Embassytown (51 page)

We travelled in their hoof-churnings, and stalked the Absurd from just beyond their sight. From thickets, from behind rises. It rained. We sprayed muck. It didn’t seem to get very dark that night; it was as if the stars and Wreck were shining unnaturally, so I could lean against Spanish Dancer and watch it sketch hand signs with the Ariekes that was no longer a prisoner, and I could see the grey landscape.

When dawn came, there were a few cams around us, gadding spastically. Intel-gatherers for the army, still transmitting. Our sound and motion attracted them, and they paced with us in a flitting corona. I looked straight into the lens of one, through the air to someone watching in Embassytown.

We could hear the Absurd, now. They were just one segment of landscape over. The cams swarmed suddenly away, over flora and geography. A corvid flew close overhead on some frantic wartime job, and we had to hope it had not seen us, that we wouldn’t be eradicated, so close.

T
HERE WERE NO
secret ways we could ensure a smaller group of Absurd would find us, no ways we could split one section of their expedition from the others. Each Languageless thought itself alone, though we knew that wasn’t true. The closest this huge vengeful mass would have to generals would be its unspeaking vanguard. We passed their flank, hidden by landscape, and made our way to a place they’d find us.

Finally, stinking in our suits, we left the vehicle. I was strongly conscious of what a scene we must have been. Four Terre. Me at the front. Behind me Bren, tense and ready. The marks of the journey had made YlSib easy to tell apart. They stood beside each other, each with a weapon poised.

The Ariekei. Ranged in a curve around us, as if they made up our group’s fanwing. Spanish Dancer was closest to me, and watched me with several of its eyes.

At the centre of the group stood the untethered Languageless. The thing that was no longer our enemy looked from one to another of its Ariekene companions. It made a motion with its giftwing. One by one most of the other Ariekei responded in a similar way. It made me a bit breathless to see.

There were two that didn’t. Dub and Rooftop watched the motions of their companions. Nothing they could understand was occurring.

Spanish Dancer said to me: “
.” I stared a while, and at last nodded. “You will,” I said. “We will. They will.”

“
,” it said. Two noises came out of it that meant nothing to me. It said something rapidly in Language, and its companions, and Yl and Sib and Bren looked up sharply.
tried again. “
,” it said to me. I was silent. What could I say?

T
HE FIRST OF
the Absurd came. Fliers squalled over the country, must have seen us, but perhaps decided that we were too nothing to be blown away. A loose, fast-moving posse of tireless Absurd became visible, moving toward us. We braced. Someone said something about
the plan
.

Those at the front of the army, the groups a kilometre or so ahead of the main force, saw us. They stampeded up the scree and at us, pointing giftwings, directing segments of their own crowd, which peeled off into wedge-shapes, flanked us, in the unsaid strategy they thought merely rage. I could hear their hoofbeats. Then I could see the shades of their skins, the craned forks of their eyes, the flanges of their fanwing stubs, as they raised weapons.

“Now,” someone said, and I truly couldn’t say if it was me.

Spanish said something too quiet for me to quite hear, that I don’t think was in Language. It walked forward with the other leaders of its revolutionary group and the Absurd came with them. It went farther, stepped out and raised its giftwing and the stalk of its fanwing, so its injury was plain. It waved them like standards. It announced its status—
I’m one of you
—and urged its comrades to stop, gestured to all the incomers,
wait, wait, wait, wait
.

The Absurd army didn’t slow at all. I felt sick. “
Courage
,” Bren said, in French. I did not smile. The inchoate motion language the fanwingless spoke was camouflaged by shared purpose. From their untidy ranks came a shot.

“Jesus,” I said. Spanish Dancer,
, spoke with its voice and hands as its once-fellows approached to murder or brutalise it. I wondered what would happen to it if it were deafened now, now that language was different for it. Spanish’s and the Absurd’s motions registered to the enemy as little as windblown plants.

They’re not ignoring
, I thought.
They don’t know.
They didn’t know that these minds weren’t like the others they’d finished or changed, how could they? I dug among our packs.

“Show your fanwings!” I shouted to Spanish. “Show them you can hear!” YlSib began to translate, but Spanish was already unfurling, and the others were copying it, except for Dub and Rooftop, who did so only when Spanish told them to in Language. Another missile came close. “Tell Dub and Rooftop to get in front,” I said.

I made a datchip play, and the thin voice of EzCal exhorted us to something or other. But every one of the Ariekei had already heard that speech so did not react to it, and I cursed and threw it away.

“Oh,” said Bren. He understood. I fumbled again while the Absurd came close enough that I could hear their murder-croons. I spilled a handful of chips and finally got another to sound. EzCal said,
We are going to tell you what it is that you must do . . .

We Terre heard it as sound. Spanish Dancer and the others heard it too, now, as sound: they just cocked their fanwings quizzically. But Dub and Rooftop were still addicts. They snapped upright, shuddered so elementally it was as if gravity took them toward the source of the voice. They glazed.

“Yes,” said Bren.

I played another. Dub and Rooftop were swaying, recovering from EzCal’s first words; jerked giddily they were caught up again. Rooftop shouted at what was, I realised, EzCal’s descriptions of trees.

Our self-defeaned Ariekes kept waving at the others, and Spanish and the others mimicked it, their own fanwings opening and closing, and in the middle of them all Dub and Rooftop lost themselves. I kept the sound going. “
,” said Spanish, and I could think how horrible the sight of that powerless staggering must be to it, reminding it what it had been, making it watch its friends suffering in compulsion, but I wouldn’t cease.

As the first of the Absurd crested our rise and came towards us, weapons up, first one, then more, then many, hesitated. I pressed another chip and heard Bren say
yes
.

Every army has one soldier at its very front. A big Ariekes, its Cut- and Turn-mouths open as if it were howling, picking its feet high as it came for us. I was holding out a datchip as if it might stop it. Its eyes spread in all directions, one for each of us, watching Spanish, and the Ariekes that had been our captive jerking its arms as the Absurd did to each other, and Dub and Rooftop stumbling. If I was thinking anything I was praying. It was very close.

Abruptly the soldier stopped. It lowered its sputtering mace. It involuted its eyes, opened them again and
watched
us. I was still playing EzCal’s voice. It wasn’t the only motionless one, now. As if I were merciless, I made Dub and Rooftop dance their addiction. The Absurd gripped each other, gestured or stood still, watching.

“Don’t stop,” said Bren.

“
,” said Spanish, and Bren said again, “Don’t.”