Embassytown - China Mieville [147]
Scile was usually a better thinker than his last murder would imply. He knew how we’d created EzCal: he should have thought we could just do it again. We unhooked the mechanisms from inside Cal’s head, and they were safe, but even had they not been, we never faced another end.
“I’ve got something,” MagDa had said. “Southel’s been putting together a few prototypes for weeks.” “Boosters.” “We’ve had volunteers. We’re ready to go.”
While we’d pursued ours, that had been their secret plan. A stockpile, against Cal and EzCal, whose power lay in their uniqueness. MagDa’s and my and Bren’s treacheries dovetailed. Scile had brought no narrative to a conclusion. He killed Cal and very little changed.
At first it was the cleaved Turn who volunteered, shaved their heads and had sockets implanted, tried out boosters like clawed tiaras, hooked into links and let gun-prodded Ez, Rukowsi, read them, and speak with them. Lott was the first to take on the role while her doppel, Char, was still alive.
Some are afraid to, but many Ambassadors have powered down their own links. They don’t equalise. They don’t speak Language much anymore. There’s not much call. I don’t think they all dislike each other. Bren says he disagrees, but I tell him he can’t think beyond his own history, which is understandable.
We keep Joel Rukowsi safe because we need him and his freakish empathic head, but even that I think will change. We’ll find others like him. In the meantime we work him hard, and stockpile hours of drugtalk. We can afford to be generous to the exodusers.
It’s two cities now—one of the addicts, one of all the others—that intersect politely. The Absurd and the New have much more in common than either do with the oratees. Hearing’s nothing: the Absurd and the New think the same.
Spanish exchanges politenesses with Ariekei at every corner, with the Terre, with the fanwingless too, by the touchpads they carry, our Terretech contribution. I’m learning to read and write their evolving scrawl, like a young Ariekes. As soon as they awake into their third instar, now, like some rough ritual they’re hard-trained out of their instincts. They have only a few liminal days of pure Language, when word is referent and lies are uncanny, between animal instar and consciousness. Afterward, the young New Ariekei know their city wasn’t always this way but can’t imagine it other.
Of those that can’t unlearn Language, some are deafening themselves, knowing it’ll cure them, that it’s not the cutting-out of speech and mind they might once have thought. Others, like Rooftop, are preparing to leave. We’ll never visit their autarchic communities. They won’t be linked by pipework to the city. We’ll hand over many many datchips, enough to last a long time. The exiles will live out their addiction and raise a new brood, never let them hear the chips, until their children speak Language too, but unafflicted and free. Humans—vectors of addiction—will be banned and taboo: the city, where they speak differently now, they’ll explain, will be taboo. For the next little future, it’s not humans but the New Ariekei that’ll ambassador between the city and the settlements.
I know how it’ll go, though. A New Ariekes will come to trade: they’ll speak to it, Language to language, and they’ll think they do, but they won’t understand each other. Some of the young’ll be intrigued by this odd stranger, and a few adventurous Language-speaking young will make their way to the city gates. That’ll be the story. Doubtless there’ll still be addicts here—outcasts, holy fools or whatever their status then—and the newcomers will hear the drugtalks broadcast for them, and instantly be addicted too.
The ship’s crew will have weapons, of course: Bremen weapons, more advanced than ours. But we’re very many and they’ll be few. Besides, we mean them no harm. We’ll have an honour guard.
“Welcome, Captain,” I’ll say as the doors open