The New Weird - Ann VanderMeer [186]
Busybody Constable Chirag from the constabulary on Toop Street comes up the steps. He's full of energy and nerves. He cradles a folder from which papers threaten to spill. Self-importantly he calls for an "exchange of information." He's been walking all over the city. People are uneasy. His folder's full of witness statements, anonymous tips, records of the import into Riarnanth of some unfamiliar engines and organs bred for unusual and highly specialized purposes. Something's afoot. Can't Chalch feel it? Chalch cannot. What has Chalch heard, at the station on the corner of Preem and Lall? Nothing.
"All right then, Chalch. All right. What's Constable Enif heard?"
"Nothing."
"Where's he gone?"
"Don't know."
They stare at each other; then, shrugging, Chirag goes off into the night.
Good! Go and play hero if you want, but do it on your own time. Chalch, putting his feet up, feels a warm glow of self-satisfaction. A small victory!
The Detective slips silently through the docks, down by the black water of the bay at midnight, his sandals.
Out of the corner of his eye, Chalch notices a piece of paper on the floor. Because he's duty-bound to keep his station neat, he sighs, folds his Ten Thousand away, and comes round the desk to pick it up.
It must have fallen from Chirag's folder. It's a wax-stamped ribbon-bound record of the delivery of ― Chalch has no idea what the word is, it's one of the words the breeders of stomachs and other industrial organs use, spore-something ― to a place in Tsongtrik banlieue, on Djudrum Lane, down by the Canal of Symmetries.
With great reluctance Chalch recognizes the address. Constable Enif was over in Tsongtrik poking around only last week. Chalch remembers it because Enif came back to the station and asked, cleverly: Why would a Septon of Chuzdt be seen visiting a little broken-down doss-house on Djudrum Lane? To which Chalch, wittily, had replied: Perhaps he was hungry?
Ah. Damn it. This leaves Chalch in a quandary. It's probably nothing important. It's almost certainly nothing. He'd send Constable Hamoy to go running after Chirag but Hamoy has temporarily absented himself, clever lad. It's surely nothing.
Sighing, he puts on his cap and sandals and steps out into the night, holding the piece of paper out as if by waving it he can entice Chirag back, and maybe save himself the walk.
No sign of Chirag outside; he must be halfway down Lall Street to the next station. The steps are bare, the street empty, the park across the street silent and dark. The thick leaves of the palm trees droop in the heat like Chalch's elderly aunts. The branches of the pipals hang heavily, too, and there are shapes in them, dozens of eyes that glint in the light of the remaining lanterns.
Ah. Well, there's one mystery solved. No wonder the park's been empty of Festival-goers all night: the trees in the park are full with monkeys. Monkeys balance on the branches in stiff threatening little regiments. Monkeys hang by their arms. Monkeys sit on the backs of other monkeys. All of them regard him with grave black eyes; their heads are round and white-tufted, luminous, owl-like, intense.
Salps! In the darkness, on the other side of the street, Chalch can't make out the salp-sacs knotted in the white fur, but he knows they're there; this is not natural behavior for monkeys.
One of the salp-ridden creatures unties another paper lantern and it flutters dimming and dying to the ground.
Chalch takes a step forward. The creatures appear to be watching him. They appear to be judging him. He feels like he's on stage, and he's forgotten his lines. He feels like he's back at his examinations, which did not go at all well last time.
"Well, what do you lot want?"
They don't answer. His face flushes.
"Get lost, will you?"
They don't move. Well, it's their city too, in a way.
Chalch decides enough is enough. They make his skin crawl. Walking that gauntlet of still black eyes is beyond the call of any man's duty. He screws up Chirag's stupid invoice and goes back inside, where it's