Chapter Fifteen

Isaac could not persuade Yagharek to stay in the warehouse. The garuda would not explain his objections. He simply slipped away into the evening, a wretched outcast for all his pride, to sleep in some ditch or chimney or ruin. He would not even accept food. Isaac stood at the door to the warehouse and watched him go. Yagharek’s dark blanket swung loosely from that wooden framework, those false wings.

Eventually, Isaac closed the door. He returned to his ledge and watched lights slide along the Canker. He rested his head on his fists and listened to the tick of his clock. The feral sounds of New Crobuzon at night inveigled their way through his walls. He heard the melancholy lowing of machines and ships and factories.

In the room below him, David and Lublamai’s construct seemed to cluck gently in time to the clock.

Isaac collected his drawings from the walls. Some that he thought were good he stuffed into an obese portfolio. Many he squinted at critically and threw away. He got onto his big belly and rooted under the bed, bringing out a dusty abacus and a slide-rule.

What I need, he thought, is to get to the university and liberate one of their difference engines. It would not be easy. The security for such items was neurotic. Isaac realized suddenly that he would have the chance to scope out the guard systems for himself: he was going to the university the next day, to talk to his much-loathed employer, Vermishank.

Not that Vermishank employed him much these days. It had been months since he had received a letter in that tight little hand telling him his services were required to research some abstruse and perhaps pointless bywater of theory. Isaac could never refuse these “requests.” To do so would have been to risk his access privileges to the university’s resources, and hence to a rich vein of equipment he plundered more or less at his leisure. Vermishank did not make any move to restrict Isaac’s privileges, despite their attenuating professional relationship, and despite probably noticing a correlation between disappearing resources and Isaac’s research schedule. Isaac did not know why. Probably to try to keep power over me, he thought.

It would be the first time in his life he had sought out Vermishank, he realized, but Isaac had to go and see him. Even though he felt committed to his new approach, his crisis theory, he could not entirely turn his back on more mundane technologies such as Remaking without asking one of the city’s foremost biothaumaturges’ opinions on Yagharek’s case. It would have been unprofessional.

Isaac made himself a ham roll and a cup of cold chocolate. He steeled himself at the thought of Vermishank. Isaac disliked him for a huge variety of reasons. One of them was political. Biothaumaturgy after all, was a polite way to describe an expertise one of whose uses was to tear at and recreate flesh, to bond it in unintended ways, to manipulate it within the limits dictated only by imagination. Of course, the techniques could heal and repair, but that was not their usual application. No one had any proof, of course, but Isaac would not be at all surprised if some of Vermishank’s research had been carried out in the punishment factories. Vermishank had the skill to be an extraordinary sculptor in flesh.

There was a thump on his door. Isaac looked up in surprise. It was nearly eleven o’clock. He put down his supper and hurried down the stairs. He opened the door on a debauched-looking Lucky Gazid.

What the fuck is this? he thought.

“ ‘Zaac, my brother, my…bumptious, bungling…beloved…” Gazid screamed as soon as he saw Isaac. He groped for more alliteration. Isaac pulled him into the warehouse as lights went on across the road.

“Lucky, you fucking arse, what do you want?”

Gazid was pacing from side to side much too quickly. His eyes were stretched wide open, and virtually spiralling in his head. He looked hurt by Isaac’s tone.

“Steady on, guv, ease up, ease up, no need for nastiness, now is there? Eh? I’m looking for Lin. She here?” He giggled abruptly.

Ah, thought Isaac carefully. This was tricky. Lucky was a Salacus Fields man, he knew the unstated truth about Isaac and Lin. But this was not Salacus Fields.

“No, Lucky, she’s not here. And if she were here, for some reason, you’d have absolutely no right to come crashing round here in the middle of the night. What do you want her for?”

“She’s not at home.” Gazid turned and walked up the ladder, speaking to Isaac without turning his head. “Just been round there, but I s’pose she’s hard at art, eh? She owes me money, owes me commission, for getting her the plumb job and setting her up for life. Guess that’s where she is now, eh? I want some dosh…”

Isaac banged his head in exasperation and leapt up the stairs behind Gazid.

“What the fuck are you talking about? What job? She’s doing her own stuff right now.”

“Oh yes, course, righto, yup, that’s the size of it,” agreed Gazid with peculiar absent-minded fervour. “Owes me money, though. I’m fucking desperate, ‘Zaac…Stand me a noble…”

Isaac was getting angry. He grabbed Gazid and held him still. Gazid had the junkie’s scrawny arms. He could only struggle pathetically in Isaac’s grip.

“Listen, Lucky, you little puke. How can you be hurting, you’re so strung out now you can hardly stand. How dare you crash round my house, you fucking junkie…”

“Oy!” Gazid shouted suddenly. He sneered up at Isaac, breaking his flow. “Lin isn’t here now, but I’m hungry for something, and I want you to help me or I don’t know what I might end up saying, if Lin won’t help me, you can, you’re her knight in shining armour, her love-bug, she’s your ladybird…”

Isaac drew back a fat meaty fist and smashed Lucky Gazid in the face, sending the little man yards through the air.

Gazid squealed in astonishment and terror. He scraped his heels on the bare wood and scrabbled towards the stairs. A star of blood radiated out from below his nose. Isaac shook blood from his knuckles and stalked towards Gazid. He was cold with rage.

Think I’m going to let you talk like that? Think you can blackmail me, you little shit? he thought.

“Lucky, you should leave right fucking now if you don’t want me to take your head off.”

Gazid crawled to his feet and burst out crying.

“You’re fucking crazy, Isaac, I thought we were friends…”

Snot and tears and blood dripped onto Isaac’s floor.

“Yeah, well, you thought wrong, didn’t you, old son? You’re nothing but a fucking dreg, and I…” Isaac broke off from his contumely and stared in astonishment.

Gazid was leaning against the empty cages on which the caterpillar’s box lay. Isaac could see the fat grub wriggling, jack-knifing in excitement, twisting desperately against the wire front, squirming with sudden reserves of energy towards Lucky Gazid.

Lucky hovered, terrified, waiting for Isaac to finish.

“What?” he wailed. “What are you going to do?”

“Shut up,” hissed Isaac.

The caterpillar was thinner than it had been on its arrival, and its extraordinary peacock-feather colours were dulled, but it was undoubtedly alive. It rippled its way around its little cage, feeling through the air like a blind person’s finger, faltering towards Gazid.

“Don’t move,” hissed Isaac, and edged closer. The terrified Gazid obeyed. He followed Isaac’s line of sight and his eyes widened at the sight of the huge grub rooting its way around the little cage, trying to find a way towards him. He snatched his hand from the box with a little cry and started backwards. Instantly, the caterpillar changed direction, trying to follow him.

“This is fascinating…” said Isaac. As he watched, Gazid reached up and clutched his head, shaking it suddenly and violently as if it was full of insects.