The Black Lung Captain - Chris Wooding [202]
“By damn,” said Crake. “Is that what I think it is?”
“Yes,” said Jez. “It’s a city.”
Even Jez couldn’t believe what she was seeing. A city of Manes, here in the arctic. To the others it was barely visible, but Jez’s vision was far superior to theirs. The city was all circles and arcs, built from black granite without much thought for human ideas of symmetry. The majority of the buildings were low and round, stacked in uneven layers, half circles and crescents and S-shaped curves. Among them stood sharp towers of shiny, glassy black, slender stalagmites that thinned unevenly toward their pinnacles.
The stacks and towers were linked by a complicated sequence of curving covered boulevards that fractured and split in all directions. The buildings were like points on a diagram, the boulevards a web of connections between them. A seething green light soaked upward from the ground around the city, but Jez couldn’t see what was making it. It was too far, even for her.
“Where are we?” asked Frey.
“We’re at the North Pole,” said Jez. “On the far side of the Wrack.”
Crake licked his lips nervously. “Cap’n … what we’re seeing here … no one’s ever been here.”
“No one’s ever been here and come back alive,” Frey corrected. “I’ll bet the second part’s the trickier of the two.” He scanned the sky and pointed. “There they are.”
The Storm Dog was a few dozen kloms distant, hanging in the air, her thrusters dark. A dreadnought lay alongside, firmly attached to Grist’s frigate by a half dozen magnetic grapples. There was no sign of life or movement on either craft.
“They’ve been boarded,” said Jez.
“Get us over there, fast,” Frey told her. “Crake, with me. Let’s get tooled up.”
Crake held up his bandaged hand. “I might sit this one out, Cap’n. I can’t fire a gun. I’d be dead weight out there.”
“We can’t bring Bess,” Jez added. “That kind of craft, she’d barely get through the corridors.”
Frey cursed under his breath. “Alright, Crake. You and Bess make sure the Ketty Jay is still here when we get back. Come get a weapon for Jez while she’s landing us.” Then he left, calling for Silo and Malvery.
Crake lingered a moment, until Frey was out of earshot. “You think he’s crazy?” he asked Jez. “Dragging us through all of this for Trinica?”
Jez just stared ahead. “I wish I felt half as much for somebody as he does for her,” she replied.
Crake nodded in understanding. “You should be careful what you wish for,” he said, and with that he was gone.
She brought the Ketty Jay in over the Storm Dog’s deck. The blare of the sphere prevented her from sensing any Manes on either craft, and she didn’t know how to tune it out. But whether they were unobserved or simply ignored, their approach drew no reaction.
“Cap’n!” she shouted back into the aircraft. “You got clamps on this thing?”
“Rack on your right! Second switch!”
She flicked it and lowered the Ketty Jay carefully, venting aerium as she went. When she was close enough to the Storm Dog’s deck, the newly magnetized landing skids sucked the aircraft down with a hefty thump.
Crake returned to the cockpit as she was getting out of her seat. He threw her a rifle. “Cap’n says get down to the hold, double quick.”
She began to hurry past him, but he stopped her with a hand on her arm.
“Good luck out there,” he said earnestly.
She snorted. “We’re due some, I reckon.”
FREY LED THE WAY down the cargo ramp, wrapped tight in a greatcoat, breath steaming the air. Malvery, Jez, and Silo followed in his wake, pointing their weapons in all directions, searching for enemies. They were met with a profound quiet.
The deck of the Storm Dog was empty. The deck of the dreadnought, looming on the starboard side, was similarly deserted. The blurred sun shone hopelessly through the mist. A lonely wind stirred the air.
It was freezing. Their exposed hands