The Scar - China Mieville [49]
She felt as if all around her, morose ghosts were milling, unable to accept that the volumes were no longer theirs.
That day, as she sorted through new arrivals, Bellis found one of her own books.
She sat for a long time on the floor with her legs splayed, propped up against the shelves, staring at the copy of Codexes of the Wormseye Scrub. She felt the familiar fraying spine and the slightly embossed “B. Coldwine.” It was her own copy: she recognized its wear. She gazed at it guardedly, as if it were a test she might fail.
The cart did not contain her other work, High Kettai Grammatology, but she did find the Salkrikaltor Cray textbook she had brought to the Terpsichoria.
Our stuff’s finally coming through, she thought.
It affected her like a blow.
This was mine, she thought. This was taken.
What else was from her ship? Was this Doctor Mollificatt’s copy of Future Tenses? she wondered. Widow Cardomium’s Orthography and Hieroglyphs?
She could not be still. She stood and walked, tense, wandering vague and stricken through the library. She passed into the open air and over the bridges that linked the library’s vessels, carrying her book clutched to her, above the water and then back into the darkness by the bookshelves.
“Bellis?”
She looked up, confused. Carrianne stood before her, her mouth twisted slightly in what might be amusement or concern. She looked terribly pale, but she spoke with her usual strong voice.
The book dangled from Bellis’ hands. Her breathing slowed, and she smoothed the crisis from her face, arranging it carefully once more, wondering what to say. Carrianne took her arm and tugged her away.
“Bellis,” she said again, and though she wore an arch smirk there was genuine kindness in her voice. “It’s high time you and I made a little effort to get to know each other. Have you eaten lunch?”
Carrianne dragged her gently through the corridors of the Dancing Wight, on up a half-covered walkway to the Pinchermarn. This is not like me, Bellis thought as she followed, to let myself be tugged along in someone’s wake. This is not like me at all. But she was in a kind of daze, and she gave in to Carrianne’s insistent pulling.
At the exit, Bellis realized with a gust of surprise that she was still carrying her copy of Codexes of the Wormseye Scrub. She had been clutching it so tight her hands looked bloodless.
Her heart sped up as she realized that under Carrianne’s protection, she could walk straight past the guard, could hold the book close, out of sight, could leave the library with her contraband.
But the closer she got to the door, the more she hesitated, the less she understood her motives, the more she was suddenly terrified of capture, until with a sudden long sigh she deposited the monograph in the carrel beside the desk. Carrianne watched her inscrutably. In the light beyond the door, Bellis looked back at her deserted volume and felt a surge of something, some tremulous emotion.
Whether it was triumph or defeat she could not tell.
The Psire was the largest ship in the Clockhouse Spur, a big steamer of archaic design refitted for industry and cheap housing. Stubby concrete blocks loomed on its rear deck, all fouled with birdlime. Strings of washing linked windows where humans and khepris leaned out and talked. Bellis descended a rope ladder behind Carrianne, toward the sea, through the smell of salt and damp to a galley in the Psire’s shadow.
Below the galley’s deck was the restaurant, full of noisy lunchtime diners. The waiters were khepri and human, and even a couple of rusted constructs. They strode the narrow walkway between two rows of benches, depositing bowls of gruel and plates of black bread, salads, and cheeses.
Carrianne ordered for them, then turned to Bellis with a look of sincere concern.
“So,” she said. “What’s happening with you?”
Bellis looked up at her, and for a dreadful second she thought she would cry. The feeling went quickly, and