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.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
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 skyrails. 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.
“Big fucker comes downstairs flapping big horrible wings make your bonce woozy snapping big teeth and . . . and . . . all over claws and big fucking stinky tongue . . . and I . . . Mr. Lublub’s gawping in the looking-glass and then he turns to face it and goes . . . dopey . . . and I saw . . . me head went funny and when I woke up the thing’s stuck its tongue right in . . . in . . . Mr. Lub’s gob and slurpslurp noises going off in me head and I . . . I buggered off, I couldn’t do nothing, I swear . . . I’m scared . . .” Teafortwo began to cry like a two-year-old, dribbling snot and tears down his face.
When Lemuel Pigeon arrived, Teafortwo was still sobbing. No amount of cajoling or threatening or bribes could calm the wyrman down. Eventually he went to sleep, curled up in a quilt ruined with his mucus, exactly like an exhausted human baby.
“I’m here on false pretences, Isaac. The message I got was that it’d be worth my while to drop over to your gaff.” Lemuel looked at Isaac with a speculative air.
“Godsdammit, Lemuel, you fucking spiv,” exploded Isaac. “Is that what’s bothering you? Jabber and fuck, I’ll make sure you get yours, all right? Is that better? Now fucking listen to me . . . Someone has been attacked by something that hatched out of one of the grubs you obtained for me, and we need to stop the thing before it does someone else, and we need to know about it, so we need to track down whatever cove it was got it in the first place, and we need to do it sharpish. Are you with me, old son?”
Lemuel was quite unintimidated by this outburst.
“Look, you can’t damn well blame me . . .” he began, before Isaac interrupted with a howl of irritation.
“Devil’s Tail, Lemuel, no one’s blaming you, you cretin! Quite the opposite! What I’m saying is that you are by far too good a businessman not to keep careful records, and I need you to check ’em out. We both know everything goes through you . . . you’ve got to get me the name of whoever originally got the big fat caterpillar. The enormous one with really weird colours. You know?”
“Vaguely remember it, yes.”
“Well, that is good.” Isaac calmed a little. He ran his hands over his face and sighed enormously. “Lemuel, I need your help,” he said simply. “I’ll pay you . . . But I’m also begging. I really need you to help me here. Look.” He opened his eyes and glared at Lemuel. “The damn thing may have keeled over and died, right? Maybe it’s like a mayfly: one glorious day. Maybe Lub’ll wake up tomorrow happy as a sandboy. But maybe not. Now, I want to know: one—” he counted off on fat fingers “—how to snap Lublamai out of this; two, what this damn thing is—the one description we have is a little garbled.” He glanced at the wyrman sleeping in the corner. “And three, how we catch the fucker.”
Lemuel stared at him, his face immobile. Slowly and ostentatiously, he pulled a snuff-box from his pocket and took a sniff. Isaac’s fists clenched and unclenched.
“Fine, ’Zaac,” Lemuel said quietly, replacing his little jewelled box. He nodded slowly. “I’ll see what I can do. I’ll be in touch. But I’m not a charity, Isaac, I’m a businessman and you’re a customer. I get something for this. I’ll bill you, all right?”
Isaac nodded wearily. There was no rancour in Lemuel’s voice, no viciousness, no spite. He was simply stating the truth that underlay his bonhomie. Isaac knew that if it paid better not to uncover the purveyor of the peculiar grub, Lemuel would simply do that.
“Mayor.” Eliza Stem-Fulcher swaggered into the Lemquist Room. Rudgutter looked up at her questioningly. She threw a thin newspaper onto the table before him. “We’ve got a lead.”
Teafortwo left quickly when he woke, with David and Isaac trying to reassure
him that no one held him responsible. By the evening, a horrible kind of drab calm had arrived at the warehouse on Paddler Way.
David was spooning a thick compote of fruit purée into Lublamai’s mouth, massaging it down his throat. Isaac was pacing listlessly across the floor. He was hoping that Lin would return home, find the note he had pinned on her door last night and come to him. If it had not been in his writing, he reflected, she would have thought it was a bad joke. To have Isaac invite her to his laboratory-house was unprecedented. But he needed to see her, and he was worried that if he left, he would miss some vital change in Lublamai, or some nugget of indispensable information.
The door was pushed open. Isaac and David looked up sharply.
It was Yagharek.
Isaac was momentarily amazed. This was the first time Yagharek had appeared while David (and Lublamai, of course, although it hardly counted) were in the room. David gazed at the garuda huddling under the dirty blanket, the sweep of the false wings.
“Yag, old son,” said Isaac heavily. “Come in, meet David . . . We’ve had a bit of a disaster . . .” He trudged heavily towards the door.
Yagharek waited for him, hovering half in, half out of the entrance. He said nothing until Isaac was close enough to hear him whisper, a strange thin noise like a bird being strangled.
“I would not have come, Grimnebulin. I do not wish to be seen . . .”
Isaac lost patience quickly. He opened his mouth to speak but Yagharek continued.
“I have . . . heard things. I have sensed . . . there is a pall over this house. Neither you, nor either of your friends, has left this room all day.”
Isaac gave a short laugh.
“You’ve been waiting, haven’t you? Waiting till it was all clear, right? So you could maintain your precious anonymity . . .” He tensed, made an effort to calm himself. “Look, Yag, we’ve had something of a disaster and I really don’t have time or inclination to . . . to pussyfoot about you. I’m afraid our project’s on hold for a while . . .”
Yagharek sucked in his breath and cried out, faintly.
“You cannot,” he screeched quietly. “You cannot desert me . . .”
“Damn!” Isaac reached out and pulled Yagharek in through the door. “Now look!” He marched over to where Lublamai breathed raggedly and gazed and dribbled. He pushed Yagharek before him. He shoved hard, but not with violent pressure. Garuda were wiry and tight-muscled, stronger than they looked, but with their hollow bones and pared-down flesh they were not a match for a big man. But that was not the main reason why Isaac was holding back from exerting himself. The mood between him and Yagharek was testy, not poisonous. Isaac sensed that Yagharek half wanted to see the reason for the sudden tension in the warehouse, even if it meant breaking his ban on being seen by others.
Isaac pointed at Lublamai. David stared vaguely up at the garuda. Yagharek completely ignored him.
“The fucking caterpillar I showed you,” said Isaac, “turned into something that did this to my friend. Ever seen anything like that?”
Yagharek shook his head slowly.
“So you see,” said Isaac heavily, “I’m afraid that until I sort out what in the name of Jabber’s arse I’ve let loose over the city, and until I’ve brought Lublamai back from wherever he is, I’m afraid that the problems of flight and crisis engines, exciting as they are, are on something of a low burn for me.”
“You will let slip my shame . . .” hissed Yagharek quickly. Isaac interrupted him.
“David knows about your so-called shame, Yag!” he shouted. “And don’t look at me like that, that’s how I work, this is my colleague, that’s how come I’ve made fucking progress in your case . . .”
David was looking sharply at Isaac.
“What?” he hissed. “Crisis engines . . . ?”
Isaac shook his head irritatedly, as if a mosquito was in his ear.
“Making headway in crisis physics, that’s all. Tell you later.”
David nodded slowly, accepting that now was not the time to discuss this, but his bulging eyes betrayed his amazement. That’s all? they said.
Yagharek seemed to be twitching with nervousness, with a great bulge of misery that washed up through him.
“I . . . I need your help . . .” he began.
“Yeah, as does Lublamai here,” shouted Isaac, “and I’m afraid that counts for a damn sight more . . .” Then he softened slowly. “I’m not dropping you, Yag. I’ve no intention of doing that. But the thing is, I can’t carry on just now.” Isaac thought for a moment. “If you want to get this done as quick as possible, you could help . . . Don’t just fucking disappear. Stay the fuck here and help us sort this out. That way, we can get back, sharpish, to your problem.”
David looked askance at Isaac. Now his eyes said, Do you know what you’re doing? Seeing that, Isaac blustered, and rallied.
“You can sleep here, you can eat here . . . David won’t care, he doesn’t even live here, I’m the only one that does. Then when we hear anything, we can . . . well, we can maybe think of some use for you. If you know what I mean. You can help, Yagharek. That’d be damn useful. The quicker this gets sorted, the quicker we’re back on your programme. Understand?”
Yagharek was subdued. It took some minutes before he would speak, and then all he would do was nod and briefly say that yes, he would stay at the warehouse. It was clear that all he could think of was the research into flight. Isaac was exasperated, but forgiving. The excision, the punishment that had befallen Yagharek, had settled on his soul like lead chains. He was selfish, utterly, but he had some reason.
David fell asleep, exhausted and miserable. He slept in his chair that night. Isaac took over caring for Lublamai. The food had passed through him, and the first noisome duty was to clean up his shit.
Isaac bundled up the fouled clothes and shoved them into one of the warehouse’s boilers. He thought of Lin. He hoped she came to him soon.
He realized he was pining.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Things stirred in the night.
In the morning, in the small hours and again when the sun had risen, more idiot bodies were found. This time there were five. Two vagrants who hid under the bridges of Gross Coil. A baker walking home from work in Nigh Sump. A doctor in Vaudois Hill. A bargewoman out beyond Raven’s Gate. A spattering of attacks that disfigured the city without pattern. North; east; west; south. There were no safe boroughs.
Lin slept badly. She had been touched by Isaac’s note, to think of him crossing the city just to plant a piece of paper on her door, but she had also been concerned. There was a hysterical tone to the short paragraph, and the plea to come to the laboratory was so utterly out of character that it frightened her.
Nevertheless, she would have come immediately had she not returned to Aspic Hole late, too late to travel. She had not been working. The previous morning she had woken to find a note thrust under her door.
Pressing business necessitates the postponement of appointments until further notice. You will be contacted when resumption of duties is possible.
M.
Lin had pocketed the curt note and wandered to Kinken. She had resumed her melancholy contemplations. And then, with a curious sense of amazement, as if she was watching a performance of her own life and was surprised at the turn of events, she had walked north-west out of Kinken to Skulkford, and boarded the railway. She had taken the two stops north on the Sink Line, to be swallowed by the vast tarry maw of Perdido Street Station. There in the confusion and hissing steam of the enormous central concourse, where the five lines met like an enormous iron and wood star, she had changed trains for the Verso Line.
There had been a five-minute wait while the boiler was stoked in the cavern at the centre of the station. Enough time for Lin to look at herself in incredulity, to ask herself what in the name of Awesome Broodma she was doing. And perhaps in the name of other gods.
But she had not answered, had sat still while the train waited, then m
oved slowly, picking up speed and rattling in a regular rhythm, squeezing from one of the station’s pores. It wound to the north of the Spike, under two sets of skyrails, looking out over Cadnebar’s squat, barbarous circus. The prosperity and majesty of The Crow—the Senned Gallery, the Fuchsia House, Gargoyle Park—was riddled with squalor. Lin gazed into steaming rubbish tips as The Crow segued into Rim, saw the wide streets and stuccoed houses of that prosperous neighbourhood wind carefully past hidden, crumbling blocks where she knew the rats were running.
The train passed through Rim Station and plunged on over the fat grey ooze of the Tar, crossing the river barely fifteen feet to the north of Hadrach Bridge, until it picked its way distastefully over the ruinous roofscape of Creekside.
She had left the train at Low Falling Mud, at the western edge of the slum ghetto. It had not taken long to tread the rotting streets, past grey buildings that bulged unnaturally with sweating damp, past kin who eyed her and tasted her in the air and moved away, because her uptown perfume and strange clothes marked her out as one who had escaped. It had not taken her long to find her way back to her broodma’s house.
Lin had not come too close, had not wanted her taste to filter through the shattered windows and alert her broodma or her sister to her presence. In the growing heat, her scent was like a badge for other khepri, that she could not remove.
The sun had moved and heated the air and clouds, and still Lin had stood, some little way from her old home. It was unchanged. From within, from cracks in the walls and door, she could hear the skittering, the organic pistoning of little male khepri legs.
No one had emerged.
Passers-by had ejected chymical disgust at her, for coming back to crow, for spying on some unsuspecting household, but she had ignored them all.
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