Un Lun Dun - China Mieville [124]
“So you started remembering what I said,” said Deeba. Lectern nodded. She couldn’t meet Deeba’s eye. “Is it just you?”
“I know there’re others who don’t like what’s going on,” said Lectern. “Some of them might be on their way. But I didn’t know which of them to risk talking to. So when I heard the talk about what was going on, I just…walked off the Pons. Put my ears to the ground, listened out for where you might be.”
“So word’s spreading a bit too much,” muttered Deeba. “We better be quick. Do the others know?”
“They must know I’m gone by now, but I made sure they didn’t follow us.”
“And the others are loyal to Brokkenbroll?” Jones said.
“Some. A lot of them…sort of pretend, to themselves, that they believe him.”
“The binja?”
“These are the only ones I know you can trust.”
“What about Mortar?”
She looked sadly at them.
“He’s worst of all,” said Lectern quietly. “He’s been friends with Unstible so long, he won’t hear a word of criticism. And the funny thing is, he gets more aggressive and stupidly pro-Unstible the more Unstible looks dodgy. Goes on and on about how brilliantly everything’s going and how Unstible’s going to fix everything and the Smog’ll be routed soon. It’s like he knows something bad’s going on, and he has to prove to himself he doesn’t.
“He’s just being weak, really,” she said. “You can’t help feeling a bit sorry for him.”
“Yeah,” said Deeba grimly. She thought of Diss, and Rosa, and the locals by the abbey, and others across UnLondon. “Yeah you can.”
Some of the vessels in the harbor were so old-fashioned they looked like they should be in museums; others were hung with streamers and ropes so they were like shaggy, floating, multicolored animals. Deeba saw one that didn’t have just a figurehead at the front, but an entire hull made up of wooden animals, women, skeletons, men, and geometric curls.
But these weren’t suitable for a secret mission.
Shapes jostled in the water. They were strange and ungainly, with slanted glass sections towards the front and back, and vertically along the sides. It took a moment for Deeba to realize she was looking at the metal-and-glass shells of cars, pulled off, turned over, and made watertight.
“What is that?” she said, pointing at the nearest.
“It’s called a ,” Jones said.
The four grooves where the wheels had been were now the housings for oars. It didn’t look like the most stable vessel, but it was low and nondescript from afar.
“Which is ours?” Deeba said.
“Traveling in style,” Jones said, and indicated one that must have once been the body of a Rolls-Royce or a Jaguar or a Bentley or something.
“So this is a—” Deeba tried to remember how Jones had said it. “…a rack? No, that’s not right…”
“It’s a ,” Jones said.
“A…rack? I can’t say it.”
“Easiest way is to bend over and say ‘car.’”
“Stay low in the water,” Jones told the gathered army. “And don’t go too fast. We need everyone to look like rubbish. There’s no point avoiding the bridges if they catch us on the water.
“You’ve all been told where you should go. We want you to storm into the front, and—if you make it—we’ll see you inside. There’ll be defenses. No doubt about it. Probably a lot of them. So be prepared to fight hard.”
People waited. After an awkward silence, Jones nudged Deeba, inclined his head.
Deeba hesitated.
“I wasn’t supposed to be here,” she said. “At first I just wanted to go home, but I couldn’t, because you-know-what would’ve come after me. And back where I come from I couldn’t have done nothing about it. So I had to stay and fight, even though that was crazy.
“That thing wants UnLondon—and who knows what else? It’s poison with a mind—you do not want to be here if it runs things. Unfortunately, some people have been taken in.
“But you haven’t. We haven’t. You’re fighting for UnLondon. And you know something? Me too. I want to get home, and I have to stop