Perdido Street Station Part 4

"Then you win, mate, because I know s.h.i.t about your place," said Isaac despondently. There was a silence. Isaac looked back up at Yagharek.

"You still haven't told me why you're here."

Yagharek turned away and looked out of the window. Barges floated aimlessly below.

It was difficult to discern emotion in Yagharek's sc.r.a.ping voice, but Isaac thought he could hear disgust.

"I have crawled like vermin from hole to hole for a fortnight. I have sought journals and gossip and information, and it led me to Brock Marsh. And in Brock Marsh it led me to you. The question that led me has been: 'Who can change the powers of material?' 'Grimnebulin, Grimnebulin,' everyone says. 'If you have gold,' they say, 'he is yours, or if you have no gold but you interest him, or if you bore him but he pities you, or if a whim takes him.' They say you are a man who knows the secrets of matter, Grimnebulin."

Yagharek looked directly at him.

"I have some gold. I will interest you. Pity me. I beg you to help me."

"Tell me what you need," said Isaac.

Yagharek looked away from him again.

"Perhaps you have flown in a balloon, Grimnebulin. Looked down at roofs, at the earth. I grew up hunting from the skies. Garuda are a hunting people. We take our bows and spears and long whips and we scour the air of birds, the ground of prey. It is what makes us garuda. My feet are not built to walk your floors, but to close around small bodies and tear them apart. To grip dry trees and rock pillars between the earth and the sun."

Yagharek spoke like a poet. His speech was halting, but his language was that of the epics and histories he had read, the curious stilted oration of someone who has learnt a language from old books.

"Flight is not a luxury. It is what makes me garuda. My skin crawls when I look up at roofs that trap me. I want to look down at this city before I leave it, Grimnebulin. I want to fly, not once, but whenever I will.

"I want you to give me back flight."

Yagharek unclipped his cloak and threw it away across the floor. He stared at Isaac with shame and defiance. Isaac gasped.

Yagharek had no wings.

Strapped across his back was an intricate frame of wooden struts and leather straps that bobbed idiotically behind him as he turned. Two great carved planks sprouted from a kind of leather jerkin below his shoulders, jutting way above his head, where they hinged and dangled down to his knees. They mimicked wingbones. There was no skin or feathers or cloth or leather stretched between them, they were no kind of gliding apparatus. They were only a disguise, a trick, a prop on which to drape Yagharek's incongruous cloak, to make it seem as if he had wings.

Isaac reached out for them. Yagharek stiffened, then steeled himself and let Isaac touch them.

Isaac shook his head in astonishment. He caught a glimpse of ragged scar tissue on Yagharek's back, until the garuda turned abruptly to face him.

"Why?" breathed Isaac.

Yagharek's face creased slowly as he screwed up his eyes. A thin, utterly human moan started from him, and it grew and grew until it became a bird of prey's melancholy war-cry, loud and monotonous and miserable and lonely. Isaac gazed on in alarm as the cry became a barely comprehensible shout.

"Because this is my shame shame!" screamed Yagharek. He was silent for a moment, then he spoke quietly again.

"This is my shame."

He unclipped the uncomfortable-looking bulk of wood from behind him, and it fell with a flat clatter to the floor.

He was nude to the waist. His body was thin and fine and tight, with a healthy emaciation. Without the looming bulk of his fake wings behind him, he looked small and vulnerable.

He turned slowly, and Isaac caught his breath as the scars he had glimpsed were brought into view.

Two long trenches of flesh on Yagharek's shoulderblades were twisted and red with tissue that looked as if it were boiling. Slice marks spread like small veins from the main eructations of ugly healing. The strips of ruined flesh on either side of his back were a foot and a half long, and perhaps four inches at their widest point. Isaac's face wrinkled in empathy: the torn holes were criss-crossed with rough, curving slice marks, and Isaac realized that the wings had been sawed sawed from Yagharek's back. No single, sudden cut but a long, drawn-out torturous disfigurement. Isaac winced. from Yagharek's back. No single, sudden cut but a long, drawn-out torturous disfigurement. Isaac winced.

Thinly hidden k.n.o.bs of bone shifted and flexed; muscles stretched, grotesquely visible.

"Who did this?" breathed Isaac. The stories were right, The stories were right, he thought. he thought. The Cymek is a savage, savage land. The Cymek is a savage, savage land.

There was a long silence before Yagharek responded.

"I...I did this."

At first Isaac thought he had misunderstood.

"What do you mean? How the f.u.c.k could you...?"

"I brought this onto me." Yagharek was shouting. "This is justice. It is I who did this."

"This is a f.u.c.king punishment? G.o.ds.h.i.t, f.u.c.k, what could...what did you do?"

"Do you judge garuda justice, Grimnebulin? I cannot hear that without thinking of the Remade..."

"Don't try to turn it round! You're absolutely right, I've no stomach for the law in this city...I'm just trying to understand what happened to you..."

Yagharek sighed, with a shockingly human slump of the shoulders. When he spoke, it was quiet and pained, a duty that he resented.

"I was too abstract. I was not worthy of respect. There...was a madness...I was mad. I committed a heinous act, a heinous act..." His words broke down into avian moans.

"What did you do?" Isaac steeled himself to hear of some atrocity.

"This language cannot express my crime. In my tongue..." Yagharek stopped for a moment. "I will try to translate. In my tongue they said...they were right...I was guilty of choice-theft...choice-theft in the second degree...with utter disrespect."

Yagharek was gazing back at the window. He held his head high, but he would not meet Isaac's eyes.

"That is why they deemed me Too Too Abstract. That is why I am not worthy of respect. That is who I am now. I am no longer Concrete Individual and Respected Yagharek. He is gone. I told you my name, and my name-t.i.tle. I am Too Too Abstract Yagharek Not To Be Respected. That is who I will always be, and I will be true enough to tell you."

Isaac shook his head as Yagharek sat slowly on the edge of Isaac's bed. He cut a forlorn figure. Isaac stared at him for a long time before speaking.

"I have to tell you..." said Isaac. "I don't really...uh...Plenty of my clients are...not entirely on the right side of the law, shall we say? Now, I'm not going to pretend that I even slightly understand what you did, but as far as I'm concerned it's not my business. Like you said, there's no words for your crime in this city: I don't think I could ever understand what it was you'd done wrong." Isaac spoke slowly and seriously, but his mind was already racing away. He began to speak with more animation.

"And your problem...is interesting." Representations of forces and lines of power, of femtomorphic resonances and energy fields were beginning to leap into his consciousness. "It's easy enough to get you into into the air. Balloons, force manipulation and whatnot. Even easy to get you up there more than once. But to get you up there the air. Balloons, force manipulation and whatnot. Even easy to get you up there more than once. But to get you up there whenever you want it whenever you want it, under your own steam own steam...which is what you're after, yes?" Yagharek nodded. Isaac stroked his chin.

"G.o.dspit...! Yes...now that is a much more...interesting conundrum."

Isaac was beginning to retreat into his computations. One prosaic part of his mind recalled that he had no appointments for some time, and that meant he could immerse himself in research for a little while. Another pragmatic level did its job, evaluating the importance and urgency of his outstanding work. A couple of p.i.s.s-easy a.n.a.lyses of compounds that he could put off more or less indefinitely; a half-promise to synthesize an elixir or two-easy to get out of...apart from that, it was only his own research into vodyanoi watercraeft. Which he could put to one side.

No, no, no! he contradicted himself suddenly. he contradicted himself suddenly. Don't have to put watercraeft aside...I can integrate it! It's all about elements arsing about, misbehaving...liquid that stands free, heavy matter that invades the air...there's got to be something there...some common denominator... Don't have to put watercraeft aside...I can integrate it! It's all about elements arsing about, misbehaving...liquid that stands free, heavy matter that invades the air...there's got to be something there...some common denominator...

With an effort he brought himself back to his laboratory, realized that Yagharek was staring at him impa.s.sively.

"I'm interested in your problem," he said simply. Immediately Yagharek reached into a pouch. He held out a huge handful of twisted, dirty gold nuggets. Isaac opened his eyes wide.

"Well...uh, thank you. I'll certainly accept some expenses, hourly rates, etc..." Yagharek handed Isaac the pouch.

Isaac managed not to whistle as he weighed it in his hand. He peered into it. Layer on heavy layer of sifting gold. It was undignified, but Isaac felt almost spellbound. This represented more money than he had ever seen in one place, enough to cover a lot of research costs and still live well for months.

Yagharek was no businessman, that was certain. He could have offered a third, a quarter of this and still had almost anyone in Brock Marsh panting. He should have kept most of it back, dangled it if interest waned.

Maybe he has has kept most of it back kept most of it back, thought Isaac, and his eyes widened even further.

"How do I reach you?" said Isaac, still gazing at his gold. "Where are you living?"

Yagharek shook his head and was silent.

"Well, I have to be able to reach you..."

"I will come to you," said the garuda. "Every day, every two days, every week...I will make sure you do not forget my case."

"No danger of that, I a.s.sure you. Are you really saying I can't get messages to you?"

"I do not know where I will be, Grimnebulin. I shun this city. It hunts me. I must keep moving."

Isaac shrugged helplessly. Yagharek stood to leave.

"You understand what I want, Grimnebulin? I do not want to have to take a potion. I do not want to have to wear a harness. I do not want to climb into a contraption. I do not want one glorious journey into the clouds, and an earthbound eternity. I want you to let me leap from the earth as easily as you walk from room to room. Can you do that, Grimnebulin?"

"I don't know." Isaac spoke slowly. "But I think so. I'm your best bet, I reckon. I'm not a chymist, or a biologist, or a thaumaturge...I'm a dilettante, Yagharek, a dabbler. I think of myself..." Isaac paused and laughed briefly. He spoke with heavy gusto. "I think of myself as the main station for all the schools of thought. Like Perdido Street Station. You know it?" Yagharek nodded. "Unavoidable, ain't it? f.u.c.king ma.s.sive great thing." Isaac patted his belly, maintaining the a.n.a.logy. "All the train-lines meet there-Sud Line, Dexter, Verso, Head and Sink Lines; everything has to pa.s.s through it. That's like me. That's my job. That's the kind of scientist I am. I'm being frank with you. Thing is, you see, I think that's what you need."

Yagharek nodded. His predatory face was so sharp, so hard. Emotion was invisible. His words had to be decoded. It was not his face, nor his eyes, nor his bearing (once again proud and imperious), nor his voice that let Isaac see his despair. It was his words.

"Be a dilettante, a sciolist, a swindler...So long as you return me to the sky, Grimnebulin."

Yagharek stooped and picked up his ugly wooden disguise. He strapped it to himself without obvious shame, despite the indignity of the act. Isaac watched as Yagharek draped the huge cloak over himself and stepped quietly down the stairs.

Isaac leant thoughtfully on the railing and looked down into the dusty s.p.a.ce. Yagharek paced past the immobile construct, past haphazard piles of papers and chairs and blackboards. The light beams that had burst through walls pierced by age were gone. The sun was low, now, behind the buildings across from Isaac's warehouse, blocked by ma.s.sed ranks of bricks, sliding sideways across the ancient city, lighting the hidden sides of the Dancing Shoe Mountains, Spine Peak and the crags of Penitent's Pa.s.s, throwing the jagged skyline of the earth into silhouettes that loomed up miles to the west of New Crobuzon.

When Yagharek opened the door, it was onto a street in shadow.

Isaac worked into the night.

As soon as Yagharek left Isaac opened his window and dangled a large red piece of cord from nails in the brick. He moved his heavy calculation engine from the centre of its desk to the floor beside it. Sheafs of programme cards spilt from its storage shelf to the floor. Isaac swore. He patted them together and replaced them. Then he carried his typewriter to his desk and began to make a list. Occasionally he would leap upright and pace over to his makeshift bookshelves, or rummage through a pile of books on the floor, till he found the volume he was looking for. He would take it to the desk and flick through from the back, searching for the bibliography. He laboriously copied details, stabbing with two fingers at the typewriter keys.

As he wrote, the parameters of his plan began to expand. He sought more and more books, his eyes widening as he realized the potentiality of this research.

Eventually he stopped and sat back in his chair, pondering. He grabbed some loose paper and scrawled diagrams on it: mental maps, plans of how to proceed.

Again and again he returned to the same model. A triangle, with a cross firmly planted in the middle. He could not stop himself grinning.

"I like it..." he murmured.

There was a knock at the window. He rose and paced over to it.

A small scarlet idiot face grinned at Isaac from outside. Two stubby horns jutted from its prominent chin, ridges and k.n.o.bs of bone unconvincingly imitated a hairline. Watery eyes gazed above an ugly, cheerful grin.

Isaac opened the window onto the rapidly dwindling light. There was an argument between klaxons as industrial boats fought to crawl past each other in the waters of the Canker. The creature perched on Isaac's window-ledge hopped up into the open window-frame, grasping the edges with gnarled hands.

"Wotcher, captain!" it gabbled. Its accent was thick and bizarre. "Saw the red wossname, scarf thing...Says to meself, 'Time for da bossman!'" It winked and barked stupid laughter. "Wossyer pleasure, captain? Atcher service."

"Evening, Teafortwo. You got my message." The creature flapped its red batwings.

Teafortwo was a wyrman. Barrel-chested creatures like squat birds, with thick arms like a human dwarf's below those ugly, functional wings, the wyrmen ploughed the skies of New Crobuzon. Their hands were their feet, those arms jutting from the bottom of their squat bodies like crows' legs. They could pace a few clumsy steps here and there balancing on their palms, if they were indoors, but they preferred to careen over the city, yelling and swooping and screaming abuse at pa.s.sers-by.

The wyrmen were more intelligent than dogs or apes, but decidedly less than humans. They thrived on an intellectual diet of scatology and slapstick and mimicry, picking names for each other gleaned without understanding from popular songs and furniture catalogues and discarded textbooks they could just about read. Teafortwo's sister, Isaac knew, was called Bottletop; one of his sons Scabies.

The wyrmen lived in hundreds and thousands of nooks, in attics and annexes and behind h.o.a.rdings. Most picked a living from the margins of the city. The huge dumps and rubbish-heaps at the outskirts of Stonesh.e.l.l and Abrogate Green, the waste-scape by the river in Griss Twist, all swarmed with wyrmen, squabbling and laughing, drinking from stagnant ca.n.a.ls, f.u.c.king in the sky and on the earth. Some, like Teafortwo, supplemented this with informal employment. When scarfs flapped on roofs, or chalk marks defaced walls near attic windows, the odds were that someone was calling some wyrman or other for a task.

Isaac foraged in his pocket and held up a shekel.

"Fancy earning this, Teafortwo?"

"Betcha, captain!" shouted Teafortwo. "Look out below!" he added and shat loudly. The stool spattered on the street. Teafortwo guffawed.

Isaac handed him the list he had made, rolled into a scroll.

"Take that to the university library. You know it? Over the river? Good. It's open late, you should catch 'em open. Give that to the librarian. I've signed it, so they shouldn't give you any trouble. They'll load you up with some books. Think you can bring them back to me? They'll be pretty heavy."

"No problem, captain!" Teafortwo swelled his chest like a bantam. "Big strong lad!"

"Fine. Manage it in one go and I'll slip you a bit more moolah."

Teafortwo clutched the list and turned to go with some rude childish yell, when Isaac grabbed the edge of his wing. The wyrman turned, surprised.

"Problem, boss?"

"No, no..." Isaac was staring at the base of his wing, thoughtfully. He gently opened and closed Teafortwo's ma.s.sive wing with his hands. Under that vivid red skin, h.o.r.n.y and pock-marked and stiff like leather, Isaac could feel the specialized muscles of flight winding through the flesh to the wings. They moved with a magnificent economy. He bent the wing through a full circle, feeling the muscles tug it into a paddling, scooping motion that would shovel air out and under the wyrman. Teafortwo giggled.

"Captain tickle me! Saucy devil!" he screamed.

Isaac reached for some paper, having to stop himself from dragging Teafortwo with him. He was visualizing the wyrman wing represented mathematically, as simple component planes.

"Teafortwo...tell you what. When you get back, I'll toss you another shekel if I can take a few heliotypes of you and do a couple of experiments. Only half an hour or so. What do you say?"

"Lovely-jubbly, captain!"

Teafortwo hopped onto the window-sill and lurched out into the gloaming. Isaac squinted, studying the rolling motion of the wings, watching those strong muscles unique to the airborne send eighty or more pounds of twisted flesh and bone powering through the sky.

When Teafortwo had disappeared from sight, Isaac sat and made another list, by hand this time, scribbling at speed.