The Scar - China Mieville [140]
“We’re hoping to be off this rock within a week or two. But that means working hard, and quickly.” She was silent for a moment. Her stern voice broke, and she gave an unexpected grin. “Congratulations to all of you. To all of us. This is a great, great day for
Armada.”
And though most of those gathered had no real idea what was going on, her words had the intended effect, and Tanner joined in with the cheer.
The cactacae crew set up camp around the township. They found empty rooms safe from the she-anophelii, to house the Armadans in smaller groups and greater comfort.
The anophelii were as passionlessly curious as ever, keen to talk, keen to be involved. It was quickly clear that Aum had a
dubious reputation: he lived and worked alone. But with the newcomers on the island, all the township’s best thinkers wanted to help. The weapons hidden on the Trident could not have been
less needed. And out of politeness, the Lover allowed them all to join the consultations, though it was only Aum she listened to, and she told Bellis to precis all other contributions.
For the first five hours of the day, Aum sat in discussion with the Armadan scientists. They pored over his book and showed him the damaged appendix, and although, to their astonishment, he had no copies of the work himself, he was able to remember. With the help of an abacus and some of the cryptic engines scattered around, he began to fill in the missing information.
After eating—the cactacae had gathered for their crewmates enough edible plants and fish to supplement the dried rations—the engineers and builders studied with Krüach Aum. In the morning Tanner and his colleagues argued about strain thresholds and engine capacities, drew up rough blueprints, and came up with lists of questions that they put to Aum, shyly, in the afternoon.
The Lover and Tintinnabulum sat in on all sessions, beside Bellis Coldwine. She must be exhausted, Tanner thought with pity. Her writing hand was cramped and covered in ink, but she never complained or asked for a break. She only passed the questions and answers through herself endlessly, scrawling on innumerable reams of paper, translating Aum’s written replies into Salt.
At the end of each day came a short, fearful time as the humans, hotchi, and khepri ran in small groups to wherever they had been lodged. None had to spend more than thirty seconds in the open air, but still they were watched over by rivebow-wielding cactacae and male anophelii protecting their guests from their deadly females with sticks and rocks and klaxons.
There was another engineer already quartered in Tanner’s chambers, a woman in the further room. Tanner lay awake for a while.
“There’s another one to come,” said a cactus voice from outside his window, making them start. “Don’t bolt the door.”
Tanner blew out his candle and slept. But when, much later, Bellis Coldwine was escorted through the vestibule by a cactus guard, and crept in and bolted the door and stumbled, more exhausted than she had ever been before, through Tanner’s dark room into the one beyond, he woke and saw her.
Even in such a hot and strange a place as this, amid all the blood and the threat of violence, even so far from home, routine was powerful.
It took a day, no more, before the Armadans had their routine. The cactacae guards foraged and fished and escorted their fellow crew members, and hauled the Armadans’ rubbish, as the anophelii did, to the gorge at the rear of the village, onto the rock shelf and then into the sea.
Every morning Aum and his constantly shifting anophelii hangers-on debated and lectured Armada’s scientists, and every afternoon the same with the engineers. It was draining: intensely hot, ceaseless work. Bellis became semiconscious. She became a writing syntactical machine, existing only to parse and translate and scribble questions and read out answers.
For the