Perdido Street Station (40 page)

The ambassador bowed
his head in polite demur.

"You’re such
a
modernist,
Mayor Rudgutter," he said. "I won’t
argue with you. Please remember my offer stands."

Rudgutter waved his
hands impatiently. He was composed. He did not flinch at the pitiable
screams which shadowed the ambassador’s words. And he did not
allow himself to experience any disquiet when, as he stared at the
ambassador, the image of the man in the chair flickered for a tiny
sliver of a second, to be replaced by...something else.

He had experienced this
before. Whenever Rudgutter blinked, for that infinitesimal moment, he
saw the room and its occupant in very different forms. Through his
eyelids, Rudgutter saw the inside of a slatted cage; iron bars moving
like snakes; arcs of unthinkable force, a jagged, rippling maelstrom
of heat. Where the ambassador sat, Rudgutter caught glimpses of a
monstrous form. A hyaena’s head stared at him, tongue lolling.
Breasts with gnashing teeth. Hooves and claws.

The stale air in the
room would not allow him to keep his eyes open: he had to blink. He
ignored the brief visions. He treated the ambassador with wary
respect. Such was also the dsemon’s attitude to him.

"Ambassador, I’m
here for two reasons. One is to extend to your master, Its Diabolic
Majesty, the Czar of Hell, the respectful greetings of New Crobuzon’s
citizens. In their ignorance." The ambassador nodded graciously
in response. "The other is to ask your advice."

"It is always our
great pleasure to aid our neighbours, Mayor Rudgutter. Especially
those such as yourself, with whom Its Majesty has such good
relations." The ambassador rubbed its chin absently, waiting.

"Twenty minutes,
Mayor," hissed Vansetty into Rudgutter’s ear.

Rudgutter pressed his
hands together as if in prayer, and looked at the ambassador
thoughtfully. He felt little gusts of force.

"You see,
ambassador, we have something of a problem. We have reason to believe
that there has been a...an escape, shall we say. Something that we
are very concerned to recapture. We’d like to ask your help, if
we may."

"What are we
talking about, Mayor Rudgutter? True Answers?" asked the
ambassador. "Usual terms?"

"True
Answers...and perhaps more. We’ll see."

"Payment now, or
later?"

"Ambassador,"
said Rudgutter politely. "Your memory momentarily falters. I am
in credit two questions."

The ambassador stared
at him a moment and laughed. "So you are, Mayor Rudgutter. My
deepest apologies. Proceed."

"Are there any
unusual rules of the moment, ambassador?" asked Rudgutter
pointedly. The daemon shook his head
(great hyaena tongue briefly
slavering from side to side)
and smiled.

"It is Melluary,
Mayor Rudgutter," it explained simply. "Usual rules in
Melluary. Seven words, inverted."

Rudgutter nodded. He
composed himself, concentrating hard.
Got to get the damn words
right. Bloody infantile bloody game,
he thought fleetingly. Then
he spoke quickly and levelly, gazing calmly into the ambassador’s
eyes.

"Correct escaped
what’s of assessment our is?"

"Yes,"
replied the daemon instantly.

**

Rudgutter turned
briefly, gazed meaningfully at Stem-Fulcher and Rescue. They were
nodding, their faces set and grim.

The mayor turned back
to the daemon ambassador. They stared at each other without speaking
for a moment.

"Fifteen minutes,"
hissed Vansetty.

"Some of my
more...
fusty
colleagues would look very askance at me allowing
you to count ‘what’s’ as one word, you know,"
said the ambassador. "But I’m a liberal." He smiled.
"Do you wish to ask your final question?"

"I don’t
think so, ambassador. I’ll save that for another time. I have a
proposition."

"Go on, Mayor
Rudgutter."

"Well, you know
the manner of thing that has escaped, and you can understand our
concern to remedy the situation as quickly as possible." The
ambassador nodded. "You can also understand that it will be
difficult for us to proceed, and that time is of the essence...I
propose that we hire some of your...ah...troops, to help us round up
our escapees."

"No," said
the ambassador simply. Rudgutter blinked.

"We haven’t
even discussed terms yet, ambassador. I assure you I can make a very
generous offer..."

"I’m afraid
it is out of the question. None of my kind are available." The
ambassador stared impassively at Rudgutter.

The mayor thought for a
moment. If the ambassador was bargaining, he was doing so in a way he
had never done before. Rudgutter forgot himself, closed his eyes to
think, snapping them immediately open as he saw that monstrous vista,
caught a glimmer of the ambassador’s other form. He tried
again.

"I could even go
up to...let’s say..."

"Mayor Rudgutter,
you don’t understand," said the ambassador. Its voice was
impassive, but it seemed agitated. "I don’t care how many
units of merchandise you can offer, or in what condition. We are not
available for this job. It is not suitable."

There was a long
silence. Rudgutter gazed with incredulity at the daemon opposite him.
It was beginning to dawn on him what was happening. In the bleeding
rays of light, he saw the ambassador open a drawer and bring out a
sheaf of papers.

"If you are
finished, Mayor Rudgutter," he continued smoothly, "I have
work to do."

Rudgutter waited until
the miserable, pitiless resonance of
work to do to do to do
had died down outside. The echo made his stomach pitch.

"Oh, yes, yes,
ambassador," he said. "So sorry to have kept you. We’ll
speak again soon, I hope."

The ambassador inclined
its head in a polite nod, then drew out a pen from its inner pocket
and began to mark the papers. Behind Rudgutter, Vansetty twiddled at
nobs and depressed various buttons, and the wooden floor began to
tremble as if in some aetherquake. A hum built up around the cramped
humans, wobbling in their little energy field. The foul air vibrated
up and down their bodies.

The ambassador bulged
and split and disappeared in an instant, like a heliotype in a fire.
The moiling carmine light bubbled and evaporated, as if it seeped out
through a thousand cracks in the dusty office walls. The darkness of
the room closed in around them like a trap. Vansetty’s tiny
candle guttered and went out.

**

Checking that they were
unobserved, Vansetty, Rudgutter, Stem-Fulcher and Rescue stumbled
from the room. The air felt deliciously chill. They spent a minute
wiping sweat from their faces, rearranging the clothes that had been
buffeted by winds from other planes.

Rudgutter was shaking
his head in rueful astonishment.

His ministers composed
themselves and turned to him.

"I’ve met
with the ambassador perhaps a dozen times over the past ten years,"
said Rudgutter, "and I’ve never seen it behave like that.
Damn that air!" he added, rubbing his eyes.

The four walked back
along the little corridor, turned onto the main passageway and began
to retrace their steps towards the lift.

"Behave like
what?" asked Stem-Fulcher. "I’ve only ever dealt with
it once before. Not used to it."

Rudgutter mused as he
walked, tugging thoughtfully at his lower lip and his beard. His eyes
were very bloodshot. He did not answer Stem-Fulcher for some seconds.

"There are two
things to be said: one daemonological, one practical and immediate."
Rudgutter spoke in a level, exact tone, demanding the attention of
his ministers. Vansetty was wandering quickly ahead, his job done.
"The first might give a certain insight into the Hellkin psyche,
behaviour, whatnot. You both heard the
echo,
I presume? I
thought he did that to intimidate me, for a while. Well, bear in mind
the immense distance that sound had to travel. I know," he said
quickly, holding up his hands, "that it’s not literally
sound, nor literally distance, but they
are
extraplanar
analogues and most analogous rules hold in some more or less mutated
way. So bear in mind how far it had to travel, from the base of the
Pit to that chamber. The fact is, it takes a little while to get
there...That ‘echo,’ I believe, was actually spoken
first.
The...eloquent words we heard from the ambassador’s
mouth...those were the real echoes.
Those
were the twisted
reflections."

Stem-Fulcher and Rescue
were silent. They thought of the screams, the tortured, maniacal tone
they had heard outside, the idiot ruined gibbering that seemed to
make a mockery of the ambassador’s devilish refinement...

They reflected that
that might be the more genuine voice.

"I’m
wondering if we were wrong to think of them having a different
psychic model. Maybe they’re comprehensible. Maybe they think
like us. And the
second
thing, bearing in mind that
possibility, and bearing in mind what the ‘echo’ might
tell us about the daemoniac state of mind, is that at the end there,
when I was trying to cut a deal, the ambassador was
scared...
That’s
why he wouldn’t come to our aid. That’s why we’re
on our own.
Because the daemons are afraid of what we’re
hunting."

Rudgutter stopped and
turned to his aides. The three gazed at each other. Stem-Fulcher’s
face twisted for a fragment of a second, and was then composed.
Rescue was as impassive as a statue, but he plucked fitfully at his
scarf. Rudgutter nodded as they pondered.

There was a minute of
silence.

"So..."
Rudgutter said briskly, clasping his hands. "The Weaver it is."

That night, in the
swollen dark hours after a brief spew of rain had hosed the city down
with dirty water, the door to Isaac’s warehouse was pushed
open. The street was empty. There were minutes of stillness.
Night-birds and bats were all that moved. Gaslight guttered.

The construct rolled
jerkily out into the deep night. Its valves and pistons were swathed
in rags and snatches of blankets, muffling the distinctive sound of
its passage. It moved forward quickly, turning inexactly and
trundling as fast as its ageing treads would move.

It tremored through the
backstreets, passed snoring drunks still sodden and insensate. The
sallow gasjets reflected secretively in its battered metal hide.

The construct made its
swift, precarious way under the sky-rails. Inconstant streaks of
cirrus hid the lurking airships. The construct bore down like a
diviner on the Tar, the river caught in an intricate whiplash shape
on the timeless rocks beneath the city.

And hours after it had
disappeared over Sheer Bridge into the southern city, when the dark
sky became stained by dawn, the construct came reeling back to Brock
Marsh. Its timing was fortuitous. It re-entered and locked the door
only a little while before Isaac returned from his frantic night-long
search for David, and Lin, and Yagharek and Lemuel Pigeon, and anyone
who could help him.

**

Lublamai was lying on a
couch that Isaac had rigged up on a couple of chairs. When Isaac came
into the warehouse he came straight over to his still friend,
whispered to him hopelessly, but there was no change. Lublamai did
not sleep or wake. He gazed.

It was not long before
David came hurrying back to the laboratory. He had trawled his way to
one of his usual haunts to be greeted by a hurried and garbled
version of one of the innumerable messages Isaac had left for him
throughout New Crobuzon.

He sat as silently as
Isaac, gazing at his mindless friend.

"I can’t
believe I let you do it," he said numbly.

"Oh Jabber and
fuck, David, d’you think I’m not going over and over
it...I let the damn thing out..."

"We all should’ve
known better," snapped David.

There was a long
silence between them.

"Did you get a
doctor?" said David.

"First thing I
did. Phorgit, from across the road, I’ve dealt with him before.
I cleaned up Lub a bit, wiped some of that crap off his
face...Phorgit didn’t know what to make of it. Plugged in gods
knows how many bits of equipment, took I don’t fucking remember
how many readings...boils down to ‘haven’t got a clue.’
‘Keep him warm and feed him, but then again you might want to
keep him cold and not give him anything to eat...’ I might get
one of the guys I know at the uni to take a skedge at him, but it’s
a forlorn fucking hope..."

"What did the
thing
do
to him?"

"Well, quite,
David. Quite. That’s the fucking question, isn’t it?"

There was a tentative
rattling at the broken window. Isaac and David looked up to see
Teafortwo poking his ugly head forlornly in.

"Oh, shit,"
said Isaac in exasperation. "Look, Teafortwo, now’s not
really the best time, capiche? Maybe we can chat later."

"Just looking in,
boss..." Teafortwo spoke in a cowed voice utterly unlike his
usual exuberant squawk. "Wanna know how the Lublub’s
doing."

"What?" said
Isaac sharply, standing. "What about him?"

Teafortwo shied away
miserably and wailed.

"Not me, squire,
not my fault...just wondering if he’s better after the big
monsterfucker ate his face..."

"Teafortwo, were
you
here?"

The wyrman nodded
morosely and shifted a little nearer, balancing in the centre of the
window frame.

"What
happened?
We’re not angry with you, Teafortwo...we just want to know what
it was you saw..."

Teafortwo sniffed and
waved its head miserably. He pouted like a child, screwed up his face
and blurted out a great gob of words.