Balzac's War: A Tale of Veniss Underground by Jeff VanderMeer Page A

or almost anything.”
    “It’s bone. Why else do you think the Con members don’t move us back into the city. Why they don’t even want us to visit?”
    “Because at night, creatures come out of the underground levels, things with sharp teeth, and they eat you.”
    Jamie threw her head back and laughed; Balzac could see the smooth skin of her neck and marveled at its perfection even as he blushed and said, “It’s not funny.” Yet even her laughter pleased him.
    “You,” she said, wiping tears from her eyes. “I stopped believing in that old tale a long time ago.”
    Something in his expression must have given him away, because she shocked him by saying, gently, “I’m sorry about your parents – really, I am – but the only truth is this,” and she bent to pick up a shard that might have been bone. “My father says no one knows what did this. If these are just old graves opened by the sands or if something killed them all off.” She paused, looked at him oddly, as if weighing her options, then said, “My father brought me here when I was much younger, and I just liked the texture of the bones. I didn’t know what they were. All I knew was that they felt good to touch – lightweight and with those porous grooves – and that my father was there with me after so many nights away from the crèche, showing me something that filled him with awe.” She tossed the shard aside. “It’s only bits of bone, anyhow. Whatever happened, happened a long time ago. There’s nothing to be done for them.”
    True enough, and it was reassuring to know that the years had created a barrier between him and the bones, so he could look at them as curious reminders of another age. How many times had Con Fegman, or even Jeffer, retold the old legends from before the collapse of the cities, as if the mere repetition would fend off the spirits of the dead?
    “Come on,” Balzac said. “Let’s go.” This time he did not hold her hand.
    The pavement became hot, cool, then hot again as the sun sliced through the spaces between structures. The landscape had changed, become both rougher and smoother until buildings were all edges or had no edges at all. Others gleamed with an odd hint of self-repair, their skins smooth and shiny.
    They encountered the hull of a rusted hovercraft over which, looking like a weathered lizard, lay the leathery, discarded skin of a dirigible. Balzac did not recognize the faded crèche insignia on the wrinkled cloth. Near the hovercraft lay a misshapen rock, as tall as two or three autodocs. The top of the rock was black and shiny.
    “Let’s sit down for a moment,” Balzac said.
    “If you must.”
    “I must. And besides, it’s not just to rest. I’ve got leechee fruit.”
    They climbed up onto the rock and lay down on its smooth surface. He handed her a leechee and bit into his own, the juice dribbling down his chin. The fruit helped to rejuvenate him and he soon became acutely aware of her rising and falling chest, the sharp lines of her legs, the faint musk of sweat. She ate the leechee in huge bites, ignoring the juice as it trickled down her neck and stained her dress.
    The rock was warm and it relaxed him to lie there with her, so close together. Confidence rising, he tried to explain why the city intrigued him so. He spoke of its rich history, how it must be considered the home of their ancestors, how it used structural designs and technologies unknown to the crèche.
    Propped up on one shoulder, Jamie gave him no encouragement. He stuttered, groping for the words that might unlock a true sense of mystery, of scale.
    Stymied, he started all over again, afraid that when he opened his mouth, the words would come out jumbled and senseless.
    “The city is alive.”
    “But it isn’t,” she said. “It’s dead.”
    “But you’re so wrong. I mean, you are wrong.” He squinted at the city’s outline until his eyes burned. “I see these buildings and they’re like dozens of individual