Perdido Street Station (92 page)

And then the
unmistakable taste of its own kind wafted up to it. It spun in shock
as it tasted one, two, three dead siblings, all its siblings, every
one of them, insides out, dead and crushed, spent.

The slake-moth was mad
with grief. It keened in ultra-high frequencies and spun
acrobatically, sending out little calls of sociality, echo-locating
for other moths, fumbling through unclear layers of perception with
its antennae and clutching empathically for any trace of an answer.

It was quite alone.

It rolled away from the
roof of Perdido Street Station, away from that charnel-ground where
its brothersisters lay burst, away from the memory of that impossible
flavour, veering in terror away from The Crow and the Weaver’s
claws and the fat dirigibles that stalked it, out of the shadow of
the Spike towards the junction of the rivers.

The slake-moth fled in
misery, searching for a place to rest.

As the battered militia
gathered themselves and began to peer, once more, over the edge of
the roof at Isaac’s and Derkhan’s and Yagharek’s
feet. They were wary now.

Three rapid bullets
came flying down at them. One sent an officer flying without a word
into the dark air beside the roof, to shatter a window four floors
below with his weight. The other two buried themselves deep in the
fabric of the bricks and stones, sending out wicked sprays of chips.

Isaac looked up. A dim
figure was leaning out from a ledge twenty feet above them.

"It’s
Half-a-Prayer again!" shouted Isaac. "How did he get
there?
What’s he
doing?"

"Come on,"
said Derkhan brusquely. "We have to go."

The militia were still
cowering just below them. Whenever an officer straightened up
carefully and looked over the edge, Half-a-Prayer would send another
bullet straight at him. He kept them caged in. One or two of them
shot at him, but they were desultory, demoralized efforts.

Just beyond the rise of
roofs and windows, unclear shapes were descending smoothly from the
dirigible, sliding onto the slick surface below. They dangled loosely
as they slipped through the air, attached by some hook on their
armour. The ropes that held them uncoiled on smooth motors.

"He’s buying
us some time, gods know why," hissed Derkhan, stumbling over to
Isaac and clutching at him. "He’s going to run out of
bullets soon. These sods—" she waved vaguely at the
half-hidden militia below them "—these are just the local
flatfoots on roof-duty.
Those
bastards coming from the
airships are going to be hardcore troops. We have to
go."

Isaac looked down and
faltered towards the edge, but there were cowering militia visible on
all sides. Bullets smacked down around Isaac as he moved. He yelled
in fear, then realized that Half-a-Prayer was trying to clear the
path before him.

It was no good, though.
The militia were hunkering down and waiting.

"Fuck
damn,"
spat Isaac. He bent down and pulled a plug from Andrej’s
helmet, disconnecting the Construct Council, which was still
concertedly attempting to bypass the circuit-valve and gain control
of the crisis engine. Isaac yanked the wire free, sending a damaging
spasm of feedback and rerouted energy bolting down the line into the
Council’s brain.

"Get this shit!"
he hissed at Yagharek, and pointed at the engines that littered the
roof, fouled with ichor and acid rain. The garuda dropped to one knee
and scooped up the sack. "Weaver!" said Isaac urgently, and
stumbled over to the enormous figure.

He kept looking back,
over his shoulder, fearful of seeing some gung-ho militiaman reaching
up to take a potshot. Over the rain, the sound of metallic crunching
steps drew nearer on the roof below them in a pounding jog.

"Weaver!"
Isaac clapped his hands in front of the extraordinary spider. The
Weaver’s multifarious eyes slid up to meet him. The Weaver
still wore the helmet that linked it to Andrej’s corpse. It was
rubbing its hands in slake-moth viscera. Isaac looked down briefly at
the pile of huge corpses. Their wings had faded to a pale, drab dun,
without pattern or variation.

"Weaver, we need
to go," he whispered. The Weaver interrupted him.

...I TIRE AND GROW OLD
AND COLD GRIMY LITTLING...the Weaver said quietly...YOU WORK WITH
FINESSE I GRANT AND GIVE YOU BUT THIS SIPHONING OF PHANTASMS FROM MY
SOLE SOUL LEAVES ME MELANCHOLIC SEE PATTERNS INHERE EVEN IN THESE THE
VORACIOUS ONES PERHAPS I JUDGE QUICK AND SLICK TASTES FALTER AND
ALTER AND I AM UNSURE...It raised 3 handful of glistening guts to
Isaac’s eyes and began to pull them gently apart.

"Believe me,
Weaver," said Isaac urgently, "this was the
right thing,
we saved the city for you to...to judge, to weave...now that we’ve
done this. But we need to go
now,
we need you to help us.
Please...get us away from here..."

"Isaac,"
hissed Derkhan, "I don’t know who these swine are that are
coming but...but they’re not militia."

Isaac stole a glance
out over the roofs. His eyes widened incredulously.

Stomping purposefully
towards them was a battery of extraordinary metal soldiers. The light
slid from them, illuminating their edges in cold flashes. They were
sculpted in astonishing and frightening detail. Their arms and legs
swung with great bursts of hydraulic power, pistons hissing as they
stormed closer. Little glimmers of reflected light came from
somewhere a little behind their heads.

"Who the
fuck
are those bastards?" said Isaac in a strangled voice.

The Weaver interrupted
him. Its voice was suddenly loud again, purposeful.

...BY GOODNESS ME YOU
CONVINCE...it Said...LOOK AT THE INTRICATE SKEINS AND THREADLINES WE
CORRECT WHERE THE DEADLINGS REAVED WE CAN RESHUFFLE AND SPIN AND FIX
IT UP NICE...The Weaver bobbed excitedly up and down and stared at
the dark sky. It plucked the helmet from its head in a smooth motion
and threw it casually out into the night. Isaac did not hear it
land....IT RUNS AND HIDES ITS HIDE...it said...IT IS ROOTING FOR A
NEST POOR FRIGHTENED MONSTER WE MUST CRUSH IT LIKE ITS BROTHERS
BEFORE IT GNAWS HOLES IN THE SKY AND THE CITY-WIDE COLOURFLOW COME
AND LET US SLIDE DOWN LONG FISSURES IN THE WORLDWEB WHERE THE RENDER
RUNS AND FIND ITS LAIR...

It staggered forward,
always seeming to teeter on the edge of collapse. It opened its arms
to Isaac like a loving parent, swept him quickly and effortlessly up.
Isaac grimaced in fear as he was taken into its weird, cool embrace.
Don’t cut me,
he thought fervently,
don’t slice
me up!

The militia peered
furtive and aghast over the roof at the sight.

The enormous, towering
spider stalked edgily this way and that, Isaac tucked lolling like
some absurd, vast baby under its arm.

It moved with sure,
fleeting motions across the sodden tar and clay. It could not be
followed. It moved in and out of conventional space with motions too
fast to see.

It stood before
Yagharek. The garuda swung the sack of mechanical components that he
had hastily gathered over onto his back. Yagharek delivered himself
thankfully to the dancing mad god, throwing up his arms and clutching
at the smooth waist between the Weaver’s head and
abdomen...GRAB TIGHT LITTLE ONE WE MUST FIND A WAY AWAY...sang the
Weaver.

The weird metallic
troops were approaching the little elevation of flat land, their
mechanical anatomy hissing with efficient energy. They swept past the
lower militia, terrified junior officers who gazed up in astonishment
at the human faces peering intently from the back of the iron
warriors’ heads.

Derkhan looked round at
the encroaching figures, then swallowed and walked quickly over to
the Weaver, which stood with humanoid arms wide. Isaac and Yagharek
were perched on its weapon arms, their legs scrabbling for purchase
across its broad back.

"Don’t hurt
me again," whispered Derkhan, her hand flickering over the
scabbed wound on the side of her face. She holstered her guns and
raced across into the Weaver’s terrifying, cradling arms.

**

The second dirigible
arrived at the roof of Perdido Street Station and threw out ropes for
its troops to descend. Motley’s Remade squadron had reached the
top of the rise of architecture and was vaulting over without pause.
The militia gazed up at them, cowed. They did not understand what
they were seeing.

The Remade breached the
low rise of bricks without hesitation, only faltering when they saw
the Weaver’s huge and skulking form scampering to and fro
across the bricks, three figures jouncing like dolls on its back.

Motley’s troops
stepped back towards the edge slowly, rain varnishing their impassive
steel faces. Their heavy feet crushed the remnants of the engines
that still lay split across the roof.

As they watched, the
Weaver reached down and grasped hold of a quailing militiaman, who
wailed in terror as he was dragged up by his head. The man flailed,
but the Weaver pushed his arms away and cuddled him like a baby.

...OFF AND ON TO GO
HUNTING WE WILL TAKE OUR LEAVE...whispered the Weaver to all present.
It walked sideways off the edge of the roof, seemingly unencumbered,
and disappeared.

For two or three
seconds, only the rain sounded fitful and depressing on the roof.
Then Half-a-Prayer let off a last volley of shots from above, sending
the assembled men and Remade scattering. When they emerged carefully,
there were no more attacks. Jack Half-a-Prayer had gone.

The Weaver and its
companions had left no trail, and no trace.

**

The slake-moth tore
through currents of air. It was frantic and afraid.

It sounded every so
often, letting out a cry in a variety of sonic registers, but it was
unanswered. It was miserable and confused.

And yet beneath it all,
its infernal hunger was growing again. It was not free of its
appetite.

Below it the Canker
flowed through the city, its barges and pleasure boats little grubs
of dirty light on the blackness. The slake-moth slowed and spiralled.

A line of filthy smoke
was drawn slowly across the face of New Crobuzon, marking it like a
stub of pencil, as a late train went east on the Dexter Line, through
Gidd and Barguest Bridge, on over the water towards Lud Fallow and
Sedim Junction.

The moth swept on over
Ludmead, ducking low above the roofs of the university faculty,
alighting briefly on the roof of the Magpie Cathedral in Saltbur,
flitting away in a pang of hunger and lonely fear. It could not rest.
It could not channel its rapacity to feed.

As it flew, the
slake-moth recognized the configuration of light and darkness below
it. It felt a sudden pull.

Behind the railway
lines, rising from the shabby and decrepit architecture of Bonetown,
the Ribs rose out into the night air in a colossal sweep and curve of
ivory. They made memories eddy in the slake-moth’s head. It
recalled the dubious influence of those old bones that had made
Bonetown a fearful place, somewhere to be escaped, where air currents
were unpredictable and noxious tides could pollute the aether.
Distant images of days clamped still, being milked lasciviously, its
glands sucked clean, a hazy sense of a suckling grub at its teat, but
nothing being there...memories caught it up.

The moth was utterly
cowed. It sought relief. It hankered for a nest, somewhere to lie
still, recuperate. Somewhere familiar, where it could tend itself and
be tended. In its misery, it remembered its captivity in a selective,
twisted light. It had been fed and cleaned by careful tenders there
in Bonetown. It had been a sanctuary.

Frightened and hungry
and eager for relief, it conquered its fear of the Bonetown Ribs.

It set off southwards,
licking its way through half-forgotten routes in the air, skirting
the blistered bones, seeking out a dark building in a little alley, a
bitumened terrace of unclear purpose, from where it had crawled weeks
ago.

The slake-moth wheeled
nervously over the dangerous city and headed for home.

**

Isaac felt as if he had
been asleep for several days, and he stretched luxuriously, feeling
his body slide uncomfortably forward and back.

He heard an appalling
scream.

Isaac froze as memories
came back to him in torrents, let him know how he had come to be
there, held tight in the Weaver’s arms (he jerked and spasmed
as he recalled it all).

The Weaver was stepping
lightly over the worldweb, scuttling across metareal filaments
connecting every moment to every other.

Isaac remembered the
vertiginous pitch of his soul when he had seen the worldweb. He
remembered a nausea that had wracked his existential being at the
sight of that impossible vista. He struggled not to open his eyes.

He could hear the
jabbering of Yagharek and Derkhan’s whispered curses. They came
to him not as sounds but as intimations, floating fragments of silk
that slipped into his skull and became clear to him. There was
another voice, a jagged cacophony of bright fabric shrieking in
terror.

He wondered who that
might be.

The Weaver moved
quickly across pitching threads alongside the damage and potentiality
of damage that the slake-moth had wreaked, and might again. The
Weaver disappeared into a hole, a dim funnel of connections that
wound through the material of that complex dimension and emerged
again into the city.

Isaac felt air against
his cheek, wood below him. He woke and opened his eyes.

His head hurt. He
looked up. His neck wobbled as he adjusted to the weight of his
helmet, still perched tight on his head, its mirrors miraculously
unbroken.