Un Lun Dun - China Mieville [151]
She looked at each of them in turn.
“You know that,” she said. Hemi looked away.
They all looked sad. Obaday sniffed. Jones dabbed surreptitiously at his eyes.
“The stuff that happened here,” Deeba said, “I’ll never forget. What we did. I’ll never forget you. Any of you.” She paused, looked at each of them in turn.
“And part of the reason I won’t forget you,” she said, “is ’cause I’ll be back all the time.”
Mortar and the Propheseers—the Suggesters—looked up, startled.
“Come on,” she said, smiling. “What you even talking about, Mortar? It’s easy to get from London to here. I got here by turning a tap, then by climbing shelves. Jones is here, Rosa got here, all the conductors got here. The police came in a digging machine. For God’s sake, Unstible and Murgatroyd put an elevator in. People are always going between, and you don’t see either universe collapsing, do you?
“You just think it’s hard to go between the two ’cause you’ve always thought it must be. You’re just saying that ’cause you sort of think you should.”
Deeba’s friends stared at her, and at each other. “She has a point,” Mortar said eventually.
“You’ve spent all your time wanting to go!” said Jones.
“’Cause I couldn’t get back,” she said. “Now that I can, I’ll go back and forth all the time. You seriously think I’m not coming to see you again? Not coming to see this place?”
“But such methods,” Mortar said, “they aren’t reliable. They may not always work; the rules aren’t always clear—”
“Well then, I’ll try others. Till one of them does. Look, I’m not even making plans. I’m just saying there’s no way I’m not coming back. There’s things I want to do here.”
“I’ve been thinking,” Jones said. “I’m going to take a trip back to Webminster Abbey. I’m going to find Rosa, and get her out. And I’d be delighted if you’d join me.”
“Of course,” said Deeba. “Yes. Speaking of which, there’s someone called Ptolemy Yes I was told about who went missing, and I want to find him. And I’d like to go back to the Wordhoard Pit, climb down, see what the libraries are like in other places.”
“There’s people in Wraithtown I’d like you to meet,” said Hemi, still not meeting her eye. “And also, I wondered if maybe you want to go to Manifest Station? We could get a train. See another abcity together…”
There was a pause, and Deeba smiled at him.
“Absolutely,” Deeba said. “Yeah. And loads of other things. I’m blatantly coming back. And you can come visit me.” She smiled at Hemi again.
He, and then the others, began cautiously smiling back.
“You called it our abcity,” Jones said. “Before the fight. And it is. It’s your home too.”
“And anyway,” Deeba said, “Curdle and the rebrella are coming with me, and they might get homesick.”
“You can’t let feral rubbish cross into London,” Mortar said anxiously. “It belongs in another world.” Deeba looked at him and raised an eyebrow, and his voice dried up. “I suppose one or two can’t hurt,” he mumbled.
“So listen,” Deeba said. “I’m not saying good-bye to any of you. I’ll say ‘See you soon.’ And I mean really soon. Let me explain.
“I told you one reason the Smog grew so strong: ’cause it was getting help. There’s one thing we haven’t dealt with. Mortar, you said the police burrower was gone?”
“Yes. We checked where you said it had been. The officers must have got out and fixed it, gone home yesterday.”
“Right. They threatened my family. It might have been only to scare me—there’s nothing in it for them to actually do anything now. But I don’t like it. And I don’t like who they ally with. For the sake of me, and my mate Zanna, and my family, and London and UnLondon, it needs sorting. So I wanted to make a suggestion. An arrangement. It’s going to involve clearing some rubble in Unstible’s old place, but I think it’s worth it.”
Deeba looked at them all. Jones cracked his knuckles and raised an eyebrow. Hemi pursed his lips thoughtfully. Deeba smiled.
When evening fell, with a huge grinding, the UnLondon-I spun once more. With focus and effort, Mortar and the Suggesters directed the bridge.