Perdido Street Station - China Mieville [316]
Isaac waited.
“How did you find me?” he said eventually, bitterly.
“I have . . . come a long way, Grimneb . . . lin,” Kar’uchai said. “I am yahj’hur . . . hunter. I have hunted for days. Here I hunt with . . . gold and paper-money . . . My quarry leaves a trail of rumour . . . and memory.”
What did he do?
“I come from Cymek. I have hunted . . . since Cymek.”
“I can’t believe you found us,” said Isaac suddenly, nervously. He talked quickly, hating the pervasive sense of ending and ignoring it aggressively, blotting it. “If you did the damn militia can for sure and if they can . . .” He strode quickly back and forth. He knelt down by Lin, stroked her gently, drew breath to say more.
“I am come for justice,” said Kar’uchai, and Isaac could not speak. He felt suffocated.
“Shankell,” said Kar’uchai. “Meagre Sea. Myrshock.” I’ve heard about the journey, thought Isaac in anger, you don’t have to tell me. Kar’uchai continued. “I have . . . hunted across a thousand miles. Seek justice.”
Isaac spoke slowly, in rage and sadness.
“Yagharek is my friend,” he said.
Kar’uchai continued as if he had said nothing. “When we found that he was gone, after . . . judgement . . . I was chosen to come . . .”
“What do you want?” said Isaac. “What are you going to do to him? You want to take him back with you? You want to . . . what, cut off . . . more of him?”
“I have not come for Yagharek,” said Kar’uchai. “I have come for you.”
Isaac stared in miserable confusion.
“It is up to you . . . to let justice be . . .”
Kar’uchai was relentless. Isaac could say nothing.
What did he do?
“I heard your name first in Myrshock,” said Kar’uchai. “It was on a list. Then here, in this city, it came back again and again until . . . all others melted away. I hunted. Yagharek and you . . . were linked. People whispered . . . of your researches. Flying monsters and thaumaturgic machines. I knew that Yagharek had found what he sought. What he came a thousand miles for. You would deny justice, Grimneb’lin. I am here to ask you . . . not to do that.
“It was finished. He was judged and punished. And it was over. We did not think . . . we did not know that he might . . . find a way . . . that justice could be retracted.
“I am here to ask you not to help him fly.”
“Yagharek is my friend,” said Isaac steadily. “He came to me and employed me. He was generous. When things . . . went wrong . . . got complicated and dangerous . . . well, he was brave and he helped me—us. He’s been part of . . . of something extraordinary. And I owe him . . . a life.” He glanced at Lin and then away again. “I owe him . . . for the times . . . He was ready to die, you know? He could have died, but he stayed and without him . . . I don’t think I could have come through.”
Isaac spoke quietly. His words were sincere and affecting.
What did he do?
“What did he do?” said Isaac, defeated.
“He is guilty,” said Kar’uchai quietly, “of choice-theft in the second degree, with utter disrespect.”
“What does that mean?” shouted Isaac. “What did he do? What’s fucking choice-theft anyway? This means nothing to me.”
“It is the only crime we have, Grimneb’lin,” replied Kar’uchai in a harsh monotone. “To take the choice of another . . . to forget their concrete reality, to abstract them, to forget that you are a node in a matrix, that actions have consequences. We must not take the choice of another being. What is community but a means to . . . for all we individuals to have . . . our choices.”
Kar’uchai shrugged and indicated the world around them vaguely. “Your city institutions . . . Talking and talking of individuals . . . but crushing them in layers and hierarchies . . . until their choices might be between three kinds of squalor.
“We have far less, in the desert. We hunger, sometimes, and thirst. But we have all the choices that we can. Except when someone forgets themselves, forgets the reality of