Un Lun Dun - China Mieville [79]
Some of the UnLondoners were walking their way, and were looking at Deeba and Hemi with curiosity.
“Oh, I just want to get out of here and go home,” Hemi moaned.
“Yeah but they’re looking for you, too,” Deeba said. “We’re both being hunted.”
“We have to be careful,” Hemi said. “We don’t know who’s on what side. And now the Propheseers…”
“He’s right,” the book said. “They’ll put out word. People will start looking for us.”
“Shut up and listen,” Deeba said. “Something has to stop the Smog, or I can’t go, and I…we’re the only ones that can.” She waited, but neither Hemi nor, this time, the book raised any objections to her plural. “And there’s nothing in London I could use against it. But there must be stuff here. That’s why it didn’t want Zanna here. So. Book, we know you got it wrong about the Shwazzy. That prophecy went wrong, right? But you still must have all the details of what it was she was supposed to do, right? To stop UnLondon’s enemies, right?
“Okay then. The destiny didn’t work with the Chosen One. So I’ll do it instead.”
55
Insulting Classification
“You’ll what?” the book said after a flabbergasted silence.
“I’ll do it,” Deeba said. “Whatever it is that needs doing.”
“Can we please talk about this privately?” said Hemi, ushering them into an alley.
“There’s no choice,” Deeba said to the book. “Why’s it a bad idea? You might not be wrong about what needs doing. Just about who. I bet there’s some choice stuff in you about what’ll knock out the Smog.”
“Well…Certainly there are references to a weapon that the Smog’s afraid of, the implication that it might be for UnLondon what the Klinneract was for London…” The book sounded thoughtful.
“Not that there was a Klinneract,” Deeba whispered.
“What?” whispered Hemi. “Don’t tell it that; you can see how it hates being wrong.”
“But you’re forgetting two things,” the book went on. “One, I have no idea what’s right and what’s not, anymore. Might be nothing in these stupid things—” Its pages riffled. “—is any use at all. And two, you’re not the Shwazzy! You can’t do this.”
“How do you know?” Deeba said. “You don’t know nothing about me. Except…wait a minute. You said I was mentioned, didn’t you? You said there was something about me in there somewhere. So what does it say? What do you know?”
“It doesn’t matter,” the book said. “That’s not important. Let’s just—”
“Yes, it is important,” Deeba interrupted. She yanked open the book’s cover and started turning over pages.
It was the first time she’d seen what was inside. It was chaotic and confusing, different page to page, an extraordinary patchwork of columns, pictures, and writing, in all sizes and colors and countless scripts, including English. Deeba could hardly imagine how anyone would learn to make sense of it.
“Stop it!” the book said. “Get your hands off me!”
Deeba turned to the back and found a very long index. She scanned through all the entries, running her finger down the columns.
“You’re tickling,” the book said. “Stop.” But Deeba kept reading.
The list of entries went straight from “Regal Garb” to “Restitution”—there was no “Resham.” She flicked over some pages and looked for “Deeba,” but the list went straight from “Decalcomania” to “Defcon Scale.”
“There’s nothing,” she said.
“Good,” the book said. “So close me and let’s talk.” But Deeba thought of one more thing.
She looked up “Shwazzy.” There it was, with hundreds of pages listed. Underneath, slightly indented, was a long list of subheadings. Deeba skimmed the story of what Zanna had been supposed to do, chopped up out of sequence and laid out in alphabetically ordered episodes.
“‘Shwazzy…Bramble-Dogs Attack the,’” she murmured, reading entries out loud. “‘Enters the Bathysphere’…‘In the Court of Vegetables’…‘Laments and Tasks’…” Deeba stopped. Read and reread.
“What is it?” Hemi said, seeing her face.
“‘Sidekicks’?” Deeba said.
There it was, in the index. “Shwazzy, Sidekicks of the.” Below that were sub-subheadings, each with a single