The Scar - China Mieville [25]
His amiable, mildly sly expression went hard. He held up a finger to hush her. He looked quickly around, then spoke to her fast. He sounded sincere and very urgent.
“Miss Coldwine,” he said. “I understand your anger, but you must listen to me.”
She drew herself up, meeting his gaze.
“You must withdraw that threat. I won’t appeal to your professional code or your bloody honor,” he whispered. “Probably you’re as cynical about such things as I am. But I will appeal to you. I have no idea what you’ve worked out or guessed, but let me tell you that it is vital—do you understand?—that I get back to New Crobuzon quickly, without interruption, without fuss.” There was a long pause.
“There is . . . there is a vast amount at stake, Miss Coldwine. You cannot spread mischief. I am begging you to keep these things to yourself. I’m relying on you to be discreet.”
He was not threatening her. His face and voice were stern but not aggressive. As he claimed, he was begging, not trying to intimidate her into submission. He spoke to her like a partner, a confidante.
And impressed and shocked by his fervor, she realized that she would keep what she had heard to herself.
He saw this decision move across her face and nodded in sharp thanks before walking away.
In her cabin, Bellis tried to work out what she was going to do. It would not be safe for her to stay long in Tarmuth. She had to join a ship as soon as possible. Her gut was heavy with hope that she might make it to Nova Esperium, but she realized with an awful foreboding that she was no longer in a position to make a choice.
She felt no shock. She simply realized, rationally and slowly, that she would have to go wherever she could. She could not delay.
Alone, away from the fug of anger and confusion that had swept over the rest of the ship, Bellis felt all her hope was dried up. She felt desiccated like old paper, as if the blustery air on the deck would burst her and blow her away.
Her partial knowledge of the captain’s secrets was no comfort. She had never felt more homeless.
She cracked the seal on her letter, sighed, and began to add to its last page.
Skullday 6th Arora, 1779. Evening, she wrote. Well, my dear, who would have thought this? A chance to add a little more.
It comforted her. Although the arch tone she used was an affectation, it consoled her, and she did not stop writing while Sister Meriope returned and went to bed. She continued by the light of the tiny oil lamp, hinting at conspiracy and secrets, while the Swollen Ocean gnawed monotonously on the Terpsichoria’s iron.
Confused shouting woke Bellis at seven o’clock the next morning. Still lacing up her boots, she stumbled with several other sleepy passengers out into the light. She squinted into the brightness.
Sailors pushed up against the port railings, gesticulating and shouting. Bellis followed their gazes to the horizon and realized that they were looking up.
A man was hanging motionless in the sky, two hundred feet above them, out over the sea.
Bellis gasped idiotically.
The man kicked his legs like a baby and stared at the boat. He seemed to stand in the air. He was strapped in a harness, dangling just below a taut balloon.
He fiddled with his belt and something, some ballast, fell away, spinning lazily into the sea. He jerked and rose forty feet. With the faint sound of a propellor he moved in an inelegant curve. He began a long, unsteady circuit of the Terpsichoria.
“Get back to your godsdamned stations!” The crew broke up industriously at the sound of the captain’s voice. He strode out onto the main deck and peered at the slowly turning figure through his telescope. The man hovered near the top of the masts in a vaguely predatory