Perdido Street Station - China Mieville [103]
“You never sit, Yag, do you?” he said quietly. “Now why’s that?”
He drummed his fingers against the side of his head and thought. Eventually he spoke.
“Yag, old son . . . You’ve already impressed me as to your . . . amazing library, right? I want to throw two names out there, see what they mean to you. What do you know about Suroch, or the Cacotopic Stain?”
There was a long silence. Yagharek was looking slightly up, through the window.
“The Cacotopic Stain I know, of course. That is always what one hears when the Torque is discussed. Perhaps it is a bogeyman.” Isaac could not distinguish moods in Yagharek’s voice, but his words were defensive. “Perhaps we should overcome our fear. And Suroch . . . I have read your histories, Grimnebulin. War is always . . . a vile time . . .”
As Yagharek spoke, Isaac stood and walked to his chaotic bookshelves, flicking through the stacked volumes. He returned with a slim, hardbacked folio book. He opened it in front of Yagharek.
“This,” he said heavily, “is a collection of heliotypes taken nearly a hundred years ago. It was these helios, in large part, that put a stop to Torque experiments in New Crobuzon.”
Yagharek reached out slowly and turned the pages. He did not speak.
“This was supposed to be a secret research mission, to see the effects of the war a hundred years on,” continued Isaac. “Little group of militia, couple of scientists and a heliotypist went upcoast in a spy-dirigible, took some prints from the air. Then some of them were lowered into the remains of Suroch to take some up-close shots.
“Sacramundi, the heliotypist, was so . . . appalled . . . he printed five hundred copies of his report at his own expense. Distributed it to bookshops gratis. Bypassed the mayor and Parliament, laid it out in front of the people . . . Mayor Turgisadi was screaming mad, but there was nothing he could do.
“There was demonstrations, then the Sacramundi Riots of ’89. Pretty much forgotten now, but it damn-near brought the government down. A couple of the big concerns putting money into the Torque programme—Penton’s, that still owns the Arrowhead Mines, that was the biggest—anyway, they got scared and pulled out, and the thing collapsed.
“This, Yag my son,” Isaac indicated the book, “is why we ain’t using Torque.”
Yagharek slowly turned the pages. Sepia images of ruin passed before them.
“Ah . . .” Isaac brought his finger down on a drab panorama of what looked like crushed glass and charcoal. The heliotype was taken from very low in the air. A few of the larger shards that littered the enormous, perfectly circular plain were visible, suggesting that the desiccated debris was the remains of once-extraordinary twisted objects.
“Now this is what’s left of the heart of the city. That’s where they dropped the colourbomb in 1545. That’s what they said put an end to the Pirate Wars, but to be honest with you, Yag, they’d been over for a year before that, since New Crobuzon bombarded Suroch with Torque bombs. See, they dropped the colourbombs twelve months later to try to hide what they’d done . . . only one went into the sea and two didn’t work, so with only one left, they only cleared the central square mile or so of Suroch. These bits you can see . . .” He indicated low rubble at the edge of the circular plain. “From thereon out the ruins are still standing. That’s where you can see the Torque.”
He indicated that Yagharek should turn the page. Yagharek did so, and something clucked deep in his throat. Isaac supposed it was the garuda equivalent of a sudden intake of breath. Isaac looked briefly at the picture, then looked up, not too quickly, at Yagharek’s face.
“Those things in the background like melting statues used to be houses,” he said levelly. “The thing you’re looking at, as far as they could work out, is descended from the domestic goat. Apparently they used to keep them as pets in Suroch. This could be second, tenth, twentieth generation