Embassytown - China Mieville [83]
When their shepherds reached the city there was no one to meet them. The country Ariekei saw their worst-afflicted compatriots lying by speakers and starving to death, waiting for the next sentence. Their bodies lay unhonoured. If the buildings around them were still healthy enough their dog-sized animalculae would break the corpses down: if not, the slower processes of internal rot would smear them gradually into the road.
Fights were common. Withdrawal and Ariekene need meant aggression. The afflicted would tear into things on sudden searches for EzRa’s Language. A less affected Ariekes, usually from the country, might frill its fanwing in formal pugnacity, but the more addicted had no time for traditional displays and would simply hurl themselves hooves and giftwings at their startled opponents. Once I saw footage of EzRa’s broadcast start in the middle of such a battle. The combatants slumped against each other immediately and coiled together as if in affection, still bleeding their blood.
“Things are getting worse again,” Da said. We were going to infect the entire planet.
“That’s not the only thing we have to contend with.” It was Bren.
He stood in the doorway. A suspiciously perfect pose, all framed. “Hello Avice Benner Cho,” he said.
I rose. I shook my head at him. “You prodigal bastard,” I said.
“Prodigal?” he said.
“Where have you been?”
“Prodigal extravagant?” he said. “Or penitent?” A little cautiously, he smiled at me. I didn’t quite smile at him for a minute, but then, fuck it, yes I did.
“How did you get in here?” someone said, so newly promoted by circumstance that they added “Who are you?” to hisses of embarrassment. Ra shook Bren’s hand and tried to welcome him. Bren waved him away.
“It’s not just these Ariekene refugees we have to contend with,” Bren said. “Though they’ll certainly complicate matters.” He spoke with monotone authority. “There are other things.”
Of course he couldn’t speak Language since his doppel had died, but there were some Ariekei—you might sentimentally and misleadingly call them old friends—that came to his house and told him things.
“Do you think none of them want this to change?” Bren said.
“No, we know,” Mag said, but he continued.
“You think there are no Hosts who are horrified? They’re thinking through a fug, true, but some of them are still thinking. You know what they call EzRa? The god-drug.”
After a silence I said carefully, “That is a kenning.”
“No,” Bren said. He glanced around the room, gauging who knew that old term for the compound trope. “It’s not like a bone-house, Avice.” He thumped his chest, his bone-house. “It’s more straightforward. It’s just truth.”
“Huh,” someone said shakily, “that’s religion for you …”
“No it is not,” Bren said. “Gods are gods and drugs are drugs but here, here, there’s a city not only of the addicted but of … a sort of faithful.”
“They don’t have gods,” I said. “How …?”
He interrupted me. “They’ve known about them ever since we got here and told them what they are and what they do. They couldn’t talk about voidcraft or trousers either, before we arrived, but they find ways now. And there are some Hosts who’ll do anything to stop this. That might not be much yet, maybe, until they can get themselves free enough to try to free themselves more. But if they do, well. They’ll end it however they can. You should think of all the ways a few determined Ariekei might try to … liberate … afflicted compatriots.”
He joined me again, in private, that night, in my rooms. He asked me where was my friend Ehrsul