China Mieville - The Scar

“Look at this!” hissed Theobal, a pirate and a theoretical oceanologer. He waved a thick document, pages sewn together at one end. “We’ve damn well got it! This is the math we need, the thaumaturgy, the biology.”

Bellis looked at the papers with a vague astonishment. All of that came through me , she thought.

When Aum entered, they had Bellis write, We need you to help us. Will you leave this place and learn our language and help us call this avanc from the sea? Will you come with us?

And though it was almost impossible to read that sphincter-mouthed face, Bellis was sure that she saw fear and joy in Aum’s eyes.

He said yes, of course.

The news passed quickly around the village, and the he-anophelii came in great numbers to croon with Aum and hiss their feelings. Their happiness? Bellis wondered. Their jealousy? Grief?

Some of them looked at the Armadan party with something akin to hunger, she thought. Their abstraction from the world was tenuous, and could be broken, as Aum appeared to have broken his.

“We leave in two days,” said the Lover, and there was a rush of blood from Bellis’ chest so quick it hurt her. She had completely neglected her commission. New Crobuzon relied on her. She felt despondency take her and begin to pull her down. This will not happen , she thought quickly. It is not too late.

The crew were delighted at the thought of leaving, of escaping this cloying air and those voracious women. Bellis, however, was desperate for more time, for a few more days. She thought again of that dried-up corpse, but not for very long. She was terrified of despairing.

That night as the scabmettlers and cactacae escorted their vulnerable comrades to their beds, she sat alone, massaging her hand, breathing deep, trying fearfully to work out some plan, some way to get to the Dreer Samher ship. For brief moments she considered deserting. Demanding Captain Sengka’s mercy and staying on board. Or stowing away. Anything to see New Crobuzon again. But she knew she could not. As soon as she was missed, the Lover would order the Dreer Samher ships searched, and the Samheri would not refuse them. And then she would be caught, and her package would be undelivered, and New Crobuzon would be in terrible danger.

And besides, she cautiously let herself remember, she still had no way of reaching the Samheri ship.

Bellis heard a faint sound from one of the adjoining rooms. She came closer to the closed door.

It was the Lover’s voice. She could not hear the words, but the firm, hard voice was unmistakable. She sounded as if she was singing gently, like a mother to her child. Hushed and very intense, there was something in those sounds that made Bellis shiver and close her eyes. She was listening to a concentration of emotion that almost made her head swim.

Bellis leaned against the wall and heard emotions that were not hers. She could not tell if they affirmed love, or the most draining kind of obsession. But still she waited, her eyes on the door, parasitic like the mosquito-women, steeping herself in stolen feelings.

And after some minutes, when the sounds were done and Bellis had moved away, the Lover emerged. Her heavy features were calm. She saw Bellis watching her, and met her eyes without shame or pugnacity. Blood was leaking sluggish as molasses from a new wound in the Lover’s face, a long split in the skin from the right corner of her lip, under her chin and down toward the hollow of her neck.

The Lover had stanched most of the blood, and only a few fat drops welled up like sweat, broke, and ran, marking her skin.

The women watched each other for seconds. Bellis felt as if they shared no language. The gulf between them giddied her.

That night Bellis roused herself many hours after everyone had gone to sleep.

She removed the sweat-damp sheet that covered her and stood. The air was still warm, even in these dark hours. She picked up Silas’ package from below her pillow, pulled aside the curtain, and walked slow and quiet through the room where Tanner lay wrapped in shadows on his pallet. When she reached the wooden door she leaned her head against it and felt its grain on her skin.

Bellis was afraid.

She peered very carefully through the window and saw a cactus-man guard wandering through the deserted square, from doorway to doorway, checking them idly, moving on. He was some way from her, and she thought she could open the door and run without him seeing or hearing her.

And then?

Bellis could see nothing in the sky. There was no threatening whine, no voracious insectile woman with claw-hands and jutting mouth, hungry for her blood. She put her hand on the bolt and waited-waited to hear or see one of the she-anophelii, for confirmation, so that she could avoid her ( easier to hide if you know where it is ), and she thought about that leather-and-bone sack she had seen that morning, which had once been a man. She froze, her hand like wire on the door.

“What you doing?”

The words came in a hard whisper from behind her. Bellis spun, her hands gripping her shift. Tanner had sat up and was staring at her from within his dark alcove.

She moved a little, and he stood. She saw the odd encumbrances of tentacles spill from his midriff. He faced her, his stance tense and suspicious. He looked as if he was about to attack her. And yet he whispered, and something in that reassured her.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. He stood in the entranceway to hear her, and his face was as hard and untrusting as she had ever seen it. “I didn’t mean to wake you,” she whispered. “I just… I had to…” And her inventiveness fled her: she did not know what she would say she had had to do. Her words dried up.

“What are you doing?” he said. Slow and angry and curious, he spoke to her in Ragamoll.

“I’m sorry,” she said again, and shook her head. “I felt…” She held her breath and looked at him again, her eyes steady.

“Can’t open that bolt,” he said.

He was looking at the package in her hands, and with an effort, Bellis did not try to hide it or move her fingers nervously, but kept it in plain view as if it was nothing important.

“What is it, call of nature? Was that what it was? You’ll have to use the pot, lady. You can’t be shamed of things like that here. You saw what happened to William.”

She straightened then and nodded, keeping her face immobile, and walked back to where her bed lay. “Sleep better, won’t you,” said Tanner Sack behind her, and settled himself slowly. At the curtain between the rooms, Bellis turned briefly to look at him. He sat up, obviously waiting and listening, and setting her teeth she pulled the curtain to.

For a few moments there was silence. Then Tanner heard the sound of a tiny little spray, a few grudging drops, and he grinned humorlessly into his sheet. A few feet from him, separated by the curtain, Bellis stood up from the chamberpot, her face set and furious.

Through her humiliated anger, she grasped at something. Began to shape a hope, an idea.

The next day was the Armadans’ last full day on the island.

The scientists put together their reams of paper and their sketches, talking and laughing like children. Even the taciturn Tintinnabulum and his companions seemed buoyed up. All around Bellis schedules and plans were taking shape, and it seemed like the avanc was caught in all but fact.

The Lover flitted into the discussions and out again, a heavy smile on her, her new cut red and shining. Only Uther Doul was impassive-Uther Doul and Bellis herself. Their eyes met, across the room. Motionless, the only still points in the bustling hall, they shared a moment of some superior feeling akin to scorn.