Embassytown

Absurd told those behind them simply: Stop.

“,” said Spanish. Our Deaf went to the front of the army, and Spanish went with it. With the Absurd generals watching, the two of them—ostentatiously, in wing signs and sigils scraped in the earth, ideograms that startled me—started to talk.

THERE WERE MANY many hours, two days and nights of frustration and silences, while the army waited. Hesitated. Individuals kept coming up from the ranks to see what was happening. Every one that did was astonished: unaddicted Ariekei; Terre waiting respectfully; the process of slow dawning between hearing and Absurd, as we still questionably called them; scrawls in dirt.

Those with a little knowledge became agents of patience among the others. We could see their influence, by whatever gestural persuasions, when, toward the end of the second day, human refugees approached from the army’s flank, easily killable, but the fanwingless didn’t assault them.

The Terre must have realised that the Absurd had stopped, wondered at the strange calm and come to find its source, and the Languageless had let them. The refugees set up camp a way away from us, and watched.

It took a time before the boundary of comprehension between Absurd and ’s group, the New Hearing, was more fully breached, but nothing like so long as I’d once have expected. We weren’t teaching the deafened to communicate: we were showing them they already could, and did. It wasn’t incremental but revelatory; and revelations, though hard-won, are viral.

“We need EzCal here,” I said.

“They won’t come if they know what’s happened,” Bren said. “If they know that they’ve lost.”

Even if it means the end of the war? But I knew he was right. “Well then we can’t tell them the truth. We see any vespcams we smash them. They can’t know what’s happened.”

TOWELLER AND BAPTIST understood the mission we gave them. They wouldn’t have done a few days before. They returned to the city in a flyer with the Absurd.

“They know what they have to do?” I said to Spanish Dancer.

“.” They’d sneak back in the wounded ship, take on the roles of loyal addict-soldiers, bringing news of a breakthrough. They’d tell EzCal that the Absurd had stopped, were just waiting, and that the god-drug and their entourage must come. It couldn’t occur to EzCal that they were being lied to. That was what we were relying on. How could it? They would, after all, hear it from Ariekei, in what they would think was Language. Say it like a Host.

“They know what to do when EzCal speaks to them?”

“.” They knew to seem as if it swept them over.

“They know to ask for them to speak, if too long goes by without?”

“.” They knew to mimic the addiction. They knew what they had to do.

The two different tribes of post-Language Ariekei shared symbols. The human refugees made no attempt to come closer. “Did we do it?” I said.

Surrounded by semiosis, Dub at last juddered and abruptly achieved change and withdrawal, apropos of nothing I saw, gasping and speaking newly. Its companions watched its unexpected transcendence or fall. Rooftop, though, couldn’t reach it. It dosed itself with the last of the datchips. It was the only addict left among us.

I don’t know what the parameters of friendship were among the Ariekei, but I think that they must all have been sad. And Rooftop, as its name was, must have been lonely. It watched the scratch-and-gesture conversations around it, and I thought that being surrounded by the changed must be, for it, like a mild hell. You did save us, I thought at it. Without you we’d have died. As if that could comfort it.

EVERY DAY Spanish told me of the progress. When I consider what it was that actually happened, what the Absurd and the New Hearing achieved, it took no time at all. I don’t know how many days of camping among these silent discussions it had been when I realised that there were cams watching us, eddying nervously in the wind. But I knew we were past ready.

“Jesus,” I said, and pointed them out to Bren. “Christ Pharotekton.” I stood below the cams, gesturing at them like newly expressive Ariekei, beckoning them.

They were scouts from a school around EzCal’s ship. It couldn’t be far: they’d come, following the directions and promises of Toweller and Baptist. Some vespcams seemed to want to shy away; others focused on us. It was too late for the god-drug to turn back now, block transmissions, pretend ignorance, even if they understood what they were seeing. The feeds from those little lenses were being watched not only in the oncoming ship, but by thousands of Embassytowners.

“Listen,” I shouted, and was aware of many Ariekene eyes on me. The lenses scudded, anxious midges, came a little lower. “Listen to me,” I said and grit my teeth in the wind. “Listen to me.”

“They must’ve been wondering what the delay was,” Bren said. “What was keeping the Absurd. How long have they been waiting? Hiding, waiting to die, wondering what’s the hold-up.”

“Listen,” I said. “Get them here. Get EzCal here now.” I pointed at Spanish Dancer, at the fanwingless to which it spoke, and first Spanish, then one by one all the hundreds of Absurd, pointed at me. The cams buzzed, changing positions, and I kept my eyes on one fixed point, as if the little swarm were one entity into whose eye I stared. “Get them here now. EzCal... Can you see me, EzCal?” I jabbed my hand. “Cal, get here now and bring your fucking sidekick with you.

“You get to live, so spread the word. Embassytown, can you hear me? You get to live. But you better get here and find out what you have to do, EzCal. Because there are some conditions.”

29

I’LL GIVE EZCAL THIS. When they didn’t speak, when they stood to look out over the ridge down kilometres of country and the camp-town of the Absurd, they looked epic. They didn’t deserve it.

They’d come to affect baroque: perhaps it was a comfort to some Embassytowners. There were trims of glitter on Cal’s clothes, a crest on his aeoli mask. Even Ez wore purple.

In silence their failings were transmuted, or camouflaged at least. Cal’s sneer passed for regal: Ez’s sulking a thoughtful reserve. They had a small entourage: people who had recently been my colleagues. Some greeted me and Bren when their flier landed. Simmon shook my hand. Southel had come, and MagDa. I couldn’t describe their expressions. Wyatt was with them, still guarded, it seemed, but consulted, great operator, prisoner-vizier. He didn’t meet my eye. Baptist and Toweller stepped down, back from Embassytown, greeted their companions. Greeted me. The Embassytowners watched them, in what must have been great shock. This journey hadn’t turned out as expected.

The officers who’d come had weapons. I know that if the situation had been a little different, EzCal might have tried to have them kill us, as they’d tried to kill us when we travelled. Now, though, the remnants of the Staff in their pointless retinue and the officers and even JasMin, who were there, wouldn’t let them. By now everyone in Embassytown had seen the incoming army, and my transmission, and everyone knew that we had stopped them. All Cal had for a last few hours was the pretence that he ruled.

Those Terre refugees had come closer day on day: they were mingling with us now, though mostly all they did was watch our interactions with the Absurd. Ez looked into the sky, and back across the distance toward Embassytown.

Much later I’d hear stories of his actions during my travels: how he’d contrived to test Cal’s patience; the plans for what could only be considered a coup, which Cal had crushed more in contempt than anger. Ez eyed us. I could see him calculating. Jesus do you never stop? I thought. I didn’t give a shit about his story. To Embassytown and the Languageless, Ez and Cal’s squabbles were vastly less important than that they