Stem-Fulcher and Rescue were silent. They thought of the screams, the tortured, maniacal tone they had heard outside, the idiot ruined gibbering that seemed to make a mockery of the ambassador’s devilish refinement…

They reflected that that might be the more genuine voice.

“I’m wondering if we were wrong to think of them having a different psychic model. Maybe they’re comprehensible. Maybe they think like us. And the second thing, bearing in mind that possibility, and bearing in mind what the ‘echo’ might tell us about the daemoniac state of mind, is that at the end there, when I was trying to cut a deal, the ambassador was scared…That’s why he wouldn’t come to our aid. That’s why we’re on our own. Because the daemons are afraid of what we’re hunting.”

Rudgutter stopped and turned to his aides. The three gazed at each other. Stem-Fulcher’s face twisted for a fragment of a second, and was then composed. Rescue was as impassive as a statue, but he plucked fitfully at his scarf. Rudgutter nodded as they pondered.

There was a minute of silence.

“So…” Rudgutter said briskly, clasping his hands. “The Weaver it is.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

That night, in the swollen dark hours after a brief spew of rain had hosed the city down with dirty water, the door to Isaac’s warehouse was pushed open. The street was empty. There were minutes of stillness. Night-birds and bats were all that moved. Gaslight guttered.

The construct rolled jerkily out into the deep night. Its valves and pistons were swathed in rags and snatches of blankets, muffling the distinctive sound of its passage. It moved forward quickly, turning inexactly and trundling as fast as its ageing treads would move.

It tremored through the backstreets, passed snoring drunks still sodden and insensate. The sallow gasjets reflected secretively in its battered metal hide.

The construct made its swift, precarious way under the sky-rails. Inconstant streaks of cirrus hid the lurking airships. The construct bore down like a diviner on the Tar, the river caught in an intricate whiplash shape on the timeless rocks beneath the city.

And hours after it had disappeared over Sheer Bridge into the southern city, when the dark sky became stained by dawn, the construct came reeling back to Brock Marsh. Its timing was fortuitous. It re-entered and locked the door only a little while before Isaac returned from his frantic night-long search for David, and Lin, and Yagharek and Lemuel Pigeon, and anyone who could help him.

Lublamai was lying on a couch that Isaac had rigged up on a couple of chairs. When Isaac came into the warehouse he came straight over to his still friend, whispered to him hopelessly, but there was no change. Lublamai did not sleep or wake. He gazed.

It was not long before David came hurrying back to the laboratory. He had trawled his way to one of his usual haunts to be greeted by a hurried and garbled version of one of the innumerable messages Isaac had left for him throughout New Crobuzon.

He sat as silently as Isaac, gazing at his mindless friend.

“I can’t believe I let you do it,” he said numbly.

“Oh Jabber and fuck, David, d’you think I’m not going over and over it…I let the damn thing out…”

“We all should’ve known better,” snapped David.

There was a long silence between them.

“Did you get a doctor?” said David.

“First thing I did. Phorgit, from across the road, I’ve dealt with him before. I cleaned up Lub a bit, wiped some of that crap off his face…Phorgit didn’t know what to make of it. Plugged in gods knows how many bits of equipment, took I don’t fucking remember how many readings…boils down to ‘haven’t got a clue.’ ‘Keep him warm and feed him, but then again you might want to keep him cold and not give him anything to eat…’ I might get one of the guys I know at the uni to take a skedge at him, but it’s a forlorn fucking hope…”

“What did the thing do to him?”

“Well, quite, David. Quite. That’s the fucking question, isn’t it?”

There was a tentative rattling at the broken window. Isaac and David looked up to see Teafortwo poking his ugly head forlornly in.

“Oh, shit,” said Isaac in exasperation. “Look, Teafortwo, now’s not really the best time, capiche? Maybe we can chat later.”

“Just looking in, boss…” Teafortwo spoke in a cowed voice utterly unlike his usual exuberant squawk. “Wanna know how the Lublub’s doing.”

“What?” said Isaac sharply, standing. “What about him?”

Teafortwo shied away miserably and wailed.

“Not me, squire, not my fault…just wondering if he’s better after the big monsterfucker ate his face…”

“Teafortwo, were you here?”

The wyrman nodded morosely and shifted a little nearer, balancing in the centre of the window frame.

“What happened? We’re not angry with you, Teafortwo…we just want to know what it was you saw…”

Teafortwo sniffed and waved its head miserably. He pouted like a child, screwed up his face and blurted out a great gob of words.

“Big fucker comes downstairs flapping big horrible wings make your bonce woozy snapping big teeth and…and…all over claws and big fucking stinky tongue…and I…Mr. Lublub’s gawping in the looking-glass and then he turns to face it and goes…dopey…and I saw…me head went funny and when I woke up the thing’s stuck its tongue right in…in…Mr. Lub’s gob and slurpslurp noises going off in me head and I…I buggered off, I couldn’t do nothing, I swear…I’m scared…” Teafortwo began to cry like a two-year-old, dribbling snot and tears down his face.

When Lemuel Pigeon arrived, Teafortwo was still sobbing. No amount of cajoling or threatening or bribes could calm the wyrman down. Eventually he went to sleep, curled up in a quilt ruined with his mucus, exactly like an exhausted human baby.

“I’m here on false pretences, Isaac. The message I got was that it’d be worth my while to drop over to your gaff.” Lemuel looked at Isaac with a speculative air.

“Godsdammit, Lemuel, you fucking spiv,” exploded Isaac. “Is that what’s bothering you? Jabber and fuck, I’ll make sure you get yours, all right? Is that better? Now fucking listen to me…Someone has been attacked by something that hatched out of one of the grubs you obtained for me, and we need to stop the thing before it does someone else, and we need to know about it, so we need to track down whatever cove it was got it in the first place, and we need to do it sharpish. Are you with me, old son?”

Lemuel was quite unintimidated by this outburst.

“Look, you can’t damn well blame me…” he began, before Isaac interrupted with a howl of irritation.

“Devil’s Tail, Lemuel, no one’s blaming you, you cretin! Quite the opposite! What I’m saying is that you are by far too good a businessman not to keep careful records, and I need you to check ‘em out. We both know everything goes through you…you’ve got to get me the name of whoever originally got the big fat caterpillar. The enormous one with really weird colours. You know?”

“Vaguely remember it, yes.”

“Well, that is good.” Isaac calmed a little. He ran his hands over his face and sighed enormously. “Lemuel, I need your help,” he said simply. “I’ll pay you…But I’m also begging. I really need you to help me here. Look.” He opened his eyes and glared at Lemuel. “The damn thing may have keeled over and died, right? Maybe it’s like a mayfly: one glorious day. Maybe Lub’ll wake up tomorrow happy as a sandboy. But maybe not. Now, I want to know: one-” he counted off on fat fingers “-how to snap Lublamai out of this; two, what this damn thing is-the one description we have is a little garbled.” He glanced at the wyrman sleeping in the corner. “And three, how we catch the fucker.”