Perdido Street Station (50 page)

"Godsdamrat,"
hissed Lemuel in irritation and fear. "What is going on?"

"There’s
something in the air..." murmured Isaac, and his voice petered
out as he stared blindly up.

To cap the tension,
Derkhan and Lemuel, who had met the previous day, had quickly decided
they despised each other. They did their best to ignore one another.

"How did you get
the address?" asked Isaac, and Lemuel shucked his shoulders
irritably.

"Connections,
‘Zaac, contacts, and corruption. How d’you think? Doctor
Barbile vacated her own rooms a couple of days ago and has since been
seen at this less salubrious location. It’s only about three
streets away from her old house, though. The woman has no
imagination. Hey..." He batted Isaac’s arm and pointed
across the gloomy street. "There’s our man."

Opposite them, a vast
figure tugged free of the shadows and lumbered towards them. He
glowered at Isaac and Derkhan, before nodding at Lemuel in the most
absurdly jaunty fashion.

"All right,
Pigeon?" he said, too loud. "What we up to, then?"

"Voice down, man,"
said Lemuel tersely. "What you carrying?"

The massive man pushed
his finger across his lips to show he understood. He held open one
side of his jacket, displaying two enormous flintlock pistols. Isaac
started slightly at their size. Both he and Derkhan were armed, but
neither with any such cannons. Lemuel nodded approvingly at the
sight.

"Right. Probably
won’t be needed, but...y’know. Right. Don’t talk."
The big man nodded. "Don’t hear either, right? You have no
ears tonight." The man nodded again. Lemuel turned to Isaac and
Derkhan. "Listen. You know what you want to ask the geezer.
Wherever possible, we’re just shadows. But we have reason to
think the militia are interested in this, and that means we can’t
fuck about. If she’s not forthcoming, we’re giving her a
helpful push, right?"

"Is that
gangsterese for torture?" hissed Isaac. Lemuel looked at him
coldly.

"No. And don’t
fucking preach at me: you’re paying for this. We don’t
have
time
to arse around, so I’m not going to let
her
arse around. Any problems?" There was no answer. "Good.
Wardock Street is down here to the right."

They did not pass any
other late-night walkers as they picked their way along the
backstreets. They walked variously: Lemuel’s sidekick stolidly
and without fear, seemingly unaffected by the ambient nightmare
quality in the air; Lemuel himself with many glances into dark
doorways; and Isaac and Derkhan with a nervous, miserable haste.

They halted at
Barbile’s door on Wardock Street. Lemuel turned and indicated
for Isaac to go forward, but Derkhan pushed to the front.

"I’ll do
it," she whispered furiously. The others fell back. When they
stood half out of sight at the edge of the doorway, Derkhan turned
and pulled the bell cord.

For a long time,
nothing happened. Then, gradually, footsteps slowly descended stairs
and approached the door. They halted just beyond it, and there was
silence. Derkhan waited, hushing the others with her hands.
Eventually a voice called out from behind the door.

"Who’s
that?"

Magesta Barbile sounded
utterly fearful.

Derkhan spoke softly
and quickly.

"Dr. Barbile, my
name’s Derkhan. We need to speak to you very urgently."

Isaac glanced around
him to see if any of the lights in the street were coming on. So far
they seemed unobserved.

From behind the door,
Magesta Barbile was being difficult.

"I...I’m not
sure about that..." she said. "It’s not really a good
time..."

"Dr.
Barbile...Magesta..." said Derkhan quietly. "You’re
going to have to open this door. We can help you. Just open the
fucking door. Now."

There was another
moment of dithering, then Magesta Barbile unlocked the door and
pushed it open a crack. Derkhan was about to seize the moment by
pushing past her into the house, when she started and stood quite
still. Barbile was holding a rifle. She looked horribly
uncomfortable. But however unpractised she was, the weapon was still
levelled at Derkhan’s gut.

"I don’t
know who you are..." began Barbile querulously, but before she
could continue Lemuel’s huge friend, Mr. X, reached easily and
without speed around Derkhan, grabbing the rifle and shoving the heel
of his hand over the firing-pan, blocking the path of the hammer.
Barbile began to keen, and she pulled the trigger, eliciting a mild
hiss of pain from Mr. X as the hammer snapped onto his flesh. He
shoved the rifle backwards, sending Barbile flying onto the stairs
behind her.

As she flopped and
scrambled to right herself he stepped into the house.

The others followed.
Derkhan did not protest at Barbile’s treatment. Lemuel was
right. They did not have time.

Mr. X was standing
holding the woman. He held her patiently as she flopped and snapped
back and forth, emitting terrible crooning moans from behind his
hand. Her eyes were wide and white and hysterical with fear.

"Dear gods,"
breathed Isaac. "She thinks we’re going to kill her!
Stop!"

"Magesta,"
said Derkhan loudly, kicking the door closed without looking.
"Magesta, you have to stop this. We’re not militia, if
that’s what you’re thinking. I’m a friend of
Benjamin Flex."

At that Barbile opened
her eyes wider and her struggles slowed.

"Right," said
Derkhan. "And Benjamin’s been taken. I suppose you know
that." Barbile watched her and nodded quickly. Lemuel’s
enormous employee dropped his hand from Barbile’s mouth
experimentally. She did not scream.

"We’re not
the militia," repeated Derkhan slowly. "We’re not
going to take you like they took him. But you know...you
know
...if
we could trace you, if we could suss out who was Ben’s contact,
that they’re going to be able to."

"I...That’s
why I..." Barbile glanced over at the discarded rifle. Derkhan
nodded.

"All right,
listen, Magesta," she said. She spoke very clearly, her eyes on
Barbile’s all the time. "We don’t have much
time...Let go of her, you arse! We don’t have much time, and we
have to know exactly what’s going on. There is some mighty
godsdamned weird stuff going on. And an awful lot of threads seem to
converge on you. So let me suggest something. Why don’t you
take us upstairs, before the militia come, and explain to us what’s
going on?"

**

"I only just found
out about Flex," said Magesta. She was sitting huddled on her
sofa, clutching a cold cup of tea. Behind her a large mirror took up
most of the wall. "I don’t really follow the news. I had a
meeting scheduled with him a couple of days ago, and when he didn’t
come, I got really scared that he’d...I don’t know...told
on me, or something."
He probably has,
thought Derkhan,
and said nothing. "And then I heard some rumours about what
happened in Dog Fenn when the militia put down that riot..."

There was no
godsdamn riot,
Derkhan nearly shouted, but she controlled
herself. Whatever reason Magesta Barbile may have had for giving
information to Ben, political dissidence was clearly not one of them.

"So these
rumours..." Barbile continued. "Well, I put two and two
together, you know? And then...and then..."

"And then you
hid," said Derkhan. Barbile nodded.

"Look," said
Isaac suddenly. He had been silent until now, his face twisted
tensely. "Can you not fucking feel it? Can’t you taste
it?" He shook his hands in claws around his face, as if the air
was a tangible thing he could grip and wrestle. "It’s as
if the damn night air’s gone
rancid.
Now, maybe it’s
just blind damn coincidence, but so far every bad thing that’s
happened for the last month seems to be tied in to some fucking
conspiracy, and I’m damn well betting that this ain’t an
exception."

He leaned in close
towards Barbile’s pathetic figure. She gazed at him, timid and
terrified.

"Doctor Barbile,"
he said levelly. "Something that eats minds...including my
friend’s mind; a militia raid on
Runagate Rampant;
the
very fucking
air
around our ears turning into some rotten
soup...
What is going on?
What’s the connection with
dreamshit?"

Barbile began to cry.
Isaac nearly howled with irritation, turning from her and throwing up
his hands in exasperation. But then he turned back. She was speaking
through her snivels.

"I knew it was a
bad idea..." she said. "I told them we should keep control
of the experiment..." Her words were almost unintelligible,
broken and interrupted with a slew of snotty tears. "It hadn’t
been going long enough...They shouldn’t have done it..."

"Done
what?"
said Derkhan. "What did they do? What was Ben talking to you
about?"

"About the
transfer,"
sobbed Barbile. "We hadn’t finished
the project but we suddenly heard it was being wound down, but...but
someone found out what was really happening...Our specimens were
being
sold
...to some
criminal...
"

"
What
specimens?" said Isaac, but Barbile was ignoring him. She was
unburdening herself in her own time and her own order.

"It wasn’t
quick enough for the sponsors, you know? They were
getting...impatient...The applications they thought there might
be...military, psychodimensional...they weren’t coming. The
subjects were
incomprehensible,
we weren’t making
progress, and...and they were
uncontrollable,
they were just
too
dangerous..."
She raised her eyes and her voice,
still crying. She paused, then continued, quieter again.

"We might have got
somewhere, but it was taking too long. And then...the money people
must’ve got nervous. So the project director told us it was
over, that the specimens had been destroyed, but that was a
lie...
Everyone knew it. This wasn’t the first project,
you know..." Isaac and Derkhan’s eyes widened sharply, but
they were silent. "We already knew one sure way to make money
from them...

"They must’ve
sold them to the highest bidder...to someone who could use them for
the
drug...
That way the sponsors made their money back and the
director could keep the project going for himself, co-operating with
the drug-man he sold them to. But it wasn’t
right
...It
wasn’t right that the government should make money from
drugs
and it wasn’t right that they should steal our
project...
"
Barbile had stopped crying. She just sat, rambling. They let her
talk.

"The others were
just going to leave it, but I was
angry
...I hadn’t seen
them hatch, I hadn’t learnt what I needed to learn, for
nothing. And now they were going to be used for...for some villain to
make money..."

Derkhan could scarcely
believe the naivety. So this was Ben’s contact. This stupid
minor scientist piqued at having her project stolen. For that, she
had given evidence of the government’s illicit deals, she had
brought the wrath of the militia onto her own head.

"Barbile,"
said Isaac again, much quieter and calmer this time. "What are
they?"

Magesta Barbile looked
up at him. She looked slightly unhinged.

"What
are
they?" she said dazedly. "The things that’ve escaped?
The project? What are they?
"

"Slake-moths."

Isaac nodded as if this
revelation made sense. He prepared to ask her another question, but
her eyes were no longer on him.

"I knew they’d
escaped because of the dreams, you know?" she said. "I
could tell they were out. I don’t know how they escaped. But it
shows that their damn sell-off was a bad idea, doesn’t it?"
Her voice was strained with desperate triumph. "That’s one
in the eye for Vermishank."

**

At the sound of the
name, Isaac felt himself spasm.
Of course,
a part of his mind
thought, calmly.
Makes sense that he’d be in on this.
Another part of him was screaming internally. The strands of his life
were throttling him like some unforgiving net.

"What’s
Vermishank got to do with this?" he said carefully. He saw
Derkhan look at him sharply. She did not recognize the name, but she
could tell that he did.

"He’s the
boss," said Barbile, surprised. "He’s the head of the
project."

"But he’s a
bio-thaumaturge, not a zoologist, not a theorist...Why’s he in
charge?"

"Bio-thaumaturgy’s
his specialism, not his only area. He’s mainly an
administrator. He’s in charge of all the biohazard stuff:
Remaking, experimental weapons, hunter organisms, diseases..."

Vermishank was in
charge of sciences at the University of New Crobuzon. It was a
high-profile, prestigious position. It would be unthinkable to award
such an honour to someone antagonistic to the government: that was
obvious. But Isaac realized now that he had underestimated
Vermishank’s involvement with the state. He was more than just
a yes-man.

"Vermishank sold
off the...slake-moths?" Isaac said. Barbile nodded. A wind had
picked up outside, and the shutters were rattling and banging
violently. Mr. X looked around at the noise. No one else took their
attention from Barbile.

"I was in touch
with Flex because I thought it wasn’t right," she said.
"But something happened...the moths are out. They’ve
escaped. Gods only know how."
I know how,
thought Isaac
grimly.
It was me.
"Do you know what it
means
that
they’re out? We’re all...we’re going to be
hunted.
And the militia must’ve read
Runagate Rampant
and...and
thought that Flex had something to do with it...and if they think
Flex did then soon...soon they’ll think that
I
did..."
Barbile began to snivel again and Derkhan looked away in disgust,
thinking of Ben.