Perdido Street Station (59 page)

"Over in Gross
Coil and Skulkford the city’s sitting on layers of older
buildings. For hundreds of years they sunk into the mire, and they’d
just build new ones on top of them. The pavement’s only been
solid there for a hundred and fifty years. Over there, the sewers
feed into old basements and bedrooms. The tunnels like this one lead
into submerged streets. You can still see the road-names. Rotten
houses under a brick sky. Straight up. The shit flows along channels
and then through windows and doors.

"That’s
where the undergangs live. They used to be human, or their parents
did, but they’ve spent too long down here. They aren’t a
pretty sight."

He hawked and spat
noisily into the slow ooze.

"Still. Rather the
undergangs than the ghuls. Or the trow." He laughed, but it was
without any humour. Yagharek could not tell if Lemuel was mocking
him.

Lemuel lapsed into
silence. For some minutes, there was no sound except the slosh of
their legs through the thick effluvia. Then Yagharek heard voices. He
stiffened and gripped Lemuel’s shirt, but a moment later he
heard them clearly, and they were Isaac’s and Derkhan’s.

The excremental water
seemed to carry light with it, from around a corner.

Bent-backed and
swearing with effort, Yagharek and Lemuel wound through the twisting
brick junctions and turned into the little room under Murkside’s
heart.

Isaac and Derkhan were
yelling at each other. Isaac saw Yagharek and Lemuel over Derkhan’s
shoulder. He raised his arms to them.

"Dammit,
there
you are!" He strode past Derkhan towards them. Yagharek held out
a bag of food at him. Isaac ignored it. "Lem, Yag," he said
urgently. "We have to move fast."

"Now hold on..."
began Lemuel, but Isaac ignored him.

"Listen, dammit,"
Isaac shouted. "The construct’s talked to me!"

Lemuel’s mouth
stayed open, but he was silent. No one spoke for a moment.

"All right?"
said Isaac. "It’s
intelligent,
dammit, it’s
sentient...
something’s happened in its head. The rumours
about CI are true! Some virus, some programme glitch...And although
it won’t come out and say it, I think it’s hinted that
that damned repairman may have given it a helping hand along the way.
And the upshot is the
damn thing can think.
It’s seen
everything! It was there when the slake-moth took Lublamai. It..."

"Hold on!"
shouted Lemuel. "It spoke to you?"

"No! It had to
scrape messages in the mould over there: it was damn slow. That’s
what it uses its litter-spike for. It was the construct that told me
David had turned traitor! It tried to get us out of the warehouse
before the militia arrived!"

"Why?"

Isaac’s urgency
waned.

"I don’t
know. It can’t explain itself. It’s not...very
articulate." Lemuel looked up, over Isaac’s head. The
construct sat motionless in the red-black flickering of the oil-lamp.
"But listen...I think one of the reasons it wanted us free is
because we’re against the slake-moths. I don’t know why,
but it...it’s violently against them. It wants them dead. And
it’s offering us help..."

Lemuel barked with
unpleasant, incredulous laughter.

"Marvellous!"
he wondered, derisorily. "You’ve got a vacuum cleaner on
your side..."

"No, you fucking
arse!"
yelled Isaac. "Don’t you understand?
It’s not alone...
"

The word
alone
echoed back and forth around the mephitic brick burrows. Lemuel and
Isaac stared at each other. Yagharek drew back a little.

"It’s not
alone," Isaac repeated softly. Behind him, Derkhan nodded in
mute accord. "It’s given us
directions.
It can read
and write—that’s how it realized David sold us out, it
found his discarded instructions—but it’s not a
sophisticated thinker. But it promises that if we go to Griss Twist
tomorrow night, we’ll meet something that can explain
everything. And that can help us."

This time, it was
us
that filled the silence with its reverberating presence. Lemuel shook
his head slowly, his face set and cruel.

"Damn, Isaac,"
he said quietly. " ‘We’? ‘Us’? Who the
fuck are you talking to?
This is nothing to do with
me..."
Derkhan sneered in disgust and turned away. Isaac opened his mouth,
dismayed. Lemuel interrupted him. "Look, man. I was in this for
the
money.
I’m a businessman. You paid well. You got my
services. You even got a little bit of time free, with Vermishank. I
did that for Mr. X. And I’ve got a soft spot for you, ‘Zaac.
You’ve been straight with me. That’s why I came back down
here. Brought a bit of grub, and I’ll show you out of here. But
now Vermishank’s dead and your credit’s run dry. I don’t
know what you’ve got planned, but I’m off. Why in
fuck
should I go chasing these damn things? Leave it to the militia.
There’s
nothing for me here...
Why would I hang around?"

"Leave it to
who
...?" hissed Derkhan with contempt, but Isaac spoke
over her.

"So," he said
slowly. "What now? Hmmm? You think you can go frflcfc? Lem, old
son, whatever else you might damn well be, you ain’t a stupid
man. You think you weren’t seen? You think they don’t
know who you are?
Godsdamn,
man...you’re wanted."

Lemuel glared at him.

"Well, thanks for
your concern ‘Zaac," he said, his face twisting. "Tell
you what, though—" his voice turned hard "—
you
may be out of your depth.
I,
however, have spent my
professional life evading the law. Don’t you worry about me,
mate. I’ll be cushty." He did not sound sure.

I’m not
telling him anything he doesn’t know,
thought Isaac.
He
just doesn’t want to think about it right now.
Isaac shook
his head contemptuously.

"Dammit, man, you
aren’t thinking straight. There’s a whole godsdamn
universe of difference between being a go-between and being a
militia-murdering criminal...
Don’t you get it? They
don’t know what you know or don’t know...unfortunately
for you, old son, you’re
implicated.
You have to stick
with us. You have to see this through. They’re after you,
right? And right now, you’re running from them. Better to stay
in front, even if you’re running, than fucking well turn round
and let them catch up."

Lemuel stood still in
the silence, glowering at Isaac. He said nothing, but neither did he
leave.

Isaac took a step
towards him.

"Look," Isaac
said. "The other thing is...we...I...need you." Behind him
Derkhan sniffed sulkily and Isaac shot her an irritated glance.
"Godspit, Lem...you’re our best chance. You know everyone,
you’ve got a finger in all the right pies..." Isaac raised
his hands helplessly. "I can’t see a way out of this. One
of those...
things
is after
me,
the militia can’t
help us, they don’t know how to catch the damn things, and
anyway, I don’t know if you’re keeping track but those
fuckers are hunting us
too
...I can’t see a way, even
assuming we get the slake-moths, where I don’t end up dead."
The words chilled him as he spoke them. He talked rapidly, pushed the
thoughts away. "But if I keep at it, maybe I can figure one out.
And the same goes for you. And
without you,
Derkhan and me are
dead for
sure!"
Lemuel’s eyes were hard. Isaac felt
a chill.
Never forget who you’re dealing with,
he
thought.
You and he are not
friends...
don’t forget
that.

"You know my
credit’s good," Isaac said suddenly. "You know that.
Now, I’m not going to pretend I’ve got a massive bank
account, I’ve got a bit, there’s a few guineas left,
all
of it yours...
but help me, Lemuel, and
I’m
yours.
I’ll work for you. I’ll be your man. I’ll be your
fucking
pet.
Any jobs you want done, I do them. Any money I
make, it’s yours. I’ll sign my fucking
life
to
you, Lemuel. Just
help us now."

There was no sound
except the dripping of ordure. Behind Isaac, Derkhan hovered. Her
face was a study of contempt and disgust.
We don’t need him,
it said. But still, she waited to hear what he would say. Yagharek
stood back. He listened to the argument dispassionately. He was bound
to Isaac. He could go nowhere and do nothing without him.

Lemuel sighed.

"I am going to be
keeping a running total, you realize? I’m talking about serious
debt, you know? D’you have any idea of the daily rate for this
sort of thing? The danger money?"

"Doesn’t
matter," breathed Isaac brusquely. He hid his relief. "Just
keep me posted. Tell me what I’m accruing. I’ll be good
for it." Lemuel nodded briefly. Derkhan exhaled, very quietly
and slowly.

They stood like
exhausted combatants. Each waited for the other to move.

"So what now?"
said Lemuel. His voice was surly.

"We go to Griss
Twist tomorrow night," said Isaac. "The construct promised
help. We can’t risk not going. I’ll meet you both there."

"Where are you
going?" said Derkhan in surprise.

"I have to find
Lin," said Isaac. "They’ll be coming for her."

It was almost midnight.
Skullday was becoming Shunday. The moon was one night off full.

Outside Lin’s
tower, in Aspic Hole itself, the few passers-by were irritable and
nervous. Market day had passed, and its bonhomie with it. The square
was haunted by the skeletons of stalls, thin wooden frames stripped
of canvas. The rubbish from the market was piled in rotting heaps,
waiting for the dustcrews to transport it to the dumps. The bloated
moon bleached Aspic Hole like some corrosive liquid. It looked
ominous, shabby and mean.

Isaac climbed the
stairs of the tower warily. He had had no way of getting a message to
Lin and he had not seen her for days. He had washed as best he could
in water niched from a pump in Flyside, but he still stank.

He had sat in the
sewers for hours the previous day. Lemuel had not allowed them to
leave for a long time, decreeing that it was too dangerous during the
light.

"We have to stick
together," he demanded, "until we know what we’re
doing. And we are not the most unobtrusive bunch." So the four
of them had sat in a room awash in faecal water, eating and trying
not to vomit, bickering and failing to make plans. They had argued
vehemently about whether or not Isaac should see Lin on his own. He
was absolute in his insistence that he be unaccompanied. Derkhan and
Lemuel denounced his stupidity, and even Yagharek’s silence had
seemed briefly accusatory. But Isaac was quite adamant.

Eventually, when the
temperature fell and they had all forgotten the stink, they had
moved. It had been a long, arduous journey through New Crobuzon’s
vaulted conduits. Lemuel had led, flintlocks ready. Isaac, Derkhan
and Yagharek had to carry the construct, which could not move in the
liquid filth. It was heavy and slippery, and it had been dropped and
banged and damaged, as had they, falling into the muck and swearing,
slamming hands and fingers against the concrete walls. Isaac would
not let them leave it.

They had moved
carefully. They were intruders in the sewer’s hidden and
hermetic ecosystem. They had been keen to avoid the natives.
Eventually they had emerged behind Saltpetre Station, blinking and
dripping in the waning light.

They had bedded down in
a little deserted hut beside the railway in Griss Fell. It was an
audacious hideout. Just before the Sud Line crossed the Tar by
Cockscomb Bridge, a collapsed building made a huge slope of
half-crushed brick and concrete splinters that seemed to shore up the
raised railway. At the top, dramatically silhouetted, they saw the
wooden shack.

Its purpose was
unclear: it had obviously remained untouched for years. The four of
them had crawled exhausted up the industrial scree, shoving the
construct before them, through the ripped-up wire that was supposed
to protect the railway from intruders. In the minutes between trains,
they had hauled themselves along the little fringe of scrubby grass
that surrounded the tracks, and pushed open the door into the hut’s
dusty darkness.

There, finally, they
had relaxed.

The wood of the shed
was warped, its slats ill-fitting and interspersed with sky. They had
watched out of the glassless windows as trains burst by them in both
directions. Below them to the north, the Tar twisted in the tight S
that contained Petty Coil and Griss Twist. The sky had darkened to a
grubby blue-black. They could see illuminated pleasure-boats on the
river. The massive industrial pillar of Parliament loomed a little
way to the east, looking down on them and on the city. A little
downriver from Strack Island, the chymical lights of the old city
watergates hissed and sputtered and reflected their greasy yellow
glow in the dark water. Two miles to the north-east, just visible
behind Parliament, were the Ribs, those antique sallow bones.

From the other side of
the cabin they saw the spectacularly darkening sky, made even more
astonishing by a day in the reeking dun below New Crobuzon. The sun
was gone, but only just. The sky was bisected by the skyrail that
threaded through Flyside militia tower. The city was a layered
silhouette, an intricate fading chimneyscape, slate roofs bracing
each other obliquely below the plaited towers of churches to obscure
gods, the huge priapic vents of factories spewing dirty smoke and
burning off excess energy, monolithic towerblocks like vast concrete
gravestones, the rough down of parkland.