The Scar (9 page)

They sat quietly for a while. Johannes seemed shy, and Bellis found herself resentful that it had been so long since she had heard from him, and suspecting that she was not being fair she retreated into silence.

Bellis saw with amazement that the red wine on the table was a vintage Galaggi, a House Predicus 1768. She looked up at Johannes with eyes wide. With her mouth set shut she looked disapproving.

“I thought we might celebrate,” he said. “I mean, at seeing each other again.”

The wine was excellent.

“Why’ve they just left me . . . us . . . to get on with it? Or to rot?” Bellis demanded. She picked at her concoction of fish and bitter ship-grown leaves. “I’d have thought . . . I’d have thought it illadvised to pluck a few hundred people from their lives, then let them loose in . . . this . . .”

“They’ve not done that,” Johannes said. “How many of the other
Terpsichoria
passengers have you seen? How many of the crew? Don’t you remember the interviews, the questions, when we first arrived? They were tests,” he said gently. “They were estimating who was safe, and who not. If they think you’re too troublesome, or too . . . tied to New Crobuzon . . .” His voice petered away.

“Then what?” demanded Bellis. “Like the captain . . . ?”

“No no no,” said Johannes quickly. “I think that they . . . work on you. Try to persuade you. I mean, you know about press-ganging. There are plenty of sailors in the New Crobuzon navy who were doing nothing more nautical than carousing in a tavern the night they were ‘recruited.’ It doesn’t stop most of them working as sailors once they’re taken.”

“For a while,” said Bellis.

“Yes. I’m not saying it’s exactly the same. That’s the big difference: once you join Armada you don’t . . . leave.”

“I’ve been told that a thousand times,” Bellis said slowly. “But what about Armada’s fleet? What about the cray underneath? You think they can’t get away? Anyway, if that were true, if people never did have a chance to leave, no one but the city-born would be prepared to live here.”

“Obviously,” Johannes said. “The city’s freebooters are on sail for months, maybe years at a time till they make their way back to Armada. And they’ll dock at other ports during those journeys, and I’m sure some of their crew must have disappeared. There must be ex-Armadans scattered here and there.

“But the fact is, those crews are chosen: partly for their loyalty, and partly for the fact that if they do run, it won’t matter. They’re almost all city-born, for a start: it’s a rare press-ganged who’s given a letter of pass. The likes of you and me, we couldn’t hope to get on a vessel like that. Armada
is
where most of us press-ganged’ll see things out.

“But dammit, think who gets taken, Bellis. Some sailors, sure, some ‘rival’ pirates, a few merchants. But the ships the Armadans encounter—you think they all get taken? Most of the press-ganged vessels are . . . well, ships like the
Terpsichoria
.
Slavers
. Or colony ships full of transported Remade. Or jail ships. Or ships carrying prisoners of war.

“Most of the Remade on the
Terpsichoria
realized long ago that they’d never be going home. Twenty years, my eye—it’s a life sentence, and a death sentence, and they know it. And here they are now, with work and money and
respect
. . . Is it any wonder they accept it? As far as I know there are only seven Remade from the
Terpsichoria
being treated for rejection, and two of those already suffer dementia.”

And how the fuck
, wondered Bellis,
how in the name of Jabber do you know that?

“What about the likes of you and me?” Johannes continued. “All of us . . . we already knew we’d be away from home—away from New Crobuzon—for five years at the very, very least, and probably more. Look at the motley group we were. I’d say very few of the other passengers had unbreakable ties with the city. People arriving here are unsettled, sure; and surprised, confused, alarmed. But not destroyed. Isn’t it a ‘new life’ that they promise Nova Esperium colonists? Wasn’t that what most of us sought?”

Most, perhaps
, thought Bellis.
But not all. And if it’s satisfaction with this place they look for before they let us live free here, then
gods know
—I know—they can make mistakes of judgment.

“
I doubt,” Johannes said quietly, “they’re so naÏve as to just leave us to roam unchecked. I’d be surprised if they didn’t keep careful note of us. I suspect we don’t go unwatched. But what could we do, anyway? This is a
city
, not a dinghy we can commandeer or scuttle.

“It’s only the crew who’d represent any kind of real problem. Many have families waiting for them. Those are the ones who’d likely refuse to accept that this is their new home.”

Only the crew?
thought Bellis, a bad taste in her throat.

“So what happens to them? Like the captain?” she said in a dead voice. “Like Cumbershum?”

Johannes flinched. “I . . . I’ve been told it’s . . . it’s only the captains and first officers of any ships encountered . . . That they simply have too much to lose, that they’re particularly tied to their home port . . .”

There was something fawning and apologetic in his face. With a waxing alienation, Bellis realized that she was alone.

She had come here tonight thinking that she might be able to talk to Johannes about New Crobuzon, that he would share her unhappiness, that she could touch the bloodied part of her mind and talk about the people and streets she missed so hard.

Perhaps that they might broach the subject that had burrowed through her thoughts for weeks: escape.

But Johannes was acclimatizing. He spoke in a carefully neutral register, as if what he said was just reportage. But he was trying to come to terms with the city’s rulers. He had found something in Armada that made him prepared to consider it home.

What did they do to achieve this?
she thought.
What is he doing?

“Who else have you heard about?” she said after a cold silence.

“Mollificatt, I’m very sorry to say, was one of those who succumbed when we first arrived,” he said, looking genuinely sad. The mongrel and changing population of Armada made it a carrier of countless diseases. The city-born were hardy, but every batch of press-ganged was afflicted with fevers and murrains on its first arrival, and several of their number inevitably died. “I’ve heard rumors that our newcomer, Mr. Fennec, is working somewhere in Garwater, or Thee-And-Thine riding. Sister Meriope . . .” he said suddenly, his eyes widening. He shook his head. “Sister Meriope is . . . She is being held for her own safety. She threatens herself with violence constantly. Bellis,” he whispered, “
she is with child
.”

Bellis rolled her eyes.

I can’t listen to this
, thought Bellis, saying just enough to be in the conversation. She felt alone.
Tawdry secrets and clichés. What next?
she thought with contempt as Johannes rambled on through the passenger list and the officers of the
Terpsichoria
.
Some trusty sailor actually a woman disguised to go to sea? Love and buggery among the ranks?

There was something pathetic about Johannes that night, and she had never thought so before.

“How do you know all this, Johannes?” said Bellis carefully, at last. “Where’ve you been? What are you actually doing?”

Johannes cleared his throat and stared into his glass for a long time.

“Bellis . . .” he said. Around him, the soft clatter of the restaurant seemed very loud. “Bellis . . . can I tell you in confidence?” Johannes sighed, then looked up at her.

“I’m working for the Lovers,” he said. “And I don’t mean I work in Garwater riding. I work
directly
for them. They have a team of researchers, working on a quite . . .” He shook his head and began to smile with delight. “A quite
extraordinary
project. An extraordinary opportunity. And they invited me to join them—because of my previous work.

“Their team had read some of my research, and they decided that I’d be . . . that they wanted me to work with them.” He was overjoyed, she realized. He was like a child, almost exactly like a child.

“There are thaumaturges, oceanologers, marine biologists. That man—the man who defeated the
Terpsichoria
, Uther Doul—he’s part of the team. He’s central, in fact. He’s a philosopher. There are different projects all being pursued. Projects on cryptogeography and probability theory, as well as . . . as the investigation I’m working on. The man in charge of that is fascinating. He was with the Lovers when we arrived: a tall old man with a beard.”

“I remember him,” said Bellis. “He welcomed you.”

A look somewhere between contrition and excitement overtook Johannes.

“He did,” he said. “That’s Tintinnabulum. A hunter, an outsider, employed by the city. He lives on the
Castor
with seven other men, where Garwater meets Shaddler and Booktown. A small ship with a belfry . . .

“We’re doing such
fascinating
work,” he said suddenly, and seeing his pure pleasure Bellis could see how Armada had won him. “The equipment’s old and unreliable—the analytical engines are ancient—but the work’s so much more radical. I’ve months of research to catch up on—I’m learning Salt. This work . . . it means reading the most varied things.”

He grinned at her with incredulous pride. “For my project, there are certain key texts. One of them’s mine. Can you believe that? Isn’t that extraordinary? They’re from all over the world. From New Crobuzon, Khadoh. And there are mystery books that we can’t find. They’re in Ragamoll and Salt and moonscript . . . One of the most important’s said to be in High Kettai. We’ve made a list of them from references in the books we
do
have. Gods know how they’ve got such a fantastic library here, Bellis. Half these books I could never find at home—“

“They stole it, Johannes,” she said, and silenced him. “That’s how they’ve got it. Every damned volume in Grand Gears Library is stolen. From ships, from the towns they plunder on the coast. From people like me, Johannes. My books that
I
wrote that have been stolen from me. That’s where they get their books.”

Something cold was settling in Bellis’ gut.

“Tell me,” she began, and stopped. She drank some wine, breathed deep, and started again. “Tell me, Johannes, that is somewhat remarkable, isn’t it? That out of an entire ocean—an
entire fucking ocean
—that out of that whole empty sea they should pluck the one ship that was carrying their intellectual hero . . .”

And again she saw in his eye that uncomfortable cocktail of apology and elation.

“Yes,” he said carefully. “That’s the thing, Bellis. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

She suddenly knew what he was going to say, a certainty that nauseated and repelled her, but she liked him still, she really did, and she so wanted to be wrong that she did not stand to go; she waited to be corrected, knowing that she would not be.

“It wasn’t coincidence, Bellis,” she heard him saying. “It wasn’t. They have an agent in Salkrikaltor. They receive colonial passenger lists. They knew we were coming. They knew I was coming.”

The paper lanterns swung as the door opened and closed. There was pretty laughter from a nearby table. The smell of stuffed meat cosseted them.

“That was why they took our ship. They came for me,” said Johannes softly, and Bellis closed her eyes, defeated.

“Oh, Johannes,” she said unsteadily.

“Bellis,” he said, alarmed, reaching out, but she cut him off with a curt gesture.
What, do you think I’m going to cry?
she thought furiously.

“Johannes, let me tell you there is a world of difference between a five-year, a ten-year sentence—and
life
.” She could not look at him. “It may be that for you, for Meriope, for the Cardomiums, for I don’t know who else, Nova Esperium meant a new life.
Not for me
.

“Not for me. For me it was an escape, a necessary and a
temporary
escape. I was born in Chnum, Johannes. Educated in Mafaton. Was proposed to in Brock Marsh. Broke up in Salacus Fields. New Crobuzon is my home; it will always be my home.”

Johannes looked at her with mounting unease.

“I have no interest in the colonies. In Nova fucking Esperium.
None
. I don’t want to live with a group of venal inadequates, failed spivs, disgraced nuns, bureaucrats too incompetent or weak to make it back home, resentful terrified natives . . . Godspit, Johannes, I’ve no interest in the
sea
. Freezing, sickening, filthy, repetitive, stinking . . .

“I’ve no interest in this city. I do not want to live in a
curio
, Johannes. This is a sideshow! This is something to scare the children! ‘The Floating Pirate City’! I don’t want it! I don’t want to live in this great bobbing parasite, like some fucking pondskater sucking its victims dry. This isn’t a city, Johannes; it’s a parochial little village less than a mile wide, and I do not want it.

“I was always going to return to New Crobuzon. I would never wish to see out my days outside it. It’s dirty and cruel and difficult and dangerous—particularly for me, particularly now—but it’s my home. Nowhere else in the world has the culture, the industry, the population, the thaumaturgy, the languages, the art, the books, the politics, the history . . . New Crobuzon,” she said slowly, “is the greatest city in Bas-Lag.”

And coming from her, from someone without any illusions about New Crobuzon’s brutality, or squalor, or repression, the declamation was far more powerful than if it came from any Parliamentarian.

“And you’re telling me,” she said finally, “that I’ve been exiled from my city—for
life
—because of
you
?”

Johannes was looking at her, stricken.

“Bellis,” he said slowly, “I don’t know what to say. I can only say that . . . that I’m sorry. This wasn’t my choice. The Lovers knew I was on the passenger list, and . . . That’s not the only reason. They need more guns, so they might have taken her anyway, but . . .”