China Mieville - The Scar

I sit here in this little cubby, the lavatory, between the livestock and the control car where the captain and his crew steer us. A corridor from the main chamber.

I have come here to write, several times, since we lifted off.

The others spend their times sitting, whispering or playing cards. I suppose some are in their berths, tucked in the deck above me, below the gasbags. Perhaps they are being talked once more through what is expected of them. Perhaps they are practicing.

My own role is simple, and has been made very clear. After all these weeks and all these thousands of miles, I am back to being told that I am a conduit, that I will merely pass information and language through me, that I do not hear what is spoken.

I can do that. And until then, I have nothing to do but write.

Where possible, cactus-people have been chosen for this mission. At least five of those aboard have actually been to the anophelii island before, years ago. Hedrigall, of course, and others I do not know.

This raises issues of desertion: it is rare for any Armadan press-ganged to come into contact with their old compatriots again, but there must be Samheri on the island. My business here relies on such a meeting. All the cactacae on this mission, I understand, have reasons not to wish to return to their first home. They are like Johannes, or Hedrigall, or Shekel’s friend Tanner-loyal to their adopted country.

Hedrigall, though, makes me wonder. He knows Silas-or at least he knows one Simon Fench.

I of all people know that the Garwater authorities can misjudge who is to be trusted.

Dreer Samher is pragmatic. At sea, a meeting of Samheri ships and those of Perrick Nigh or the Mandrake Islands might mean battle, but relations with Armada are courteous, for safety’s sake. And besides, they will be at dock. Port-peace operates there as law-merchant does on the land, and it is a strong code, adhered to and administered by those subordinated to it.

Tanner Sack is on the airship, and I can tell that he knows who I am. He watches me with what might be distaste, or shyness, or almost any other emotion. Tintinnabulum is aboard, and several of his crew. Johannes is not-I am relieved at that.

The scientists who are here are a strange mixture. The pressganged look mostly as I expect scholars to. The Armadans look like pirates. I am told that this one is a mathematician, this one a biologist, this one an oceanologer: they all look like pirates, scarred and pugnacious in ragged regalia.

There are the guards: cactus and scabmettler. I have seen inside their armory, and there are rivebows and flintlocks and polearms. They have brought black powder with them, and what look to me like war engines. In case the anophelii do not cooperate, I think we have brought plenty to persuade them.

In charge of all the guards is Uther Doul. And giving him his orders is one-half of Garwater’s ruling pair, alone, the Lover.

Doul stalks from room to room. He talks to Hedrigall more than to anyone else, I think. He seems disquieted. I do my best not to meet his eye.

He intrigues me: his presence, his anomolous voice. He wears the grey leather that is his uniform, much-scarred and pocked, but immaculately clean. The right arm of the tunic is interwoven with wires that extend down to his belt. He wears his sword on his left hip, and he bristles with pistols.

He stares aggressively from windows, then stalks back, usually to wherever the Lover is standing.

The Lover’s scarred face revolts me somewhat. I’ve known-I have been with-those who found release in pain, who made it part of sex; and though I find the prediliction slightly absurd, it does not trouble or disturb me at all. That is not what I find wrong with the Lovers. I have a sense that their cutting is somehow almost contingent. What makes me queasy is something deeper that inheres between them.

I try to avoid the Lover’s eye, but I find myself pruriently drawn by her marks. It is as if they have been carved into some mesmeric pattern. But peering at them surreptitiously from behind my fingers, I see nothing romantic or secret or revelatory, nothing but the evidence of old wounds. Nothing but scars.

Later, same day.

Silas delivered what was needed, at the last possible minute. As if for theatrics.

I have to admire his methods.

Ever since our terse conversation in the Sculpture Garden I had been wondering how he would give me the materials for our message. My rooms are guarded, I am watched, what am I to do?

On the morning of the twenty-sixth of Lunuary, I woke to find a packet from him on the floor of my room.

It was an ostentatious piece of prestidigitation. I could not help laughing when I looked up and saw a patch of iron on my ceiling, freshly bolted over a six-inch hole.

Silas had climbed to the top of Chromolith Smokestacks, onto the roof of thin metal that booms like an orchestral drum under the rain, and he had cut a hole in it. Dropping the package inside, he had conscientiously bolted a new roof piece into position. All without the slightest sound: neither awaking me, nor alerting those who must have been watching.

When he performs tricks like that, under duress, to protect himself, it is easy to imagine him at his job for the government. I suppose I am lucky to have him on my side, and so is New Crobuzon.

I was pleased not to see him. I feel very distant from him now. I bear him no ill will: I took from him something that I needed, and I hope that I gave it back to him; but that really must be the end of the matter. We are coincidental comrades, is all.

Inside the little leather bag, Silas had put several items.

He had written a letter to me, explaining everything. I read it carefully before examining the bag’s other contents.

There were other letters. He had written to the pirate captain we hope to find: two copies of the same letter, in Ragamoll and Salt. To Whomever Agrees to Courier This Missive to New Crobuzon, it begins.

It is formal and to the point. It promises the reader that he will receive a commission on safe, sealed delivery to its destination. That by the power vested in Procurator Fennec (license number such-and-such) by Mayor Bentham Rudgutter and the office of mayor in perpetuity, it is declared that the bearers of this letter are to be treated as honored guests of New Crobuzon, their ship is to be refitted to their specifications, they are to receive an honorarium of three thousand guineas. And most important of all, they are to be granted a special tax-free letter of marque from the New Crobuzon government, exempting the vessel, for a year, from prosecution or attack under New Crobuzon’s self-declared maritime law for any reason other than the immediate self-defense of a New Crobuzon ship.

The money is very enticing, but it is the promised exemption with which we hope to sway our cactacae. Silas is offering them the status of recognized pirate without tariffs . They can pillage what they like, never paying a stiver, and the New Crobuzon navy will not molest them-will indeed protect them-for the duration of the contract.

It is a powerful incentive.

At the bottom of the letters, Silas has signed his name, and across some just-visible passwords has imprinted in wax the seal of the New Crobuzon Parliament.

I did not know he had such a seal. It is strange to see it here, so far from home. It is astonishingly fine work: the stylized wall, the chair and paraphernalia of office, and below in tiny figures a number, identifying him. The seal is an extraordinarily powerful symbol.

What is more, he has given it to me.

But I am digressing. I will come to the ring.

The other letter is much longer. It spreads over four sides, in an intricate, condensed hand. I have read it carefully, and it has chilled me.