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and this is Gnomon Tor, and between them, in the sea . . . Salkrikaltor. Down here, where we’re heading now . . . there’s nothing. A line of spiky little islands. We’re taking a very long way around to Salkrikaltor City. I wonder why.”

    By the next morning, several other passengers had noticed the unusual route. Within hours, word spread among the cloistered little corridors. Captain Myzovic addressed them in the mess. There were almost forty passengers, and all were present. Even pale, pathetic Sister Meriope and others similarly afflicted.
    “There is nothing to be concerned about,” the captain assured them. He was clearly angry at being summoned. Bellis looked away from him, out of the windows.
Why am I here?
she thought.
I don’t care. I don’t care where we’re going or how we damn well get there.
But she did not convince herself, and she stayed where she was.
    “But
why
have we deviated from the normal route, Captain?” someone asked.
    The captain exhaled angrily. “Right,” he said. “Listen. I am taking a detour around the Fins, the islands at the southern edge of Salkrikaltor. I am
not
obliged to explain this action to you. However . . .” He paused, to impress upon the passengers how privileged they were. “Under the circumstances . . . I must ask you all to observe a degree of restraint, as regards this information.
    “We will be circumnavigating the Fins before reaching Salkrikaltor City, so that we might pass some of New Crobuzon’s holdings. Certain maritime industries. Which are not public knowledge. Now, I could have you confined to cabins. But then you might see something from the portholes, and I’d rather not let loose the rumors that would result. So you are free to go above, to the poop-deck only.
But
. But I appeal to you as patriots and as good citizens to exercise discretion about what you see tonight. Am I clear?”
    To Bellis’ disgust, there was a slightly awed silence.
He’s stupefying them with pomposity,
she thought, and turned away with her contempt.

    The waves were broken by an occasional rock tusk, but nothing more dramatic. Most of the passengers had congregated at the back of the ship, and they gazed eagerly over the water.
    Bellis kept her eyes to the horizon, irritated that she was not alone.
    “Do you think we’ll know when we see whatever it is?” asked a clucking woman Bellis did not know, and whom she ignored.
    It grew dark and much colder, and some of the passengers retired below. The mountainous Fins dipped in and out of visibility at the horizon. Bellis sipped mulled wine for warmth. She became bored, and watched the sailors instead of the sea.
    And then, at around two in the morning, with only half the passengers left on deck, something appeared in the east.
    “Gods above,” Johannes whispered.
    For a long time it remained a forbidding, unreadable silhouette. And then, as they approached, Bellis saw that it was a huge black tower that reared from the sea. An oily light flared from its peak, a spew of dirty flame.
    They were almost upon it. A little over a mile away. Bellis gasped.
    It was a platform suspended above the sea. More than two hundred feet long on each side, it hung immensely, its concrete weight poised on three massive metal legs. Bellis could hear it pounding.
    Waves broke against its supports. It had a skyline as intricate and twisted as a city’s. Above the three leg-pillars was a cluster of seemingly random spires, and cranes moving like clawed hands; and over them all a huge minaret of girders soared and drooled fire. Thaumaturgic ripples distorted the space above the flame. In the shadows under the platform, a massive metal shaft plunged into the sea. Lights glimmered from its built-up levels.
    “What in the name of Jabber is that?” Bellis breathed.
    It was awesome and extraordinary. The passengers were gaping like fools.
    The mountains of the southernmost Fin were a shadow in the distance. Near the base of the platform were