Perdido Street Station - China Mieville [19]
“This is what makes the world, Ms. Lin. I believe this to be the fundamental dynamic. Transition. The point where one thing becomes another. It is what makes you, the city, the world, what they are. And that is the theme I’m interested in. The zone where the disparate become part of the whole. The hybrid zone.
“Could this theme interest you, d’you think? And if the answer is yes . . . then I am going to ask you to work for me. Before you answer, please understand what this will mean.
“I will ask you to work from life, to produce a model—life-size, I fancy—of me.
“Very few people see my face, Ms. Lin. A man in my position has to be careful. I’m sure you can understand. If you take this commission I will make you rich, but I will also own a part of your mind. The part that pertains to me. That is mine. I do not give you permission to share it with any. If you do, you will suffer greatly before you die.
“So . . .” Something creaked. Lin realized that he had sat back in his chair. “So, Ms. Lin. Are you interested in the hybrid zone? Are you interested in this job?”
I cannot . . . cannot turn this down, thought Lin helplessly. I cannot. For money, for art . . . Gods help me. I cannot turn this down. Oh . . . please, please let me not regret this.
She paused, and signed her acceptance of his terms.
“Oh, I am so glad,” he breathed. Lin’s heart raced. “I really am glad. Well . . .”
There was a shuffling sound behind the screen. Lin sat very still. Her antennae moved tremulously.
“The blinds are down in the office, aren’t they?” said Mr. Motley. “Because I think you should see what you will be working with. Your mind is mine, Lin. You work for me now.”
Mr. Motley stood and pushed the screen to the floor.
Lin got half to her feet, her headlegs bristling with astonishment and terror. She gazed at him.
Scraps of skin and fur and feathers swung as he moved; tiny limbs clutched; eyes rolled from obscure niches; antlers and protrusions of bone jutted precariously; feelers twitched and mouths glistened. Many-coloured skeins of skin collided. A cloven hoof thumped gently against the wood floor. Tides of flesh washed against each other in violent currents. Muscles tethered by alien tendons to alien bones worked together in uneasy truce, in slow, tense motion. Scales gleamed. Fins quivered. Wings fluttered brokenly. Insect claws folded and unfolded.
Lin backed away, stumbling, feeling her terrified way away from his slow advance. Her chitinous headbody was twitching neurotically. She shook.
Mr. Motley paced towards her like a hunter.
“So,” he said, from one of the grinning human mouths. “Which do you think is my best side?”
CHAPTER FIVE
Isaac waited, facing his guest. The garuda stood silent. Isaac could see it was concentrating. It was preparing to speak.
The garuda’s voice, when it came, was harsh and monotone.
“You are the scientist. You are…Grimnebulin.”
It had difficulty with his name. Like a parrot trained to speak, the shaping of consonants and vowels came from within the throat, without the aid of versatile lips. Isaac had only ever conversed with two garuda in his life. One was a traveller who had long-practised the formation of human sounds; the other was a student, one of the tiny garuda community born and raised in New Crobuzon, which grew up shouting the city slang. Neither had sounded human, but neither had sounded half so animal as this great birdman struggling with an alien tongue. It took Isaac a moment to understand what had been said.
“I am.” He held out his hand, spoke slowly. “What is your name?”
The garuda looked imperiously at his hand, then shook it with a strangely fragile grip.
“Yagharek…” There was a shrieking stress on the first syllable. The great creature paused, and shifted uncomfortably, before continuing. It repeated its name, but this time added an intricate suffix.
Isaac shook his head.
“Is that all your