“There were twenty militia, Sacramundi the heliotypist and three research scientists, plus a couple of engineers who stayed in the airship the whole time. Seven militia, Sacramundi and one chymist came out of Suroch. Some were Torque-wounded. By the time they got back to New Crobuzon one militiaman had died. Another had barbed tentacles where his eyes should be, and pieces of the scientist’s body were disappearing every night. No blood, no pain, just . . . smooth holes in her abdomen or arm or whatever. She killed herself.”

Isaac remembered first hearing the story told as an anecdote by an unorthodox history professor. Isaac had chased it up, following a trail of footnotes and old newspapers. The history had been forgotten, transmuted into emotional blackmail for children—“Be good or I’ll send you to Suroch where the monsters are!” It took a year and a half before Isaac saw a copy of Sacramundi’s report, and another three before he could match the price asked for it.

He thought he recognized some of the thoughts flickering almost invisibly under Yagharek’s impassive skin. They were the ideas every unorthodox undergraduate had at some time entertained.

“Yag,” Isaac said softly, “we ain’t going to use the Torque. You might be thinking ‘You still use hammers and some people are murdered with them.’ Right? Eh? ‘Rivers can flood and kill thousands or they can drive water turbines.’ Yes? Trust me . . . speaking as one who used to think the Torque was terribly exciting . . . it’s not a tool. It’s not a hammer, it’s not like water. It’s . . . the Torque is rogue power. We’re not talking crisis energy here, right? Get that right out of your head. Crisis is the energy underpinning the whole of physics. Torque’s not about physics. It’s not about anything. It’s . . . it’s an entirely pathological force. We don’t know where it comes from, why it appears, where it goes. All bets are off. No rules apply. You can’t tap it—well, you can try, but you’ve seen the results—you can’t play with it, you can’t trust it, you can’t understand it, you sure as godsdamn-fuck can’t control it.”

Isaac shook his head in irritation. “Oh sure, there’ve been experiments and whatnot, they reckon they’ve got techniques to shield from some effects, heighten others, and some of them might even work a little bit. But there’s never been a Torque experiment that didn’t end in . . . well, in tears, at the very least. As far as I’m concerned there’s only one kind of experiment we should be doing with Torque, and that’s how to avoid it. Either stop it in its tracks, or run like Libintos with the drakows on his tail.