Perdido Street Station (25 page)

Not that Vermishank
employed him much these days. It had been months since he had
received a letter in that tight little hand telling him his services
were required to research some abstruse and perhaps pointless bywater
of theory. Isaac could never refuse these "requests." To do
so would have been to risk his access privileges to the university’s
resources, and hence to a rich vein of equipment he plundered more or
less at his leisure. Vermishank did not make any move to restrict
Isaac’s privileges, despite their attenuating professional
relationship, and despite probably noticing a correlation between
disappearing resources and Isaac’s research schedule. Isaac did
not know why.
Probably to try to keep power over me,
he
thought.

It would be the first
time in his life he had sought out Vermishank, he realized, but Isaac
had to go and see him. Even though he felt committed to his new
approach, his crisis theory, he could not entirely turn his back on
more mundane technologies such as Remaking without asking one of the
city’s foremost biothaumaturges’ opinions on Yagharek’s
case. It would have been unprofessional.

Isaac made himself a
ham roll and a cup of cold chocolate. He steeled himself at the
thought of Vermishank. Isaac disliked him for a huge variety of
reasons. One of them was political. Biothaumaturgy after all, was a
polite way to describe an expertise one of whose uses was to tear at
and recreate flesh, to bond it in unintended ways, to manipulate it
within the limits dictated only by imagination. Of course, the
techniques could heal and repair, but that was not their usual
application. No one had any proof, of course, but Isaac would not be
at all surprised if some of Vermishank’s research had been
carried out in the punishment factories. Vermishank had the skill to
be an extraordinary sculptor in flesh.

There was a thump on
his door. Isaac looked up in surprise. It was nearly eleven o’clock.
He put down his supper and hurried down the stairs. He opened the
door on a debauched-looking Lucky Gazid.

What the fuck is
this?
he thought.

" ‘Zaac, my
brother, my...bumptious, bungling...beloved..." Gazid screamed
as soon as he saw Isaac. He groped for more alliteration. Isaac
pulled him into the warehouse as lights went on across the road.

"Lucky, you
fucking
arse,
what do you want?"

Gazid was pacing from
side to side much too quickly. His eyes were stretched wide open, and
virtually spiralling in his head. He looked hurt by Isaac’s
tone.

"Steady on, guv,
ease up, ease up, no need for
nastiness,
now is there? Eh? I’m
looking for Lin. She here?" He giggled abruptly.

Ah,
thought
Isaac carefully. This was tricky. Lucky was a Salacus Fields man, he
knew the unstated truth about Isaac and Lin. But this was not Salacus
Fields.

"No, Lucky, she’s
not here. And if she were here, for some reason, you’d have
absolutely no right to come crashing round here in the middle of the
night. What do you want her for?"

"She’s not
at home." Gazid turned and walked up the ladder, speaking to
Isaac without turning his head. "Just been round there, but I
s’pose she’s hard at
art,
eh? She owes me money,
owes me
commission,
for getting her the
plumb job
and
setting her up for life. Guess that’s where she is now, eh? I
want some
dosh
..."

Isaac banged his head
in exasperation and leapt up the stairs behind Gazid.

"What the fuck are
you talking about?
What
job? She’s doing her own stuff
right now."

"Oh yes, course,
righto, yup, that’s the size of it," agreed Gazid with
peculiar absent-minded fervour. "Owes me
money,
though.
I’m fucking desperate, ‘Zaac...Stand me a noble..."

Isaac was getting
angry. He grabbed Gazid and held him still. Gazid had the junkie’s
scrawny arms. He could only struggle pathetically in Isaac’s
grip.

"Listen, Lucky,
you little puke. How can you be
hurting,
you’re so
strung out now you can hardly stand. How dare you crash round my
house, you fucking junkie..."

"Oy!" Gazid
shouted suddenly. He sneered up at Isaac, breaking his flow. "Lin
isn’t here now, but I’m
hungry
for something, and
I want you to
help me
or I don’t know what I might end
up saying, if Lin won’t help me,
you
can, you’re
her knight in shining armour, her
love-bug,
she’s your
ladybird..."

Isaac drew back a fat
meaty fist and smashed Lucky Gazid in the face, sending the little
man yards through the air.

Gazid squealed in
astonishment and terror. He scraped his heels on the bare wood and
scrabbled towards the stairs. A star of blood radiated out from below
his nose. Isaac shook blood from his knuckles and stalked towards
Gazid. He was cold with rage.

Think I’m
going to let you talk like that? Think you can blackmail me, you
little
shit? he thought.

"Lucky, you should
leave right fucking now if you don’t want me to take your head
off."

Gazid crawled to his
feet and burst out crying.

"You’re
fucking
crazy,
Isaac, I thought we were
friends
..."

Snot and tears and
blood dripped onto Isaac’s floor.

"Yeah, well, you
thought wrong, didn’t you, old son? You’re nothing but a
fucking dreg, and I..." Isaac broke off from his contumely and
stared in astonishment.

Gazid was leaning
against the empty cages on which the caterpillar’s box lay.
Isaac could see the fat grub wriggling, jack-knifing in excitement,
twisting desperately against the wire front, squirming with sudden
reserves of energy towards Lucky Gazid.

Lucky hovered,
terrified, waiting for Isaac to finish.

"What?" he
wailed. "What are you going to
do
?"

"Shut
up,
"
hissed Isaac.

The caterpillar was
thinner than it had been on its arrival, and its extraordinary
peacock-feather colours were dulled, but it was undoubtedly alive. It
rippled its way around its little cage, feeling through the air like
a blind person’s finger, faltering towards Gazid.

"Don’t
move," hissed Isaac, and edged closer. The terrified Gazid
obeyed. He followed Isaac’s line of sight and his eyes widened
at the sight of the huge grub rooting its way around the little cage,
trying to find a way towards him. He snatched his hand from the box
with a little cry and started backwards. Instantly, the caterpillar
changed direction, trying to follow him.

"This is
fascinating
..." said Isaac. As he watched, Gazid reached
up and clutched his head, shaking it suddenly and violently as if it
was full of insects.

"Oh, what is
happening in my
head
?" Gazid stuttered.

As he drew closer,
Isaac could feel it too. Snatches of alien sensation slithered like
lightning-quick eels through his cerebellum. He blinked and coughed
slightly, in thrall suddenly and briefly to the sensation of emotions
that were not his clogging up his throat. Isaac shook his head and
squeezed his eyes hard shut.

"Gazid," he
snapped. "Walk slowly round it."

Lucky Gazid did as he
was told. The caterpillar toppled over in its eager attempts to right
itself, to follow him, to track him down.

"Why does the
thing want me?" moaned Lucky Gazid.

"Well I don’t
know,
Lucky," said Isaac tartly. "The poor thing’s
hurting.
Looks like it wants whatever you’ve got, Lucky
old son. Empty your pockets slowly. Don’t worry, I’m not
going to nick anything."

Gazid began to pull
strips of paper and handkerchiefs from the folds of his soiled jacket
and trousers. He hesitated, then reached inside and pulled two fat
packets from his inner pockets.

The grub went berserk.
The disorienting shards of synaesthetic feeling whirled through
Isaac’s and Gazid’s heads again.

"What the fuck’ve
you got?" said Isaac through clenched teeth.

"This one’s
shazbah," said Gazid hesitantly and waved the first packet at
the cage. The grub did not react. "This one’s dreamshit."
Gazid held the second envelope over the caterpillar’s head, and
it all but balanced on its rear end to reach it. Its piteous wails
were not quite audible, but they were acutely sensible.

"There we go!"
said Isaac. "That’s it! The thing wants dreamshit!"
Isaac held out his hand to Gazid and clicked his fingers. "Give
it to me."

Gazid hesitated, then
handed over the packet.

"Lot of stuff
there, man...that’s a lot of moolah there, man..." he
whimpered. "You can’t just
take
it, man..."

Isaac hefted the pouch.
It weighed about two or three pounds, he estimated. He pulled it
open. Again the emotional wails burst piercingly up from the
caterpillar. Isaac winced at the poignant and inhuman begging.

The dreamshit was a
mass of brown, sticky pellets that smelt like very burnt sugar.

"What is this
stuff?" Isaac asked Gazid. "I’ve heard of it, but I
know arse-all about it."

"New thing, ‘Zaac.
Expensive stuff. Been around a year or so. It’s...heady
stuff..."

"What does it do?"

"Couldn’t
describe it really. Want to buy some?"

"No!" said
Isaac sharply, then hesitated. "Well...Not for me, anyway...How
much would this packet cost, Lucky?"

Gazid hesitated,
doubtless wondering how much he could exaggerate.

"Uh...about thirty
guineas..."

"Oh fuck
off,
Lucky...You’re such a piss-artist, old son...I’ll buy
this off you for..." Isaac hesitated. "For ten."

"Done," said
Gazid instantly.

Shit,
thought
Isaac.
I’ve been stung.
He was about to quibble, when he
suddenly thought better of it. He looked carefully at Gazid, who was
beginning to swagger again, even with his face slick and ugly with
gore and mucus.

"Righto, then.
Deal. Listen, Lucky," said Isaac evenly, "I might want more
of this stuff, you know what I mean? And if we stay on good terms,
there’s no reason not to keep you on as my...exclusive
supplier. Know what I mean? But if anything came up to spread
discord
in our relationship, distrust and the like, I’d have to go
elsewhere. Understand?"

" ‘Zaac, my
man, say no more...Partners, that’s what we are..."

"Absolutely,"
said Isaac heavily. He was not so foolish as to think he could trust
Lucky Gazid, but at least this way Isaac could keep him vaguely
sweet. Gazid was unlikely to bite the hand that fed him, at least not
for a while.

This can’t
last,
thought Isaac,
but it’ll do for now.

Isaac plucked one of
the moist, sticky lumps from the packet. It was the size of a large
olive, coated in a thick and rapidly drying mucus. Isaac pulled back
the lid of the caterpillar’s box an inch or two and dropped the
nugget of dreamshit inside. He squatted down to watch the larva
through the wire front.

Isaac’s eyelids
flickered as if static coursed through him. For a moment, he could
not focus his vision.

"Woah..."
moaned Lucky Gazid behind him. "Something’s fucking with
my head..."

Isaac felt briefly
nauseous, then aflame with the most consuming and uncompromised
ecstasy he had ever felt. After less than half a second the inhuman
sensations spewed instantaneously out of him. He felt as if they left
by his nose.

"Oh by Jabber..."
Isaac yelped. His vision fluctuated, then sharpened and became
unusually clear. "This little fucker’s some sort of
empath, ain’t it?" he murmured.

He gazed at the
caterpillar feeling like a voyeur. The creature was rolling around
the drug pellet as if it were a snake crushing its prey. Its
mouthpart was clamped hugely onto the top of the dreamshit, and it
was chewing it with a hunger that seemed lascivious in its intensity.
Its side-split jaws oozed with spit. It was devouring its food like a
child eating toffee-pudding at Jabber’s Feast. The dreamshit
was rapidly disappearing.

"Hell’s
Ducks," said Isaac. "It’s going to want a lot more
than that." He dropped another five or six little lozenges into
the cage. The grub rolled happily around in the sticky collection.

Isaac stood up. He
regarded Lucky Gazid, who watched the caterpillar eating and smiled
beatifically, swaying.

"Lucky, old son,
seems like you might’ve saved my little experiment’s
bacon. Very much obliged."

"I’m a
lifesaver,
aren’t I, ‘Zaac?" Gazid spun
slowly in an ugly pirouette. "Lifesaver! Lifesaver!"

"Yes, that’ll
do, that’s what you are, old son, hush now." Isaac glanced
at the clock. "I really have to get a bit more work done, so do
the decent thing and push off, eh? No hard feelings, Lucky..."
Isaac hesitated and thrust out his hand. "Sorry about your
nose."

"Oh." Gazid
looked surprised. He prodded his bloody face experimentally.
"Well...whatever..."

Isaac strode away
towards his desk.

"I’ll get
your moolah. Hang on." He rummaged in the drawers, eventually
finding his wallet and drawing out a guinea. "Hold on, I’ve
more somewhere. Bear with me..." Isaac knelt by the bed and
began to throw piles of paper aside, collecting the stivers and
shekels he unearthed.

Gazid reached into the
packet of dreamshit which Isaac had left on the caterpillar’s
box. He looked thoughtfully at Isaac, who was scrabbling under the
bed with his face on the floor. Gazid plucked two dreamshit pellets
from the sticky morass and glanced over to Isaac, to see if he was
watching. Isaac was saying something in a conversational tone, his
words muffled by the bed above him.