Perdido Street Station (52 page)

"So anyway, the
other day I heard him swearing—he was in withdrawal and cursing
anyone who’d come near, but this was a bit different. D’you
know what he shouted as he gnawed himself? Fascinating. It was
something along the lines of ‘I should never have given that
‘shit to Isaac!’ "

The cactacae beside Mr.
Motley unclasped his massive hands and rubbed his callused green
fingers together. He reached up to his uncovered chest, and with a
terrible deliberation, he pricked his finger on one of his own
spikes, testing its point. His face was impassive.

"
Isn’t
that interesting, Ms. Lin?" continued Motley with a sickly
jauntiness. He began to pace crabwise towards her on his innumerable
legs.

What
is
this?
What
is
this?
thought Lin as he approached. There was
nowhere for her to hide.

"Now, Ms. Lin.
Some
very valuable items
have been stolen from me. A clutch of
little
factories,
if you like. Hence the lack of dreamshit.
And d’you know? I have to admit I’ve been
stymied
as to who might have done it. Really. I’ve had nothing to go
on." He paused and a tide of icy smiles crossed his multiple
features. "Until I heard Gazid. Then it all...made...sense."
He spat each word.

At some silent signal
his cactus vizier strode towards Lin, who cringed and tried to break
away, but was too late, as he reached out with his enormous meaty
fists and gripped her arms tightly, immobilizing her.

Lin’s headlegs
spasmed and she emitted a piercing chymical screech at the pain.
Cactacae were usually assiduous in pruning the thorns on the insides
of their palms, to better manipulate objects, but this one had let
his grow. Clutches of stubby fibrous quills spiked her arms
mercilessly.

She was pinioned, and
dragged effortlessly before Motley. He leered at her. When he spoke
again his voice was thick with threat.

"Your bugfucking
lover has tried to screw me, hasn’t he, Ms. Lin? Buying up
great swathes of
my
dreamshit, keeping his
own
moths,
so Gazid tells me, and then
stealing mine!"
He roared the
last words, trembling.

Lin could hardly think
over the pain in her arms but she desperately tried to sign from her
hip:
No no no it’s not like that it’s not like that...

Motley slapped her
hands down.

"Don’t
fucking try it, you bug-head bitch, you cross-whore, you slut. Your
scum-sucking man’s been trying to squeeze
me
out of my
own fucking market. Well, that’s a very, very dangerous game."
He backed away a little and regarded her as she writhed.

"We are going to
bring Mr. der Grimnebulin in to account for his theft. D’you
think he’ll come if we offer him you?"

Blood was stiffening
the arms of Lin’s shirt. She tried again to sign.

"You’ll get
a chance to explain yourself, Ms. Lin," said Motley, calm again.
"Maybe you’re a partner in crime, maybe you have no idea
what I’m talking about. It’s bad luck for you, I must
say. I will
not be
letting this go." He watched her try
desperately to tell him, to explain, to squirm her way free.

Her arms were seizing
up. The cactus was rendering her dumb. As she felt her head dull with
the constricting pain, she heard Mr. Motley’s whisper.

"I am not a
forgiving man."

**

Outside the University
Science Faculty, the quad thronged with students. Many were wearing
the regulation black gowns: a few rebellious souls slung them over
their arms as they left the building. Among the tide of figures were
two motionless men. They stood leaning against the tree, ignoring the
sap that stuck to them. It was humid, and one man was dressed
incongruously in a long coat and dark hat.

They stood without
moving for a long time. One class ended, and then another. The men
saw two cycles of students come and go. Occasionally one or other
would rub his eyes, stretch his face a little. Always he would return
his apparently casual attention to the main entrance.

Finally, as the
afternoon shadows began to stretch out, the men moved. Their target
appeared. Montague Vermishank stepped from the building and sniffed
the air gingerly, as if he knew he should enjoy it. He began to
remove his jacket, then stopped and pulled it back around him. He set
off into Ludmead.

The men below the tree
stepped out from under the leaves and sauntered after their prey.

It was a busy day.
Vermishank headed north, looking around him for a cab. He wound up
Tench Way, Ludmead’s most bohemian thoroughfare, where
progressive academics held court in cafes and bookshops. The
buildings of Ludmead were old and well preserved, their façades
scrubbed and freshly painted. Vermishank ignored them. He had walked
this way for years. He was oblivious to his surroundings, and to his
pursuers.

A four-wheel cab
appeared through the crowd, pulled by some uncomfortable shaggy biped
from the northern tundra that paced its way through the rubbish on
back-bent legs like a bird’s. Vermishank raised his arm. The
cabdriver attempted to manoeuvre his vehicle towards him.
Vermishank’s pursuers sped up.

"Monty,"
boomed the larger man and slapped his shoulder. Vermishank turned in
alarm.

"Isaac," he
faltered. His eyes darted around him, sought the cab, which was still
approaching.

"How are you, old
son?" yelled Isaac in his left ear, and underneath it,
Vermishank heard another voice hissing in his right.

"
The thing
poking your stomach is a knife and I will gut you like a fucking fish
if you even breathe in a way I don’t like."

"So glad to bump
into you," howled Isaac jocularly, waving the cab over. The
driver muttered and approached.

"
Try to run and
I will cut you and if you get out of my hands I will shoot a bullet
into your brain,"
the voice crooned with loathing.

"Come and have a
drink at mine," said Isaac. "Brock Marsh, please driver.
Paddler Way, you know it? Handsome beast, by the way," Isaac
kept up a stream of loud nonsense as he swung into the closed
carriage. Vermishank followed, shaking and stuttering, goaded by the
sting of the blade. Lemuel Pigeon followed him in and slammed the
door shut, then sat looking straight forward holding the knife at
Vermishank’s side.

The driver pulled away
from the kerb. The creaking and rattling and complaining bleats of
the animal cocooned the three men in the cab.

Isaac turned to
Vermishank with the exaggerated delight gone from his face.

"You have a lot of
talking to do, you evil cunt," he hissed menacingly.

His prisoner was
visibly regaining his poise second by second.

"Isaac," he
murmured. "Hah. How can I help you?"

He started as Lemuel
jabbed him.

"Shut your fucking
mouth."

"Shut my mouth
and
do a lot of talking, Isaac?" mused Vermishank smoothly, then
yelped incredulously as Isaac struck him, hard and suddenly. He gazed
at him astonished, gingerly stroking his stinging face.

"I tell you when
to talk," said Isaac.

They were silent the
rest of the journey, swaying south past Lud Fallow Station and over
the sluggish Canker at Danechi’s Bridge. Isaac paid the driver
as Lemuel hustled Vermishank into the warehouse.

Inside, David glowered
from his desk, half turning to watch the proceedings. His russet
waistcoat was incongruously cheerful. Yagharek skulked in a corner,
half visible. His feet were wrapped in rags and his head was hidden
in a hood. He had discarded the wooden wings. He was not disguised as
whole, but as a human.

Derkhan looked up from
an armchair she had pulled into the middle of the back wall, below
the window. She was crying fiercely and without a sound. She was
clutching a handful of newspapers. Front pages were strewn around
her. "Midsummer Nightmares Spread," said one, and another
asked "What Has Happened to Sleep?" Derkhan ignored these
pages, cutting out another minor story from page five or seven or
eleven in each paper. Isaac could read one from where he stood:
"Eyespy Killer Claims Criminal Editor."

The cleaning construct
hissed and whirred and clanked its way around the room, clearing the
rubbish, sweeping up the dust, collecting the old papers and fruit
debris that littered the floor. Sincerity the badger meandered
listlessly along the far wall.

Lemuel shoved
Vermishank into the middle of three chairs by the door and sat a few
feet from him. Ostentatiously he drew out his pistol and aimed it at
Vermishank’s head.

Isaac locked the door.

"Right,
Vermishank," he said in a businesslike fashion. He sat and
stared at his former boss. "Lemuel is a very good shot, in case
you have adventurous ideas. He’s a bit of a villain, actually.
Bit dangerous. And I am not in any kind of mood to defend you, so I
recommend you tell us what we want to know."

"What do you want
to know, Isaac?" said Vermishank smoothly. Isaac was enraged,
but impressed. The man was damn good at regaining and retaining his
aplomb.

That, Isaac decided,
would have to be dealt with.

Isaac stood and stalked
over to Vermishank. The older man looked up at him idly, his eyes
only widening in alarm too late as he realized that Isaac was going
to hit him again.

Isaac punched
Vermishank in the face twice, ignoring his old boss’s squawk of
pain and astonishment. Isaac gripped Vermishank by the throat and
lowered himself into a squat, bringing his face next to his terrified
prisoner’s. Vermishank was bleeding from his nose, and
scrabbling ineffectually at Isaac’s massive hands. His eyes
were glazed with terror.

"I don’t
think you understand the situation, old son," whispered Isaac
with loathing. "I have sound reason to believe that you’re
responsible for my friend lying upstairs shitting himself and
drooling. I am not in any mood for sodding around, playing games,
going by rules. I don’t
care
if you
live,
Vermishank. D’you understand? Are you with me? So here’s
the best way of doing this. I tell you what we know—don’t
waste my time asking how we know it—and you fill in what we
don’t. Every time you don’t answer or the consensus here
is that you’re lying, either Lemuel or I will hurt you."

"You can’t
torture
me, you
bastard..."
hissed Vermishank in a
strangulated wheeze.

"Fuck you,"
breathed Isaac.
"You’re
the Remaker. Now...answer
the questions or die."

"Possibly both,"
added Lemuel coldly.

"See, you’re
wrong, Monty," continued Isaac. "We
can
torture you.
That’s exactly what we can do. So best to co-operate. Answer
quickly, and convince me you ain’t lying. Here’s what we
know.
Correct me if I’m wrong,
by the way, won’t
you?" He sneered at Vermishank.

There was a pause as
Isaac ran through the facts in his head. Then he spoke them, ticking
each item off on his fingers.

"You’re in
charge of biohazardous stuff for the government. That means the
slake-moth
programme." He looked up for a reaction, some
surprise that the secret of the project was out. Vermishank was
motionless. "The slake-moths have escaped—the slake-moths
that
you
sold to some fucking criminal. They have something to
do with dreamshit, and with the...with the nightmares that everyone’s
having. Rudgutter thought they were something to do with Benjamin
Flex—wrongly, incidentally.

"Now, what we
need
to know is the following. What are they? What’s the connection
with the drug? How do we catch them?"

There was a pause as
Vermishank sighed lengthily. His lips were trembling wetly, slick
with blood and saliva, but he gave a little smile. Lemuel wagged the
gun to chivvy him along.

"Hah.
Slake-moths," breathed Vermishank eventually. He swallowed and
massaged his neck. "Well. Aren’t
they fascinating?
Amazing species."

"What are they?"
said Isaac.

"What do you mean?
You’ve clearly found out that much. They are
predators.
Efficient, brilliant predators."

"Where are they
from?"

"Hah."
Vermishank pondered a moment. He glanced up as Lemuel lazily and
ostentatiously began to aim his gun at Vermishank’s knee.
Vermishank continued quickly. "We got the grubs from a merchant
on one of the southernmost of the Shards—it must have been on
their arrival that you
stole
one—but they aren’t
native to there." He looked up at Isaac with what looked like
amusement. "If you really want to know, the current favourite
theory is that they come from the Fractured Land."

"
Don’t
fuck about..."
shouted Isaac in rage, but Vermishank
interrupted him.

"I am
not,
you fool. That
is
the favoured hypothesis. Fractured Land
theory has been given a powerful boost in some circles by the
discovery of the slake-moths."

"How do they
hypnotize people?"

"Wings—of
unstable dimensions and shapes, beating as they do in various
planes—stuffed with oneirochromatophores. Colour-cells like
those in an octopus’s skin, sensitive to and affecting psychic
resonances and subconscious patterns. They tap the frequencies of the
dreams that are...ah...
bubbling
under the surface of the
sentient mind. They focus them, draw them out into the surface. Hold
them still."

"How does a mirror
protect you?"

"Good question,
Isaac." Vermishank’s manner was changing. He sounded more
and more as if he was giving a seminar. Even in a situation like
this, realized Isaac, the didactic instinct was strong in the old
bureaucrat. "We simply don’t know. We’ve done all
manner of experiments, with double-mirrors, treble-mirrors and so on.
We don’t know why, but seeing them reflected negates the
effect, even though it is formally an identical sight, as their wings
are already mirrored in each other. But, and this is
very
interesting,
reflect it again—look at them through two
mirrors, I mean, like a periscope—and they
can
hypnotize
you again.
Isn’t that extraordinary?"
He smiled.