Un Lun Dun

by China Miéville

  8

  Pins and Needles

  Deeba put her arm around her friend. Neither of them wanted to attract the attention of the strange market-goers. They sat quietly for a couple of minutes.

  “Ahem…”

  Cautiously, the two girls looked up. Standing before them was the boy—the boy who had scared off the trashpack. He eyed them with a look somewhere between sarcasm and concern.

  “I was just wondering…” he said slowly. “Is that yours?”

  He pointed near their feet, at an empty cardboard milk carton. Zanna and Deeba stared at it.

  The carton moved eagerly towards them, opening and closing its folded spout. Deeba and Zanna yelped and withdrew their feet. It was one of the pieces of rubbish that had chased them earlier.

  “I was going to kick it back into the maze,” he said. “But I thought maybe it was a pet…”

  “No,” Deeba said guardedly. “No, it’s not ours. We was…It was…”

  “It must have followed us,” said Zanna.

  “Righto,” the boy said, stuck his hands in his pockets, and whistled a tune for a second or two. He looked at them quizzically. “Well I’ll…” He hesitated. “Can I just ask…Are you okay?”

  He sat down beside them. “What’re your names, then? I’m Hemi. Pleased to meet you and all that.” He stuck out his hand. Zanna and Deeba looked at it suspiciously. Eventually they shook it and said their names. “So what’s up with you two then?” he said. “What’s happened?”

  “We don’t know what’s happened,” Zanna said.

  “We dunno where we are,” said Deeba. “We dunno what that is…” She pointed up into the sky.

  “We don’t know what’s going on,” Zanna finished.

  “Well…” the boy Hemi said slowly. “You two don’t know a lot, do you? But I might be able to help you. I can tell you where you are, for a start.” His voice dropped, and the girls eagerly leaned in close to hear him.

  “You’re…” he whispered slowly, “in…Un Lun Dun.”

  The girls waited for the words to make sense, but they didn’t. Hemi was grinning. “Un Lun Dun!” he repeated.

  “Un,” said Zanna. “Lun. Dun.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Un Lun Dun.”

  And suddenly the three sounds fell into a different shape, and Zanna said the name.

  “UnLondon.”

  “UnLondon?” Deeba said.

  Hemi nodded, and crept an inch closer.

  “UnLondon,” he said, and he reached for Zanna.

  “Hey!” A loud voice interrupted. Zanna, Deeba, and the boy jumped up. The milk carton squeaked out air and scuttled behind Deeba. There in front of them was the pincushion man, his needles winking in the light. “Don’t you dare!” the book-wearing fashion designer shouted. “Get out!”

  Hemi leapt up, made a rude noise, and sped away, ducking at astonishing speed between the legs of passersby, into the crowd and out of sight.

  “What you doing?” Zanna shouted. “He was helping us!”

  “Helping?” the man said. “Do you have any idea who that was? He’s one of them!”

  “One of who?”

  “A ghost!”

  Deeba and Zanna stared at him.

  “You heard me,” he said. “A ghost. He’s from Wraithtown, and…Did he make you get really close to him? I saw him trying to grab!”

  “Well…we couldn’t really hear him, so we was leaning in…” Deeba said.

  “Aha. I knew it. One more minute and he’d have possessed you! That’s what they want: they’re desperate for bodies. They’ll possess you soon as look at you. Sneaky little wisper.”

  “Possess me?”

  “Absolutely. Or you.” He nodded at Zanna. “Why do you think he was talking to you?”

  “But…he has a body,” said Zanna. “We shook his hand.”

  The man looked a little put-out.

  “Well, yes, technically he has a body, that one. If you want to be really precise about it, he’s a half-ghost. But don’t you be fooled by his whole ‘Flesh-and-bone, just like you’ act. He’ll steal your body just like the rest of his family.

  “It’s just as well I came looking for you,” the man said kindly. “You worried me back there. I suppose I can just understand someone not wanting to benefit from the astonishing opportunity of this new form of apparel, which literally clothes you in education…” Seeing their faces he cut this patter off with visible effort. “Sorry. Anyway. The point is you both looked so scared. I wanted to check you were alright.”

  Zanna stared into the crowd.

  “What is this place?” she said.

  “What do you mean?” the pin-haired man said. “It’s Rogueday! This is Rogueday Market, of course. You can’t seriously tell me you haven’t been here before? What’s that?” Before Zanna could stop him, he had reached out and taken the travelcard from her.

  “Give that back!” she shouted. The man’s eyes were growing wider and wider, and he gaped at the piece of card, and back at Zanna.

  “Oh my fizzy dog,” he said. “No wonder you’re confused. You’re not from here at all. You’re the Shwazzy!”

  There was an intake of breath from the little group of market-goers around them. Zanna and Deeba looked at each other, and at the people watching.

  Among the women and men in those unconvincing uniforms were odder figures still, like a woman who seemed made of metal, and someone wearing one of those old-fashioned diving suits with weighted boots and a big brass helmet, windowed with dark glass. Everyone was staring at Zanna.

  “Unstible’s boots,” someone said reverently. “I can’t believe it. The Shwazzy.”

  “Well,” Zanna said. “I don’t know much—”

  “Wait!” the pin-headed man said, and looked around. “We have to be careful. We need to take you somewhere safe. Just in case.” Some of the onlookers were nodding and glancing around. “I can’t believe you’re here! And…you brought a friend.” He nodded politely to Deeba. “But there’ll be time for all this later. Right now let’s get you out of here.

  “Skool,” he said, “you go check the schedule. You know where we’re going, and how.” The diver gave a laborious nod and headed off. “I’ll get the Shwazzy and her friend ready…if,” he added with sudden nervous politeness, “that’s alright with her. And everyone else…” He looked at the people listening. “Not a word about this. Shtum! This is our chance!” The onlookers nodded.

  “If you’ll follow me, we’ll get ready. It’ll be my honor to take you.” Zanna said nothing, but he continued: “You’re willing? That’s marvelous, really. We’ve not been introduced: you are the Shwazzy, and as I say it’s an honor.” He said the last phrase so quickly it was like one word: anazahsaytsanonna.

  “I’m Obaday Fing, the couturier. Of Obaday Fing Designs. Perhaps you’ve heard of me? Not the wearable books, I know, but perhaps…the edible cravat? No? The two-person trouser? Doesn’t ring a bell? Never mind, never mind. I’m at your service.”

  “This is Deeba,” said Zanna. “And I’m…”

  “The Shwazzy, absolutely,” the man said. “A pleasure. Now if you please, Shwazzy…I don’t want to alarm you, but you’ve already had a run-in with an attempted flesh-theft, and I’ll feel much happier if you stick with me.”

  From behind them was the clatter of the milk carton.

  “Go away,” Zanna told it, and pointed. The carton retreated a few centimeters. Air whistled from its spout. It sounded like whimpering.

  “Shwazzy, please!” Fing said, beckoning.

  “Oh alright,” Deeba said to the carton. She nodded at Zanna. “I’ll sort it. You can come,” she said to the rubbish. “But if you gang up with your friends again, you’re gone.” Deeba jerked her head in invitation, and the milk carton scampered after her, rolling over the cobbles.

  Behind them, the last of the little gathering dispersed. Several people watched Zanna go. They looked excited, and secretive, and very pleased.

  One ma
n was standing still. He was chubby and muscular, squeezed into painter’s dungarees, complete with streaks of paint. Deeba looked back, and he met her eyes for a moment, then looked back at Zanna, very thoughtfully.

  He disappeared into the crowd, moving fast.

  “What?” said Zanna, pulling Deeba to come.

  “Nothing,” said Deeba. “I just feel like someone’s watching us.”

  Watching you, she thought, and looked at her friend.

  9

  Location Location

  “I should’ve realized,” Obaday said, “that you’re arrivals, when I saw you talking to that ghost-boy. He hangs around, stealing, looking for strangers, but so far we’ve managed to get rid of him before he does anything terrible. You don’t want to make it into his phone book!”

  “What?” said Zanna.

  “In Wraithtown,” said Obaday. “They keep a list of all the dead. On both sides of the Odd!”

  “Our phones don’t work,” Deeba said. “They’re bust.”

  “You have phones? What in the abcity for? It’s too hard to train the insects. As far as I know there are about three working phones in UnLondon, each with a very carefully maintained hive, and all of them in Mr. Speaker’s Talklands.

  “No wonder you’re confused. When did you get here? You must have been briefed? No? Not briefed? Hmmmm…” He frowned. “Maybe the Prophs are planning on explaining details later.”

  “What Prophs?” Deeba said.

  “And here we are!” said Obaday Fing, waving at his stall.

  Obaday’s assistants looked up from their stitching. One or two had a few needles and pins wedged into their heads, in among plaits and ponytails. At the rear of the stall sat a figure writing at a huge sheet of paper. Where its head should be was a big glass jar full of black ink, into which it dipped its pen.

  “Simon Atramenti,” Obaday said. The inkwell-headed person waved with stained fingers and returned to its writing. “For clients who insist on bespoke copy.”

  The stall looked as if it was only about six feet deep, but when Obaday swept aside a curtain at the back there was a much larger tent-room beyond.

  It was silk-lined. There was a table and chairs, a cabinet and a stove, hammocks hanging from the ceiling. Plump pillows were everywhere.

  “Just my little office, just my little office,” Obaday said, sweeping off dust.

  “This is amazing,” said Zanna. “You’d never know this was here.”

  “How come there’s space?” said Deeba.

  “I beg your pardon?” Obaday said. “Oh, well, I stitched it myself. After all my years I’d be embarrassed if I hadn’t learnt to stitch a few wrinkles in space.” He looked expectant. He waited.

  Eventually Zanna said: “Um…That’s brilliant.” Obaday smiled, satisfied.

  “No, it’s nothing,” he said, waving his hands. “Really you embarrass me.”

  He picked things up and put them down, packing and unpacking a bag, talking all the time, a stream of odd phrases and non sequiturs so incomprehensible that they quickly stopped hearing it, except as a sort of amiable buzzing.

  “We have to go home,” Zanna said, interrupting Obaday’s spiel.

  Obaday frowned, not unkindly.

  “Home…? But you have things to do, Shwazzy.”

  “Please don’t call me that. I’m Zanna. And we really do have to go.”

  “We have to get back,” said Deeba. The little milk carton whined air at her miserable voice.

  “If you say so…But I’m afraid I’ve no idea how to get you back to, to what’s it called, to Lonn Donn.”

  Zanna and Deeba stared at each other. Seeing their faces, Obaday continued quickly. “But, but, but don’t worry,” he said. “The Propheseers’ll know what to do. We have to get you to them. They’ll help you back after…well, after you’ve done what’s needed.”

  “Propheseers?” said Zanna. “Let’s go, then.”

  “Of course—we’re just waiting for Skool with the necessary information. Traveling across UnLondon—well, it’s quite a thing to take on.” He disappeared behind a screen and flung his paper-and-print clothes one by one over the top. “Moby-Dick,” he said. “Even with small print, I have to wear too many undershirts.” He emerged, in a new suit of the same cut, but adorned with visibly larger letters. “The Other Side of the Mountain.” He smiled, flashing his cuff. “Considerably shorter.”

  “Zann,” said Deeba urgently. “I want to go home.”

  “Mr. Fing, please,” Zanna said. “You really have to help us get out of here.”

  Obaday Fing looked miserable.

  “I simply don’t know how,” he said at last. “I don’t know how you got here. I don’t know where you live. There are plenty of people who don’t believe in Lonn Donn at all. I’m truly sorry, Shwazzy…Zanna. All I can do is take you to those who can help. As fast as we can. Believe me, I want you to…get started ASAP.”

  “Get started?” said Zanna.

  “With what?” said Deeba.

  “The Propheseers’ll explain,” Obaday said.

  “No,” shouted Zanna. “Get started with what?”

  “Well,” said Obaday hurriedly, “with everything. We have to get you out of here. There are those working against you. Working for your enemy.”

  “My enemy?” said Zanna. “Who’s my enemy?”

  Before Obaday could respond, the curtain was pulled back and there stood Skool, the figure in the diving suit, tapping its wrist urgently.

  “Now?” Obaday said. “Already? Right, right, we’re coming, off we go.” He grabbed a few more things, hauled his bag over his shoulder, and ushered everyone out.

  “Who?” Zanna said.

  “What? Oh, honestly, Shwazzy, it’s really best you let those who know these things explain…”

  “What enemy?” The two girls stared at Obaday, and he faltered, and was momentarily still.

  “Smog,” he whispered. Then he cleared his throat and walked hurriedly on.

  10

  Perspective

  “What did you mean smog, Obaday?” Zanna said.

  The topic obviously made him very uncomfortable. Zanna and Deeba could make very little sense of what he said. “Hold your breath,” he said, and, “We shouldn’t talk about it,” and, “You got it once before, you can help us get it again.” “The Propheseers…” he said, and Deeba finished for him.

  “They’ll explain,” she said. “Right.” She and Zanna exchanged exasperated glances. It was obvious they would get nothing useful from Obaday, nor from the silent Skool.

  They passed people standing in front of walls, avidly reading graffiti.

  “They’re checking the headlines,” Obaday said.

  Most people looked human (if in an unusual range of colors), but a sizeable proportion did not. Deeba and Zanna saw bubble-eyes, and gills, and several different kinds of tails. The two girls stared when a bramble-bush walked past, squeezed into a suit, a tangle of blackberries, thorns, and leaves bursting out of its collar.

  There were no cars, but there were plenty of other vehicles. Some were carts tugged by unlikely animals, and many were pedal-powered. Not bicycles, though: the travelers perched on jerkily walking stilts, or at the front of long carriages like tin centipedes. One goggled rider traveled by in a machine like a herd of nine wheels.

  “Out of the way!” the driver yelled. “Noncycle coming through!”

  They passed curbside cafés, and open-fronted rooms full of old and odd-looking equipment.

  “There’s loads of empty houses,” said Zanna.

  “A few,” Obaday said. “Most aren’t empty, though: they’re emptish. Open access. For travelers, tribes, and mendicants. Temporary inhabitants. Now we’re in Varmin Way. This is Turpentine Road. This is Shatterjack Lane.” They were going too fast for Zanna and Deeba to do more than gain a few impressions.

  The streets were mostly red brick, like London terraces, but considerably more ramshackle, spindly and convoluted. Houses leane
d into each other, and stories piled up at complicated angles. Slate roofs lurched in all directions.

  Here and there where a house should be was something else instead.

  There was a fat, low tree, with open-fronted bedrooms, bathrooms, and kitchens perched in its branches. People were clearly visible in each chamber, brushing their teeth or kicking back their covers. Obaday took them past a house-sized fist, carved out of stone, with windows in its knuckles; and then the shell of a huge turtle, with a door in the neck hole, and a chimney poking out of its mottled top.

  Zanna and Deeba stopped to stare at a building with oddly bulging walls, in a patchwork of black, white, and gray bricks of varying sizes.

  “Oh gosh,” said Deeba. “It’s junk.”

  The entire three-floor building was mortared-together rubbish. There were fridges, a dishwasher or two, and hundreds of record players, old-fashioned cameras, telephones, and typewriters, with thick cement between them.

  There were four round windows like a ship’s portholes. Someone inside threw one open: they were the fronts of washing machines, embedded in the facade.

  “Shwazzy!” Obaday called. “Shwazzy…I mean, Zanna. You’ll have time to stare at moil houses later.” The girls followed him, and the milk carton followed them.

  “How long will it take to get there?” Zanna said. “Is it dangerous?”

  “Is it dangerous? Hmm. Well, define ‘dangerous.’ Is a knife ‘dangerous’? Is Russian roulette ‘dangerous’? Is arsenic ‘dangerous’?” He did the little finger-thing to show quotation marks, tickling the air. “It depends on your perspective.”

  The girls looked at each other in alarm.

  “Uh…” said Zanna.

  “I don’t think it does depend on perspective,” said Deeba. “I think that’s all definitely dangerous. I don’t think you need none of this…” She did the quote motion.