The City & the City - China Mieville [31]
Katrinya nodded. “A voice of sense,” Buric said. The Ul Qomans had obviously seen these internal fights before. The splendours of our democracy. Doubtless they conducted their own squabbles.
“I think that’ll be all, Inspector,” he said, over the major’s raised voice. “We’ve got your submission. Thank you. The usher’ll show you out. You’ll be hearing from us shortly.”
THE CORRIDORS OF COPULA HALL are in a determined style that must have evolved over the many centuries of the building’s existence and centrality to Besź and Ul Qoman life and politics: they are antique and haute, but somehow vague, definitionless. The oil paintings are well executed but as if without antecedent, bloodlessly general. The staff, Besź and Ul Qoman, come and go in those in-between corridors. The hall feels not collaborative but empty.
The few Precursor artefacts in alarmed and guarded bell jars that punctuate the passages are different. They are specific, but opaque. I glanced at some as I left: a sag-breasted Venus with a ridge where gears or a lever might sit; a crude metal wasp discoloured by centuries; a basalt die. Below each one a caption offered guesses.
Syedr’s intervention was unconvincing—he gave the impression that he had decided to make his stand on the next petition that crossed the desk, and had the misfortune for it to be mine, a case with which it was hard to argue—and his motivations questionable. If I were political I would not in any circumstances follow his lead. But there was a reason to his caution.
The powers of the Breach are almost limitless. Frightening. What does limit Breach is solely that those powers are highly circumstantially specific. The insistence that those circumstances be rigorously policed is a necessary precaution for the cities.
That is why these arcane checks and balances between Besźel, Ul Qoma, and the Breach. In circumstances other than the various acute and unarguable breaches—of crime, accident or disaster (chemical spill, gas explosion, a mentally ill attacker attacking across the municipal boundary)—the committee vetted all potential invocations—which were, after all, all circumstances in which Besźel and Ul Qoma would denude themselves of any powers.
Even after the acute events, with which no one sane could argue, the representatives of the two cities on the committee would carefully examine ex post facto justifications they commissioned for Breach’s interventions. They might, technically, question any of these: it would be absurd to do so, but the committee would not undermine their authority by not going through important motions.
The two cities need the Breach. And without the cities’ integrities, what is Breach?
Corwi was waiting for me. “So?” She handed me coffee. “What did they say?”
“Well, it’s going to be handed over. But they made me jump through hoops.” We walked towards the police car. All the streets around Copula Hall were crosshatched, and we made our way unseeing through a group of Ul Qoman friends to where Corwi had parked. “You know Syedr?”
“That fascist prick? Sure.”
“He was trying to make out as if he wouldn’t let the case go to Breach. It was weird.”
“They hate Breach, don’t they, the NatBloc?”
“Weird to hate it. Like hating air or something. And he’s a nat, and if there’s no Breach, there’s no Besźel. No homeland.”
“It’s complicated, isn’t it,” she said, “because even though we need them, it’s a sign of dependence that we do. Nats are divided, anyway, between balance-of-power people and triumphalists. Maybe he’s a triumphalist. They reckon Breach are protecting Ul Qoma, the only thing stopping Besźel taking over.”
“They want to take it over? They’re living in a dreamworld if they think Besźel would win.” Corwi glanced at me. We both knew it was true. “Anyway,