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executioner checked the tank. He rapped the glass on each side and on the roof. Two skadi on either side of Eirik held his arms. They turned him towards the western crowd, but his head flopped on his chest, and his face remained in shadow.
    He’s drugged, Vikram realized. He felt anger stirring at their cowardice, mixed with a horrible relief that Eirik would barely be conscious.
    The air keened as a dozen loudspeakers were switched on. The wheezing woman next to Vikram covered her ears. The man to his right squeezed his boy’s shoulders. Vikram wanted to wrench the kid away and cover up his eyes. In the next breath he thought no, he should see this. He should know what the Citizens do to us.
    A voice began to speak. The tone was clipped and robotic.
    “The man known as Eirik 9968 has been sentenced for his actions against the city state of Osiris. He is found guilty of the following crimes: denouncing the Osiris Council, organising collective violence against the City, inciting aggressive action in westerners, acts of personal terrorism, assault and mass murder. In particular he is convicted for his role in reviving the illegal New Western Osiris Front, the organisation responsible for the atrocities committed at Oswua University in the year twenty-three eighty-eight, and for leading and instigating the July riots three years ago. He is judged responsible for both the deaths of Citizens and the necessary reprisals against the west.”
    Eirik made no reaction to this speech. His posture was bowed and defeated. It was doubtful whether he had even heard the accusations. Confronted with that small, lone figure between two cities, all Vikram could think of was Eirik sat cross-legged in Nils’s room, leaning forward, gesticulating as he spoke, his face intense and serious, half illuminated by the flickering light. Look, it’s not enough to know the history—we’ve got to know how these people think. Why won’t they take us seriously—why won’t they answer Vik’s letters? Because we don’t use their language and we don’t understand their systems. We don’t know who they really are.
    The memory was so strong it made him giddy. Vikram could hear Eirik’s voice perfectly; he could see that room, smell the empty wrappers of squid and kelp. His head swam.
    Instinct told him the truth. In that moment he knew,with absolute and shocking conviction, that everything that had been said about Eirik was a lie. Because Eirik, who did know the language, had been a threat. He might actually have made people listen. And the City couldn’t let anything threaten the divide, so the City were going to remove him.
    Maybe Eirik had helped to feed the riots. Did it matter? It was not a terrorist who had thrown the first fire torch. It was an ordinary westerner like Vikram, who had been up against the border and everything it represented too many times, and in a single moment of frustration had cracked. Anyone could have started the riots.
    The officer on the boat drew himself up, concluding his speech.
    “For this long and atrocious history of criminal activity, the Osiris Council has condemned Eirik 9968 to death by drowning.”
    The kid leaned forward over the boat rail, eyes wide and eager.
    Vikram felt a rising panic. It couldn’t happen. Eirik was innocent. Vikram knew he was innocent. Where were Nils and Drake? If he could find them—he had to explain. It was as though he had emerged from hibernation. How could he ever have imagined that Eirik could be involved with the NWO? The idea was insane. What had he been thinking?
    There was still time for a miracle. The speaker would reverse his statement. He would declare that the execution had been a warning to the west, and Eirik would be freed. They couldn’t—they couldn’t kill him.
    He willed Eirik to look his way. A moment of contact—he needed Eirik to know he was here—
    “Pardon.”
    The call came from the other side of the crowd. Quiet at first. Then another voice