Perdido Street Station - China Mieville [193]
Its purpose was unclear: it had obviously remained untouched for years. The four of them had crawled exhausted up the industrial scree, shoving the construct before them, through the ripped-up wire that was supposed to protect the railway from intruders. In the minutes between trains, they had hauled themselves along the little fringe of scrubby grass that surrounded the tracks, and pushed open the door into the hut’s dusty darkness.
There, finally, they had relaxed.
The wood of the shed was warped, its slats ill-fitting and interspersed with sky. They had watched out of the glassless windows as trains burst by them in both directions. Below them to the north, the Tar twisted in the tight S that contained Petty Coil and Griss Twist. The sky had darkened to a grubby blue-black. They could see illuminated pleasure-boats on the river. The massive industrial pillar of Parliament loomed a little way to the east, looking down on them and on the city. A little downriver from Strack Island, the chymical lights of the old city watergates hissed and sputtered and reflected their greasy yellow glow in the dark water. Two miles to the north-east, just visible behind Parliament, were the Ribs, those antique sallow bones.
From the other side of the cabin they saw the spectacularly darkening sky, made even more astonishing by a day in the reeking dun below New Crobuzon. The sun was gone, but only just. The sky was bisected by the skyrail that threaded through Flyside militia tower. The city was a layered silhouette, an intricate fading chimneyscape, slate roofs bracing each other obliquely below the plaited towers of churches to obscure gods, the huge priapic vents of factories spewing dirty smoke and burning off excess energy, monolithic towerblocks like vast concrete gravestones, the rough down of parkland.
They had rested, cleaned the nightsoil from their clothes as much as they could. Here, finally, Isaac had tended the stub of Derkhan’s ear. It had numbed, but was still painful. She bore it with heavy reserve. Isaac and Lemuel had fingered their own scarred remnants uncomfortably.
As the night had crept up faster, Isaac had readied himself to go. The argument had erupted again. Isaac was resolute. He needed to see Lin alone.
He had to tell her that she was in danger as soon as the militia connected her to him. He had to tell her that her life as she had lived it was over, and that it was his fault. He needed to ask her to come with him, to run with him. He needed her forgiveness and her affection.
One night with her, alone. That was all.
Lemuel would not acquiesce. “It’s our fucking heads too, ’Zaac,” he had hissed. “Every militiaman in the city is after your hide. Your helio’s probably pasted up in every tower and strut and floor of the Spike. You don’t know how to get around. Me, I’ve been wanted all my working life. If you go for your ladybird, I come.”
Isaac had had to give in.
At half past ten, the four companions had wrapped themselves in their ruined clothes, obscuring their faces. After much coaxing, Isaac had finally been able to goad the construct into communication. Reluctantly and torturously slowly, it had scratched out its message.
Griss Twist Dump number 2, it had written. Tomorrow night 10. Leave me below arches now.
With the darkness, they had realized, came the nightmares. Even though they did not sleep. The mental nausea, as the slake-moth dung polluted the city’s sleep. Each of them grew tetchy and nervous.
Isaac had stashed his carpet bag, containing the components of his crisis engine, under a pile of wooden slats in the shack. Then they had descended, carrying the construct for the last time. Isaac hid it in an alcove created where the structure of the railway bridge had crumbled.
“Are you going to be all right?” he asked it tentatively, still feeling absurd talking to a machine. The construct did not answer