The Scar - China Mieville [148]
Bellis watched Krüach Aum and saw how like a child the old anophelius was. He watched his new companions packing what bags and clothes and books they had brought, and he tried to copy them, though he had nothing. He left the hall and returned a little while later with a bundle of rags and edges of scrap paper that he collected and tied together at the top in a crude imitation of a traveling sack. It made Bellis shiver to watch.
Deep in her own bag, Bellis could feel Silas’ package: the letters, the necklace, the box, the wax, the ring. Tonight, she told herself, and felt panic. Tonight, come what may.
For the rest of the short day she tracked the sun’s passage. In the late afternoon, when the light had become thick and slow and every shape bled shadows, dread overtook her. Because she realized that there was no way she could cross past the swamps and the territories of the murderous mosquito-women.
Bellis looked up in alarm as the door was thrown open.
Captain Sengka stepped forward into the room, flanked by two of his crew.
The three cactacae stood at the entrance, their arms crossed. They were big men, even for their race. Their vegetable muscles bunched around their sashes and loincloths. Light gleamed on their jewelry and on their weapons.
Sengka pointed his massive finger at Krüach Aum. “This anophelius,” he announced, “is going nowhere.”
No one moved. After several still seconds, the Lover stepped forward.
Sengka spoke before she could. “What did you think, Captain?” he said, disgusted. “Captain? Is that what I should fucking call you, woman? What did you think? I’ve turned a blind sun-fucked eye on your presence here, which I did not have to do. I’ve put up with your communication with the natives, which is a breach of security risking a new fucking Malarial Age . . .” The Lover shook her head impatiently at this hyperbole, but Sengka continued. “I’ve waited patiently for you to get the fuck off this island, and what? You think you can smuggle one of these creatures off-land without my knowledge? You think I’d let you go?
“Your vessels will be searched,” he said decisively. “Any contraband lifted from Machinery Beach, any anophelii books or treatises, any heliotypes of the island will be confiscated.” He indicated Aum again and shook his head incredulously. “Have you read history, woman? You want to take an anophelius out?”
Krüach Aum watched the altercation with wide eyes.
“Captain Sengka,” said the Lover. Bellis had never seen her more alive with presence, more magnificent. “No one would ever criticize your concern for safety, or your commitment to your commission. But you know as well as I that the male anophelius is a harmless herbivore. We have no intention of bringing out any but this one.”
“I will not have it!” Sengka shouted. “Sunshit, this system is absolute, and it’s absolute because we can learn the lessons of history. No anophelii are to leave this island. That is a condition of their being allowed to live. There are no exceptions.”
“I’m tiring of this, Captain.” Bellis could not but admire the Lover’s calm, cold and hard as iron. “Krüach Aum is leaving with us. We have no wish to antagonize Dreer Samher, but we are taking this anophelius.” She turned her back on him and began to walk away.
“My men on Machinery Beach,” he said, and she paused, then turned back to him. He drew a huge pistol and held it loose, dangling down. The Armadans were quite still. “Trained cactacae fighters,” Sengka said. “Defy me and you will not leave this island alive.” So slowly that the motion did not seem threatening, he raised his gun and pointed it at the Lover. “This anophelius . . . Aum, you said . . . he is coming with me.”
The guards all around the room were poised on the edge of motion. Their hands fluttered over their swords and bows and pistols. Scabmettlers in cracked armor and huge cactacae, their eyes moved quickly from Sengka to the Lover and back again.
The Lover did not look at any of them. Instead, Bellis saw her catch the eye of Uther Doul.
Doul walked