– We saw a Weaver, Judah says. -Most people never see that. We saw a Weaver.
The next day the women strike.
– No, they say to the men who come to their tents, and who stare at them uncomprehending. The women stand together in a militia, holding what weapons they have. A picket of rags and petticoats.
There are scores of them, determined and surprised by themselves. They turn away the hammermen, tunnel-men, gendarmes. The rebuffed gather. A counterdemonstration of surly lustful men. They mutter. Some go to masturbate behind rocks; some simply go. Many stay.
The dust of the two gatherings rises as they face each other. The gendarmes come-they do not quite know what to do; the women are doing nothing but refusing, the men are only waiting. -No pay, Ann-Hari says, -no lay. No pay no lay no pay no lay.
– We’ll not do it no more for promises, she says to Judah. -Since we come here and there ain’t no money, they been doing and doing it on credit. Our men, our gendarmes, now the new lads. And they ain’t had women here for a long time; they hurt us, Judah. They come and say put it on my tab girl and you can’t say no and you know they ain’t going to pay.
– Cyra lost her eye, she said. -Some tunnel-man comes, put it on my tab, she tells him no and he knocks her so hard it splits her eye. Belladona had her arm broke. No pay no lay, Judah. Money first from now.
The women defend Fucktown. They have patrols with sticks and stilettos; there is a frontline. They take turns to watch the children. There must be those among them who are not happy with the confrontation, but they are quietened into solidarity. Ann-Hari and the others swish their skirts and laugh while the men watch. Judah is not the only man who is a friend to these infuriated whores. He, Shaun Sullervan, Thick Shanks, a clutch of others watch together.
– Come on girls what’s this then, says a foreman. -What’s the story? What are you after? We need you, beauties. He smiles.
– Won’t be beat down anymore, John, Ann-Hari says. -Won’t take promises. You pay; until then no lay.
– We ain’t got the money Ann you know that sweetheart…
– Ain’t my problem. Have your man Wrightby pay his men, then… She jigs her hips.
That night a group of men try with something between lightheartedness and anger to push their way past the picket, but the women block them and beat them hard and the men retreat holding split heads and screaming in astonishment as much as pain. -Stupid fuckpig bitch, one man screams. -You stupid bitch, you smashed my fucking head, bitch.
They do not let the men touch them the next day and there is no longer novelty or near-humour to the situation. A man takes out his cock, shakes it at them. -Want payment? he shouts. -I’ll give you payment. Eat this you fucking dirty moneygrab sluts. There are those in the crowd of men who have enough affection for the women they have travelled with that they do not like that, and they hush him, but there are others who applaud.
– Get money, and come in, the women shout. -Don’t blame us, horny bastards.
There is another attempt on their camp. This time it is led by the tunnellers. It is a rape squad intent on punishment. But there is an alarm, a panic from Remade women sent to clean clothes near the Fucktown tents. They see the men creeping and yell, and the men are on them quickly and attacking to silence them. A squad of the prostitutes come running.
Men are stabbed, a woman’s face is broken, and when the prostitutes have overcome the intruders one of the Remade women is found concussed and leaking from her head. The whole women hesitate briefly before they carry her in to tend her.
In the morning the tunnel-men strike. They gather at the tunnel mouth. The foremen run to negotiate. The tunnellers have their spokesman: a thin man, a weak geothaumaturge, his hands stained basalt black by the stone he makes into slurry.
He says, -We go back in when them girls let us back in, too, and his men laugh. -We’ve got needs, he says.
The prostitutes and tunnellers have made demands. The graders will not work. The track-layers cannot, and only sit in the sun and play dice or fight. It is becoming violent like a prairie town. The perpetual train sits. The gendarmes and foremen confer. There is rain, but it is hot and unrefreshing.
– Mate with the spiders, the old man says. -It’s time to change.
Everything is still. Only the bridge is being built, and now in the evenings when the bridge crews come off their work, some cross the ravine to their sister encampment, because they want to see the trouble. They come-hotchi in spines, apes trained and constrained by Remaking, Remade men given simian bodies. They come to see the strikes. They tour from one to another.
The newspapermen on the perpetual train, who have been despatching their stories when there are messengers, suddenly have something new to cover. One takes a heliotype of the picket of women.
– I don’t know what I’ll say, he says to Judah. -They don’t want me talking about tarts in The Quarrel.
– Take all the plates you can, says Judah. -This is something you should remember. This is important, he says, and it is his oddity, his beatific innard that speaks. His breath leaves him a moment at the thought that he can hear its words.
– We are all spiders’ children, says the mad old man.
There are handwritten Runagate Rampant s on the rocks.
This is not three strikes, or two strikes and a half. This is one strike, against one enemy, with one goal. The women are not our opponents. The women are not to be blamed. No pay no lay they tell us, and that can be our slogan too. We will not lay another tie, another rail, until the money promised is ours. They say it, and we say it too. We say: No pay no lay!
When the overseers and gendarmes realise that the disparate groups are not tiring of the strike, will not exhaust themselves with recrimination, there is a change. Judah feels it when he rises and sees the foremen moving with new purpose.
It is already hot, he is already sweating, when unbreakfasted he goes to the tunnel mouth with others from the idle workforce. The tunnellers are arranged like a fighting unit, and they carry their picks. The foremen and gendarmes are before them, with a corps of tethered Remade.
– Come on now, says an overseer. Judah knows him. He is the man they bring in to do unpopular things. There is a delegation from the prostitutes, twelve women walking close together, headed by Ann-Hari. The tunnellers begin derisive calls. The women only watch. Behind them all the train wheezes like a bull.
The overseer stands before the Remade. He turns his back on the strikers and looks at the motley Remade in their integuments of foreign flesh and metal. Judah sees Ann-Hari whisper to Thick Shanks and another man, sees them nod without turning. They are staring at the Remade who have been gathered. One of them, a man with pipes that emerge from his body and enter it again, stares back at Thick Shanks and moves his head. He stands by a much younger man with chitined legs emerging from his neck.
– Pick up the picks, the foreman says to the Remade. -Go into the tunnel. Cut the rock. We’ll instruct you.
And there is a silence and no motion. The gendarmes have interposed between the strikers and the Remade.
– Take the picks. Go into the tunnel. Follow it to the end. Cut it.
There is silence again a while. The men of the perpetual train know how the Remade are being used, and some begin to shout scab, scab preemptively. But the shouts die because none of the Remade are moving.
– Take the picks.
When there is no movement still, the overseer strikes with his whip. It lands loudly and with the blossoming of a scream. A Remade drops, hands to his opened face. There are fear noises, and some of the Remade start and begin to move but one of them makes a low command and they shudder and hold, except one who breaks and runs for the tunnel and shouts, -I didn’t want to and I won’t, you can’t make me, it’s a stupid plan, it’s a stupid plan.