China Mieville - Railsea

Caldera sniffed. “Really?” she said. “Why am I here?”

“You’re here because your parents wouldn’t do what they was told. Wouldn’t shun anything. They wanted to see what’s at the end of the world. & you actually did . Do. Are doing.” Sham held her gaze.

“HEY.” It was Dero. He stood silhouetted in the doorway. Behind him Daybe veered in agitation.

“You Shroakes,” said Sham. “Always gallivanting off in all directions …”

“You need to see something,” Dero said. He spoke in a dreamlike monotone. “There’s something you need to see.”

BEYOND THE BUILDING & the rails there were yards of paved land, more nothingy concrete-stubbed remains, & then the land, all land, abruptly stopped. But not on void this time.

They stood on a pitted coastline road, a raised walkway just like a shore in the railsea. It rose not out of rails, though, as any shoreline must surely, but from miles upon miles, from a giddying, endless expanse of water.

SHAM REELED. THE WATER FOAMED. IT ROCKED & slapped against the concrete wall. Sham’s heart powered. What was this? & what was beyond? A ruined jetty poked above the waves just as normal jetties did above rails. Tentative with wonder, Sham walked to its end.

The enormity of that water. It rose & fell back in lurching swells. It was like nothing he could have imagined.

Above it, the strange deadness of the air ended. Gulls! They wheeled & whooped. Swept curiously past Daybe, which soared in exhilarated aerobatics. This was the source of the repeated noise. The water huffed & shuffled & rocked back & forth against the land.

“The water level’s so high,” Naphi whispered at last. She looked back the way they had come. “It should be flooding back into that chasm. Even back into the railsea. Should half-fill it.”

“You told me they jury-rigged the world,” Sham said to Caldera. “Maybe they did something to seal the rock here when they put the water in, so it can’t spill out. Can’t seep through the sides.”

“Yeah,” said Caldera. “Only they didn’t put the water here: they left it here.” She was staring, too, but dividing her attention, still sifting through the papers she held, frowning as she glanced at the disorganised snips of information. “They drained all the rest . To make more rail-ready real estate.”

“The world?” Sham said.

“Used to be underwater.”

THEY STAYED THERE, said nothing more, for a long time. Sham was too awed to care much that he was cold. The sun dawdled slowly through space, behind the upsky, illuminating it. They could see no beasts up there just then. Only the arcing gulls.

The birds looped & skimmed the surface of the liquid. There’s stuff in there they can eat , thought Sham. He thought of the stringy fish that lived in the small ponds & pools of the islands & the railsea itself. Looked as far as he could to the horizon. Thought how much bigger such creatures might get in a space so uncramped.

Sham felt something rising through his bones. Daybe felt it, too, snuffled in alarm. A rhythm, getting louder. “Getterbirds,” Sham said.

Three of them. They came from behind the hills into the downbeat heaven. They veered towards the travellers. They farted smoke, lower than Sham had ever seen them before. The wind from their whirling wings sent up rubbish. They zoomed abruptly off, over the ancient debris, to some out-of-sight nest for old, tired angels.

“What was that?” Dero said. “Curiosity?”

“I don’t think so,” Sham said quietly. “I think they were giving directions.” He pointed.

Figures were emerging from the ash & stubs of the old city.

What were they, these dwellers beyond the world? Rag-clad, hulking & shaggy, creeping, sniffing, they loped out of the dust that announced them. Ten, twelve, fifteen figures. Big women & men, all muscle & sinew, baring their teeth, coming on two limbs & four, apelike, wolflike, fatly feline. Staring as they came.

“We have to go,” Dero said, but they could not get past. The newcomers had reached the base of the jetty. & there they stopped. Their dark clothes were so shredded they looked like feathers. They licked their lips; they stared a long time.

“Is it me,” Dero said at last, “or do they look excited?”

“It’s not you,” Sham said.

Something was approaching from the ruins. Seven feet tall, sloped, immense. An ancient, powerful man, of great girth. He wore a repatched dark coat, a tall black hat.

“That costume,” Caldera said. “It’s like That Apt Ohm.”

What looked like a degenerate avatar of the god stepped slowly past his fellows, towards Sham & the others. The jetty shook with his great steps. He licked his face in delight.

“What are we going to do?” whispered Dero.

“Wait,” said Sham. He kept his pistol down. The man’s eyes were wide. He stopped a few feet away, & gazed at the visitors.

& then, enormously, he bowed. Behind him, the others bayed. It sounded like happiness. Like triumph. The big man bellowed. Snarls & growling, gulping, knotty language.

“That’s some weird mix of old Railcreole,” Caldera said. “ Really old.”

“Do you understand it?” Sham said. He recognised a few words himself. “Controller,” he heard. “Rails.” & with a start, a line from an old hymn: “Oh shun!”

“Only a little bit.” Caldera squinted with attention. “ ‘Here’ … ‘At last’ … ‘Interest.’ ”

The enormous figure reached into his coat, & Naphi & Sham stiffened. But what he drew out & offered was a wad of paper. After several motionless seconds, while Naphi kept watch, her gun in her hand, Sham came forward & snatched it. He & the Shroakes leaned over the sheet.

Columns, words, on sheet after sheet, ancient typing that made only a very little sense to Sham. A long preamble, lists, footnotes & observations. “What is this?” he said.

On the last page of the pile was a long string of numbers. Circled in red. Caldera looked at her brother, & up at Sham.

“It’s a bill,” she said. “They say this is what we owe them.”

THINGS FLICKERED THROUGH Sham’s mind. These figures’ feral wanderings in ruins from where once the trains & tracks had been controlled. The man’s hat. “He’s the leader,” Sham said. “The controller.”

Caldera stared at the paper. “This is … more money than there’s ever been in history,” she whispered. “It’s gibberish.”

“Their ancestors must’ve got lost here,” Dero said. “On the wrong side of the gap.” The controller snarled strange words.

“He …” said Caldera. “He’s saying … something about settling up ?”

“You said something about credit,” Sham said. “Oh, this lot didn’t get lost. They’ve been waiting .”

He stared at the massive man. The controller. Who licked his lips again, & bared sharp teeth. “Our ancestors couldn’t afford their ancestors’ terms,” Sham said. “For the use of the rails. The bill’s been growing. They’ve been charging us interest. They think that’s why we’ve come. He thinks we’re ready to pay .”

He sifted through the papers. “How long you been waiting?” Sham said. “How long ago was the godsquabble? The railway wars?” Years. Centuries. Epochs.

The watchers yowled. One or two shook what Sham saw were the scraps of briefcases. They must have grown up with a prophecy. As had their parents, & theirs, & theirs near-endlessly, shuffling through the collapsing city. Waiting in their boardrooms & in emptiness. A prophecy they thought was coming true.