Embassytown Part 24

"Yes," said Bren.

I played another. Dub and Rooftop were swaying, recovering from EzCal's first words; jerked giddily they were caught up again. Rooftop shouted at what was, I realised, EzCal's descriptions of trees.

Our self-defeaned Ariekes kept waving at the others, and Spanish and the others mimicked it, their own fanwings opening and closing, and in the middle of them all Dub and Rooftop lost themselves. I kept the sound going. "[image]," said Spanish, and I could think how horrible the sight of that powerless staggering must be to it, reminding it what it had been, making it watch its friends suffering in compulsion, but I wouldn't cease.

As the first of the Absurd crested our rise and came towards us, weapons up, first one, then more, then many, hesitated. I pressed another chip and heard Bren say yes yes.

Every army has one soldier at its very front. A big Ariekes, its Cut- and Turn-mouths open as if it were howling, picking its feet high as it came for us. I was holding out a datchip as if it might stop it. Its eyes spread in all directions, one for each of us, watching Spanish, and the Ariekes that had been our captive jerking its arms as the Absurd did to each other, and Dub and Rooftop stumbling. If I was thinking anything I was praying. It was very close.

Abruptly the soldier stopped. It lowered its sputtering mace. It involuted its eyes, opened them again and watched watched us. I was still playing EzCal's voice. It wasn't the only motionless one, now. As if I were merciless, I made Dub and Rooftop dance their addiction. The Absurd gripped each other, gestured or stood still, watching. us. I was still playing EzCal's voice. It wasn't the only motionless one, now. As if I were merciless, I made Dub and Rooftop dance their addiction. The Absurd gripped each other, gestured or stood still, watching.

"Don't stop," said Bren.

"[image]," said Spanish, and Bren said again, "Don't."

"What . . . ?" said Sib.

"What is it?" said Yl.

The army of hopeless and enraged had been driven to murder by their memories of addiction, and the sight of their compatriots made craven to the words of an interloper species. That degradation was the horizon of their despair. I'd made them see the motions of their ex-selves hearing their G.o.d-drug- there was no mistaking that tarantella-but that other Ariekei had fanwings unfurled, could hear, but were unaffected.

There wasn't supposed to be such a thing as uncertainty in the minds of the Absurd. Its sudden arrival arrested them. Our ex-captive waved its giftwing and its stump. Stop Stop, it was saying, and many in the army that faced us knew that it was saying so, and were stunned to know that they knew it.

Poor Rooftop, I thought, poor Dub. Ariekene dust coiled around me and I blinked. Thank G.o.d they never learnt to lie. We'd needed real addicts, to prove that the others were free, and the rage of the Absurd therefore misdirected. I kept Dub and Rooftop moving. I made them sick on G.o.d-drug. Spanish Dancer watched them, fanned its fanwing. I was shouting.

INFORMATION MOVED desperately slowly among the Absurd- even their quickest thinkers still had only a tenuous understanding that they desperately slowly among the Absurd- even their quickest thinkers still had only a tenuous understanding that they could could transmit information. What they said to each other at first with their waving and upheld limbs was simple: transmit information. What they said to each other at first with their waving and upheld limbs was simple: Don't attack Don't attack. Following that: Something is happening. Something is happening.

The information was dis...o...b..bulated with distance, moving backwards through the rank. At the front, gestures got close to: They can hear but are not addicted. They can hear but are not addicted. Farther back, ranks of the Absurd told those behind them simply: Farther back, ranks of the Absurd told those behind them simply: Stop. Stop.

"[image]," said Spanish. Our Deaf went to the front of the army, and Spanish went with it. With the Absurd generals watching, the two of them-ostentatiously, in wing signs and sigils sc.r.a.ped in the earth, ideograms that startled me-started to talk.

THERE WERE MANY many hours, two days and nights of frustration and silences, while the army waited. Hesitated. Individuals kept coming up from the ranks to see what was happening. Every one that did was astonished: unaddicted Ariekei; Terre waiting respectfully; the process of slow dawning between hearing and Absurd, as we still questionably called them; scrawls in dirt. many hours, two days and nights of frustration and silences, while the army waited. Hesitated. Individuals kept coming up from the ranks to see what was happening. Every one that did was astonished: unaddicted Ariekei; Terre waiting respectfully; the process of slow dawning between hearing and Absurd, as we still questionably called them; scrawls in dirt.

Those with a little knowledge became agents of patience among the others. We could see their influence, by whatever gestural persuasions, when, toward the end of the second day, human refugees approached from the army's flank, easily killable, but the fanwingless didn't a.s.sault them.

The Terre must have realised that the Absurd had stopped, wondered at the strange calm and come to find its source, and the Languageless had let them. The refugees set up camp a way away from us, and watched.

It took a time before the boundary of comprehension between Absurd and[image] 's group, the New Hearing, was more fully breached, but nothing like so long as I'd once have expected. We weren't teaching the deafened to communicate: we were showing them they already could, and did. It wasn't incremental but revelatory; and revelations, though hard-won, are viral. 's group, the New Hearing, was more fully breached, but nothing like so long as I'd once have expected. We weren't teaching the deafened to communicate: we were showing them they already could, and did. It wasn't incremental but revelatory; and revelations, though hard-won, are viral.

"We need EzCal here," I said.

"They won't come if they know what's happened," Bren said. "If they know that they've lost."

Even if it means the end of the war? But I knew he was right. "Well then we can't tell them the truth. We see any vespcams we smash them. They can't know what's happened." But I knew he was right. "Well then we can't tell them the truth. We see any vespcams we smash them. They can't know what's happened."

TOWELLER AND B AND BAPTIST understood the mission we gave them. They wouldn't have done a few days before. They returned to the city in a flyer with the Absurd. understood the mission we gave them. They wouldn't have done a few days before. They returned to the city in a flyer with the Absurd.

"They know what they have to do?" I said to Spanish Dancer.

"[image]." They'd sneak back in the wounded s.h.i.+p, take on the roles of loyal addict-soldiers, bringing news of a breakthrough. They'd tell EzCal that the Absurd had stopped, were just waiting, and that the G.o.d-drug and their entourage must come. It couldn't occur to EzCal that they were being lied to. That was what we were relying on. How could it? They would, after all, hear it from Ariekei, in what they would think was Language. Say it like a Host.

"They know what to do when EzCal speaks to them?"

"[image]." They knew to seem as if it swept them over.

"They know to ask for them to speak, if too long goes by without?"

"[image]." They knew to mimic the addiction. They knew what they had to do.

The two different tribes of post-Language Ariekei shared symbols. The human refugees made no attempt to come closer. "Did we do it?" I said.

Surrounded by semiosis, Dub at last juddered and abruptly achieved change and withdrawal, apropos of nothing I saw, gasping and speaking newly. Its companions watched its unexpected transcendence or fall. Rooftop, though, couldn't reach it. It dosed itself with the last of the datchips. It was the only addict left among us.

I don't know what the parameters of friends.h.i.+p were among the Ariekei, but I think that they must all have been sad. And Rooftop,[image] as its name was, must have been lonely. It watched the scratch-and-gesture conversations around it, and I thought that being surrounded by the changed must be, for it, like a mild h.e.l.l. as its name was, must have been lonely. It watched the scratch-and-gesture conversations around it, and I thought that being surrounded by the changed must be, for it, like a mild h.e.l.l. You did save us You did save us, I thought at it. Without you we'd have died. Without you we'd have died. As if that could comfort it. As if that could comfort it.

EVERY DAY Spanish told me of the progress. When I consider what it was that actually happened, what the Absurd and the New Hearing achieved, it took no time at all. I don't know how many days of camping among these silent discussions it had been when I realised that there were cams watching us, eddying nervously in the wind. But I knew we were past ready. Spanish told me of the progress. When I consider what it was that actually happened, what the Absurd and the New Hearing achieved, it took no time at all. I don't know how many days of camping among these silent discussions it had been when I realised that there were cams watching us, eddying nervously in the wind. But I knew we were past ready.

"Jesus," I said, and pointed them out to Bren. "Christ Pharotekton." I stood below the cams, gesturing at them like newly expressive Ariekei, beckoning them.

They were scouts from a school around EzCal's s.h.i.+p. It couldn't be far: they'd come, following the directions and promises of Toweller and Baptist. Some vespcams seemed to want to shy away; others focused on us. It was too late for the G.o.d-drug to turn back now, block transmissions, pretend ignorance, even if they understood what they were seeing. The feeds from those little lenses were being watched not only in the oncoming s.h.i.+p, but by thousands of Emba.s.sytowners.

"Listen," I shouted, and was aware of many Ariekene eyes on me. The lenses scudded, anxious midges, came a little lower. "Listen to me," I said and grit my teeth in the wind. "Listen to me me."

"They must've been wondering what the delay was," Bren said. "What was keeping the Absurd. How long have they been waiting? Hiding, waiting to die, wondering what's the hold-up."

"Listen," I said. "Get them here. Get EzCal here now. Get EzCal here now." I pointed at Spanish Dancer, at the fanwingless to which it spoke, and first Spanish, then one by one all the hundreds of Absurd, pointed at me. The cams buzzed, changing positions, and I kept my eyes on one fixed point, as if the little swarm were one ent.i.ty into whose eye I stared. "Get them here now. EzCal . . . Can you see me, EzCal?" I jabbed my hand. "Cal, get here now and bring your f.u.c.king sidekick with you.

"You get to live, so spread the word. Emba.s.sytown, can you hear me? You get to live. You get to live. But you better get here and find out what you have to do, EzCal. Because there are some But you better get here and find out what you have to do, EzCal. Because there are some conditions conditions."

29.

I'LL GIVE E EZCAL THIS THIS. When they didn't speak, when they stood to look out over the ridge down kilometres of country and the camp-town of the Absurd, they looked epic. They didn't deserve it.

They'd come to affect baroque: perhaps it was a comfort to some Emba.s.sytowners. There were trims of glitter on Cal's clothes, a crest on his aeoli mask. Even Ez wore purple.

In silence their failings were trans.m.u.ted, or camouflaged at least. Cal's sneer pa.s.sed for regal: Ez's sulking a thoughtful reserve. They had a small entourage: people who had recently been my colleagues. Some greeted me and Bren when their flier landed. Simmon shook my hand. Southel had come, and MagDa. I couldn't describe their expressions. Wyatt was with them, still guarded, it seemed, but consulted, great operator, prisoner-vizier. He didn't meet my eye. Baptist and Toweller stepped down, back from Emba.s.sytown, greeted their companions. Greeted me. The Emba.s.sytowners watched them, in what must have been great shock. This journey hadn't turned out as expected.

The officers who'd come had weapons. I know that if the situation had been a little different, EzCal might have tried to have them kill us, as they'd tried to kill us when we travelled. Now, though, the remnants of the Staff in their pointless retinue and the officers and even JasMin, who were there, wouldn't let them. By now everyone in Emba.s.sytown had seen the incoming army, and my transmission, and everyone knew that we had stopped them. All Cal had for a last few hours was the pretence that he ruled.

Those Terre refugees had come closer day on day: they were mingling with us now, though mostly all they did was watch our interactions with the Absurd. Ez looked into the sky, and back across the distance toward Emba.s.sytown.

Much later I'd hear stories of his actions during my travels: how he'd contrived to test Cal's patience; the plans for what could only be considered a coup, which Cal had crushed more in contempt than anger. Ez eyed us. I could see him calculating. Jesus do you never stop? Jesus do you never stop? I thought. I didn't give a s.h.i.+t about his story. To Emba.s.sytown and the Languageless, Ez and Cal's squabbles were vastly less important than that they were EzCal. I thought. I didn't give a s.h.i.+t about his story. To Emba.s.sytown and the Languageless, Ez and Cal's squabbles were vastly less important than that they were EzCal.

I stood with delegates from the Absurd army, twenty or thirty thrown up from the ranks. "So it's you I'm talking to, is it, Avice Benner Cho?" Cal said coolly. "You speak for . . ." He indicated the fanwingless closest to me, our erstwhile captive.

"Theuth," I said. "It goes by Theuth."

"What do you mean 'it goes by Theuth,'" he said. "It doesn't go by anything. . . ."

"We call it Theuth," I said. "So that's what it goes by. I'll show you how to write that down. Or better, Theuth will." call it Theuth," I said. "So that's what it goes by. I'll show you how to write that down. Or better, Theuth will."

BAD ENOUGH to be defeated, isn't it? Even now you'd try to take us out, Cal: me, Bren, the rest of us. Because the way we saved Emba.s.sytown means the end of your reign, as it has, look, ended; and even though your whole d.a.m.n prefecture was a function of despair and collapse, you'd rather lose it on your terms than be saved on ours. That was what I wanted to say. to be defeated, isn't it? Even now you'd try to take us out, Cal: me, Bren, the rest of us. Because the way we saved Emba.s.sytown means the end of your reign, as it has, look, ended; and even though your whole d.a.m.n prefecture was a function of despair and collapse, you'd rather lose it on your terms than be saved on ours. That was what I wanted to say.

There were Absurd with Theuth and Spanish, those most adept at the generation of the ideogrammatic script they were inventing, the most intuitive at the reading and performing of gestures. It wasn't a stable group. Even a few brave Ariekene addicts had arrived, too, come all the way from the city subsisting on pilfered datchips, to see the historic agreement, the change. Rooftop was there, playing its own sound files to itself in sadness. Human runaways squatted on overlooking ledges coloured with Ariekene mottled moulds, and watched the negotiations. They came and went as they wanted.

Cal, perhaps Ez too, tried to depict what was happening as protracted discussion. Really it was just a slow process of explaining facts, and receiving orders, in a nascent script. What took days was making sure the Absurd understood, and understanding what they wanted us to do about it.

You've no authority, I could have said to Cal. This is a surrender. You'd love a bit of pomp: that way in later years you might invoke end-of-empire ghosts. But you're just here because I told the Absurd you were the one they'd have to tell what to do. And the humans watching, the refugees scowling under their cowls, are going to remember how it's obvious that you don't know what's happening. You're doing a lot of hanging around hanging around during this particular change of epoch, because you're only a detail. during this particular change of epoch, because you're only a detail.

CAMS WENT EVERYWHERE. There were a proliferation of independent home-rigged kits, or those hijacked or gone rogue and uploading their feeds to whatever frequencies they could. Emba.s.sytown was watching on the other side of all the lenses.

At night the Ariekei surrounded my party. We asked them to: I still wasn't certain EzCal wouldn't attempt revenge.

"What's going to happen?" MagDa said. They looked at me with wariness and respect.

"It'll be different," I said, "but we will be here. Now they know they can be cured it changes everything. How is it in the city? And in Emba.s.sytown?"

Panic and expectancy. Among the Ariekei it was still mostly confusion. There was fighting between factions-they'd seemed united under EzCal's proxy[image] , and obeyed EzCal's orders, but now they fought for reasons difficult to make sense of. , and obeyed EzCal's orders, but now they fought for reasons difficult to make sense of.

"We'll-they'll-do everything they can to spread this," I said. "No more fixes necessary. We're trying to work together. Theuth mostly speaks for the Languageless now. Spanish is talking to us-to YlSib, obviously, but it can even . . ." MagDa hadn't seen Spanish and me in the evenings: talking, haltingly. "But I have to tell you something," I said to her quietly. "I've heard how people are describing what this is, and it's wrong. There is no cure. Spanish and the others . . . they might not be addicted anymore but they're not cured cured: they're changed. That's what this is. I know it might sound the same, but do you understand that they can't speak Language, anymore, MagDa? Anymore than you ever could."

IT WAS A MORNING, very cloudless. In the lower lands around me, among the filamented undergrowth of the planet, I knew there were agents of script, disseminating the new skill, the concept of it, among the Absurd. Already there were deviant forms from those first suggested, dissident renditions of ideograms, specialist vocabulary created by the semiogenesis of scuff-and-point.

It wouldn't be long before some Ariekene reader reproduced the ground-scratch writing in stain, on something they could hand over, rather than trying to remember and replicate it. Maybe we'd show them how. I imagined a pen held in a giftwing.

The leading cadre of the Absurd stood still. The Emba.s.sy-town entourage were as smart as they could manage in these circ.u.mstances. Various of the human refugees were watching. Theuth and Spanish stood close to me, looking at the cams.

Spanish attracted my attention with its giftwing. "[image]" It spoke to me softly. I hesitated and it spoke again. "[image]"

EzCal faced me. They looked like kings again. Ez's face was blank: Cal's was swollen with anger.

"Listen. Do you understand?" All the Emba.s.sytowners could hear me easily, but it was EzCal I was speaking to. "Do you understand how it's going to be?

"The Absurd are coming back to the city, and so are we. We'll set things up together. They'll have some ideas. I tell you, if I were Kora-Saygiss, your little quisling, I'd be careful. It was smart of you not to let it come. We'll work out the details. We'll be there, in Emba.s.sytown."

Until the relief. Everything's different, forever, I thought. I glanced at my notes. "They were going to kill us because we were the source of G.o.d-drugs. They knew it was too late for them, they were lost, but they were going to make a totally new start for those after them if they got rid of the problem. Us. You understand how selfless they were? It wouldn't help them them. It was for their kids. This generation would either be deafened, dead or dying in withdrawal.

"But now they know the addicted can be cured." I ignored MagDa's stares and pointed at Spanish: it pointed back at me. "And if they can be cured then we're an irrelevance. That is why we get to live. See? But they have to be be cured. That's the condition. Otherwise we're still a sickness. And it takes time to cure oratees." I gestured at Rooftop, still untouched by metaphor. Everyone looked at it. It looked back. "And there's plenty of them. So your job is to keep them going in the meantime, EzCal, till they don't need you anymore. Without you to tide them, the addicted'll start to die. Too quick to be cured, or even deafened. So you have to keep them alive." cured. That's the condition. Otherwise we're still a sickness. And it takes time to cure oratees." I gestured at Rooftop, still untouched by metaphor. Everyone looked at it. It looked back. "And there's plenty of them. So your job is to keep them going in the meantime, EzCal, till they don't need you anymore. Without you to tide them, the addicted'll start to die. Too quick to be cured, or even deafened. So you have to keep them alive."

"[image]," Spanish said. There were gasps from all the humans, who'd never heard it speak its doubled Anglo-Ubiq. Spanish was explaining again why the Absurd would have killed us all and mutilated their compatriots, and why they would now let us live. The Ariekei loved the Ariekei. That verb of ours was the only one that came close. It wasn't flawless, but that's in the way of translation. It was as much a truth as a lie. The New Hearing and the Absurd loved the addicted, and would cure them one of the two ways out, induct them into one group or the other.

"None of you have been amba.s.sadors for a long time," I said. "Who've you been speaking for but yourselves? And now you're not a G.o.d or a fix or a functionary, EzCal-you're a factory. The Ariekei have a need: you fulfil it. And believe me, the content'll be policed." Ez's face didn't move. Cal's twisted. No chance to issue orders that could, literally, not be disobeyed. "The city'll be full of Absurd. So if you try to stir things, put instructions in what you say, even restart the war, they'll stop you. If we're too much trouble to bother with, we're gone. They don't want to take the fanwings of all the addicted, deafen every single adult Ariekei in their cycle, now there's another way: but they will if they think they have to. Do you see?"

There's nothing else for you to do, I thought. You have no choice. Those officers, the ones you brought with you, will hold weapons to your heads and demand you speak Language if necessary. And I'll be with them. Spanish and the Absurd would spread the two cures. Recourse to the knife wasn't the existential catastrophe it had been for all those here, who'd thought it ended thought. It would never be relished, but for those who couldn't get clean, it might be considered.

Every day, out of love for their afflicted fellows, the Ariekei would make EzCal speak. We were a temporary necessity. Cal looked so stricken I almost felt pity. It won't be so bad It won't be so bad. There were many ways we might live, until the s.h.i.+p came.

"Do you understand?" I said, to Cal, to EzCal, and to everyone listening, on the plateau and in Emba.s.sytown. I loved the sound of my voice that day. "You see why we're even alive? You have a job to do."

"[image]," Spanish Dancer said. Somewhere there was a series of human gasps, and I heard someone say, "No."

Spanish spread its eye-coral. Ez looked up, Cal turned.

A figure came at us from higher on the hill. A dark-cloaked man. He was followed by a few frantic refugees, shouting. His cape gusted. Curious Absurd parted for him, watching what he was doing, and I shouted no no but of course they didn't hear. I gesticulated for them to close ranks, but they were new to Terre gestures, and I didn't have time to make them understand. but of course they didn't hear. I gesticulated for them to close ranks, but they were new to Terre gestures, and I didn't have time to make them understand.

The man pulled out a weapon. Through his stained old aeoli I could see it was Scile.

MY HUSBAND AIMED a fat pistol at me. We were all too slow to stop him. a fat pistol at me. We were all too slow to stop him.

Even as he came I stared and as I tried to think how to stop what he was going to do, somewhere below that I was working out where he'd gone, and how, and why, and what he was doing now. I stared at the nasty pouting mouth of the gun.

He changed his aim as he came, pointing at Bren and Spanish Dancer. I tried to push the Ariekes away, but Scile wasn't aiming at it now but at Ez, and then at Cal, and Cal began to turn his eyes to me. Scile fired. Calls and screaming started in Terre and Ariekene voices, as in a plume of blood where energy took and opened him, Cal fell away, staring at me, and died.

Part Nine

THE RELIEF.

30.

THIS IS WHAT[image] said. said.

It was in a plaza in the city, a big square made bigger by cajoling the buildings. I remember it very well. Bren stood by me and whispered a translation but I could make almost perfect sense of it all.

I remember the weather, the houses, the air and the crowd of Ariekei. Thousands, addicts jostling to the edges of the opening. Some must have expected EzCal, wanted their G.o.d-drug fix. This is what Spanish Dancer said.

Before the humans came we didn't speak so much of certain things. We were grown into Language. After history we made city and machines and gave them names. We didn't speak so much of certain things. Language spoke us. The words that wanted to be city and machines had us speak them so they could be.When the humans came they had no names, and we made new words so they would have places in the world. They didn't do as other things do. We spoke them into Language. Language took them in.We were like hunters. We were like plants eating light. The humans made their town in our town like a star in a circle. They made their place like a filament in a flower. We spoke the name of their place, but we know it had another name, sitting in the city like an organ in a body, like a tongue in a mouth.Before the humans came we didn't speak so much because we were like this one, who years ago was the girl who was hurt in darkness and ate what was given to her. We were like her. You decide why we were like her and why we were not like her. Why she's like herself or is not. We've been like all things; we left the city during the drugtime and speak more now.Before the humans came we didn't speak. We've been like countless things, we've been like all things, we've been like the animals over Emba.s.sytown in the direction of which I raise my giftwing, which is a speaking you'll come to understand. We didn't speak, we were mute, we only dropped the stones we mentioned out of our mouths, opened our mouths and had the birds we described fly out, we were vectors, we were the birds eating in mindlessness, we were the girl in darkness, only knowing it when we weren't anymore.We speak now or I do, and others do. You've never spoken before. You will. You'll be able to say how the city is a pit and a hill and a standard and an animal that hunts and a vessel on the sea and the sea and how we are fish in it, not like the man who swims weekly with fish but the fish with which he swims, the water, the pool. I love you, you light me, warm me, you are suns.You have never spoken before.

That was what Spanish Dancer said to its gathered people. It said more. It was much less clumsy with them than I'd been when I changed it: it understood much better the psyches it wanted to alter, and its words were surgery.