Perdido Street Station Part 13

Derkhan nodded.

"What else've we got coming up?" she asked.

Benjamin pursed his lips.

"There's some rumour about Rudgutter having some illness, dubious cures: that's something I'd like to chase, but you can tell it's been filtered by Jabber knows how many mouths. Still, keep an ear open. There's something else as well . . . very tentative at this stage, but interesting. I'm talking to someone who claims they're they're talking to someone who wants to blow the whistle on links between Parliament and mob crime." talking to someone who wants to blow the whistle on links between Parliament and mob crime."

Derkhan nodded slowly and appreciatively.

"Sounds very very tasty. What are we talking? Drugs? Prost.i.tutes?" tasty. What are we talking? Drugs? Prost.i.tutes?"

"s.h.i.+t, sure as eggs Rudgutter's got fingers in every f.u.c.king pie you can think of. They all have. Churn out the commodity, grab the profit, get the militia to tidy up your customers afterwards, get a new crop of Remade or slave-miners for the Arrowhead pits, keep the jails full . . . nice as you like. I don't know what this gra.s.s has in mind particularly, and they're f.u.c.king nervous, apparently, ready to do a bunk. But you know me, Dee. Softly softly." He winked at her. "I won't let this one get away."

"Keep me posted, won't you?" Derkhan said. Benjamin nodded.

Derkhan bundled her collection of papers into a bag, hiding them under a.s.sorted detritus. She stood.

"Right. I have my orders. That three shekels, by the way, includes fourteen copies of Double-R Double-R sold." sold."

"Good stuff," said Benjamin, and found a particular notebook among the many on his desk to record the fact. He stood and gestured Derkhan through the doorway and the wardrobe. She waited in his tiny bedroom as he shut off the lights in the press.

"Is Grimwhatsisname still buying?" he asked through the hole. "That scientist geezer?"

"Yes. He's quite good."

"I heard a funny rumour about him the other day," said Benjamin, emerging through the wardrobe, wiping his oily hands on a rag. "Is he the same one who's after birds birds?"

"Oh, yes, he's doing some experiment or other. You been listening to criminals criminals, Benjamin?" Derkhan grinned. "He's collecting wings. I think he makes it a point of principle never to buy things officially when he can go through illicit channels."

Benjamin shook his head appreciatively.

"Well, the cove's good at it. He knows how to get word out."

As he spoke, he was leaning into the wardrobe and tugging the wooden rear back into position. He fastened it and turned to Derkhan.

"Righto," he said. "We'd best get into character."

Derkhan nodded curtly, and ruffled her white wig somewhat. She undid her intricate shoelaces. Benjamin untucked his s.h.i.+rt. He held his breath and swung his arms from side to side, until he went deep red. He exhaled in a sudden burst, and breathed hard. He squinted at Derkhan.

"Come on," he said imploringly. "Cut me some slack. What of me reputation? You could at least look tired . . ."

She grinned at him and, sighing, rubbed her face and eyes.

"Oooh, Mr. B," she squeaked absurdly. "You're the best I ever had!"

"More like it . . ." he muttered, and winked.

They unlocked the door and stepped out into the corridor. Their preparations had been unnecessary. They were alone.

Far below, the sound of meat-grinders could be heard.

CHAPTER T THIRTEEN.

When Lin woke with Isaac's head next to hers, she stared at it for a long time. She let her antennae flutter in the wind from his breath. It had, she thought, been much too long since she had enjoyed the sight of him like this.

She rolled slightly to her side and stroked him. He muttered and his mouth set. His lips pursed and popped open as he breathed. She ran her hands over his bulk.

She was pleased with herself, pleased and proud at what she had effected last night. She had been miserable and lonely, and she had taken a risk, angering Isaac by coming unbidden to his side of town. But she had managed to make the evening work.

Lin had not intended to play on Isaac's sympathy, but his anger had turned so quickly to concern at her demeanour. She had realized with a vague satisfaction that she was visibly exhausted and low, that she did not have to convince him of her need for mollycoddling. He was even recognizing emotions in the movement of her headbody.

There was one positive side to Isaac's attempts not to be seen as her lover. When they walked the streets together, without touching, at a gentle pace, it mimicked the shyness of young humans courting.

There was no equivalent for khepri. Heads.e.x for procreation was an unpleasant ch.o.r.e carried out for demographic duty. Male khepris were mindless scarabs like the females' headbodies, and to feel them crawling and mounting and rutting one's head was something Lin was glad not to have experienced for years. s.e.x for fun, between females, was a boisterous, communal business, but rather ritualized. The signs of flirtation, rejection and acceptance between individuals or groups were as formal as dances. There was nothing of the tongue-tied nervous eroticism of young humans.

Lin had steeped herself enough in human culture to recognize the tradition that Isaac was pulled back to when they walked together through the city. She had been enthusiastic about s.e.x with her own kind before her illicit cross-affair, and intellectually she scorned the wasteful, pointless stammered conversations she heard from humans in s.n.a.t.c.hes around New Crobuzon. But to her surprise, she felt that same coy and uncertain companions.h.i.+p from Isaac sometimes-and she rather liked it.

It had grown the previous night, as they walked cool streets towards the station, and rode across the top of the city towards Aspic Hole. One of the best effects, of course, was to make the s.e.xual release, when it was finally possible, all the more charged.

Isaac had grabbed her as the door closed, and she had squeezed him back, wrapping her arms around him. l.u.s.t came quickly. She had held him back, opened her carapace and made him stroke her wings, which he did, with trembling fingers. She made him wait while she enjoyed his devotion, before pulling him to her bed. She rolled with him, till he lay on his back. She threw off her clothes and tugged his from him. She mounted him and he stroked her hard headbody, ran his hands down her body, over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, clutching at her hips as they moved.

Afterwards he made her supper. They ate and talked. Lin told him nothing of Mr. Motley. She was uneasy when he asked her why she was so melancholy that night. She began to tell him a half-truth about a vast, difficult sculpture that she could show no one, that meant she would not compete in the s.h.i.+ntacost Prize, that was draining her away to nothing, in a s.p.a.ce in the city she had found and could not tell him.

He was attentive. Perhaps it was studied. He knew Lin was sometimes offended by his absent-mindedness when he was on a project. He begged to know where she was working.

Of course, she would not tell him.

They went to bed wiping away crumbs and seeds. Isaac clutched her in his sleep.

When she woke, Lin spent long slow minutes enjoying Isaac's presence, before rising and frying bread for his breakfast. When he rose to the smell, he kissed her neck and headbelly playfully. She stroked his cheeks with her headlegs.

Do you have to work this morning? she signed at him from across the table, while her mandibles chewed grapefruit. she signed at him from across the table, while her mandibles chewed grapefruit.

Isaac peered up from his bread a little uneasily.

"Uh . . . yeah. I really do, sweety." He munched at her.

What?

"Well . . . I've got all this stuff at home, all these birds and whatnot, but it's a bit ridiculous. See, I've studied pigeons, robins, merlins, Jabber knows what else, but I've not yet seen a f.u.c.king garuda garuda up close. So I'm going to go hunting. I've put it off, but I think the time's come. I'm going to Spatters." Isaac grimaced and let that sink in. He took another big bite. When he had swallowed, he looked at her from under his brows. "I don't suppose . . . D'you want to come?" up close. So I'm going to go hunting. I've put it off, but I think the time's come. I'm going to Spatters." Isaac grimaced and let that sink in. He took another big bite. When he had swallowed, he looked at her from under his brows. "I don't suppose . . . D'you want to come?"

Isaac, she signed immediately, she signed immediately, don't say that if you don't mean it because I don't say that if you don't mean it because I do do want to come and I'll say yes if you're not careful. Even to Spatters. want to come and I'll say yes if you're not careful. Even to Spatters.

"Look . . . I really . . . I do do mean it. I'm serious. If you're not working on your magnum opus this morning, come and knock about." The conviction in his voice strengthened as he spoke. "Come on, you can be my mobile lab a.s.sistant. No, I know what you can do: you can be my heliotypist for the day. Bring your camera. You need a break." mean it. I'm serious. If you're not working on your magnum opus this morning, come and knock about." The conviction in his voice strengthened as he spoke. "Come on, you can be my mobile lab a.s.sistant. No, I know what you can do: you can be my heliotypist for the day. Bring your camera. You need a break."

Isaac was getting bolder. He and Lin left the house together, without him displaying any signs of unease. They wandered a little way north-west along Shadrach Street, towards the Salacus Fields Station, but Isaac became impatient and hailed a cab on the way. The hirsute driver raised his eyebrows at Lin, but he kept any objections quiet. He inclined his head while he murmured to his horse, indicating Isaac and Lin inside.

"Where to, guv?" he asked.

"Spatters, please." Isaac spoke rather grandly, as if making up in his tone of voice for his destination.

The driver turned to him incredulously. "You've got to be joking, squire. I ain't going into Spatters. I'll take you as far as Vaudois Hill, but that's your lot. Ain't worth my while. Down Spatters way, they'll have the wheels off me cab while I'm still driving."

"Fine, fine," said Isaac irritably. "Just get us as close as you dare dare."

As the rickety hansom cab rolled across the cobbles through Salacus Fields, Lin caught Isaac's attention.

Is it really dangerous? she signed nervously. she signed nervously.

Isaac glanced round, then answered her with signs himself. He was much slower and less fluent than her, but using signing he could be ruder to the cabdriver.

Well . . . just f.u.c.k poor. They'll nick whatever's going, but not especially violent. a.r.s.ehole here's just cowardly. Reads too many . . . Isaac faltered and screwed up his face with concentration. Isaac faltered and screwed up his face with concentration.

"Don't know the sign," he murmured. "Sensational. Reads too many sensational papers." He sat back and looked out of the window at the skyline of Howl Barrow that wobbled unsteadily to his left. Reads too many sensational papers." He sat back and looked out of the window at the skyline of Howl Barrow that wobbled unsteadily to his left.

Lin had never been to Spatters. She knew it only by its notoriety. Forty years previously, the Sink Line had been extended south-west of Lichford, past Vaudois Hill and into the spur of Rudewood that ab.u.t.ted the southern reaches of the city. The planners and money-men had built the tall sh.e.l.ls of residential blocks: not the monoliths of nearby Ketch Heath, but impressive nonetheless. They had opened the railway station, Fell Stop, and had started building another in Rudewood itself, before anything more than a narrow strip around the railway had been cleared. There had been plans for another station beyond that, and the tracks had extended into the forest accordingly. There had even been tentative, absurdly hubristic schemes to extend the rails hundreds of miles south or west, to link New Crobuzon to Myrshock or Cobsea.

Then the money had run out. There had been some financial crisis, some speculative bubble had burst, some trade network had collapsed under the weight of compet.i.tion and a plethora of too-cheap products no one could buy, and the project had been killed in its infancy. The trains had still visited Fell Stop, pointlessly waiting a few minutes before returning to the city. Rudewood quickly reclaimed the land south of the empty architecture, a.s.similating the nameless empty station and the rusting tracks. For a couple of years, the trains at Fell Stop waited empty and silent. And then, a few pa.s.sengers had started appearing.

The empty integuments of grand buildings began to fill. Rural poor from Grain Spiral and the Mendican Foothills began to creep into the deserted borough. The word spread that this was a ghost sector, beyond Parliament's ken, where taxes and laws were as rare as sewage systems. Rough frameworks of stolen wood filled the empty floors. In the outlines of stillborn streets shacks of concrete and corrugated iron blistered overnight. Inhabitation spread like mould. There were no gaslamps to take the edge off the night, no doctors, no jobs, yet within ten years the area was dense with ersatz housing. It had acquired a name, Spatters, that reflected the desultory randomness of its outlines: the whole stinking shantytown seemed to have dribbled like s.h.i.+t from the sky.

The suburb was beyond the reach of New Crobuzon's munic.i.p.ality. There was an unreliable alternative infrastructure: a selfappointed network of postal workers, sanitary engineers, even a kind of law. But these systems were inefficient and partial at best. For the most part, neither the militia nor anyone else went in to Spatters. The only visitors from outside were the regular trains appearing at the incongruously well-maintained Fell Stop Station, and the gangs of masked gunmen who appeared sometimes at night to terrorize and murder. The Spatters street-children were particularly vulnerable to the ferocious barbarism of the murder-squads.

The slum-dwellers of Dog Fenn and even Badside considered Spatters beneath their dignity. It was simply not part of the city, nothing but a strange little town that had grafted itself onto New Crobuzon without a by-your-leave. There was no money to entice industry, legal or illicit. The crimes in Spatters were nothing but small-scale acts of desperation and survival.

There was something else about Spatters, something that brought Isaac to visit its unwelcoming alleys. For the past thirty years, it had been New Crobuzon's garuda ghetto.

Lin watched the huge towerblocks of Ketch Heath. She could see tiny figures riding the updrafts that they created, swirling above them. Wyrmen, and maybe a couple of garuda. The cab was pa.s.sing under the skyrail that dipped gracefully out of the militia tower that loomed near to the blocks.

The cab pulled to.

"All right, guv, this is where I stop," said the driver.

Isaac and Lin disembarked. On one side of the cab was a row of neat white houses. Each was fronted with a small garden, most of which were a.s.siduously maintained. The street was lined with s.h.a.ggy banyan trees. Opposite the houses, on the other side of the cab, was a long thin park, a strip of greenery three hundred or so yards wide that sloped steeply down and away from the street. This thin slip of gra.s.s acted as a no-man's-land between the polite houses of Vaudois Hill inhabited by clerks and doctors and lawyers, and the crumbling chaos beyond the trees, at the bottom of the hill: Spatters.

"It's no f.u.c.king wonder Spatters isn't the most popular place, is it?" breathed Isaac. "Look, it's ruined the view for all these nice people up here . . ." He gave an evil grin.

In the distance, Lin could see that the edge of the hill was split with the Sink Line. The trains pa.s.sed through a chasm cut into the parkland of the hill's western flank. The red brick of Fell Stop Station loomed out over the quagmire of Spatters. In this corner of the city, the tracks were only fractionally above the level of the houses, but it did not take much architectural grandeur for the station to tower over the surrounding makes.h.i.+ft dwellings. Of all Spatters' buildings, only the refitted towerblock sh.e.l.ls were taller.

Lin felt Isaac nudge her. He pointed at one clutch of blocks, close to the railway.

"See that?" She nodded. "Look up top."

Lin followed his fingers. The bottom half of the big buildings looked deserted. From the sixth or seventh floor up, however, wooden boughs poked at odd angles out of crevices. The windows were covered with brown paper, unlike the empty sockets. And way up on the flat roofs, at nearly the same level as Lin and Isaac, little figures were visible.

Lin followed Isaac's gesture up into the air. She felt a jolt of excitement. Winged creatures were visible sporting in the sky.

"Those are garuda," Isaac said.

Lin and Isaac walked down the hill towards the railway lines, bearing slightly to their right to arrive at the garudas' looming makes.h.i.+ft eyries.

"Almost all the garuda in the city live in those four buildings. There probably aren't two thousand in the whole of New Crobuzon. That makes them about . . . uh . . . nought point f.u.c.king nought three per cent of the population . . ." Isaac grinned. "I've been doing my research, see?"

But they don't all all live here. What about Krakhleki? live here. What about Krakhleki?

"Oh sure, I mean, there are are garuda that get out. I taught one once, nice geezer. There's probably a couple in Dog Fenn, three or four in Murkside, six in Gross Coil. Jabber's Mound and Syriac each have a handful, I've heard. And once or twice a generation, someone like Krakhleki makes it big. I've never read his stuff, by the way. Is he any good?" Lin nodded. "Right, so you've got people like him, and others . . . you know, what's the name of that f.u.c.ker . . . the one in the Diverse Tendency . . . Shashjar, that's the one. They stick him in to prove the DTs are for garuda that get out. I taught one once, nice geezer. There's probably a couple in Dog Fenn, three or four in Murkside, six in Gross Coil. Jabber's Mound and Syriac each have a handful, I've heard. And once or twice a generation, someone like Krakhleki makes it big. I've never read his stuff, by the way. Is he any good?" Lin nodded. "Right, so you've got people like him, and others . . . you know, what's the name of that f.u.c.ker . . . the one in the Diverse Tendency . . . Shashjar, that's the one. They stick him in to prove the DTs are for all all xenians." Isaac made a rude noise. " 'Specially the rich ones." xenians." Isaac made a rude noise. " 'Specially the rich ones."

But most of them are here. And when you're here, it must be difficult to get out . . .

"I'd suppose so. Bit of an understatement, in fact . . ."

They crossed a brook and slowed as they approached the outlands of Spatters. Lin crossed her arms and shook her headbody.

What am I doing here? she signed sardonically. she signed sardonically.

"You're expanding your mind," said Isaac cheerfully. "Important to learn how other races live in our fair city."

He tugged at her arm until, mock-protesting, Lin allowed him to drag her out of the shade of the trees and into Spatters.

To get into Spatters, Isaac and Lin had to cross rickety bridges, planks thrown across the eight-foot ditch that separated the towns.h.i.+p from Vaudois Hill park. They walked in single file, their arms sometimes outstretched for balance.

Five feet below them, the trench was filled with a noisome gelatinous soup of s.h.i.+t and pollutants and acid rain. The surface was broken with bubbles of fell gas and bloated animal corpses. Here and there bobbed rusting tins and knots of fleshy tissue like tumours or aborted foetuses. The liquid undulated rather than rippled, contained by a thick surface tension so oily and strong that it would not break: the pebbles that fell from the bridge were swallowed without the slightest splash.

Even with one hand clapped over his mouth and nose against the stench, Isaac could not contain himself. Halfway across the plank he let out a bark of revulsion that turned into a retch. He controlled himself before he puked. To stagger on that bridge, to lose one's balance and fall, was too utterly vile a thought to consider.

The taste of the slurry in the air made Lin feel nearly as queasy as Isaac. By the time they stepped onto the other side of the wooden slats, both Lin's and Isaac's good humour had entirely worn off. They trudged in silence into the maze.

Lin found it easy to orient herself with such low buildings: the copse of blocks they sought was clearly visible just before the station. Sometimes she walked ahead of Isaac, sometimes he ahead of her. They picked their way over channels of sewage that ran between houses. They were unmoved. They were beyond disgust.

The inhabitants of Spatters came to stare.

Sour-faced men and women, and hundreds of children, all dressed in bizarre combinations of rescued clothes and sewn sackcloth. Little hands and fingers clutched at Lin as she pa.s.sed. She slapped at them, walked in front of Isaac. Voices all around them started murmuring, and then a clamouring for money started up. No one made any attempt to stop them.

Isaac and Lin trudged stolidly through the twisted streets, keeping the towerblocks in their sights. They trailed a crowd. As they grew closer, the shapes of the garuda fleeting through the air above became clear.

A fat man nearly as large as Isaac stepped out in front of them.