There Will Be Phlogiston (25 page)

I didn’t have to be fucking able to read them to
know what they was saying. They was saying, “We ain’t for you,
Piccadilly, and we’ll never be for you, so ha-ha-ha. In the gutter
you was born, and in the gutter you’ll stay, cos you ain’t worth
nowt to no one, and you can look up all you like, but you ain’t
never getting your feet out the shit.”

And suddenly I felt beyond wretched, and angry as
well, for everything I wanted and couldn’t have. And kinda sick and
sorta jealous of Ruben even though I liked him so fucking much. Cos
he had so much of everything, he didn’t stop to think that mebbe
other folk didn’t.

I grabbed up one of the books and threw it, hard as
I could, against the cabin wall.

Didn’t do much good, though. Just made a softish
noise so as I felt like a fucking barbarian piece-of-shit
idiot.

Then I realised I was going to have to go get it
before Ruben came back, and the thought of trying to walk all that
way over the tiny cabin made my arm feel like mebbe it would’ve
preferred getting cut off. Though ’tis not like you walk on your
forepaws so fuck knew what that was supposed to be about.

Even my own damn arm was acting like a nidgit.

And on top of that, I found myself thinking that I’d
have to tell the truth to Ruben cos he was going to be all,
How’d ye like them books, Dil?
(only posh), and since I
didn’t even know what they was called, I didn’t have no clue how I
was going to blag my way out of trouble. And then he’d know, and
he’d probably be right sweet about it, but there ain’t nowt nice
about ignorance.

And I wanted him to want me, like I wanted him. Not
just have him be kind or whatever.

I brought my knees up to my chest and pressed my
face into them for a bit of a self-pity party, except then the
cabin door opened and I jerked up, wide-eyed. in case ’twas Ruben
coming back.

But ’twas Byron Kae, queer as ever, with the wind
stirring through their coat til it fanned out behind them like a
crazy rainbow.

“Trying to breach my boat, Piccadilly?”

They sauntered inside, kinda graceful-not-graceful,
rolling somehow with the swaying of the ship, right to where I’d
tossed the book, and picked it up, glancing at the frontispiece. Up
went the brows over the black eyes.

“A little light reading?”

I thought I might as well get practiced with being
ashamed. “I don’t have a fucking clue. I can’t e’en sign m’
name.”

A longish sorta silence. I couldn’t even look at
them.

And then they was, “Better men than you couldn’t
read or write.”

’Twas mebbe a harsh thing to say, but their voice
was so gentlesome, and I liked it for an answer somehow. “Oh aye?
Like who?”

Another silence. “Genghis Khan?”

I gaped. “That’s the best ye can do?”

And then we was both laughing our heads off.

’Twas mighty strange, but I stopped finding them so
eerie after that, and I grinned right at them, feeling kinda happy
they was there.

“May I . . . may I . . . sit down?”

I realised—with a bolt of insight or whatever—that
they was nervous. And so I stopped feeling like one sorta nitwit
and started feeling like a different sort. Cos I guess it probably
hadn’t made them feel all that good, me having a fit of the heebies
when all they’d been doing was trying to be kind. And, really, nowt
about them was worth screaming over.

’Twas just the glims what done it, specially after
all that talk of aetherbeasts. But Byron Kae weren’t no kraken. And
’twasn’t like they weren’t comely neither. ’Twas just the
strangeness of them was like sommat you’d catch only at the corner
of your eye, the dazzle of light on water or diamond dust slipping
through your fingers.

“Course!” said I, quick as can be. And, trying to
make amends, “Look, I’m sorry bout the freak out.”

A faint flush of colour crept over the arch of their
cheekbones, like a gleam of sunlight on a cloudsome day. “Please,
don’t trouble yourself. I know many find the aethertouched . . .
disconcerting.”

“’Twas the shooting mainwise was the source o’
that.”

They slipped into a chair in a ruffle of silks and
fine taffetas, staring sorta bashfulwise at their rainbow-tipped
fingers. “You’re very kind.”

I still hadn’t made no progress on the
he-she-whatever conundrum, and I was starting to think mebbe it
didn’t matter. ’Twasn’t like I’d ever been all that concerned what
folk kept betwixt their legs or beneath their petticoats
before.

“I ain’t being kind,” quoth I. “I’m being true. I
got m’ own reputation to think of, y’know, and I ain’t no chicken
heart. Takes sommat actually scary to scare me, not jus’ a person
being a person.”

“I’m . . . I’m so sorry about what happened to you.
And so close to my ship. Had I known, I wouldn’t have let you
fall.”

“Nowt ye could have done bout it, mate. And, jus’
betwixt thee and me—” I flashed them another little smile “—I did
sorta bob the fella.”

They made a strange sound, then clapped hands to
their lips with a little “Oh.” For a second I didn’t know what was
wrong with them, but then I realised I’d made them laugh. Properly
this time, and not by accident. ’Twas just about the only thing I’d
achieved since I’d come to Prosperity.

“Did you really?” they asked betwixt their
fingers.

“Aye. Plucked the prissy swinker like a pigeon.”

They took their paws away to show a mouth what
gleamed with the promise of smiles. “That was brave and foolish and
somewhat marvellous. I wish . . . I wish I could have seen it.”

’Twas mebbe a stupid ol’ thing to be thinking, but
what with kisses from Ruben and now this, I was starting to feel
getting shot hadn’t been such a terrible plan after all.
“Cheating,” I purred, and it weren’t too bad a rendering even if I
say so myself, “is not gentlemanly.”

Byron Kae shook their head, all the beads and
feathers chinking private music. “He is not gentlemanly.”

“Why you travelling with him, then? ’Tis your ship,
ain’t it?”

“Ruben is an old and very dear friend. I want to
help him, and he . . . appears to want to help Milord.”

“That don’t seem wise to me.”

“No. But Ruben has never been wise.”

Another longish sorta silence, not quite comfortable
but not uncomfortable neither. Which kinda got me onto minding my
manners. “I should say ta for the cabin. ’Tis yours, right?”

“It’s quite all right. I’m more comfortable on deck
anyway. The sky and I don’t like anything to come between us.”

Even so, ’twas probably the nicest thing anybody had
ever done for me. And suddenwise I started remembering lots of
other stuff, like a cool hand on my brow, and having water when I
needed it and—ah, bugger. “How much do I owe for the quack and the
black coat?”

“It really doesn’t matter.”

I know it probably seems a bit queer for one of the
filching crew to be so particular about his debts, but that’s the
thing, right? I sharp and I steal, and I take what I damn well
want, but I don’t owe nowt to nobody. I belong to me. “It matters
to me. It matters sommat fierce.”

So, after a moment or two, they told me.

“Shite, ’tis daylight robbery.” Again, they gave
that sorta whimsical lift of the brows. “Speaking from experience
o’er here,” I added, to win a proper smile and getting it. “But I
got some chink should pay my dues.”

“Don’t you recall? I’m afraid you have become, um,
separated from your assets.”

Double bugger from both ends backwards. “Milord
filched it, eh?”

“Most likely.”

I heaved out a sigh. Bobbed of my bobbed winnings.
There ain’t no fucking justice. “Ain’t there nowt I can do to
discharge the debt?” I wasn’t meaning nowt goatish by it, since
meeting Ruben had kinda turned me off the comfort of strangers.

“It’s not necessary.”

“Look, I ain’t got much in this world, but I got m’
pride.” Fact was, I’d been thinking pretty hardsome about how to
get away from this rock since I’d been laid out. I hadn’t counted
on having no blunt, but say what you will about Piccadilly, I ain’t
nowt if not flexible. “I’d like to get back to civilisation before
I gets m’nabs shot again—reckon you could see your way to letting
me work the passage?” I reckoned it for a winning hand—’tis better
to keep those as want to kill you right up front where you can see
’em, so couldn’t imagine a safer route to terra firma. And more
time to flutter my lashes at Ruben couldn’t hurt neither. “It’s
true, I ain’t got much experience, but I can turn m’ paws sharpish
to pretty much anything. I wouldn’t give you cause to regret
it.”

“We’ll be prospecting first,” said Byron Kae slowly.
“And the skies are dangerous at the moment.”

“Yeah, but this is prob’ly the safest place there
is, right? And I quite fancy playing cabin boy.” Since it weren’t
like I had nowt to lose, I tried on the ol’ glitter and gleam. But
they didn’t seem much impressed with my wiles, so I stopped before
I looked anymore the fool.

Another epic fucking silence. I was just about to
try pleading cos I was damn near desperate and I didn’t fancy
risking myself in Prosperity any time soon, when they said, “Well,
all right. But you treat my
Shadowless
well, or you’ll find
yourself cloud walking without a ship.”

“I’ll treat her like a princess,” I promised in a
rush of gratitude. “And it won’t be no hardship neither cos she’s
the most beauteous lady I e’er seen on land or sky or anywhere else
fer that matter.” Thing was, I weren’t even telling bouncers.

Byron Kae went red as red as can be, ducking down
their head as though they didn’t want me seeing. “Th-thank you. I .
. . Thank you.” And then, as though they didn’t want me talking
neither, they turned the book they was still holding so they could
see the cover. “Interesting choice.”

“Yeah, I bet,” I grumbled.

“It’s the book that killed God.”

“Somebody chuck it at Him?”

Byron Kae smiled, fully and properly at last,
bringing all the mysterious planes and angles of their face into a
sorta harmony—not beautiful, not handsome, but lovely somehow. And
I suddenly noticed that their glims weren’t black as tar or coal,
but black like the night sky, like the eyes of
Shadowless
’s
figurehead. And currents moved in them like ripples over the ocean,
and colours, green and purple and silver all being somehow part of
the black. And ’twas like multicoloured stars being born and living
and fading away all in slivers of seconds. ’Twasn’t scary at all.
’Twas magical.

“It’s called
On the Origin of Species
.” They
took up my finger and moved it over the grand golden letters, like
we was pinning them down together. Their skin was cool and smooth
as water, but I didn’t mind it.

“It won’t work.” I was feeling small again. “Words
don’t like it when I try to read ’em. They run away. Dunno why.
Reckon it might be punishment or whate’er fer all the bad stuff I
do.”

I’d tried; a bunch of times I tried. I even took
myself to one of them Ragged Schools, but ’twas too disheartening
to stag a bunch of fathead bantlings take to it like ducks to water
with me all drowning in the shallows.

“You’re not bad, Piccadilly. You just need to be
patient.”

“’Tis hard to be fucking patient when the words
won’t stay cunting still.”

The cool hand overlapping mine felt kinda soothing.
“It’s all right.”

I didn’t dare say nowt more for fear of making an
even bigger bufflehead of myself, but it wasn’t all right. Not by a
mile it wasn’t.

Then Byron Kae stood up, and I thought I’d disgusted
them by being a pissy, illiterate clod, but they was just going to
the table where Miss Grey sat, and they came back with a couple of
pieces of that special map-making paper. Then, they opened up
On
the Wossname of Species
and tucked a piece betwixt the first
page and the second.

At first I didn’t know what they was playing at, but
then I looked down and realised ’twas stopping the two pages of
words from getting muddled with each other. And then they folded
over the second piece of paper and tucked it under the first line.
And the words all still bounced wherever they chose, but this way I
could track them without having them get lost in each other.

I gazed at Byron Kae like they was some kinda
genius, cos they was. I’d never thought of doing anything like
it.

Byron Kae had gone a bit pinkish again. They cleared
their throat and drew my finger over the symbols, helping them stay
put, and said all careful and slow, “‘When on board
H.M.S.
Beagle
, as naturalist, I was much struck with certain facts in
the distribution of the inhabitants of South America, and in the
geological relations of the present to the past inhabitants of that
continent.’”

My mouth plopped open. “You wha? No wonder I can’t
do reading. It don’t make no fucking sense. That ain’t even like
English.”

“It’s not . . . it’s not . . .” Byron Kae seemed to
be having trouble with their spoken words. They covered their mouth
with a hand. “I’m sorry.”

“Are you laughing at me?”

“N-no. Not at you. I’m just . . . laughing.”

“’Tain’t funny!”

“Perhaps we t-try another book?”

We tried the samewise operation. “
Essays and
Reviews
,” read Byron Kae, sounding out the letters slowly so I
could follow ’em.

“What’s the diff’rence ’twixt essay and review?” I
asked, still feeling a bit peeved by the learned in general. ’Twas
like they were doing it deliberate to keep folks out.

“I have no idea. This essay or review is called ‘The
Education of the World.’”

“Well, that sounds promising, don’t it? I know what
education is, I know what the world is. Reckon this un’s a
winner.”

The hand atop mine trembled slightly with what I
suspected was laughing again. “‘In a world of mere phenomena, where
all events are bound to one another by rigid law of cause and
effect, it is possible to imagine the course of a long period
bringing all things at the end of it into exactly the same
relations as they occupied at the beginning.’”