“Now, for the second objective, we all know we can’t rely on human militia or Remade—or xenians come to that. Same basic psychic type. We’re all food. I’m sure we all remember our initial attack-defence tests . . .” Rescue and Stem-Fulcher nodded quickly. Rudgutter continued. “Right. Zombies might be a possibility, but this is not Cromlech: we don’t have the facilities to create them in the numbers or quality that we need. So. It seems to me that the first objective can’t satisfactorily be dealt with if we’re relying on our regular intelligence operations. We have to have access to different information. So for two reasons, we have to elicit assistance from agents better able to deal with the situation—different psychic models from our own are vital. Now, it seems to me there are two possible such agents, and that we have little choice but to approach at least one of them.”

He was silent, taking in Stem-Fulcher and Rescue with his eyes, one by one. He waited for dissent. There was none.

“Are we agreed?” he asked quietly.

“We’re talking about the ambassador, aren’t we?” said Stem-Fulcher. “And what else . . . you don’t mean the Weaver?” Her eyes furrowed in dismay.

“Well, hopefully it won’t come to that,” said Rudgutter reassuringly. “But yes, those are the two . . . ah . . . agents I can think of. In that order.”

“Agreed,” said Stem-Fulcher quickly. “As long as it’s in that order. The Weaver . . . Jabber! Let’s talk to the ambassador.”

“MontJohn?” Rudgutter turned to his deputy.

Rescue nodded slowly, fingering his scarf.

“The ambassador,” he said slowly. “And I hope that will be all we need.”

“As do we all, Deputy Mayor,” said Rudgutter. “As do we all.”

Between the eleventh and fourteenth floors of the Mandragorae Wing of Perdido Street Station, above one of the less popular commercial concourses that specialized in old fabrics and foreign batiks, below a series of long-deserted turrets, was the Diplomatic Zone.

Many of the embassies in New Crobuzon were elsewhere, of course: baroque buildings in Nigh Sump or East Gidd or Flag Hill. But several were there in the station: enough to give those floors their name and let them keep it.

The Mandragorae Wing was almost a self-contained keep. Its corridors described a huge concrete rectangle around a central space, at the bottom of which was an unkempt garden, overgrown with darkwood trees and exotic woodland flowers. Children scampered along the paths and played in this sheltered park while their parents shopped or travelled or worked. The walls rose enormously around them, making the copse seem like moss at the bottom of a well.