The Scar - China Mieville [125]
I sit here in this little cubby, the lavatory, between the livestock and the control car where the captain and his crew steer us. A corridor from the main chamber.
I have come here to write, several times, since we lifted off.
The others spend their times sitting, whispering or playing cards. I suppose some are in their berths, tucked in the
deck above me, below the gasbags. Perhaps they are being talked once more through what is expected of them. Perhaps they are practicing.
My own role is simple, and has been made very clear. After all these weeks and all these thousands of miles, I am back to being told that I am a conduit, that I will merely pass information and language through me, that I do not hear what is spoken.
I can do that. And until then, I have nothing to do but write.
Where possible, cactus-people have been chosen for this mission. At least five of those aboard have actually been to the anophelii island before, years ago. Hedrigall, of course, and others I do not know.
This raises issues of desertion: it is rare for any Armadan press-ganged to come into contact with their old compatriots again, but there must be Samheri on the island. My business here relies on such a meeting. All the cactacae on this mission, I understand, have reasons not to wish to return to their first home. They are like Johannes, or Hedrigall, or Shekel’s friend Tanner—loyal to their adopted country.
Hedrigall, though, makes me wonder. He knows Silas—or at least he knows one Simon Fench.
I of all people know that the Garwater authorities can misjudge who is to be trusted.
Dreer Samher is pragmatic. At sea, a meeting of Samheri ships and those of Perrick Nigh or the Mandrake Islands might mean battle, but relations with Armada are courteous, for safety’s sake. And besides, they will be at dock. Port-peace operates there as law-merchant does on the land, and it is a strong code, adhered to and administered by those subordinated to it.
Tanner Sack is on the airship, and I can tell that he knows who I am. He watches me with what might be distaste, or shyness, or almost any other emotion. Tintinnabulum is aboard, and several of his crew. Johannes is not—I am relieved at that.
The scientists who are here are a strange mixture. The pressganged look mostly as I expect scholars to. The Armadans look like pirates. I am told that this one is a mathematician, this one a biologist, this one an oceanologer: they all look like pirates, scarred and pugnacious in ragged regalia.
There are the guards: cactus and scabmettler. I have seen inside their armory, and there are rivebows and flintlocks and polearms. They have brought black powder with them, and what look to me like war engines. In case the anophelii do not cooperate, I think we have brought plenty to persuade them.
In charge of all the guards is Uther Doul. And giving him his orders is one-half of Garwater’s ruling pair, alone, the Lover.
Doul stalks from room to room. He talks to Hedrigall more than to anyone else, I think. He seems disquieted. I do my best not to meet his eye.
He intrigues me: his presence, his anomolous voice. He wears the grey leather that is his uniform, much-scarred and pocked, but immaculately clean. The right arm of the tunic is interwoven with wires that extend down to his belt. He wears his sword on his left hip, and he bristles with pistols.
He stares aggressively from windows, then stalks back, usually to wherever the Lover is standing.
The Lover’s scarred face revolts me somewhat. I’ve known—I have been with—those who found release in pain, who made it part of sex; and though I find the prediliction slightly absurd, it does not trouble or disturb me at all. That is not what I find wrong with the Lovers. I have a sense that their cutting is somehow almost contingent. What makes me queasy is something deeper that inheres between them.
I try to avoid the Lover’s eye, but I find myself pruriently drawn by her marks. It is as if they have been carved