The Black Lung Captain - By Chris Wooding Page 0,67

become bitter and unapproachable.

Jez was never the kind who was comfortable opening up to others. She was afraid they might one day use her vulnerabilities against her. And she was still afraid of what would happen if she admitted the whole truth about her condition. What if Crake reacted with fear and panic? What if he felt he had to tell the Cap'n? No matter how much the crew liked her or how useful she was, having a Mane on board would make anyone nervous. She could be shunned and ejected from the Ketty Jay, and she couldn't face that. She couldn't go back to that life of wandering, moving from crew to crew, never putting down roots.

But she had a daemon inside her. And the longer it stayed the more power it would have over her. Sooner or later she'd be forced to take action. Even if it cost her her place on the Ketty Jay.

She went out into the passageway. She could see Malvery through the open door of the infirmary, asleep on the surgical table, snoring. Ahead of her, Harkins was stalking down the corridor on tiptoe, a butterfly net in his hand. He flushed beetroot red as he saw her.

'Jez! Um . . . I . . . you see, I picked this up in Tarlock Cove and I . . . er . . .'

'I don't think I want to know,' said Jez.

'Right. Hm. Yes. Probably best.'

She went down to the cargo hold and outside. The Ketty Jay sat in a grassy mountain dell, high up in the Splinters. A broken, bald peak thrust up ahead of her. Frey and Crake were somewhere on the other side, with Grist and his bosun. Scouting out the location that Crake's daemon had identified, the place where Grist's mysterious sphere was being kept. Nearby was the Storm Dog. A few of Grist's crew lounged about, enjoying the bright, cool morning. Jez walked past them, towards the trees that fringed the dell.

She still had deep misgivings about this whole affair, but she was loyal to her Cap'n. He'd given her a home, and she had a way to go before she paid him back for that, even if she'd already saved his life more than once. She felt included here, and needed.

Just as she'd felt when that Mane was trying to turn her, on that snowy night in Yortland. The moment when she'd seen into their world, and felt the connections between them.

She understood why that crew on the crashed Mane craft had lain down and died. She'd only had a taste of what could have been. Having that, living with it and then giving it up would have been unthinkably terrible. A mutilation of the senses.

And yet they did it anyway. They made that choice. So maybe they're individuals, rather than slaves to a collective mind. Maybe I wouldn't lose myself if I joined them.

Dangerous thinking. A temptation like that would be too easy to give in to. It was no easy thing to resist the call, day after day, night after night. The need to belong had always been a part of her. And no one belonged like a Mane did.

Jez had spent her whole life looking for her place. For as long as she could remember, she'd been unable to fit in. She'd always had friends, but somehow it never seemed like the friendships she read about in books. She liked them, and they liked her, and it went no deeper. If she never saw them again, she wouldn't have shed a tear. Nobody said so, but she knew they felt the same about her.

Her childhood was spent watching her companions with secret envy. She was always the last to be involved. The cog in the gears that didn't quite mesh.

When she was a little older, she began to blame her father. Him and his obsession with trying to improve her position in life. He was a craftbuilder, an artisan, more respected than the peasantry but still a world away from the scholars, officials and aristocrats.

Once he'd been content with his lot; but after the sickness took her mother, he changed. Suddenly, a craftbuilder's life wasn't good enough for his daughter any more. He forced her to study when she wasn't helping him in the workshop. He saved up for a tutor who'd knock the common edges off her accent. By the time Jez reached the age where she just wanted to be the same as