The Scar by China Miéville Read Free Book Online Page B

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