On the walkways linking the submarine spires Bellis could see yet more citizens, more cray. They scuttled and swam quickly, moving with much more facility than their compatriots above them in the air.
It was an extraordinary place. When they had docked, Bellis watched enviously as the Terpsichoria’s boats were lowered. Most of the crew and all the passengers lined up eagerly before the ladders. They grinned and bickered excitedly, casting their eyes toward the city.
It was dusk now. Salkrikaltor’s towers were silhouettes; their lit windows reflected in the black water. There were faint sounds on the air: music, shouts, grinding machinery, waves.
“Be back aboard by two in the morning,” yelled a sublieutenant. “Stick to the human quarters and whatever else you can find above water. Plenty to do there without risking your lungs.”
“Miss Coldwine?”
Bellis turned to Lieutenant Commander Cumbershum.
“Please come with me, miss. The submersible’s ready.”
Chapter Four
Constrained within the tiny submersible, a tight tangle of copper tubing and dials, Bellis stretched to see past the obstructions of Cumbershum and Captain Myzovic, and the midshipman at the helm.
One moment the sea was lapping at the bottom of the reinforced front window; then suddenly the vessel pitched, and waves washed over the bulbous glass as the sky disappeared. The sounds of splashing and the faint wail of gulls were instantly gone. The only noise was a buzzing whine as the propeller began to spin.
Bellis was agog.
The sub tilted and moved gracefully down toward unseen rock and sand. A powerful arc light snapped on below its snub nose, opening a cone of illuminated water before them.
Near the bottom, they tilted slightly skyward. The evening light filtered faintly down, blocked by the massive black shadows of ships.
Bellis gazed over the captain’s shoulder into the dark water. Her face was impassive, but her hands moved, working with awe. Fish moved in precise waves, ebbing back and forth around the ungainly metal intruder. Bellis could hear her own quick breathing unnaturally loud.
The submersible picked a careful way between the chains dangling like vines from the canopy of vessels above them. The pilot moved levers with an expert grace, and the craft curled up and over a little lip of corroded rock, and Salkrikaltor City appeared.
Bellis gasped.
Everywhere lights were suspended. Globes of cold illumination like frost moons, with no trace of the sepia of New Crobuzon’s gas lamps. The city glowed in the darkening water like a net full of ghostly lights.
The outer edges of the city were low buildings in porous stone and coral. There were other submarines moving smoothly between the towers and above the roofs. The sunken promenades beneath them climbed their way to the distant ramparts and cathedrals of the city’s core, a mile or so away, seen very faintly through the sea. There at the heart of Salkrikaltor City were taller edifices that loomed all the way out of the waves. They were no less intricate below the surface. The city was convoluted and interconnected.
Everywhere there were cray. They looked up idly as the sub passed above them. They stood and haggled outside shops festooned with undulating colored cloth; they bickered in little squares of seaweed topiary; they walked along tangled backstreets. They guided carts pulled by extraordinary beasts of burden: sea snails eight feet high. Their children played games, goading caged bass and colorful blenny.
Bellis saw houses that were patched together, half-repaired. Away from the main streets, currents picked at organic rubbish moldering in coral courtyards.
Every motion seemed stretched out in the water. Cray swam over the roofs, flapping their tails in inelegant motion. They stepped off high ledges and sank slowly down, legs braced for landing.
From inside the submersible, the city seemed silent.
They flew slowly toward the monumental architecture at Salkrikaltor’s center, disturbing fish and floating scraps. It was a real metropolis, Bellis reflected. It bustled and thronged. Just like New Crobuzon, but cosseted and half hidden by water.
“Housing for officials, that is,” Cumbershum pointed out to her. “That’s a bank. Factory over there. That’s why the cray do such business with New Crobuzon: we can help them with steam technology. Very hard to get going underwater. And this is the central council of the Cray Commonwealth of Salkrikaltor.”
The building was intricate. Rounded and bulbous like an impossibly huge brain coral, carved with a covering of folds. The towers jutted way up through the water and into the air. Most of its wings—all marked with coiled serpents and hieroglyph romances—had open windows and doorways in traditional Salkrikaltor style, so that small fish entered and exited unhindered. But one section was sealed, with small portholes and thick metal doors. From its vents spewed a constant stream of bubbles.
“That’s where they meet topsiders,” the lieutenant said. “That’s where we’re heading.”
“There’s a human minority in Salkrikaltor City’s topside,” said Bellis slowly. “There are plenty of rooms above water, and the cray can take air without problems for hours at a time. Why do they make us meet them down here?”
“For the same reason we receive the Salkrikaltor ambassador in the reception rooms at Parliament, Miss Coldwine,” said the captain, “no matter that it is somewhat hard and inconvenient for him. This is their city; we are mere guests. We —“ He turned to her and waved his hand to encompass himself and Lieutenant Commander Cumbershum only. “—that is. We are guests.” He turned slowly away.
You son of a pig, Bellis thought furiously, her face set like ice.
The pilot eased his speed down to almost nothing and maneuvered through a large, dark opening into the wing. They sailed over cray, who directed them on with sweeps of their arms, to the dead end of the concrete corridor. A huge door shut ponderously behind them.
From fat stubby pipes that lined the walls burst a massive unceasing explosion of bubbles. The sea was pushed out through valves and sluices. Slowly the water level fell. The sub settled gradually on the concrete floor and listed to one side. The water came down past the porthole and streaked and streamed it with droplets, and Bellis was staring out into air. With the sea pumped out of it, the room looked shabby.
When the pilot finally undid the screws locking them in, the hatch swung open with a merciful cool blast. The concrete floor was puddled with brine. The room itself smelled of kelp and fish. Bellis stepped from the submersible as the officers adjusted their uniforms.
Behind them stood a cray. She carried a spear—too intricate and flimsy to be anything other than ceremonial, Bellis judged—and wore a breastplate of something vivid green that was not metal. She nodded in greeting.
“Thank her for her welcome,” said the captain to Bellis. “Tell her to inform the council leader that we have arrived.”
Bellis breathed out and tried to relax. She composed herself and brought back to mind the vocabulary, the grammar and syntax and pronunciation and soul of Salkrikaltor Cray: everything she had learned in those intensive weeks with Marikkatch. She offered a quick, cynical, silent prayer.
Then she formed the vibrato, the cray’s clicking barks, audible in air and water, and spoke.
To her intense relief, the cray nodded and responded.
“You will be announced,” she said, carefully correcting Bellis’ tense. “Your pilot waits here. You come our way.”
Large, sealed portholes looked out onto a garden of garish sea plants. The walls were covered by tapestries showing famous moments of Salkrikaltor history. The floor was stone slabs—quite dry—warmed by some hidden fire. There were dark ornaments in the room—jet, black coral, black pearl.
Nodding, welcoming the humans, were three he-cray. One, much younger than his companions, stood a little back, just like Bellis.
They were pale. Compared to the cray of Tarmuth, they spent far more of their lives below the water, where the sun could not stain them. All that distingu
ished cray upper bodies from humans’ was the little ruff of gills on the neck, but there was also something alien about their submarine pallor.
Below the waist, the crays’ armored hindquarters were those of colossal rock lobsters: huge carapaces of gnarled shell and overlapping somites. Their human abdomens jutted out from above where the eyes and antennae would have been. Even in the air, an alien medium, their multitude of legs worked with intricate grace. They sounded softly as they moved, a gentle percussion of chitin.
They adorned their crustacean hindquarters with a kind of tattoo, carving designs into the shell and staining them with various extracts. The two older cray had an extraordinary array of symbols on their flanks.
One stepped forward and spoke very quickly in Salkrikaltor. There was a moment’s silence.
“Welcome,” said the young cray behind him, the translator. He spoke Ragamoll with a heavy accent. “We are glad you have come and speak with us.”
The discussion started slowly. Council Leader King Skarakatchi and Councilman King Drood’adji made expressions of polite and ritualistic delight that were matched by Myzovic and Cumbershum. Everyone agreed that it was excellent that they had all met, and that two such great cities remained on such good terms, that trade was such a healthy way of ensuring goodwill, and so on.
The conversation shifted quickly. With impressive smoothness, Bellis found herself translating specifics. The conversation had moved on to how many apples and plums the Terpsichoria would leave in Salkrikaltor, and how many bottles of unguent and liquor it would receive in return.
It was not long before matters of state were discussed, information that must come from the upper echelons of New Crobuzon’s parliament: details about when and if ambassadors would be replaced, about possible trade treaties with other powers, and how such arrangements would impact on relations with Salkrikaltor.
Bellis found it easy to close her ears to what she said, to pass such information straight through herself. Not out of patriotism or fealty to New Crobuzon’s government—of which she felt none—but out of boredom. The secret discussions were incomprehensible, the little snippets of information that Bellis spoke underwhelming and tedious. She thought instead of the tons of water above them, intrigued that she felt no panic.
She worked automatically for some time, forgetting what she said almost immediately it was out of her mouth.
Until suddenly she heard the captain’s voice change, and she discovered that she was listening.
“I have one further question, Your Excellency,” said Captain Myzovic, sipping his drink. Bellis coughed and barked the Salkrikaltor sounds. “In Qé Banssa, I was ordered to check a bizarre rumor passed on by the New Crobuzon representative. It was so preposterous I was certain there had been a misunderstanding. Nevertheless, I detoured around the Fins—which is why we are late for this meeting.
“During our diversion I discovered to my . . . dismay and concern that the rumors were true. I bring this up because it concerns our good friendship with Salkrikaltor.” The captain’s voice was hardening. “It is to do with our concerns in Salkrikaltor waters. At the southern edge of the Fins, as the councilors know, are the . . . vitally important investments for which we pay generous mooring rights. I am speaking, of course, of our platforms, our rigs.”
Bellis had never heard the word rigs used so, and she spoke it smoothly in Ragamoll. The crays seemed to understand. She kept her translation automatic and smooth, but Bellis listened in fascination to every word the captain spoke.
“We passed them after midnight. First one, then another. All was as it should be, both for the Manikin and Trashstar rigs. But, councilors . . .” He sat forward, put down his glass, and stared at them predatorily. “I have a very important question. Where is the other one?”
The cray officials stared at the captain. With slow, comic simultaneity, they looked at each other, then back at Captain Myzovic.
“We confess . . . to confusion, Captain.” The translator spoke softly for his leaders, his voice unchanging, but for the briefest second Bellis caught his eye. Something passed between them, some shared astonishment, some camaraderie.
What are we party to, brother? Bellis thought. She was tense, and craved a cigarillo.
“We have no knowledge of what you speak,” her opposite number continued. “We are not concerned with the platforms, so long as mooring rental is paid. What has happened, Captain?”
“What has happened,” said Captain Myzovic, his voice tight, “is that the Sorghum, our deep-sea rig, our mobile platform, is gone.” He waited for Bellis to catch up with him, and then waited some more, stretching the silence. “Along, I might add, with her retinue of five ironclads, her officers, staff, scientists, and geo-empath.
“The first word that the Sorghum was no longer at its mooring point reached Dancing Bird Island three weeks ago. The crews of the other rigs were asking why they had not been told of the Sorghum’s orders to relocate. No such order had been given.” The captain put down his glass and stared at the two cray. “The Sorghum was to remain in situ for another six months at least. It should be where we left it. Council Leader, Councilor—what has happened to our rig?”
When Skarakatchi spoke, the translator mimicked his soft tones. “We know nothing.”
Captain Myzovic knotted his hands. “This happened barely a hundred miles away, in Salkrikaltor waters, in a region your navy and hunters regularly patrol, and you know nothing?” His tone was controlled but threatening. “Councilors, that is extraordinary. You have no notion what happened? Whether she sank in a freak squall, if she was attacked and destroyed? Can you tell me that you have heard nothing? That something could do this to us just off your coasts, and you are quite ignorant?”
There was a long silence. The two cray leaned in and whispered to each other.
“We hear many rumors . . .” King Skarakatchi said through the translator. Drood’adji looked at them both sharply. “But we have heard nothing of this. We can offer our support and sorrow to our friends of New Crobuzon—but no information.”
“I must tell you,” Captain Myzovic said after a murmured consultation with Cumbershum, “that I am deeply unhappy. New Crobuzon can no longer pay mooring rights for a rig that is not there. Our rent is hereby to be cut by a third. And I will be sending word back to the city about your inability to offer assistance. This must cast in some doubt the ability of Salkrikaltor to act as custodians of our interests. My government will wish to discuss this further. New arrangements may have to be made. Thank you for your hospitality,” he said, and drained his glass. “We will be staying one night in Salkrikaltor harbor. We’ll head off early tomorrow morning.”
“A moment, please, Captain.” The council leader raised his hand. He muttered quickly to Drood’adji, who nodded and scuttled gracefully out of the room. “There is one more matter to discuss.”
When Drood’adji returned, Bellis’ eyes widened. Behind him walked a human man.
He was so out of place it brought her up short. She stared like a fool.
The man was a little younger than she, with an open, cheerful face. He carried a large pack and wore clean but battered clothes. He smiled disarmingly at Bellis. She frowned slightly and broke eye contact.
“Captain Myzovic?” The man spoke Ragamoll with a New Crobuzon accent. “Lieutenant Commander Cumbershum?” He shook their hands. “And I’m afraid I don’t know your name, ma’am,” he said, his hand outstretched.
“Miss Coldwine is our translator, sir,” said the captain before Bellis could respond. “Your business is with me. Who are you?”
From his jacket the man pulled an official-looking scroll.
“That should explain everything, Captain,” he said.
The captain scrutinized it carefully. After half a minute he looked up sharply, waving the scroll disdainfully.
“What, by damn, is this idiocy?” he hissed suddenly, making Bellis start. He jabbed the scroll at Cumbershum.
“I think it ma
kes matters reasonably clear, Captain,” said the man. “I have other copies, in case your anger overwhelms you. I’m afraid I’m going to have to commandeer your ship.”
The captain gave a hard bark of laughter. “Oh really?” He sounded dangerously tense. “Is that right, Mr. . . .” He leaned over and read the paper in his lieutenant’s hands. “Mr. Fennec? Is that right?”
Glancing at Cumbershum, Bellis realized that he was staring at the newcomer with astonishment and alarm. He interrupted the captain.
“Sir,” he said urgently. “Might I suggest that we thank our hosts and let them return to their business?” He looked meaningfully at the cray. The translator was listening carefully.
The captain hesitated and gave a curt nod. “Please inform our hosts that their hospitality is excellent,” he ordered Bellis brusquely. “Thank them for their time. We can find our own way out.”
As Bellis spoke, the cray bowed gracefully. The two councilors came forward and shook hands again, to the captain’s barely concealed fury. They left the way Mr. Fennec had come in.
“Miss Coldwine?” The captain indicated the door that led back to the submersible. “Wait for us outside, please. This is government business.”
Bellis lingered in the corridor, silently cursing. She could hear the captain’s bellicose roaring through the door. However she strained, though, she could not make out what was being said.
“Godsdammit,” she muttered, and returned to the featureless concrete room where the submersible sat like some grotesque wallowing creature. The cray attendant waited idly, softly clucking.
The submersible pilot was picking his teeth. His breath smelled of fish.
Bellis leaned against a wall and waited.
After more than twenty minutes the captain burst through the door, followed by Cumbershum, desperately trying to placate him.