Eileen Gunn - Questionable Practices

“You can go back to your United States Government and tell them that I have everything under control.” He unholstered his Colt, but did not point it directly at the visitor.

Creel smiled slightly. A smile with a bit of steel in it, thought the sheriff.

“I beg your forbearance, Sheriff,” he said. “Please allow me to give you a demonstration. This will not take long, and then my dog and I will be on our way.” He put down his leather case, and turned to the dog. “Abbey, show the sheriff what we are about.”

On command, the dog put both paws in front of her and bowed prettily to the sheriff, as in a performance. She then tugged at a string on the leather case, and it fell open. Inside was a strange contrivance, rather like a camera: a leather bellows and straps, brass fittings, glass lenses, and rosewood and bamboo casings. Creel bent down to pick it up.

“Handsome,” said the sheriff. “Step away from the device.”

Creel stepped away. “Please examine it, sheriff. Take your time. It’s harmless, but rather fragile.”

The sheriff reholstered his gun and swung off the horse. When someone tells you a thing is harmless, he thought, it’s almost certain that the opposite is true.

He was just crouching down to look at the contraption when the dog tugged at another string.

At the renowned Theater of the Modern World and Martian Invasion Museum in Hemingway, South Carolina, Sheriff Lindley rode his borrowed horse, now on permanent loan, around the perimeter of the Old Atkinson Place diorama. He pulled out his watch and flipped it open. Almost time for them to let out the Martians. He stared forlornly at the painted horizon, shading his eyes theatrically with his hand. Then he twisted around in the saddle, doffed his second-best Stetson, and waved it at the giant faces peering in through the viewing glass. Like living in a fishbowl, he thought — not for the first time — and hot as an upside-down washpot on a tin shed roof. But it’s a job.

( with apologies to China Miéville )

Wetlands to Rudewood, and then the train. After years of wandering in the wilderness, I am coming home to a place I’ve never been. It feels already as though I live here, as though I’ve lived here a very long time.

As the train moves from the tawdry edge of the city, all decaying farms and rusting iron mills, the voices of its inhabitants, rough, ill-formed, without art or poetry, call out their names swiftly from walls as we pass in the dark. Some are written in Ragamoll or Lubbock, but other scripts abound, including a few I have never before seen. I am sure one of them was Anopheliian, a strange, whiny script that made my body itch as we passed. Strange scents filled the car and were gone: Khepri obscenities.

The train slows, a safety requirement: the thaumaturgic gyros have been shut off for its passage through the city. A tinny voice of uncertain origin — mechanical? Remade? Garudic, even? — announces upcoming stations, but many are unannounced, and we pass through quickly without stopping, as if there is something shameful about them.

We cross the River Tar, and then quickly, far more quickly than seems possible, we are in the heart of the heart of the city. Although I’ve never seen them before, I recognize the Ribs, off in the distance, silhouetted against the sky.

My train pulls into the station. This is precisely where I want to be, in this scrofulously magnificent construct. I shoulder my bag and walk out into its cavernous arrival hall, eight stories high. Five railway lines, six militia lines, and the militia’s towering Spike: there were thousands of people in the hall — running, walking, standing still in puzzlement or exhaustion or boredom. Stairways up, stairways down, passageways lit or dark, some with descriptive signage, some completely anonymous, but all of them thronged with creatures of every shape and size and color and race, an ocean of roiling beings, all on their way somewhere else.

For people without tickets, there is much to do in the station itself. There is free food — tons of food tossed aside half-eaten by those in transit. There are shops of all kinds, selling everything from cheap sex toys to luxurious clothing and hard goods that only the very wealthy can afford. You can even live here, if you find some abandoned tunnel or unused stairwell. But space is at a premium, and anyone who finds a dry corner and makes it theirs is likely to be evicted by someone stronger or better armed. There is talk of a community of fRemades, the free Remades, many levels down who defend their domain and whose members rarely see the light of day.

The Remades themselves draw my attention, of course, and I stare at them like some country boy come to the big city for the first time, though I am not someone unlearned or unused to cities. A man with a rat’s head begs for change and pieces of cheese. A woman with a fishtail instead of legs manipulates her tank-on-wheels deftly through the crowd; in her shopping basket, a package wrapped in white butcher paper squirms. A man and a woman walk together, close but not touching. He has pins stuck into him, all over his body, their rounded heads protruding slightly, and she has pins sticking out of her, the points emerging through her skin and clothing, like a human bed of nails. I wonder what on earth they — and all the others — have done to deserve such torture. It is a sickness of this city that they use their remarkable thaumaturgic technology to punish and shame.

I have lived and worked in many great cities, though their names are unknown to those who live here. These people know little of the rest of the world, expecting it to come to them. And it does, to this crossroads of life, this station that is more than a station.

I walk on, examining this remarkable structure, its construction, its design and endless redesign, its strengths and its bruises.

Sitting in his usual booth at the Moon’s Daughters, Gedrecsechet, librarian for the renowned Palgolak Church library, watched the human stranger work his way through the pub. He had the clothing of a businessman and the demeanor of an artist, and he moved with a certain confident awareness that made Ged think he was packing a weapon of some kind. Odder still, he was greeting the various locals — a particularly diverse bunch — in their native languages, not in Ragamoll. This didn’t make them remarkably more friendly to him — but wait: he was buying a round for a small group of Workerbees. They all clinked glasses and toasted The Product, and he talked with them a bit. The atmosphere around him got… not warm, really, but distinctly less frigid.

Ged bided his time. He would do this, of an evening, just sit and watch. It was amazing how much knowledge of the world one could pick up just by hanging out in a pub and listening to other people. Though he hoped the Godmech Cogs weren’t canvassing tonight: he could do without another lecture on the evils of sentientomorphic thinking.

Eventually, sure enough, the stranger caught his eye. “Ready for another?” he asked in Vodyanoi.

Ged nodded. “Thank you kindly,” he said in Ragamoll. “Kingpin.” The name of the beer was unpronounceable in his own language. The stranger nodded and went off to the bar.

When he came back, he handed Ged his beer, and indicated the empty seat across from him. “May I inconvenience you?” he asked, still in Vodyanoi.

“Surely, honored sir, it is no inconvenience, but a pleasure,” said Ged in his own language, with a gesture of welcome.

The stranger sat down. “I am Santosh,” he said. “Santosh Philip, new to your city.” He spoke with a slight accent, but Ged could not place it.