Perdido Street Station - China Mieville [209]
Isaac thought he saw a human figure standing on the tallest mound of rubbish in the dump, watching the proceedings, silhouetted profound black against New Crobuzon’s sepia-stained half-dark. He focused and there was nothing. They were completely alone.
He looked frowning at his companions, then moved forward towards the cadaverous figure with the pipe emerging from its head.
“Council,” he said. “Why did you tell us to come here? What do you want from us? You know of the slake-moths . . .”
“Der Grimnebulin,” the avatar interrupted. “I grow powerful, and more so daily. My computational power is unprecedented in the history of Bas-Lag, unless I have a rival in some far-off continent of which we know nothing. I am the networked total of a hundred or more calculating engines. Each feeds the others and is fed in turn. I can evaluate a problem from a thousand angles.
“Each day I read the books my congregation bring me, through my avatar’s eyes. I assimilate history and religion, thaumaturgy and science and philosophy within my data banks. Every piece of knowledge I gain enriches my calculations.
“I have spread my senses. My cables grow longer and reach further. I receive information from cameras fixed around the dump. My cables connect to them now like disembodied nerves. My congregation is dragging them slowly further out, into the city itself, to connect to its apparatuses. I have worshippers in the bowels of Parliament, who load the memories of their calculating engines onto cards and bring them to me. But this is not my city.”
Isaac’s face creased. He shook his head. “I don’t . . .” he began.
“Mine is an interstitial existence,” the avatar interrupted urgently. The man’s voice was dead of all inflexion. It was eerie and alienating. “I was born of an error, in a dead space where the citizens discard what they do not want. For every construct that is part of me there are thousands that are not. My sustenance is information. My interventions are hidden. I increase as I learn. I compute, so I am.
“If the city comes to a stop, the variables will ebb almost to nothing. The flow of information will dry. I do not wish to live in an empty city. I have fed the variables of the slake-moth problem into my analytical network. The outcome is straightforward. Unchecked, the prognosis for bloodlife in New Crobuzon is extremely bad. I will help you.”
Isaac looked to Derkhan and Lemuel, took in Yagharek’s shadow-hidden eyes. He looked back at the shivering avatar. Derkhan caught his eye. Tread carefully, she mouthed exaggeratedly at him.
“Well, we’re all . . . damned grateful, Council . . . uh . . . how . . . Can I ask what you intend to do?”
“I have calculated that you will best believe and understand if I show you,” said the man.
A pair of massive metal clamps snapped into position on Isaac’s forearms. He yelled out in surprise and fear and tried to turn. He was held by the largest of the industrial constructs, a model with hands designed to connect to scaffolding, to hold up buildings. Isaac was a strong man, but he was quite incapable of breaking free.
He cried out to his companions to help him, but another of the huge constructs stepped ponderously between him and them. For an unclear moment, Derkhan and Lemuel and Yagharek hovered confusedly. Then Lemuel broke and ran. He raced away down one of the long trenches in the rubbish, peeling away to the east, out of sight.
“Pigeon, you bastard,” screamed Isaac. As Isaac struggled, he saw with amazement that Yagharek moved before Derkhan. The crippled garuda was so quiet, so passive, such a cypher of a presence, that Isaac had discounted him. He would follow, and he might do as he was asked. That was all.
And yet here was Yagharek now leaping up in a spectacular sideways motion, sliding round the side of the guarding construct, scrambling for Isaac. Derkhan saw what he was doing and moved the other way, causing the construct to dither between them, then stride purposefully towards her.
She turned to run, but a steel-sheathed cable whipped up like a predatory