them. 'Are you sure? Once we're in there, we'll get pretty badly lost if you're wrong.'

'Be assured, I never forget a route,' he said. 'I've possessed a rather remarkable talent for pathfinding ever since I was a child. It was what inspired me to