The Scar - China Mieville [111]
“Is he trustworthy?” Tintinnabulum repeated.
“He is,” Angevine said. “He’s a good man. He’s grateful for
being spared the colonies; he’s angry with New Crobuzon. He’s
had himself Remade, the better to dive, the better to work in the docks—he’s a sea creature now. He’s loyal as any Garwater born, I’d say.”
Tintinnabulum raised himself and shut Angevine’s boiler. His mouth pursed thoughtfully. On his desk he found a long, handwritten list of names.
“What’s he called?” he said.
He nodded, leaned over, and carefully added Tanner Sack.
Chapter Eighteen
Rumor and word of mouth were even stronger forces in Armada than in New Crobuzon, but Armada was not without a more organized media than that. There were criers, most yelling the semiofficial line of one or other of the ridings. A few news sheets and periodicals were available, printed on dreadful-quality, ink-saturated sheets that were constantly recycled.
Most were irregular, available when writers and printers could be bothered or find the resources. Many were free; most were thin: one or two folded sheets crammed with print.
Armada’s halls were full of plays and music, coarse and very popular, so the publications were full of reviews. Some contained titillation and scandal mongering, but to Bellis they were depressingly parochial. Disputes about allocation of seized goods, or over which riding was responsible for which haul, were generally the most provocative and controversial topics they carried. And those were just the news sheets she could make sense of.
In the hybrid culture of Armada, as many different traditions of journal were represented as existed in the world of Bas-Lag, alongside unique forms born on the pirate city. More Often Than Not was a weekly that reported only on the city’s deaths, in verse. Juhangirr’s Concern, published in Thee-And-Thine riding, was wordless, telling what stories it considered important (according to criteria quite opaque to Bellis) in sequences of crude pictures.
Occasionally, Bellis would read The Flag or Council’s Call,
both published out of Curhouse. The Flag was probably the best news-gathering organ in the city. Council’s Call was a political publication, carrying arguments between proponents of the various ridings’ governmental systems: Curhouse’s democracy, Jhour’s solar queendom, the “absolutist benevolence” of Garwater, the Brucolac’s protectorate, and so on.
Both the publications, for all their vaunted toleration of dissent, were more or less loyal to Curhouse’s Democratic Council. It was therefore no great surprise to Bellis, who had started to understand the tussles of Armadan politics, when The Flag and Council’s Call began to raise doubts about conjuring the avanc.
They were circumspect at first.
“The Summoning would be a triumph of science,” read the editorial in The Flag, “but there are questions. More motive power for the city can only be good, but what will be the cost?”
It was not long before their objections became more strident.
But with Armada still in the swell of thrill from Garwater’s extraordinary declaration, voices of caution and outright rejection were a small minority. In the pubs—even those of Curhouse and Dry Fall—there was massive excitement. The scale of the undertaking, the promised capturing of an avanc, for gods’ sakes, was giddying.
Still, through a few journals, through pamphlets and posters, sceptics voiced their ignored opposition.
Recruitment began.
A special meeting was convened at the Basilio docks. Tanner Sack rubbed his tentacles and waited. Eventually the yeoman-sergeant stepped forward.
“I’ve a list here,” he shouted, “of engineers and others who’ve been requested for special duty by the Lovers.” The whispers and murmurs swelled briefly, then subsided. No one was in any doubt as to what the special duty was.
As each name was read out, there was audible excitement from its bearer and those nearby. Those named came as no surprise to Tanner. He recognized the best of his colleagues: the fastest workers, the most skillful engineers who had most recently been