The Black Lung Captain - Chris Wooding [66]
“By the Allsoul,” Plome gasped. “Something’s here.”
Crake held his hand out to Plome to shut him up. He checked his dials again, zeroing in on the last of the frequencies he’d identified. He couldn’t risk it slipping away or getting free.
Another ringing metal impact. Crake wiped sweat from his eyes and turned a dial by a fraction of a centimeter.
Got you.
There was a flurry of pounding on the inside of the metal sphere. Crake reached for a lever and threw it, blasting the interior of the echo chamber with a muddle of conflicting frequencies boosted to incredible volume. The daemon wailed in agony and confusion, a high, thin shriek that made Plome clap his hands over his ears.
Crake returned the lever to its original position, and the tumult ended.
“I know you can hear me,” he said sternly, addressing the daemon in the chamber. “Behave.”
There was no sound from the daemon.
He flipped a switch to turn on the resonator. It filled the echo chamber with the frequencies he’d recorded when he was studying the metal sphere. “I’m searching for this,” he said. “You will tell me where I can find it.”
Crake waited. The echo chamber sat there, humming. The control panel was on the side of the chamber, and he couldn’t see the porthole from where he stood. He felt a powerful urge to go round and peer inside, but he also remembered what had happened last time he did that. Glimpsing a daemon could send a man out of his mind.
Careful, he thought. Get the job done. You can indulge your curiosity afterward.
A sudden loud impact on the inside of the chamber, hard enough to dent it. A feral, blood-chilling roar. Crake threw the lever, and the roar turned to a squeal. He kept up the torture for longer this time.
“You will damn well do as you’re told!” he snarled through gritted teeth.
He pulled the lever back, and the squeal faded. For a time, there was only the hum of the echo chamber and the mass of semi-audible frequencies thrown out by Plome’s perimeter defense. Crake could feel his heart skipping and hear the breath in his ears.
Then there was another sound. A moist clicking, coming from within the chamber. Half-drawn breaths, quick, desperate gasps.
Crake went cold. He’d heard that sound before.
Throw the lever. Throw the lever and blast that thing back to the aether.
But he didn’t. He needed to see. A terrible curiosity drew him. It couldn’t be what he thought it was. It was just a trick. It had to be. But he needed to prove that to himself.
He stepped away from the controls and moved around to the front of the echo chamber. Plome was watching him breathlessly from the edge of the room, where he crouched by his own array of control panels.
That sound. That wet, rattling clutch for breath. It couldn’t be.
He looked through the porthole.
There was a little girl in the chamber. She was lying on her back, head tilted, staring out at him with an expression of terrified incomprehension. There was blood in her hair, blood on her lips; her white dress was sodden. It welled from slashes down her arms, across her collarbone and scalp. She drew a short, clicking gasp, dragging air into punctured lungs.
His niece.
An involuntary cry of anguish tore from his throat. A flood of sudden weakness threatened to make him faint. He stumbled back from the chamber, vision blurring with tears, then staggered sideways and tripped against one of the thick cables plugged into the echo chamber. There was a fizz and a bright shower of sparks as the cable plug was tugged halfway out of its socket. The sight alarmed him enough to shake him out of his horrified state. He lunged toward it, seized the cable with both hands, and plunged it back into the socket.
There was a snap of wild electricity, and the lights in the sanctum went out.
“Crake!” Plome cried. “Crake! What’s going on?”
It was pitch black, and the temperature had plunged to below freezing. Crake listened to his own frightened breathing, to reassure himself he was still there. He fumbled in the pocket of his coat for matches. He always had matches somewhere on