It wasn't just, I thought, the loss of their-what, friend?- to self-savagery, of mind as well as body, so it could not hear nor speak again, that must hurt them. They wanted to be a hope, against the revolutionary suicide of those that tore out their social mind with their fanwings, became nihilist revenge. Were there ranks among the Languageless? Were those that made themselves an aristocracy above those attack-recruited? I looked at Spanish Dancer's many dark-point eyes, which had seen its companion tear its fanwing like trash, after their years of work, their project that had started long before this end of the world.

BY OUR BARRICADE gates, in rump street-markets, quickly tolerated, an economy of recycled necessities, people began to talk again about the relief. When it would come, where we would go, and what life would be like for Emba.s.sytowners exiled to Bremen. gates, in rump street-markets, quickly tolerated, an economy of recycled necessities, people began to talk again about the relief. When it would come, where we would go, and what life would be like for Emba.s.sytowners exiled to Bremen.

Our now wild cameras inhabited the plains. Many broke down or their signals degraded. But some still got footage to us.

Some were a long way into country not punctuated even by farms, beyond the transport ducts. I heard rumours of certain footage before I saw it. I scorned the idea that it existed but was being kept from me-wasn't I committee? But though it failed, I discovered that there had been an effort to do just that. I shouldn't have been shocked. An internal split, a craven and conniving column reporting direct to the G.o.d-drug. There wasn't even any reasoning. Secrecy was just a bureaucrats' reflex. There was no way they could contain these files: a day after the first stories about them started circulating, the rest of us got to see them.

A group of us uploaded them to committee dats.p.a.ce. Bren was agitated. I was taken aback by his impatience, that he so obviously had no idea if the whispers about what we were to see were true. I was so used to him knowing things he didn't tell me. I teased him about it, in a rather brittle manner. We watched the cam's memories. Plenty of kilometres away but hardly in another country. The viewpoint swept through narrows: I swayed to avoid overhangs the recorder had ducked days before. Some fool at the back said something like "Why are we watching this?"

Through a nook in rock the cam went to a valley of pumice-coloured earth, burred birdlike suddenly tree- then tower-high over the slope, focused where a river had been. We gasped. Someone swore.

There was an army. It marched in our direction. There were not hundreds of Ariekei but thousands, thousands.

I heard myself say Jesus, Jesus Christ Jesus, Jesus Christ. We knew now why the city seemed depleted. Pharotekton Pharotekton, I said.

The microphones were c.r.a.ppy but we heard the noise of the march, the percussion of hard feet walking not in time. The amputee Ariekei shouted. They must not even know, not even hear their own constant catcalls. Machines among them walked at the wordless correction of keepers. The Ariekei carried weapons. This was the only army on this world and it was marching on us.

The cam went close, and we saw thousands of stumps of thousands of fanwings. Every Ariekes there was a soldier, not obeying orders but trapped beyond society in soundless solipsism, unable to talk, hear, think, but still moving together in that mystery fashion, sharing purpose without speaking it. They couldn't have a unified intent but we knew they did, and what it was, and that we were it.

23.

AS WELL AS THE Languageless and the SM, for self-mutilated, at first we called the incoming army the Deaf. Emba.s.sytown's human deaf objected hard to that; they were right and we were ashamed. Then someone named the attackers according to an antique language. It meant that same word, Languageless and the SM, for self-mutilated, at first we called the incoming army the Deaf. Emba.s.sytown's human deaf objected hard to that; they were right and we were ashamed. Then someone named the attackers according to an antique language. It meant that same word, deaf deaf, but rendered the Surdae the Surdae any insult seemed diluted; particularly because, fast b.a.s.t.a.r.dised or misunderstood, the term became any insult seemed diluted; particularly because, fast b.a.s.t.a.r.dised or misunderstood, the term became the Surd the Surd and then misprisioned into and then misprisioned into the Absurd the Absurd. Hosts, coming to kill us for sins we'd committed, if at all, without intent.

Above all it was their discipline that was absurd, impossible, the way without words groups would peel off from the main slow body, coordinated into s.n.a.t.c.h squads that tore through strange country and took apart our rangers, or recruited new Ariekei troops by ripping their flesh. Eventually and abruptly transmissions to us ended, cams batted out of the air by breakdown, wind or the sudden irritation of the enemy. We sent more of course. Plans began.

As our spies gusted out to search, we were breaching old agreements and habits of isolation. The cams showed us the coast, the gently toxic sea. We had a country, on which the city sat, in which was Emba.s.sytown. We weren't used to seeing that. I'd used cartographic 'ware in the immer, but not these charts. We had a continent. It would have been hard for me to trace the outlines of Emba.s.sytown, harder to draw the city, and I wouldn't even have recognised the shape of the landma.s.s on which we were such a tiny point. Now we needed them it wasn't hard to break those taboos and pull up maps. They'd never been forbidden, as I'd seen in the out in some unsubtle theocracies: only inappropriate, and old politenesses were dead. Our cams uploaded directions so we could trace the Absurd.

Their few, their first, the pioneers had also learnt the specific violence to make unspeaking comrades of their victims. How had it been? They had spread out of the depleting city, claiming farmers, on past any urban gutwork into the wandergrounds of nomads, claiming the nomads, the gatherer-hunters of unneeded or escaped technology, building. Someone might one day write the history of that trek, the recruiting crusade.

There were more than all those stolen and violently cured rural addicts. I imagined these crazy figures emerging from wilderness like prophets; those distant Ariekei already alarmed or enraged at what they heard of their cousins in the city reduced to zombie-ecstatics or the craven desperate, might, even if far-off enough to have avoided the affliction, not have needed coercion to join the Absurd. Perhaps there'd been a while before the army went in with regular, remorseless violence, and instead there'd been debates about endeafening among the not-yet-recruited, in some settlements. Articulate, last-ever uses of speech to argue for its eradication.

I made Bren come with me into the city. It was easy to leave, though our borders were supposed to be controlled. Routes in and out weren't hard to learn.

"They'll be here within two weeks," I said. He nodded.

"You see they're all in prime instar?" Bren said. "They're not protecting the old or looking after the young."

The young, though, might soon enough be grateful to them. Even uncared for, a few in each Ariekene litter must survive, and when they emerged to their adult form, woke into Language, they would find a city purged of us. Without G.o.d-drug. The Absurd would martyr themselves to that future. They'd put themselves beyond the reach of any compromise or agreement.

We stuck to the safer sub-regions of the city. I found my way-my own, this time, leading Bren-to where Spanish Dancer and its friends practised lying, and I tried to help them find new ways to speak me.

"WE'RE FORMING an army," Cal said. We were as disdainful as we could be at that. an army," Cal said. We were as disdainful as we could be at that. Gather many of you in the square and be ready to fight Gather many of you in the square and be ready to fight, EzCal broadcast to the Ariekei. They told them to put forward soldiers. They demanded[image] volunteers. volunteers.[image] was the biggest aggregate of units with a name, and meant anything more than the largest exact number for which terminology existed, was the biggest aggregate of units with a name, and meant anything more than the largest exact number for which terminology existed,[image] , 3072. , 3072.[image] translated usually as "countless". EzCal were demanding as large a force as the Ariekei could give. translated usually as "countless". EzCal were demanding as large a force as the Ariekei could give.

Cal waved his hand. Beside him, Ez was like a ventriloquist's doll, existing only when he spoke, or was spoken through. Wyatt watched Ez like an anxious relative. I wondered how many Ariekene soldiers the G.o.d-drug would get, and whether the process of building that force would be violent. The natives in all the little villages left in the city, islands between zones of the deadly mindless, would try to obey, in various ways. They knew the Absurd were coming. The locals ruled or "ruled" or whatever by[image] , those over which EzCal had given , those over which EzCal had given[image] , aegis, would surely provide most of the soldiers. , aegis, would surely provide most of the soldiers.

". . . one main force of Ariekei to guard the city, stationed at all the weak points we have, and there'll be a couple of . . . well, of special squads prepared," Cal said, at the committee meeting. I couldn't listen to this, these desperations disguised as strategy. I couldn't look at anyone else in the room. There was nothing we had that could hold off the oncoming army. When we were dismissed I got my stuff together slowly, and after a moment realised it was only I, Ez and Cal left in the room. I don't know how that happened. I wouldn't rush. I couldn't look at them. I was their enemy, and I had secrets that were mutinous.

Cal slouched, looking tired. He looked shrunken, far off by the wall. A moment's illusion and the chair seemed to dwarf him like a throne would a boy-king. Ez stood like a surly courtier. They must be waiting to practise their necessary proclamations.

"Do you miss my brother, Avice?" Cal said.

"Do I . . . ? Vin? I . . . Yes." It was some way true. "Sometimes I do. Do you?"

Cal watched me from under his brow.

"Yes. I was angry with him. Before he died." He paused. "I was angry with him before that, then worse after. Of course. But I miss him."

I tried to work out if I could glean any advantage on any axis by keeping him talking, but I could think of nothing to say. "Please," he said angrily, not to me. Ez looked up.

"I'll . . ." Ez said, and walked out. It was the first word I'd heard him say for himself, for many days. Cal didn't watch him go.

"Vin missed you," he said.

"Did he?"

Whatever had happened to Cal, whatever he'd become, I was sure that he saw me as I saw him through a window of memories that included mornings, evenings together, nudity, of f.u.c.king, sometimes beautifully. What could I do but remember the last looks Vin had given me? I'd seen that need that could perhaps have been given another name, and that perhaps Cal resented. Because he thought his brother's affections were a zero-sum, and that I'd stolen from him? Because he didn't have it to give himself?

I, to my utmost shock, choked and had to close my eyes. A great big diffuse grief, not just for Vin, but some for him. I thought about the months I'd spent as CalVin's lover. I tried to recall a time when both of them had moved with me at once. I could not. Had they both touched me at once, ever, or had it always been one, then some languid time later, as I'd imagined, a.s.sumed, the other? I looked at Cal. Had he merely tolerated his doppel's desires, all that time?

I thought, Have you and I even been together Have you and I even been together?

"Waking without him. I don't get used to it." He spoke rapidly. "I'm not supposed to. Truth is there are times it's not bad. The silence isn't always unwelcome." I looked away from his awful smile.

"Truth is, Avice, I can't tell you if I miss him. That's not true, I can tell you and I do, but it isn't as clean clean a feeling as that. To have to say a feeling as that. To have to say everything everything, like I do-or did . . . Well, it's bad and it's good and it's bad. I've been to the retirement homes where cleaved are. Normal ones, not like Bren, making trouble. I don't know, is that me now?"

He jerked his head at the door through which Ez had left. "That b.a.s.t.a.r.d, eh? It can be ugly how things go. I was going to say . . . I don't know what I was going to say. I'm doing what I have to."

"What is it you're doing, Cal? Why d'you have to?" I said that though I'd not intended to respond, or involve myself in whatever this was. "We tried this once before, Cal; you made armies and it was a disaster . . ."

"Avice, please." He shook his head, and hesitated, as if he was trying very hard to think how to communicate something. "It was joint patrols that didn't work. You'll see what we do now. This is different. Anyway, what would you rather? We can't just leave them to come in . . . And haven't you seen?" He gesticulated again after Ez. "I can make them do anything I want."

"Well . . ."

"Well, anyway that's not really the point. I do, we do want protections around the city, we need it, but that's not the real point. The real point is the squads that go out out. I've been thinking a lot." He waved a hand at his throat, his voice. "About this. I've been thinking how to use it. I know why the first patrols went wrong: we just ordered them to patrol patrol. That was much too vague. Tasks, though, that's different. Specifics. With beginnings and endings."

"What tasks are you going to set them, EzCal?" I said. The slip, calling Cal that, wasn't deliberate.

"You'll see. And you'll be impressed, I think. I'm not operating like you think I am. I know what you think I am, Avice."

I walked away. It was just unbearable.

I DIDN'T DIDN'T C CAL, with Ez, inspect his Ariekene troops-what a pantomime. I heard he made MagDa his a.s.sistant, had them talk for him. EzCal couldn't do it: it would have created a comedy of overwhelmed squaddies mindlessly attempting to obey every word, whether it was an order or not.

There were, in fact,[image] -some thousands. An unprecedented gathering. Through MagDa, Cal organised them into ranks, and squadrons, and units, each with its own commander. There wasn't as much of the chaos as I'd expected when our new defenders went to their outposts. -some thousands. An unprecedented gathering. Through MagDa, Cal organised them into ranks, and squadrons, and units, each with its own commander. There wasn't as much of the chaos as I'd expected when our new defenders went to their outposts.

They weren't enough. The Absurd army outnumbered them by several times. I didn't yet understand-had ignored him telling me-that this warcraft and panicked pomp was a minor part of Cal's intentions. I didn't even notice that MagDa were gone for two days, alongside others, part of a squad I imagine EzCal gave some carefully chosen name. While they were, without knowing they were, I went again with YlSib to Spanish Dancer, as the army of Absurd approached. I'd had enough of inevitability. In the city, outside Emba.s.sytown, it felt, even illusorily, as if more than one outcome was possible.

EZCAL SUMMONED US SUMMONED US to a lecture hall. I went to that meeting, as I did to all of them, feeling like a spy. Not wholly misleading. The committee was depleted. In steeply banking rows of chairs we looked down at EzCal in the centre. I sat by Southel and Simmon. MagDa was with EzCal, their faces scuffed with injuries. By them was to a lecture hall. I went to that meeting, as I did to all of them, feeling like a spy. Not wholly misleading. The committee was depleted. In steeply banking rows of chairs we looked down at EzCal in the centre. I sat by Southel and Simmon. MagDa was with EzCal, their faces scuffed with injuries. By them was[image] , and there were other Hosts in corners. , and there were other Hosts in corners.

"We'd like to start with a silence," Cal said, "for officers Bayley and Kotus, who gave their lives on this mission, for the sake of Emba.s.sytown." We waited. "Let's make sure it wasn't in vain. Bring them in."

There was a commotion. We gasped and swore and drew back. What the guards entered and brought before us were enemies. Two deafened Absurd. They were held in cuffs. They eyed us, their eyes in polyp motion. Their legs and giftwings shook in constraints. They tested their tethers with cunning.

We watched them. Cal circled the captives, pointing out the injuries of the wilderness, the f.l.a.n.g.es of the ripped-out fanwing. He pointed at each thing he described with a long thin stick. He was like a picture of an ancient lecturer, in some pre-diaspora centre of learning. The attackers made noises as he rounded them. Calls that sounded like halloos, like calls to G.o.ds.[image] and the other Ariekei in the room watched them and kept up their own constant movement, twitches in a disgust-echo of the prisoners' strainings. and the other Ariekei in the room watched them and kept up their own constant movement, twitches in a disgust-echo of the prisoners' strainings.

Our people had tracked a group of Absurd broken off from the main oncoming army to raid an isolated settlement. There'd been a fight. There'd been deaths on both sides. At last, Cal said, after unprecedented cooperation between the Terre and our Ariekene allies we'd subdued and taken these Absurd alive.

"We need to understand them," Cal said. "So we can defeat them."

We were here to take notes, to learn Languageless behaviour. By experiments before cams in sealed rooms; by interactions gbetween the Absurd and our allies, that would not be interactions but actions from[image] and its coterie, and ignored by the Absurd; or if responded to in such ways that they were not discernible to us as reactions at all. and its coterie, and ignored by the Absurd; or if responded to in such ways that they were not discernible to us as reactions at all.

The solipsism of those that had torn out their own fanwings seemed impenetrable. Perhaps some on the committee believed Cal's a.s.sertion that we were preparing to defeat them, but seeing him cajole[image] -speaking through MagDa again to avoid the tedium of repeatedly enthralling the Ariekes ally-to speak to the Absurd, which they pointlessly attempted, making MagDa try it too, I think there must have been many who knew, as I did then, that his hope was to negotiate. -speaking through MagDa again to avoid the tedium of repeatedly enthralling the Ariekes ally-to speak to the Absurd, which they pointlessly attempted, making MagDa try it too, I think there must have been many who knew, as I did then, that his hope was to negotiate.

But they were thousands who'd closed all windows in and out of themselves, cut off Language, become monads full of murder. No knowledge we had could make much difference. With the scrags of Wyatt's a.r.s.enal and Cal's Ariekene force we might kill some, but the city was still shrinking, inhabitants dying, self-mutilating, running to nearby settlements where speakers would broadcast the G.o.d-drug voice. There were more Absurd than Ariekei that would fight by us.

MagDa spoke in Language; then one or other would say, "They can't even f.u.c.king hear us," while the Absurd snarled.

"So show them," Cal said. "Make them understand." And this exchange would continue and mutate, upsetting and pointless. The whole Ariekes would repeat its words: MagDa and the other Amba.s.sadors would make gestures with their hands. Our enemies came closer. The Languageless pulled against their bonds. They watched their interlocutors, ignoring overtures and focusing on actions. I saw sudden shared moments of attention, responding to idiosyncrasies of them understand." And this exchange would continue and mutate, upsetting and pointless. The whole Ariekes would repeat its words: MagDa and the other Amba.s.sadors would make gestures with their hands. Our enemies came closer. The Languageless pulled against their bonds. They watched their interlocutors, ignoring overtures and focusing on actions. I saw sudden shared moments of attention, responding to idiosyncrasies of[image] 's motion invisible to me. 's motion invisible to me.

The Absurd glared at each other. They made noises without knowing it. They got each other's attention with spread-out eye-tines, made motions to indicate things to notice. To the extent that they could, they moved, taking up positions while Cal and Ez flashed up images on screens, played vibrations to them through the floor. They walked, triangulated, parted.

I didn't say anything fast enough, but when they suddenly tried to attack an Ariekes guard I realised I'd known it was about to happen. They were subdued before they could use their own strapped bodies as ungainly bludgeons, but the synchronicity of their movements astounded me. It sent me back to my husband's books.

"HOW DO YOU SAY 'that' in Language?" I asked Bren. "Like 'that' in Language?" I asked Bren. "Like that that one." I pointed. "Which gla.s.s do you want? one." I pointed. "Which gla.s.s do you want? That That one." one."

"It would depend." He looked at the gla.s.s by his counter. "Talking about that one, I might say . . ."

"No I don't mean any specific one, but in general, that that one." Pointing. "Or one." Pointing. "Or that that one." Moving my hand. "Thatness." one." Moving my hand. "Thatness."

"There's nothing."

"No?"

"Of course not."

"Thought so. So how would I distinguish that gla.s.s and that one and that one?" I tallied them with my finger.

"You'd say 'the gla.s.s in front of the apple and the gla.s.s with a flaw in its base and the gla.s.s with a residue of wine left in it.' You know this. What are you asking? They taught you these basics, didn't they?"

"They did," I said. I was quiet a while. "Years ago." I spoke in years again, not kilohours. "But if you were translating an Ariekes saying, 'The gla.s.s with the apple and the one with the wine,' to me me, you'd probably just say, 'That gla.s.s and that one.' Sometimes translation stops you understanding. I'm not fluent. Maybe that's helping me right now."

"Translation always stops you understanding," he said. "What is it you're thinking?"

"How many days before they get here?" I said. "Can you get hold of YlSib? And others? Any you can?" He narrowed his eyes but nodded. "We need to go. Get YlSib or whoever to contact Spanish Dancer and the others. I'll-" I stopped. "I don't know," I said. "I don't know whether . . . Maybe I can tell Cal."

"Tell me me," Bren said. "I thought you'd despaired."

"I did too."

"What, then? Tell me."

I told him. Revelation was spoiled for him, but I can retain it here, for you.

Bren nodded, and listened to what I can't call a plan-it was hunch and hope-and when I was done he said, "No, we can't tell Cal." He touched me under the chin, and put his arms around me, and for a moment I let him take my weight and it was lovely. "Of course we can't."

"But we're trying to fix things," I said. "You know EzCal aren't stupid . . ."

"It's not about whether they're stupid," he said. "It's about who they are, and what they represent. Maybe Cal would see reason. Maybe. But I don't think so, do you? Want to risk it, really?"

"If we go, he'll find out."

"Yes. And see you as an enemy. And he'll be right. Don't think he-they-won't find time to try to stop us."

"Alright then," I said. "I'll be an enemy."

He smiled at me. "What else are we going to do, Avice?"

We turned arm-in-arm to look at the screen on which the captive Languageless tried to shuffle, alone in their room, watched by cams. It was a quiet moment for our banishing, as we got ready to exile ourselves. We saw the two Ariekei our rulers held moving not quite like two things unconnected, but according to something else; not a plan but a knowledge of each other; a community.

24.

I WAS STILL OF WAS STILL OF some cultural interest. So was Bren some cultural interest. So was BrenDan, the free cleaved, troublemaker, licensed dissident. If we disappeared together people would notice. And we might already be watched. That was why the next time, the last time, I went into the city alone.

While the committee fretted and Cal took what power we'd had, Emba.s.sytown streets got on with things. Walking through my shrunken town with my aeoli and supplies, I was surprised to pa.s.s more than one outdoor party. Some shiftparents of the playing children saw me watching and caught my eye, and even the poignancy of that, of knowing together that this was a last game to keep those children occupied, didn't detract from a moment's pleasure.

There were constables on the streets but not much for them to do except wait for the war: they didn't police with fervour. They didn't clear out the proselytisers, the, I don't know, Shakers, Quakers, Makers, Takers, each with their own theology d.a.m.ning or rescuing us. They weren't treated, even the most brimstone of them, as threats or pests, but as performers. People teased them, while they remained doggedly devout.

I wanted to stop, to ask someone to join me at a cafe' where they were giving away free drinks or accepting the little IOUs we proffered in polite charade. The usual lament: I may be some time. I may be some time. The wistfulness of we who are about to leave. I got out of Emba.s.sytown close to where Yohn and Simmon and the others and I had held our breath and where I'd touched a tether. I exited through the corridors of a border house, alone. The wistfulness of we who are about to leave. I got out of Emba.s.sytown close to where Yohn and Simmon and the others and I had held our breath and where I'd touched a tether. I exited through the corridors of a border house, alone.

On my chart were marked various colonies of city Ariekei, each annotated, the latest information Bren could gather. 1: Heartland. 1: Heartland.[image] . Loyal. . Loyal. To my left. To my left. 2: Status uncertain. 3: Contributed to troop but dispute with 2: Status uncertain. 3: Contributed to troop but dispute with[image] . 4: Communalistic? 5 . 4: Communalistic? 5, and on. I knew the displayed boundaries were all porous. As the Absurd approached, those little polities got more insular, their between-fix politics and cultures more divergent, the streets that separated them much worse. I wasn't at all safe.

The first few hundred metres altbrocks had ambled, I'd heard bird wings and been with insects. Now I was in the territories of local fauna, with at least two names: our vernacular; their markers in Language. I stood still for a dog-sized thing we called a browngun, which the Ariekei termed[image] or or[image] depending on a taxonomic distinction we never understood. It crossed my path with an urchin frog-tongue gait. Overhead pa.s.sed the sc.r.a.ps and biorigged machines, wild, or carrying Ariekei. depending on a taxonomic distinction we never understood. It crossed my path with an urchin frog-tongue gait. Overhead pa.s.sed the sc.r.a.ps and biorigged machines, wild, or carrying Ariekei.