Read Online Perdido Street Station by China Miéville - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: China Miéville
Ads: Link
without
obvious shame, despite the indignity of the act. Isaac watched as
Yagharek draped the huge cloak over himself and stepped quietly down
the stairs.
Isaac leant
thoughtfully on the railing and looked down into the dusty space.
Yagharek paced past the immobile construct, past haphazard piles of
papers and chairs and blackboards. The light beams that had burst
through walls pierced by age were gone. The sun was low, now, behind
the buildings across from Isaac’s warehouse, blocked by massed
ranks of bricks, sliding sideways across the ancient city, lighting
the hidden sides of the Dancing Shoe Mountains, Spine Peak and the
crags of Penitent’s Pass, throwing the jagged skyline of the
earth into silhouettes that loomed up miles to the west of New
Crobuzon.
When Yagharek opened
the door, it was onto a street in shadow.
**
Isaac worked into the
night.
As soon as Yagharek
left Isaac opened his window and dangled a large red piece of cord
from nails in the brick. He moved his heavy calculation engine from
the centre of its desk to the floor beside it. Sheafs of programme
cards spilt from its storage shelf to the floor. Isaac swore. He
patted them together and replaced them. Then he carried his
typewriter to his desk and began to make a list. Occasionally he
would leap upright and pace over to his makeshift bookshelves, or
rummage through a pile of books on the floor, till he found the
volume he was looking for. He would take it to the desk and flick
through from the back, searching for the bibliography.
He laboriously copied
details, stabbing with two fingers at the typewriter keys.
As he wrote, the
parameters of his plan began to expand. He sought more and more
books, his eyes widening as he realized the potentiality of this
research.
Eventually he stopped
and sat back in his chair, pondering. He grabbed some loose paper and
scrawled diagrams on it: mental maps, plans of how to proceed.
Again and again he
returned to the same model. A triangle, with a cross firmly planted
in the middle. He could not stop himself grinning.
"I like it..."
he murmured.
There was a knock at
the window. He rose and paced over to it.
A small scarlet idiot
face grinned at Isaac from outside. Two stubby horns jutted from its
prominent chin, ridges and knobs of bone unconvincingly imitated a
hairline. Watery eyes gazed above an ugly, cheerful grin.
Isaac opened the window
onto the rapidly dwindling light. There was an argument between
klaxons as industrial boats fought to crawl past each other in the
waters of the Canker. The creature perched on Isaac’s
window-ledge hopped up into the open window-frame, grasping the edges
with gnarled hands.
"Wotcher,
captain!" it gabbled. Its accent was thick and bizarre. "Saw
the red wossname, scarf thing...Says to meself, ‘Time for da
bossman!’ " It winked and barked stupid laughter. "Wossyer
pleasure, captain? Atcher service."
"Evening,
Teafortwo. You got my message." The creature flapped its red
batwings.
Teafortwo was a wyrman.
Barrel-chested creatures like squat birds, with thick arms like a
human dwarf’s below those ugly, functional wings, the wyrmen
ploughed the skies of New Crobuzon. Their hands were their feet,
those arms jutting from the bottom of their squat bodies like crows’
legs. They could pace a few clumsy steps here and there balancing on
their palms, if they were indoors, but they preferred to careen over
the city, yelling and swooping and screaming abuse at passers-by.
The wyrmen were more
intelligent than dogs or apes, but decidedly less than humans. They
thrived on an intellectual diet of scatology and slapstick and
mimicry, picking names for each other gleaned without understanding
from popular songs and furniture catalogues and discarded textbooks
they could just about read. Teafortwo’s sister, Isaac knew, was
called Bottletop; one of his sons Scabies.
The wyrmen lived in
hundreds and thousands of nooks, in attics and
obvious shame, despite the indignity of the act. Isaac watched as
Yagharek draped the huge cloak over himself and stepped quietly down
the stairs.
Isaac leant
thoughtfully on the railing and looked down into the dusty space.
Yagharek paced past the immobile construct, past haphazard piles of
papers and chairs and blackboards. The light beams that had burst
through walls pierced by age were gone. The sun was low, now, behind
the buildings across from Isaac’s warehouse, blocked by massed
ranks of bricks, sliding sideways across the ancient city, lighting
the hidden sides of the Dancing Shoe Mountains, Spine Peak and the
crags of Penitent’s Pass, throwing the jagged skyline of the
earth into silhouettes that loomed up miles to the west of New
Crobuzon.
When Yagharek opened
the door, it was onto a street in shadow.
**
Isaac worked into the
night.
As soon as Yagharek
left Isaac opened his window and dangled a large red piece of cord
from nails in the brick. He moved his heavy calculation engine from
the centre of its desk to the floor beside it. Sheafs of programme
cards spilt from its storage shelf to the floor. Isaac swore. He
patted them together and replaced them. Then he carried his
typewriter to his desk and began to make a list. Occasionally he
would leap upright and pace over to his makeshift bookshelves, or
rummage through a pile of books on the floor, till he found the
volume he was looking for. He would take it to the desk and flick
through from the back, searching for the bibliography.
He laboriously copied
details, stabbing with two fingers at the typewriter keys.
As he wrote, the
parameters of his plan began to expand. He sought more and more
books, his eyes widening as he realized the potentiality of this
research.
Eventually he stopped
and sat back in his chair, pondering. He grabbed some loose paper and
scrawled diagrams on it: mental maps, plans of how to proceed.
Again and again he
returned to the same model. A triangle, with a cross firmly planted
in the middle. He could not stop himself grinning.
"I like it..."
he murmured.
There was a knock at
the window. He rose and paced over to it.
A small scarlet idiot
face grinned at Isaac from outside. Two stubby horns jutted from its
prominent chin, ridges and knobs of bone unconvincingly imitated a
hairline. Watery eyes gazed above an ugly, cheerful grin.
Isaac opened the window
onto the rapidly dwindling light. There was an argument between
klaxons as industrial boats fought to crawl past each other in the
waters of the Canker. The creature perched on Isaac’s
window-ledge hopped up into the open window-frame, grasping the edges
with gnarled hands.
"Wotcher,
captain!" it gabbled. Its accent was thick and bizarre. "Saw
the red wossname, scarf thing...Says to meself, ‘Time for da
bossman!’ " It winked and barked stupid laughter. "Wossyer
pleasure, captain? Atcher service."
"Evening,
Teafortwo. You got my message." The creature flapped its red
batwings.
Teafortwo was a wyrman.
Barrel-chested creatures like squat birds, with thick arms like a
human dwarf’s below those ugly, functional wings, the wyrmen
ploughed the skies of New Crobuzon. Their hands were their feet,
those arms jutting from the bottom of their squat bodies like crows’
legs. They could pace a few clumsy steps here and there balancing on
their palms, if they were indoors, but they preferred to careen over
the city, yelling and swooping and screaming abuse at passers-by.
The wyrmen were more
intelligent than dogs or apes, but decidedly less than humans. They
thrived on an intellectual diet of scatology and slapstick and
mimicry, picking names for each other gleaned without understanding
from popular songs and furniture catalogues and discarded textbooks
they could just about read. Teafortwo’s sister, Isaac knew, was
called Bottletop; one of his sons Scabies.
The wyrmen lived in
hundreds and thousands of nooks, in attics and
Similar Books
