China Mieville - The Scar

His amiable, mildly sly expression went hard. He held up a finger to hush her. He looked quickly around, then spoke to her fast. He sounded sincere and very urgent.

“Miss Coldwine,” he said. “I understand your anger, but you must listen to me.”

She drew herself up, meeting his gaze.

“You must withdraw that threat. I won’t appeal to your professional code or your bloody honor,” he whispered. “Probably you’re as cynical about such things as I am. But I will appeal to you . I have no idea what you’ve worked out or guessed, but let me tell you that it is vital -do you understand?-that I get back to New Crobuzon quickly, without interruption, without fuss.” There was a long pause.

“There is… there is a vast amount at stake, Miss Coldwine. You cannot spread mischief. I am begging you to keep these things to yourself. I’m relying on you to be discreet.”

He was not threatening her. His face and voice were stern but not aggressive. As he claimed, he was begging, not trying to intimidate her into submission. He spoke to her like a partner, a confidante.

And impressed and shocked by his fervor, she realized that she would keep what she had heard to herself.

He saw this decision move across her face and nodded in sharp thanks before walking away.

In her cabin, Bellis tried to work out what she was going to do. It would not be safe for her to stay long in Tarmuth. She had to join a ship as soon as possible. Her gut was heavy with hope that she might make it to Nova Esperium, but she realized with an awful foreboding that she was no longer in a position to make a choice.

She felt no shock. She simply realized, rationally and slowly, that she would have to go wherever she could. She could not delay.

Alone, away from the fug of anger and confusion that had swept over the rest of the ship, Bellis felt all her hope was dried up. She felt desiccated like old paper, as if the blustery air on the deck would burst her and blow her away.

Her partial knowledge of the captain’s secrets was no comfort. She had never felt more homeless.

She cracked the seal on her letter, sighed, and began to add to its last page.

Skullday 6th Arora, 1779. Evening, she wrote. Well, my dear, who would have thought this? A chance to add a little more.

It comforted her. Although the arch tone she used was an affectation, it consoled her, and she did not stop writing while Sister Meriope returned and went to bed. She continued by the light of the tiny oil lamp, hinting at conspiracy and secrets, while the Swollen Ocean gnawed monotonously on the Terpsichoria ’s iron.

Confused shouting woke Bellis at seven o’clock the next morning. Still lacing up her boots, she stumbled with several other sleepy passengers out into the light. She squinted into the brightness.

Sailors pushed up against the port railings, gesticulating and shouting. Bellis followed their gazes to the horizon and realized that they were looking up .

A man was hanging motionless in the sky, two hundred feet above them, out over the sea.

Bellis gasped idiotically.

The man kicked his legs like a baby and stared at the boat. He seemed to stand in the air. He was strapped in a harness, dangling just below a taut balloon.

He fiddled with his belt and something, some ballast, fell away, spinning lazily into the sea. He jerked and rose forty feet. With the faint sound of a propellor he moved in an inelegant curve. He began a long, unsteady circuit of the Terpsichoria .

“Get back to your godsdamned stations!” The crew broke up industriously at the sound of the captain’s voice. He strode out onto the main deck and peered at the slowly turning figure through his telescope. The man hovered near the top of the masts in a vaguely predatory manner.

The captain yelled up at the aviator through the funnel. “You there…” His voice carried well. Even the sea seemed quiet. “This is Captain Myzovic of the Terpsichoria , steamer in the New Crobuzon Merchant Navy. You are requested to touch down and make yourself known to me. If you do not comply I will consider it a hostile action. You have one minute to begin a descent or we will defend ourselves.”

“Jabber,” Johannes whispered. “Have you ever seen anything like that? He’s too far out to have come from land. He’s got to be scouting from some ship, out of sight over the horizon.”

The man continued to circle above them, and for seconds the buzzing of his engine was the only sound.

Eventually Bellis spoke. “Pirates?” she whispered.

“Possible.” Johannes shrugged. “But the freebooters out here couldn’t take a ship our size, or with our guns. They go for smaller merchants, the wooden hulls. And if it’s privateers…” He pursed his lips. “Well, if they’re licensed by Figh Vadiso or wherever, then they just might have the firepower to engage us, but they’d be insane to risk war with New Crobuzon. The Pirate Wars are over, for Jabber’s sake!”

“Right!” the captain shouted. “This is your last warning.” Four musketeers had stationed themselves at the rail. They took aim at the airborne visitor.

Instantly the sound of his motor changed. The man jerked and began to move erratically away from the ship.

“Fire, dammit!” shouted the captain, and the muskets sounded, but the man had sped up and away and beyond their aim. For a long time he receded, sinking slowly toward the horizon. Nothing was visible in the direction the aeronaut was headed.

“His ship must be twenty miles away or more,” said Johannes. “It’ll take him at least an hour to reach it.”

The captain was yelling at the crew, organizing them into units and arming them, stationing them around the ship’s edge. They fingered their rifles nervously, staring across the slowly moving sea.

Cumbershum trotted up toward the congregated passengers and ordered them back to their cabins or to the mess. His tone was curt.

“The Terpsichoria is more than a match for any pirate, and that scout could easily see that,” he said. “But until we’re back behind the Fins, the captain insists that you remain out of the way of the crew. Now, please.”

Bellis sat for a long while with her letter in her pocket. She smoked and drank water and tea in the half-empty mess. At first the air was tense, but after an hour fear had dissipated somewhat. She began to read.

And then there were muffled shouts and the vibration of running feet. Bellis spilled her dregs and ran with the other passengers to the window.

Racing toward them out of the sea were a handful of dark shapes.

Squat little ironclad scouts.

“They’re lunatics!” hissed Dr. Mollificatt. “There’s, what, five of them? They can’t take us!”

A shattering boom sounded from the deck of the Terpsichoria , and the sea yards in front of the leading boat exploded in a huge crater of steam and water.

“That’s a warning shot,” someone said. “But they’re not turning.”

The little craft drove on through the violent spray, hurtling suicidally toward the big iron ship. There was the sound of more running from above, more shouted orders.

“This is going to be hideous,” grimaced Dr. Mollificatt, and as he spoke the Terpsichoria yawed violently with the grind of metal on metal.

In the hold, Tanner Sack fell violently across his neighbor. There was a massed shout of fear. As the Remade smacked into each other, scabs and infected flesh broke open. There were shrieks of pain.

Penned in the dark, the prisoners felt the ship uprooted suddenly from the sea.

“What’s happening?” they screamed toward the hatches. “What’s going on? Help us!”