The Black Lung Captain - Chris Wooding [203]
“Well, I like this,” said Malvery. “Easiest suicide mission I ever did. Can we get inside before my bollocks turn to snowballs?”
Silo pointed toward a doorway on the deck. It was hanging open, and the top of an iron ladder was visible beyond.
They clambered down the ladder, which had become cold enough to rip at the skin of their hands, and came out into the narrow passageways below. Jez had been right: Bess would never have fit down here. This was no luxury craft like the All Our Yesterdays. The interior was cramped and functional. It was just about possible to walk two abreast, shoulder to shoulder, but that was all.
Tarnished metal surrounded them, lit by electric lights powered by the frigate’s internal generator. It smelled of oil and sweat and a dry, musky scent that Frey recognized from the crashed dreadnought on Kurg. The scent of the Manes.
One of the lights farther down the corridor was cracked and flickering. Lying beneath it was a man whose jaw had been torn away from his face. Frey eyed the corpse uneasily.
“Where are we heading, Cap’n?” Malvery asked.
“Captain’s cabin?” Frey suggested. “Most likely place to find Grist.” And Trinica.
“Right-o,” said Malvery. He looked up and down the corridor. “Where’s that, then?”
“They usually put it toward the stern on this type of craft,” said Jez. She took the lead, and Frey followed with fresh speed in his step. The sight of the dead man had sparked a new fear in him. Would he find Trinica like that? Her face ruined, eyes glazed in death? The woman he’d almost married, shredded like a carcass in a slaughterhouse, reduced to meat and sinew?
He didn’t dare think about it. She was somewhere on this aircraft. He’d find her. That was all.
They hurried through the corridors, passing more corpses on the way. Most of them were Grist’s crew in various states of dismemberment, but the occasional Mane was tangled up among them. The stink of blood made Frey’s gorge rise.
Malvery, who’d seen more innards than the rest of them put together, was unmoved. “Why do I get the impression something’s gone horribly wrong with Grist’s plan?” he said. “They don’t seem too interested in taking new recruits, do they?”
“Pick it up, Doc!” Frey snapped. “Let’s get what we came for and go.” He was afraid they were already too late. They could hear dull explosions and gunfire on the lower decks, echoing up through the ventilation system. The howls of the Manes drifted faintly through the passageways as they ran.
Jez’s prediction was spot on, and she led them right to Grist’s cabin. But when they got there, the door was open and it was clear that it was empty. Frey burst into the room nevertheless and began turning it over, throwing open cabinets and rummaging along shelves. He was searching for a sign of her, some assurance that she was still alive. He needed to know that he wasn’t risking his own life and the lives of his crew for nothing.
“They’ve been driven down below,” said Jez. Her eyes were out of focus and she seemed to be having trouble concentrating.
“Where?” he demanded. “This aircraft is bloody gigantic! We’ll be slaughtered if we go running about down there.”
“That’s as good an argument as I’ve ever heard to bail out while we can,” Malvery said.
Frey stopped his search for a moment and fixed the doctor with a hard glare. “We’re not going anywhere without her.”
“Worth a try,” said Malvery, and delivered a sulky kick to a severed hand that was lying nearby.
Frey needed to keep moving, keep thinking, make a plan. He was full of restless energy that demanded an outlet, but he couldn’t just rush off headlong into a horde of Manes. Something was nagging at him. Being here, in Grist’s cabin, had reminded him of something. It slid around frustratingly in his mind until he pinned it down.
Your father’s research. You still have it? Trinica’s question to Grist while they were down in the sanctum.
Safe in my cabin, don’t you worry.
Frey’s eyes fell on a large chest