Un Lun Dun - China Mieville [51]
Deeba went through what she’d found out.
Unstible had been about to meet Rawley the Environment secretary—who might know better than most about dangerous climate and how to fight it—and he had been stopped. By something that stank. Of chemicals. His colleagues at RMetS thought he was dead.
The Smog had found him. He hadn’t managed to hide from it, as he’d told her.
Deeba thought about Elizabeth Rawley, the MP in charge of the environment. Maybe, Deeba thought, she could work out why the Smog had been so anxious to stop Unstible from meeting Rawley. Unstible had obviously thought she could help.
Deeba thought back to when she had last heard anything from Rawley on the news. I can’t remember exactly when, she thought, but I’m sure it wasn’t long ago. Wasn’t Dad saying something about her last night? He likes her, says she’s the only one doing her job. Wasn’t she in the paper? Yes, I’m sure she was…Anyway it doesn’t matter. Why am I worrying about Rawley? I’ll hear something about her soon, surely…
“Oh my gosh,” said Deeba suddenly. She froze her umbrella in midtwirl. She knew why it was hard for her to even think about when she’d last seen Elizabeth Rawley.
“I’ve got the phlegm effect,” she said. “And that means…Rawley’s been in UnLondon.”
There was no Klinneract. Long ago, a few UnLondoners must have mis-heard what had stopped the Smog in London, and spread the inadvertently invented word, and eventually the whole abcity believed in a nonexistent magic weapon. That was how legends started. Then Deeba had been suckered into believing in it. By Unstible.
But if the people at RMetS were right, and Unstible had been killed by the Smog, then it wasn’t Unstible in UnLondon.
So who was it Deeba had met?
And what was that imposter doing?
Something was happening in UnLondon. Something was happening to UnLondon. And none of the UnLondoners knew it.
36
Concern in Code
They’ll be fine, Deeba told herself. She told herself that again and again.
UnLondon’ll get through. The Propheseers’ll work out what’s going on. Whatever it is. Maybe I’m the one with the wrong idea. Maybe everything’s fine. Anyway, the Propheseers’ll see to it, one way or the other.
Whenever she thought that, though, Deeba could not help remembering all the confusion about the Shwazzy and the prophecies. She couldn’t forget quite how wrong the end of the stick was that the Propheseers had got hold of there.
Still, she thought, they’ll have learnt their lesson. They’ll be keeping more of an eye out.
UnLondon would have to look after itself. She wasn’t the Shwazzy. She was just someone. How could just someone be any help, whatever was going on?
It’ll be fine, Deeba thought. You saw how Brokkenbroll and Jones and the binja got on.
But she was never a hundred percent convinced.
Besides…she found herself starting to think. She got ashamed of herself then. Because the thought that had been creeping out was Besides, even if something terrible does happen, you don’t need to know about it.
“Zanna,” Deeba said. “I need to ask you something.
“What if you knew something bad was going on somewhere, but the people there didn’t know, and they thought something good was happening, but you knew it wasn’t, and you didn’t know for a hundred percent certain but you did know really, and you didn’t know how to get a message to them, and you never hear from them so you wouldn’t know if they were able to do anything if you did get a message to them…”
Deeba faltered and came to a stop. It had all seemed clearer in her head.
“Deebs,” Zanna said. “I’ve got no idea what you’re on about.”
She walked away, glancing back at Deeba with confusion. And, Deeba realized, fear.
That was when she decided. Even though things were alright now for her and her friends, she couldn’t ignore the fact that something might be very not-alright in UnLondon. She had to try to get word to the abcity. She could only imagine how hard that might be.
Deeba considered dropping