China Miéville by Embassytown

Author:Embassytown [Embassytown]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781781030752
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2011-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Ra, the diffident half of our cataclysmic Ambassador, was allowed his solitude and whatever his little projects were; Ez was allowed his louche collapse. But they were on orders, and they were guarded. They had duties. They were what kept us alive.

“A city of brainwashed,” EdGar said to me. “Stronger than us, armed. We need them hospitable.”

There was no thinking or strategy from the Hosts in those first days. I who was so used to glossing all their strangeness with special pleading—it’s some Ariekene thing, we wouldn’t understand—was aghast to become convinced that they were not indulging any inhuman strategy, but mindless addict need. At first crowds of Ariekei were gathered permanently outside the Embassy. When they became agitated and their demands particularly insistent, every few hours, EzRa would be fetched, would appear at the entrance, and in flawless Language say something—anything at all—amplified to carry, to the crowd’s obvious stoned relief.

The second time EzRa said to them We are happy to see you and look forward to learning together, the oratees reacted without quite the degree of bliss they’d shown previously. The third time they were unhappy, until EzRa announced some new pointlessness about the colour of the buildings, the time of day or the weather. Then they were rapt again. “Fucking fantastic,” I said to someone. “They’re building up tolerance. Keep EzRa inventive.”

We watched trids and flats, news programs that after kilohours of trivialities now had to learn to report our own collapse. One channel sent an aeoli-wearing team with vespcams into the city. They were neither invited nor barred. Their reports were astonishing.

We were not used to seeing Ariekene streets, but there are new freedoms during a breakdown. The reporters edged into the city, past plaited ropes tethering gas-filled Host rooms, past buildings that shied away from them or rose on spindled limbs like witch-huts. Ariekei crossed our screens. They saw the reporters, stared and ran over sometimes like tottering horses. They asked questions in their double voices, but there were no Ambassadors to answer them. The reporters knew Language, translated for viewers.

“ ‘Where is EzRa?’ ” That was what the Hosts said.

The reporters weren’t the only Terre in the city. Their vespcams glimpsed men and women in Embassy suits moving among the skittish houses. They were routing cables and speakers—Terretech that looked jarring in that topography. They were extending a network of hailers and coms boxes. In return perhaps for our lives, the maintenance of our power, water, infrastructure, biorigging, they were getting ready to bring EzRa’s voice right into the city.

“We need EzRa now,” EdGar said. “They have to perform. That was our deal.”

“With them, or the Hosts?” I said.

“Yes. More EzRa, though. And that means we need Ez.”

He was drinking and drugging. More than once, he’d disappear at the times he was scheduled to speak Language to the Ariekei, leaving Ra speechless and waiting. I didn’t care if Ez killed himself, but that he’d take us with him if he did.

“They’re like normal Ambassadors in one way, right?” I said.

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