Perdido Street Station (6 page)

That was it. She had
never even known the name of her buyer.

Lin decided that she
could do better than that.

She had sent a message
through Gazid, down the illicit conduit of communication that led
fuck-knew-where, saying that yes, she was interested, and would be
prepared to meet, but she really must have a name to write in her
diary.

The New Crobuzon
underworld digested her message, and made her wait a week, and then
spat back an answer in the shape of another printed note, pushed
under her door while she slept, giving her an address in Bonetown, a
date, and a one-word name:
Motley.

**

A frenetic snapping and
clatter sifted into the corridor. Lin’s cactacae escort pushed
open one dark door among the many, and stood aside.

Lin’s eyes
adjusted to the light. She was looking into a typing pool. It was a
large room with a high ceiling, painted black like everything in this
troglodytic place, well-lit with gaslamps, and filled with perhaps
forty desks; on each was a bulky typewriter, at each a secretary
copying from reams of notes by their sides. Mostly human and mostly
women, Lin also caught smell and sight of men and cactacae, even a
pair of khepri, and a vodyanoi working at a typewriter with keys
adapted for her huge hands.

Around the room Remade
were stationed, mostly human, again, but of other races too, rare as
xenian Remade were. Some were organically Remade, with claws and
antlers and slabs of grafted muscle, but most were mech, and the heat
from their boilers made the room close.

At the end of the room
was a closed office.

"Ms. Lin,
finally," boomed a speaking-trumpet above its door as soon as
she entered. None of the secretaries looked up. "Please make
your way across the room to my office."

Lin picked her way
between the desks. She looked closely at what was being typed, hard
though it was, and harder in the odd light of the black-walled room.
The secretaries all typed expertly, reading the scribbled notes and
transferring them without looking at their keyboards or their work.

Further to our
conversation of the thirteenth of this month,
read one,
please
consider your franchise operation under our jurisdiction, terms to be
arranged.
Lin moved on.

You die tomorrow,
you fuck, you wormshit. You’re going to envy the Remade, you
cowardly cunt, you’re going to scream till your mouth bleeds,
said the next.

Oh...
thought
Lin.
Oh...help.

The door to the office
opened.

"Come in, Ms. Lin,
come in!" The voice boomed from the trumpet.

Lin did not hesitate.
She entered.

**

Filing cabinets and
bookshelves filled most of the small room. There was a small,
traditional oil painting of Iron Bay on one wall. Behind a large
darkwood desk was a folding screen illustrated with silhouettes of
fish, a large version of the screens behind which artists’
models changed. In the centre of the screen, one fish was rendered in
mirrored glass, giving Lin a view of herself. Lin hovered uncertainly
in front of the screen.

"Sit, sit,"
said a quiet voice from behind it. Lin pulled up the chair in front
of the desk.

"I can see you,
Ms. Lin. The mirrored carp is a window on my side. I think it’s
polite to let people know that."

The speaker seemed to
expect a response, so Lin nodded.

"You’re
late, you know, Ms. Lin."

Devil’s Tail!
Of all the appointments to be late to!
Lin thought frantically.
She began to scribble an apology on her pad when the voice
interrupted her.

"I can sign, Ms.
Lin."

Lin put down her pad
and apologized profusely with her hands.

"Don’t
worry," said her host disingenuously. "It happens. The
Bonetown is unforgiving to visitors. Next time you’ll know to
leave earlier, won’t you?"

Lin agreed that she
would, that that was exactly what she would know to do.

"I like your work
a great deal, Ms. Lin. I have all the heliotypes that made their way
from Lucky Gazid. He is a sad, pathetic, broken cretin, that
man—addiction is very sad in most of its forms—but he
does, strangely enough, have something of a nose for art. That woman
Alexandrine Nevgets was one of his, wasn’t she? Pedestrian,
unlike your own work, but pleasant. I’m always prepared to
indulge Lucky Gazid. It will be a shame when he dies. It’ll
doubtless be a sordid affair, some dirty stubby knife gutting him
slowly for the sake of small change; or a venereal disease involving
vile emissions and sweat caught from an underage whore; or perhaps
his bones will be broken for snitching—the militia, after all,
do pay well, and junkies can’t be choosers when it comes to
income."

The voice that floated
over the screen was melodious, and what the speaker said scanned
hypnotically: he spoke everything into a poem. His sentences lilted
on gently. His words were brutal. Lin was very afraid. She could not
think of anything to say. Her hands were still.

"So having decided
that I like your art I want to talk to you to discover whether you
would be right for a commission. Your work is unusual for a khepri.
Would you agree?"

Yes.

"Talk to me about
your statues, Ms. Lin, and don’t worry, were you about to, that
you might sound precious. I have no prejudices against taking art
seriously, and don’t forget that I started this conversation.
The key words to bear in mind when thinking how to answer my question
are ‘themes,’ ‘technique’ and ‘aesthetics.’
"

Lin hesitated, but her
fear drove her on. She wanted to keep this man happy, and if that
meant talking about her work, then that was what she would do.

I work alone,
she signed,
which is part of my...rebellion. I left Creekside and
then Kinken, left my moiety and my hive. People were miserable, so
communal art got stupidly heroic. Like Plaza of Statues. I wanted to
spit out something...nasty. Tried to make some of the grand figures
we all made together a little less perfect...Pissed off my sisters.
So turned to my own work. Nasty work. Creekside nasty.

"That is exactly
as I had expected. It is even—forgive me—somewhat
hackneyed. However, that doesn’t detract from the power of the
work itself. Khepri spit is a wonderful substance. Its lustre is
quite unique, and its strength and lightness make it convenient,
which I know is not the sort of word one is supposed to think of in
connection with art, but I am pragmatic. Anyhow, to have such a
lovely substance used for the drab wish-fulfilment of depressed
khepri is a terrible waste. I was so very relieved to see someone
using the substance for interesting, unsettling ends. The angularity
you achieve is extraordinary, by the way."

Thank you. I have
powerful gland technique.
Lin was enjoying the licence to boast.
Originally I was a member of the Outnow school which forbids
working on a piece after spat out. Gives you excellent control. Even
though I have...reneged. I now go hack while the spit is soft, work
it more. More freedom, can do overhangs and the like.

"Do you use a
great deal of colour variation?" Lin nodded. "I saw only
the sepia of the heliotypes. That is good to know. That is technique
and aesthetics. I’m very interested to hear your thoughts on
themes, Ms. Lin."

Lin was taken aback.
Suddenly she could not think what her themes were.

"Let me put you in
an easier position. I’d like to tell you what themes I am
interested in. And then we can see if you’d be right for the
commission I have in mind."

The voice waited until
Lin nodded ascent.

"Please tilt your
head up, Ms. Lin." Startled, she did so. The motion made her
nervous, exposing as it did the soft underbelly of her beetle head,
inviting harm. She held her head still as eyes behind the mirror-fish
watched her.

"You have the same
cords in your neck as a human woman. You share the hollow at the base
of your throat beloved by poets. Your skin is a shade of red that
would mark you out as unusual, that’s true, but it could still
pass as human. I follow that beautiful human neck up—I have no
doubt you won’t accept the description ‘human,’ but
indulge me a minute—and then there is...there is a
moment...there is a thin zone where that soft human skin merges with
the pale segmented cream underneath your head."

For the first time
since Lin had entered the room, the speaker seemed to be searching
for words.

"Have you ever
created a statue of a cactus?" Lin shook her head. "Nonetheless
you have seen them up close? My associate who led you here, for
example. Did you happen to notice his feet, or his fingers, or his
neck? There is a moment when the skin, the skin of the sentient
creature, becomes mindless plant. Cut the fat round base of a
cactus’s foot, he can’t feel a thing. Poke him in the
thigh where he’s a bit softer, he’ll squeal. But there in
that zone...it’s an altogether different thing...the nerves are
intertwining, learning to be succulent plant, and pain is distant,
blunt, diffuse, worrying rather than agonizing.

"You can think of
others. The torso of the Cray or the Inchmen, the sudden transition
of a Remade limb, many other races and species in this city, and
countless more in the world, who live with a mongrel physiognomy. You
will perhaps say that you do not recognize any transition, that the
khepri are complete and whole in themselves, that to see ‘human’
features is anthropocentric of me. But leaving aside the irony of
that accusation—an irony you can’t yet appreciate—you
would surely recognize the transition in other races from your own.
And perhaps in the human.

"And what of the
city itself? Perched where two rivers strive to become the sea, where
mountains become a plateau, where the clumps of trees coagulate to
the south and—quantity becomes quality—are suddenly a
forest. New Crobuzon’s architecture moves from the industrial
to the residential to the opulent to the slum to the underground to
the airborne to the modern to the ancient to the colourful to the
drab to the fecund to the barren...You take my point. I won’t
go on.

"This is what
makes the world, Ms. Lin. I believe this to be the fundamental
dynamic. Transition. The point where one thing becomes another. It is
what makes you, the city, the world, what they are. And that is the
theme I’m interested in. The zone where the disparate become
part of the whole. The hybrid zone.

"Could this theme
interest you, d’you think? And if the answer is yes...then I am
going to ask you to work for me. Before you answer, please understand
what this will mean.

"I will ask you to
work from life, to produce a model—life-size, I fancy—of
me.

"Very few people
see my face, Ms. Lin. A man in my position has to be careful. I’m
sure you can understand. If you take this commission I will make you
rich, but I will also own a part of your mind. The part that pertains
to me. That is mine. I do not give you permission to share it with
any. If you do, you will suffer greatly before you die.

"So..."
Something creaked. Lin realized that he had sat back in his chair.
"So, Ms. Lin. Are you interested in the hybrid zone? Are you
interested in this job?"

I cannot...cannot
turn this down,
thought Lin helplessly.
I cannot. For money,
for
art...
Gods help me. I cannot turn this down. Oh...please,
please let me not regret this.

She paused, and signed
her acceptance of his terms.

"Oh, I am so
glad," he breathed. Lin’s heart raced. "I really am
glad. Well..."

There was a shuffling
sound behind the screen. Lin sat very still. Her antennae moved
tremulously.

"The blinds are
down in the office, aren’t they?" said Mr. Motley.
"Because I think you should see what you will be working with.
Your mind is mine, Lin. You work for me now."

Mr. Motley stood and
pushed the screen to the floor.

Lin got half to her
feet, her headlegs bristling with astonishment and terror. She gazed
at him.

Scraps of skin and fur
and feathers swung as he moved; tiny limbs clutched; eyes rolled from
obscure niches; antlers and protrusions of bone jutted precariously;
feelers twitched and mouths glistened. Many-coloured skeins of skin
collided. A cloven hoof thumped gently against the wood floor. Tides
of flesh washed against each other in violent currents. Muscles
tethered by alien tendons to alien bones worked together in uneasy
truce, in slow, tense motion. Scales gleamed. Fins quivered. Wings
fluttered brokenly. Insect claws folded and unfolded.

Lin backed away,
stumbling, feeling her terrified way away from his slow advance. Her
chitinous headbody was twitching neurotically. She shook.

Mr. Motley paced
towards her like a hunter.

"So," he
said, from one of the grinning human mouths. "Which do you think
is my best side?"

Isaac waited, facing
his guest. The garuda stood silent. Isaac could see it was
concentrating. It was preparing to speak.

The garuda’s
voice, when it came, was harsh and monotone.

"You are the
scientist. You are...Grimnebulin."

It had difficulty with
his name. Like a parrot trained to speak, the shaping of consonants
and vowels came from within the throat, without the aid of versatile
lips. Isaac had only ever conversed with two garuda in his life. One
was a traveller who had long-practised the formation of human sounds;
the other was a student, one of the tiny garuda community born and
raised in New Crobuzon, which grew up shouting the city slang.
Neither had sounded human, but neither had sounded half so animal as
this great birdman struggling with an alien tongue. It took Isaac a
moment to understand what had been said.