China Mieville - The Scar

“I doubt,” Johannes said quietly, “they’re so naive as to just leave us to roam unchecked. I’d be surprised if they didn’t keep careful note of us. I suspect we don’t go unwatched. But what could we do, anyway? This is a city , not a dinghy we can commandeer or scuttle.

“It’s only the crew who’d represent any kind of real problem. Many have families waiting for them. Those are the ones who’d likely refuse to accept that this is their new home.”

Only the crew? thought Bellis, a bad taste in her throat.

“So what happens to them? Like the captain?” she said in a dead voice. “Like Cumbershum?”

Johannes flinched. “I… I’ve been told it’s… it’s only the captains and first officers of any ships encountered… That they simply have too much to lose, that they’re particularly tied to their home port…”

There was something fawning and apologetic in his face. With a waxing alienation, Bellis realized that she was alone.

She had come here tonight thinking that she might be able to talk to Johannes about New Crobuzon, that he would share her unhappiness, that she could touch the bloodied part of her mind and talk about the people and streets she missed so hard.

Perhaps that they might broach the subject that had burrowed through her thoughts for weeks: escape.

But Johannes was acclimatizing. He spoke in a carefully neutral register, as if what he said was just reportage. But he was trying to come to terms with the city’s rulers. He had found something in Armada that made him prepared to consider it home.

What did they do to achieve this? she thought. What is he doing?

“Who else have you heard about?” she said after a cold silence.

“Mollificatt, I’m very sorry to say, was one of those who succumbed when we first arrived,” he said, looking genuinely sad. The mongrel and changing population of Armada made it a carrier of countless diseases. The city-born were hardy, but every batch of press-ganged was afflicted with fevers and murrains on its first arrival, and several of their number inevitably died. “I’ve heard rumors that our newcomer, Mr. Fennec, is working somewhere in Garwater, or Thee-And-Thine riding. Sister Meriope…” he said suddenly, his eyes widening. He shook his head. “Sister Meriope is… She is being held for her own safety. She threatens herself with violence constantly. Bellis,” he whispered, “ she is with child .”

Bellis rolled her eyes.

I can’t listen to this , thought Bellis, saying just enough to be in the conversation. She felt alone. Tawdry secrets and cliches. What next? she thought with contempt as Johannes rambled on through the passenger list and the officers of the Terpsichoria . Some trusty sailor actually a woman disguised to go to sea? Love and buggery among the ranks?

There was something pathetic about Johannes that night, and she had never thought so before.

“How do you know all this, Johannes?” said Bellis carefully, at last. “Where’ve you been? What are you actually doing?”

Johannes cleared his throat and stared into his glass for a long time.

“Bellis…” he said. Around him, the soft clatter of the restaurant seemed very loud. “Bellis… can I tell you in confidence?” Johannes sighed, then looked up at her.

“I’m working for the Lovers,” he said. “And I don’t mean I work in Garwater riding. I work directly for them. They have a team of researchers, working on a quite…” He shook his head and began to smile with delight. “A quite extraordinary project. An extraordinary opportunity. And they invited me to join them-because of my previous work.

“Their team had read some of my research, and they decided that I’d be… that they wanted me to work with them.” He was overjoyed, she realized. He was like a child, almost exactly like a child.

“There are thaumaturges, oceanologers, marine biologists. That man-the man who defeated the Terpsichoria , Uther Doul-he’s part of the team. He’s central, in fact. He’s a philosopher. There are different projects all being pursued. Projects on cryptogeography and probability theory, as well as… as the investigation I’m working on. The man in charge of that is fascinating. He was with the Lovers when we arrived: a tall old man with a beard.”

“I remember him,” said Bellis. “He welcomed you.”

A look somewhere between contrition and excitement overtook Johannes.

“He did,” he said. “That’s Tintinnabulum. A hunter, an outsider, employed by the city. He lives on the Castor with seven other men, where Garwater meets Shaddler and Booktown. A small ship with a belfry…

“We’re doing such fascinating work,” he said suddenly, and seeing his pure pleasure Bellis could see how Armada had won him. “The equipment’s old and unreliable-the analytical engines are ancient-but the work’s so much more radical. I’ve months of research to catch up on-I’m learning Salt. This work… it means reading the most varied things.”

He grinned at her with incredulous pride. “For my project, there are certain key texts. One of them’s mine. Can you believe that? Isn’t that extraordinary? They’re from all over the world. From New Crobuzon, Khadoh. And there are mystery books that we can’t find. They’re in Ragamoll and Salt and moonscript… One of the most important’s said to be in High Kettai. We’ve made a list of them from references in the books we do have. Gods know how they’ve got such a fantastic library here, Bellis. Half these books I could never find at home-”

“They stole it, Johannes,” she said, and silenced him. “That’s how they’ve got it. Every damned volume in Grand Gears Library is stolen. From ships, from the towns they plunder on the coast. From people like me, Johannes. My books that I wrote that have been stolen from me. That’s where they get their books.”

Something cold was settling in Bellis’ gut.

“Tell me,” she began, and stopped. She drank some wine, breathed deep, and started again. “Tell me, Johannes, that is somewhat remarkable, isn’t it? That out of an entire ocean-an entire fucking ocean -that out of that whole empty sea they should pluck the one ship that was carrying their intellectual hero…”

And again she saw in his eye that uncomfortable cocktail of apology and elation.

“Yes,” he said carefully. “That’s the thing, Bellis. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

She suddenly knew what he was going to say, a certainty that nauseated and repelled her, but she liked him still, she really did, and she so wanted to be wrong that she did not stand to go; she waited to be corrected, knowing that she would not be.

“It wasn’t coincidence, Bellis,” she heard him saying. “It wasn’t. They have an agent in Salkrikaltor. They receive colonial passenger lists. They knew we were coming. They knew I was coming.”

The paper lanterns swung as the door opened and closed. There was pretty laughter from a nearby table. The smell of stuffed meat cosseted them.

“That was why they took our ship. They came for me,” said Johannes softly, and Bellis closed her eyes, defeated.

“Oh, Johannes,” she said unsteadily.

“Bellis,” he said, alarmed, reaching out, but she cut him off with a curt gesture. What, do you think I’m going to cry? she thought furiously.

“Johannes, let me tell you there is a world of difference between a five-year, a ten-year sentence-and life .” She could not look at him. “It may be that for you, for Meriope, for the Cardomiums, for I don’t know who else, Nova Esperium meant a new life. Not for me .