The Scar Read Online Free PDF Page A

still-darkening ocean.
    “Have you seen any of the prisoners?” Johannes asked suddenly.
    Bellis looked at him in surprise. “No. Have you?” She felt defensive. The fact of the ship’s sentient cargo discomfited her.
    When it had come, Bellis’ realization that she had to leave New Crobuzon had been urgent and frightening. She had made her plans in low panic. She needed to get as far away as she could, and quickly. Cobsea and Myrshock seemed too close, and she had thought feverishly of Shankell and Yoraketche, and Neovadan and Tesh. But they were all too far or too dangerous, or too alien, or too hard to reach or too frightening. There was nothing in any of them that could become her home. And Bellis had realized aghast that it was too hard for her to let go, that she was clinging to New Crobuzon, to what defined her.
    And then Bellis had thought of Nova Esperium. Eager for new citizens. Asking no questions. Halfway across the world, a little blister of civilization in unknown lands. A home from home, New Crobuzon’s colony. Rougher, surely, and harder and less cosseted—Nova Esperium was too young for many kindnesses—but a culture modeled on her city’s own.
    She realized that, with that destination, New Crobuzon would pay her passage, even as she fled it. And a channel of communication would remain open to her: regular if occasional contact with ships from home. She might then know when it was safe to return.
    But the vessels that undertook the long, dangerous journey from Iron Bay across the Swollen Ocean carried with them Nova Esperium’s workforce. Which meant a hold full of prisoners: peons, indentured laborers, and Remade.
    It curdled the food in Bellis’ stomach to think of the men and women locked below, out of the light, and so she did not think of them. She would have had nothing to do with such a voyage and such harsh traffic if she had had a choice.
    Bellis looked up at Johannes, trying to gauge his thoughts.
    “I must admit,” he said hesitantly, “I’m surprised I’ve heard no sound at
all
from them. I had thought they would be let out more often than this.”
    Bellis said nothing. She waited for Johannes to change the subject, so that she could continue to try to forget what lay beneath them.
    She could hear the bonhomie from Qé Banssa’s waterfront pubs. It sounded urgent.

    Under tar and steel, in the damp chambers below. Food bolted and fought over. Shit, spunk, and blood congealing. Shrieks and fistfights. And chains like stone and all around whispers.
    “That’s a shame, lad.” The voice was rough from lack of sleep, but the sympathy was genuine. “You’ll most probably get a hiding for that.”
    Before the bars of the prison hold, the cabin boy stood looking mournfully at shards of pottery and spilt stew. He had been spooning food into bowls for the prisoners, and his hand had slipped.
    “Clay like that looks strong as iron, till you drop it.” The man behind the bars was as filthy and tired as all the other prisoners. Bubbling from his chest, visible beneath a torn shirt, was a huge tumor of flesh from which emerged two long ill-smelling tentacles. They swung lifeless, deadweight blubbery encumbrances. Like most of the transportees, the man was Remade, carved by science and thaumaturgy into a new shape, in punishment for some crime.
    “Reminds me of when Crawfoot went to war,” said the man. “Did you ever hear that story?”
    The cabin boy picked greasy meat and carrots from the floor and dropped them into a bucket. He glanced up at the man.
    The prisoner shuffled back and settled against the wall.
    “So one day, at the beginning of the world, Darioch looks out from his treehouse and sees an army coming toward the forest. And bugger me if it ain’t the Batskin Brood come to get back their brooms. You know how Crawfoot took their brooms, don’t you?”
    The cabin boy was about fifteen, old for his position. He wore clothes not much cleaner than the prisoners’. He