Iron Council - China Mieville [138]
“Spiralling down, eh?” she said, pointing at the coil-marks on his clothes. “I see them all over now. They’ve gone from walls to clothes. Cactus punks are wearing them, Nuevists, radicals. What do they mean?”
“A link,” he said carefully. “To Half-a-Prayer. I know the man who started them.”
“I heard of him, I think . . .”
“He’s a friend of mine. I know him well.” There was silence. They drank. “Missed the meeting.”
“There ain’t no meetings now. You mad, Ori . . . Jack?” She was horrified. “I’m sorry, Jack,” she said, “really sorry. Curdin told me your name. And where you live. He shouldn’t have done, but he was keen I be able to get Double-R to you, if need be. I told no one.”
He contained his shock, shook his head.
“The meetings?” he said, and she forgot her contrition quickly.
“Why would we have meetings?” she said. “When it’s going on?” Ori shook his head, and she gave a sound almost a sob. “Jack, Jack . . . Jabber’s sake. What are you doing? Weren’t you there?”
“Godsdammit, of course I was. I was in Creekside. I was . . .” He lowered his voice. “Who are the Militant Sundry, any damn way? I was trying to stand up for the godsdamned khepri your bloody brainless commonalty were busy trying to butcher.”
“The Sundry? Well, if you was xenian and all you’d had in your corner were the comprador bastards in the Divers Tendency, wouldn’t you turn somewhere else? And don’t you dare. Don’t you dare scorn people. You know the Quillers take up the human dust. Even your friend Petron knows that—and don’t bloody look at me like that, Jack, everyone knows his name, he was in the Flexibles. And I ain’t sure of all the bloody lunacies the Nuevists do, faddling about dressed as animals, silly bloody games, but I’d trust him. I don’t know as I’d trust you, Jack, and that’s a sad thing, because it ain’t that I think you don’t want what I want. I know you do. But I don’t trust your judgement. I think you’re a fool, Jack.”
Ori was not even outraged. He was used to the arrogance of the Runagates. He looked at her with cool annoyance, and, yes, a residue of respect, a due she had inherited from Curdin.
“While you’re playing prophets, Jack,” he said, “keep your eyes open. When I move . . . you’ll know. We have plans.”
“They say Iron Council’s coming back.”
Her face had taken on such joy.
“It’s coming back.”
All the things Ori could think to say were obvious. He did not want to insult her, so he tried to think of something else to say, but could not.
“It’s a fairy tale,” he said.
“It ain’t.”
“A fable. There’s no Iron Council.”
“They want you to think that. If there’s no Iron Council, then we ain’t never took power. But if there is, and there is, we did it before, we can do it again.”
“Good Jabber, listen to yourself . . .”
“You telling me you never seen the helios? What do you think that was? You think they built the bloody train by marching alongside each other, women, whores, at the front? Children riding the damn cab hood?”
“Something happened, of course it did, but they were put down. It was a strike is all. They’re long dead—”
She was laughing. “You don’t know, you don’t know. They wanted them dead, and they want them dead again, but they’re coming back. Someone from the Caucus set out for them. We got a message. Why’d they be going, if not to tell them to return?
“Haven’t you seen the graffiti?” she said. “All over. Along with all them coils and spirals you’re wearing. IC You. Iron Council, You. It’s coming back, and even just knowing that’s a godsdamned inspiration.”
“People want them, they’ll find them, they’ll believe in them, Jack . . .”
“What you don’t know,” she said, and didn’t even look angry anymore, “is that we’re moving. If you could hear the Caucus.” She sipped her drink. She looked at him, some kind of challenge. She’s sitting on the damn Caucus. The cabal of insurrectionists, the truce of the factions and the unaligned.
“There are those in Parliament trying to cosy up, you know. They can’t admit it, but there are factories where we decide if people go to work or not. They want to negotiate.