Perdido Street Station - China Mieville [29]
That night, Kate had greeted Isaac with a brief wave, which he had returned. He had gazed around the smoky room, but the person he had been seeking was absent. He had made his way to the bar.
“Kate,” he shouted over the din. “No sign of Lemuel?”
She shook her head and handed him, unbidden, a Kingpin ale. He paid and turned to face the room.
He was rather thrown. The Moon’s Daughters was Lemuel Pigeon’s office, as near as dammit. He could usually be relied on to be here every night, wheeling, dealing, taking a cut. Isaac guessed he was out on some dubious job or other. He paced through the tables aimlessly, looking for someone he knew.
Over in the corner, grinning beatifically at someone, wearing the yellow robes of his order, was Gedrecsechet, the librarian of the Palgolak church. Isaac brightened and headed towards him.
He was amused to see that the forearms of the scowling youth arguing with Ged were tattooed with the interlocking wheels that proclaimed her a Godmech Cog, doubtless attempting to convert the ungodly. As Isaac drew closer the argument became audible.
“. . . if you approach the world and God with one iota of the rigour and the analysis you claim, you’d see that your pointless sentientomorphism would simply be untenable!”
Ged grinned at the spotty girl and opened his mouth to reply. Isaac interrupted.
“Pardon me, Ged, for butting in. Just wanted to say to you, young Flywheel, whatever you call yourself . . .”
The Cog tried to protest, but Isaac cut her off.
“No, shut up. I’ll say this very clearly . . . piss off. And take your rigour with you. I want to talk to Ged.”
Ged was giggling. His opponent was swallowing, trying to maintain her anger, but she was intimidated by Isaac’s bulk and cheerful pugnacity. She gathered herself to go with a semblance of dignity.
As she stood, she opened her mouth with some parting shot she had clearly been preparing. Isaac pre-empted her.
“Speak and I’ll break your teeth,” he advised amiably.
The Cog closed her mouth and stalked off.
When she was gone from view both Isaac and Ged burst into laughter.
“Why do you put up with them, Ged?” howled Isaac.
Ged, crouched like a frog before the low table, rocked back and forth on his legs and arms, his big tongue flapping in and out of his huge loose mouth.
“I just feel sorry for them,” he tittered. “They’re so . . . intense.”
Ged was generally held to be the most anomalously goodhumoured vodyanoi anyone had ever met. He had absolutely none of the glowering snappiness typical of that cantankerous race.
“Anyway,” he continued, calming down a little, “I don’t mind the Cogs nearly as much as some. They don’t have half the rigour they think they do, of course, but at least they’re taking things seriously. And at least they’re not . . . I don’t know . . . Compline or Godling Brood, or something.”
Palgolak was a god of knowledge. He was depicted either as a fat, squat human reading in a bath, or a svelte vodyanoi doing the same, or, mystically, both at once. His congregation were human and vodyanoi in roughly equal proportions. He was an amiable, pleasant deity, a sage whose existence was entirely devoted to the collection, categorization, and dissemination of information.
Isaac worshipped no gods. He did not believe in the omniscience or omnipotence claimed for a few, or even the existence of many. Certainly there were creatures and essences that inhabited different aspects of existence, and certainly some of them were powerful, in human terms. But worshipping them seemed to him rather a craven activity. Even he, though, had a soft spot for Palgolak. He rather hoped the fat bastard did exist, in some form or other. Isaac liked the idea of an inter-aspectual entity so enamoured with knowledge that it just roamed from