Perdido Street Station Part 68

Isaac spoke quietly. His words were sincere and affecting.

What did he do?

"What did he do?" said Isaac, defeated.

"He is guilty," said Kar'uchai quietly, "of choice-theft in the second degree, with utter disrespect."

"What does that mean mean?" shouted Isaac. "What did he do do? What's f.u.c.king choice-theft anyway? This means nothing nothing to me." to me."

"It is the only crime we have have, Grimneb'lin," replied Kar'uchai in a harsh monotone. "To take the choice of another . . . to forget their concrete reality, to abstract them, to forget that you are a node in a matrix, that actions have consequences. We must not take the choice of another being. What is community but a means to . . . for all we individuals to have . . . our choices choices."

Kar'uchai shrugged and indicated the world around them vaguely. "Your city inst.i.tutions . . . Talking and talking of individuals . . . but crushing them in layers and hierarchies . . . until their choices might be between three kinds of squalor.

"We have far less, in the desert. We hunger, sometimes, and thirst. But we have all the choices that we can. But we have all the choices that we can. Except when someone forgets themselves, forgets the reality of their companions, as if they were an individual Except when someone forgets themselves, forgets the reality of their companions, as if they were an individual alone alone . . . And steals food, and takes the choice of others to eat it, or lies about game, and takes the choice of others to hunt it; or grows angry and attacks without reason, and takes the choice of another not to be bruised or live in fear. . . . And steals food, and takes the choice of others to eat it, or lies about game, and takes the choice of others to hunt it; or grows angry and attacks without reason, and takes the choice of another not to be bruised or live in fear.

"A child who steals the cloak of some beloved other, to smell at night . . . they take away the choice to wear the cloak, but with respect, with a surfeit of respect.

"Other thefts, though, do not have even respect to mitigate them.

"To kill . . . not in war or defence, but to . . . murder murder . . . is to have such disrespect, such utter disrespect, that you take not only the choice of whether to live or die that moment . . . but . . . is to have such disrespect, such utter disrespect, that you take not only the choice of whether to live or die that moment . . . but every other choice for all of time every other choice for all of time that might be made. Choices beget choices . . . if they had been allowed their choice to live, they might have chosen to hunt for fish in a salt-swamp, or to play dice, or to tan hides, to write poesy or cook stew . . . and all those choices are taken from them in that one theft. that might be made. Choices beget choices . . . if they had been allowed their choice to live, they might have chosen to hunt for fish in a salt-swamp, or to play dice, or to tan hides, to write poesy or cook stew . . . and all those choices are taken from them in that one theft.

"That is choice-theft in the highest highest degree. But all choice-thefts steal from the future as well as the present. degree. But all choice-thefts steal from the future as well as the present.

"Yagharek's was a heinous . . . a terrible forgetting. Theft in the second degree."

"What did he do do?" shouted Isaac, and Lin woke with a flutter of hands and a nervous twitching.

Kar'uchai spoke dispa.s.sionately.

"You would call it rape."

Oh, I would call it rape, would I? thought Isaac in a molten, raging sneer; but the torrent of livid contempt was not enough to drown his horror. thought Isaac in a molten, raging sneer; but the torrent of livid contempt was not enough to drown his horror.

I would call it rape.

Isaac could not but imagine. Immediately.

The act itself, of course, though that was a vague and nebulous brutality in his mind (did he beat her? Hold her down? Where was she? Did she curse and fight back?) (did he beat her? Hold her down? Where was she? Did she curse and fight back?). What he saw most clearly, immediately, were all the vistas, the avenues of choice that Yagharek had stolen. Fleetingly, Isaac glimpsed the denied possibilities.

The choice not to have s.e.x, not to be hurt. The choice not to risk pregnancy. And then . . . what if she had become pregnant? The choice not to abort? The choice not to have a child?

The choice to look at Yagharek with respect?

Isaac's mouth worked and Kar'uchai spoke again.

"It was my choice he stole."

It took a few seconds, a ludicrously long time, for Isaac to understand what Kar'uchai meant. Then he gasped and stared at her, seeing for the first time the slight swell of her ornamental b.r.e.a.s.t.s, as useless as bird-of-paradise plumage. He struggled for something to say, but he did not know what he felt: there was nothing solid for words to express.

He murmured some appallingly loose apology, some solicitation.

"I thought you were . . . the garuda magister . . . or the militia, or something," he said.

"We have none," she replied.

"Yag . . . a f.u.c.king rapist rapist," he hissed, and she clucked.

"He stole choice," she said flatly.

"He raped raped you," he said, and instantly Kar'uchai clucked again. you," he said, and instantly Kar'uchai clucked again.

"He stole my choice," she said. She was not expanding on his words, Isaac realized: she was correcting him. "You cannot translate into your jurisprudence, Grimneb'lin," she said. She seemed annoyed.

Isaac tried to speak, shook his head miserably, stared at her and again saw the crime committed, behind his eyes.

"You cannot translate translate, Grimneb'lin," Kar'uchai repeated. "Stop. I can see . . . all the texts of your city's laws and morals that I have read . . . in you." Her tone sounded monotonous to him. The emotion in the pauses and cadences of her voice was opaque.

"I was not violated violated or or ravaged ravaged, Grimneb'lin. I am not abused abused or or defiled defiled . . . or . . . or ravished ravished or or spoiled spoiled. You would call his actions rape, but I do not: that tells me nothing. He stole my choice stole my choice, and that is why he was . . . judged. It was severe . . . the last sanction but one . . . There are many choice-thefts less heinous than his, and only a few more so . . . And there are others that are judged equal . . . many of those are actions utterly unlike Yagharek's. Some, you would not deem crimes at all.

"The actions vary: the crime crime . . . is the theft of . . . is the theft of choice choice. Your magisters and laws . . . that s.e.xualize and sacralize . . . for whom individuals are defined abstract . . . their matrix-nature ignored . . . where context is a distraction . . . cannot grasp that.

"Do not look at me with eyes reserved for victims . . . And when Yagharek returns . . . I ask you to observe our justice-Yagharek's justice-not to impute your own.

"He stole choice, in the second highest degree. He was judged. The band voted. That is the end."

Is it? thought Isaac. thought Isaac. Is that enough? Is that the end? Is that enough? Is that the end?

Kar'uchai watched him struggle.

Lin called to Isaac, clapping her hands like a clumsy child. He knelt quickly and spoke to her. She signed anxiously at him and he signed back as if what she said made sense, as if they were conversing.

She was calmed, and she hugged him and looked nervously up at Kar'uchai with her unbroken compound eye.

"Will you observe our judgement?" said Kar'uchai quietly. Isaac looked at her quickly. He busied himself with Lin.

Kar'uchai was silent for a long time. When Isaac did not speak, she repeated her question. Isaac turned to her and shook his head, not in denial but confusion.

"I don't know," he said. "Please . . ."

He turned back to Lin, who slept. He slumped against her and rubbed his head.

After minutes of silence, Kar'uchai stopped her swift pacing and called his name.

He started as if he had forgotten she was there.

"I will leave. I ask you again. Please do not mock our justice. Please let our judgement be." She moved the chair from the door and stalked out. Her taloned feet scratched at the old wood as she descended.

And Isaac sat and stroked Lin's iridescent carapace-marbled now with stress-fractures and lines of cruelty-thinking about Yagharek.

Do not translate, Kar'uchai had said, but how could he not? Kar'uchai had said, but how could he not?

He thought of Kar'uchai's wings shuddering with rage as she was pinioned by Yagharek's arms. Or had he threatened with a knife? A weapon? A f.u.c.king whip whip?

f.u.c.k them, he would think suddenly, staring at the crisis engine's parts. he would think suddenly, staring at the crisis engine's parts. I don't owe their laws respect I don't owe their laws respect . . . Free the prisoners. That was what . . . Free the prisoners. That was what Runagate Rampant Runagate Rampant always said. always said.

But the Cymek garuda did not live like the citizens of New Crobuzon. There were no magisters, Isaac remembered, no courts or punishment factories, no quarries and dumps to pack with Remade, no militia or politicians. Punishment was not doled out by backhanding bosses.

Or so he had been told. So he remembered. The band voted, The band voted, Kar'uchai had said. Kar'uchai had said.

Was that true? Did that change things?

In New Crobuzon punishment was for for someone. Some interest was served. Was that different in the Cymek? Did that make the crime more heinous? someone. Some interest was served. Was that different in the Cymek? Did that make the crime more heinous?

Was a garuda rapist worse than a human one?

Who am I to judge? Isaac thought in sudden anger, and stormed towards his engine, picked up his calculations, ready to continue, but then, Isaac thought in sudden anger, and stormed towards his engine, picked up his calculations, ready to continue, but then, Who am I to judge? Who am I to judge? he thought, in sudden hollow uncertainty, the ground taken from under him, and he put his papers down slowly. he thought, in sudden hollow uncertainty, the ground taken from under him, and he put his papers down slowly.

He kept glancing at Lin's thighs. Her bruises had almost gone, but his memory of them was as savage a stain as they had been.

They had mottled her in suggestive patterns around her lower belly and inner thighs.

Lin shifted and woke and held him and shied away in fear and Isaac's teeth set at the thought of what might have been done to her. He thought of Kar'uchai.

This is all wrong, he thought. he thought. That's just exactly what she told you not to do. This isn't about rape, she said . . . That's just exactly what she told you not to do. This isn't about rape, she said . . .

But it was too hard. Isaac could not do it. If he thought of Yagharek he thought of Kar' uchai, and if he thought of her he thought of Lin.

This is all a.r.s.e-side up, he thought. he thought.

If he took Kar'uchai at her word, he could not judge the punishment. He could not decide whether he respected garuda justice or not: he had no grounds at all, he knew nothing of the circ.u.mstances. So it was natural, surely, it was inevitable and healthy, that he should fall back on what he knew: his scepticism; the fact that Yagharek was his friend. Would he leave his friend flightless because he gave alien laws the benefit of the doubt doubt?

He remembered Yagharek scaling the Gla.s.shouse, fighting beside him against the militia.

He remembered Yagharek's whip savaging the slake-moth, ensnaring it, freeing Lin.

But when he thought of Kar'uchai, and what had been done to her, he could not but think of that as rape rape. And he thought of Lin, and everything that might have been done to her, until he felt as if he would puke with anger.

He tried to extricate himself.

He tried to think himself away from the whole thing. He told himself desperately that to refuse his services would not not imply judgement, that it would imply judgement, that it would not not mean he pretended knowledge of the facts, that it would simply be a way of saying, "This is beyond me, this is not my business." But he could not convince himself. mean he pretended knowledge of the facts, that it would simply be a way of saying, "This is beyond me, this is not my business." But he could not convince himself.

He slumped and breathed a miserable moan of exhaustion. If he turned from Yagharek, he realized, no matter what he said, Isaac would feel himself to have judged, and to have found Yagharek wanting. And Isaac realized that he could not in conscience imply that, when he did not know the case.

But on the heels of that thought came another; a flipside, a counterpoint.

If withholding help implied negative judgement he could not make, thought Isaac, then helping, bestowing flight, would imply that Yagharek's actions were acceptable acceptable.

And that, thought Isaac in cold distaste and fury, he would not do would not do.

He folded his notes slowly, his half-finished equations, his scribbled formulae, and began to pack them away.

When Derkhan returned, the sun was low and the sky was blemished with blood-coloured clouds. She tapped the door in the quick rhythm they had agreed, bundling past Isaac when he opened it.

"It's an amazing day," she said with sadness. "I've been sniffing quietly all over the place, getting a few leads, a few ideas . . ." She turned to face him and was instantly quiet.

His dark, scarred face bore an extraordinary expression. Some complex composite of hope and excitement and terrible misery. He seemed to brim with energy. He shifted as if he crawled with ants. He wore his long beggar's cloak. A sack sat beside the door, bulging with heavy, bulky contents. The crisis engine was gone, she realized, disa.s.sembled and hidden away in the sack.

Without the spread-out mess of metal and wire, the room seemed utterly bare.

With a little gasp, Derkhan saw that Isaac had wrapped up Lin in a foul, tattered blanket. Lin clutched at it fitfully and nervously, signing nonsense up at him. She saw Derkhan and jerked happily.

"Let's go," said Isaac in a hollow voice that strained with tension.

"What are you talking about?" said Derkhan angrily. "What are you talking talking about? Where's Yagharek? What's come over you?" about? Where's Yagharek? What's come over you?"

"Dee, please please . . ." whispered Isaac. He took her hands. She reeled at his imploring fervour. "Yag's still not come back. I'm leaving this for him," he said, and plucked a letter from his pocket. He tossed it nervously into the centre of the floor. Derkhan began to speak again and Isaac cut her off, shaking his head violently. . . ." whispered Isaac. He took her hands. She reeled at his imploring fervour. "Yag's still not come back. I'm leaving this for him," he said, and plucked a letter from his pocket. He tossed it nervously into the centre of the floor. Derkhan began to speak again and Isaac cut her off, shaking his head violently.

"I'm not . . . I can't . . . I don't work for Yag no more, Dee . . . I'm terminating our contract terminating our contract . . . I'll explain . . . I'll explain everything everything, I promise, but let's go go. You're right, we've stayed much too long." He flicked his hand at the window, where the evening sounded boisterous and easygoing. "The f.u.c.king government government are after us, and the biggest d.a.m.n gangster on the continent . . . And the . . . the Construct Council . . ." He shook her gently. are after us, and the biggest d.a.m.n gangster on the continent . . . And the . . . the Construct Council . . ." He shook her gently.

"Let's go go. The . . . the three of us. Let's get out and away."