Embassytown - China Mieville [89]
“Avice,” Bren said. “YlSib are here to … They’re how I know what’s going on.”
YlSib—what an ugly name. I knew as he said it that they’d once been Ambassador SibYl, and that this recomposition was part of their rebellion. “YlSib live in the city,” Bren said gently. Of course they did. He’d hinted to me of such hidden. I realised he was saying my name.
“Avice. Avice.”
“Why me, Bren?” I said. I said it quietly enough that it was as if intimate, though Yl and Sib could hear me. “Why am I here? Where’s MagDa, where are the others?”
“No,” he said. He and Sib and Yl glanced at each other. “Too much bad blood. History. YlSib and that lot were on opposite sides for a long time. Some things don’t change. But you’re different. And I need your help.”
I was staring into something opened up. Fractures, renegades, guerrilla Ambassadors, unquiet cleaved. What the hell else was out there? Who? Scile? Shiftfather Christmas? Back came stupid tales, now not so stupid. I remembered unanswered questions, I wondered who’d gone from Embassytown, who’d turned their backs on it, over years, and I wondered why.
“Embassytown’s dying,” Yl said. She gestured at the window, and Sib at the soundless wallscreen. The worst, most Language-starved Ariekei were coming. They shambled in unnatural bursts like toys. Troops of the collapsing, falling apart variously, claiming our streets without intent, with only oratees’ despair, but killing as they came, us and each other. We could no longer walk the outermost of our streets: there were too many attacks, too much Ariekene rage.
Cams showed those in their dotage instar wandering with pendulous food-bellies, some stumbling by their random ways into Embassytown. No Ariekei tended them. It was shocking. There were rumours that in periods between EzRa-word highs some Ariekei were eating these unstruggling elders, as evolution intended but their culture had abjured.
Even as things fell apart I was desperate to ask YlSib where they’d been, what had happened, what they’d done since they absconded, years ago. They’d lived so close, maybe in some biorigged dwelling that sweated air at them inside. Did they consult? Had they worked for the Ariekei? Were they independent? Trading in information, go-betweens in informal economies of which I’d never known a thing? There was no way, I thought, such a hinterland could have been sustained without the patronage of some in Embassytown.
“You said they weren’t helping us,” I said. “Those mad Ariekei that came and attacked the others.”
Bren said, “They weren’t.”
YlSib said, “Factions are emerging.” “Some Ariekei can’t even think anymore.” “They’re dying.” “Those are the ones tearing up the outskirts.” “Then there are some trying to keep some kind of order. Live in new ways.” “Manage their addiction.” “They’re trying all kinds of methods. Desperate stuff.” “Repeating phrases they’ve heard EzRa say, to see if they can give each other fixes.” “Trying to take control of neighbourhoods.” “Trying to ration out the broadcasts.” “Organise different listening shifts for different groups, to keep things more …” “… organised.” “And then there are dissidents who want to change everything.”
“We have sects,” Bren said. “So do they, now. Not ones that worship a god, though. Ones that hate it.”
“They know the world’s ending,” said YlSib. “And some of them want to bring in a new one.” “They despise the other Ariekei.” “That’s what you saw.” “Their word for the addicts was …” They said a word together, in Language. “They used to call them that,” Sib or Yl said, “although they can’t anymore.” “It means ‘weak.’ ” “ ‘Sick.’ ” “It means ‘languid.’ ” “Lotus-eaters.” “They’re going to start a new order.”
“How …?” I remembered the stubbed and ruined fanwings. They can’t call them that anymore, because they can’t hear, or speak, they’ve no Language. “Oh, I …” I said. “Oh, God. They did it to themselves.”
“To escape temptation,” Bren said. “It’s a vicious cure but it’s a cure. Without hearing, their bodies stop needing the drug. And now, the only thing they hate worse than their afflicted