The Black Lung Captain - By Chris Wooding Page 0,39

studied it. The text was elegant and complex, all in curves. Circles and semicircles, speared through by arcs. Not a straight line to be seen.

Where did this come from? she thought. It was printed, professionally done. She frowned at it, trying to puzzle out where it might have originated. Peleshar? Well, maybe. It was possible.

But maybe the Manes had printing presses. Maybe they made books.

Maybe they had their own literature.

The thought dizzied her. Jez had seen them come from the sky to murder or kidnap the entire population of a small Yortish town. Feral creatures, springing from the rooftops, flickering and flitting like stuttering flames, sometimes moving too fast for the eye to follow. They'd mobbed men like animals, torn them apart with inhuman brutality.

But these same creatures built and flew aircraft. They stole buildings, and presumably rebuilt them. And now, it seemed, they wrote stories.

She let the book drop from her fingers. Nothing made sense. She'd been inducted into a club without knowing anything about its members or what it stood for. The idea of the Manes as a civilisation didn't match with their thoroughly deserved reputation as vicious, merciless raiders. No one, to her knowledge, had ever heard them speak. So what were they? Animals? Humans? Or something else?

For that matter, what was she?

She squatted down next to the pile of corpses. The captain was bearded, his face half-covered by a hat, eyes fierce and red, teeth sharp. Driven by some compulsion she didn't understand, she reached out toward his hand.

Just to prove I'm not afraid. Just to prove they'll never have me. Just to know if I can.

Her hand closed around the captain's, and the images burst into her mind as if through a dam, a deluge of screams and pleading, sweeping her away.

—a captain, a rebel, a man made Mane who didn't want to be— —no more raids, no more murder, no more taking of people. No more Invitations. No more—

—they are turning away from their brethren, severing connections, a crew setting out for a new world, a new life, isolation, peace—

—but then came the loss, the lack! Once part of many, now they are few, too few—

—Once they were beloved, but they turned away. The horror of their mistake overwhelms them but it cannot be undone and still they go on—

—into the loneliness, the endless, all-swallowing loneliness—

—too much to bear—

—too much—

She washed up on the shores of reality to find herself back in the captain's quarters, freezing cold. She scrambled away from the corpses, tears gathering. The captain's dead eyes stared past her. She knew now what was behind that gaze. She'd been brushed by the tragedy, the inexpressible sorrow of this crew. They'd been Manes, and chose not to be. They cut themselves free. The loss of it killed them.

They lay down and died here, together, she thought. They died of loneliness.

She heard a footstep in the doorway, and looked up. Silo was there, lantern in hand. A flicker of concern passed across his face as he saw her.

'Cap'n sent me lookin',' he said.

She flung herself at him suddenly, hugged herself tight to his chest. All that she felt, all the fear and horror and sadness . . . she couldn't keep it in any more.

Silo didn't say a word. He just held her, while she cried like a child.

Ten

Crake Gets To Work — A Mysterious Object —

Renegotiations — Jez Gets Some News

Crake could smell himself. Stale alcohol leaked from his pores as he worked. His stomach was sore, and felt swollen. He couldn't tell if he was hungry or not. Even the small exertion of setting up his equipment was making his heart pound. His knees hurt from kneeling on the floor of the antechamber.

Damn it, he needed a drink.

Working by lanternlight, he leaned over and shifted one of the tuning poles a fraction to the left. It was important to get them right. If they weren't all equidistant from the door, the readings would be skewed. There were five poles, thin slivers of metal standing on round bases, in a semicircle around the door. They were linked by cables to an oscilloscope, a small wooden box with a half-dozen gauges on its face.

Next to the oscilloscope was his portable resonator. It was another box of roughly the same size, wired to a damping rod: a smooth globe of metal, standing on a short, thick pole, which was set in a heavy square base. Like the oscilloscope, it was covered with a bewildering