Read Perdido Street Station for Free Online Page B

crosses,
however, no other mark at all.
    Lin hovered in the
vicinity of the houses. She fidgeted with her skirt and blouse until,
exasperated with herself, she walked up to the door and knocked
quickly.
    Bad enough that I’m
late, she thought, without pissing him off even more.
    She heard hinges and
levers slide somewhere above her, and detected a tiny glint of
reflected light over her head: some system of lenses and mirrors was
being deployed so those within could judge whether those without were
worthy of attention.
    The door opened.
    **
    Standing before Lin was
a vast Remade. Her face was still the same mournful, pretty human
woman’s it had always been, with dark skin and long plaited
hair, but it supplanted a seven-foot skeleton of black iron and
pewter. She stood on a tripod of stiff telescoping metal. Her body
had been altered for heavy labour, with pistons and pulleys giving
her what looked like ineluctable strength. Her right arm was levelled
at Lin’s head, and from the centre of the brass hand extended a
vicious harpoon.
    Lin recoiled in
astonished terror.
    A large voice sounded
from behind the sad-faced woman.
    "Ms. Lin? The
artist? You’re late. Mr. Motley is expecting you. Please follow
me."
    The Remade stepped
backwards, balancing on her central leg and swinging the others
behind it, giving Lin room to step around her. The harpoon did not
waver.
    How far can you go? thought Lin to herself, and stepped into the dark.
    At the far end of an
entirely black corridor was a cactacae man. Lin could taste his sap
in the air, but very faintly. He stood seven feet tall, thick-limbed
and heavy. His head broke the curve of his shoulders like a crag, his
silhouette uneven with nodules of hardy growth. His green skin was a
mass of scars, three-inch spines and tiny red spring flowers.
    He beckoned to her with
gnarled fingertips.
    "Mr. Motley can
afford to be patient," he said as he turned and climbed the
stairs behind him, "but I’ve never known him relish
waiting." He looked back clumsily and raised an eyebrow at Lin
pointedly.
    Fuck off, lackey, she thought impatiently. Take me to the big man.
    He stomped off on
shapeless feet like small tree-stumps.
    Behind her, Lin could
hear the explosive bursts of steam and thumps as the Remade took the
stairs. Lin followed the cactus through a twisting, windowless
tunnel.
    This place is huge, Lin thought, as they moved on and on. She realized that it must be
the whole row of houses, dividing walls destroyed and rebuilt,
custom-made, renovated into one vast convoluted space. They passed
doors from which suddenly emerged an unnerving sound, like the
muffled anguish of machines. Lin’s antennae bristled. As they
left it behind, a volley of thuds sounded, like a score of crossbow
bolts fired into soft wood.
    Oh Broodma, thought Lin querulously. Gazid, what the fuck have I let you talk
me into?
    **
    It was Lucky Gazid, the
failed impresario, who had started the process leading Lin to this
terrifying place.
    He had run off a set of
heliotypes of her most recent batch of work, hawked them around the
city. It was a regular process, as he attempted to establish a
reputation among the artists and patrons of New Crobuzon. Gazid was a
pathetic figure forever reminding anyone who would listen of the one
successful show he had arranged for a now-dead aether sculptress
thirteen years previously. Lin and most of her friends viewed him
with pity and contempt. Everyone she knew let him take his heliotypes
and slipped him a few shekels or a noble, "an advance on his
agent’s fee." Then he would disappear for a few weeks, to
emerge again with puke on his trousers and blood on his shoes,
buzzing on some new drug, and the process would begin again.
    Only not this time.
    Gazid had found Lin a
buyer.
    When he had sidled up
to her in The Clock and Cockerel she had protested. It was someone
else’s turn, she had scribbled on her pad, she had "advanced"
him a whole