The Black Lung Captain - Chris Wooding [25]
“Well done,” he said, patting her flank. “What a helpful girl you are.”
Bess leaned in, pushing her face grille closer. Points of light twinkled in the darkness behind. Eyes like stars. She gave a quizzical coo: an ethereal, otherworldly sound.
“I’m alright, Bess. Don’t you worry,” said Crake, forcing a smile.
Bess wasn’t fooled. She reached out one gloved hand and stroked Crake’s arm clumsily. Metal, chain mail, and leather dragged down his coat, almost tearing his sleeve off. Crake felt sudden tears threatening and swallowed. He gave the golem an awkward hug. She was too big to get his arms around.
“Don’t you worry,” he said again.
“Will you stop flirting with your girlfriend and carry something?” Pinn yelled from the cargo ramp, as he went back in for another pack.
THEY ASSEMBLED IN A spot between the aircraft: six from the Ketty Jay, six from the Storm Dog, including Hodd. Frey wanted Silo to come, 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 among 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 he was. 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 that 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