Night falls, I go to the rail for some air. Up into the air, back down out of the air. Back up into the air, back down out of the air, always pursued by distaste. There is a ragged blue satin band on the horizon between the clouds and the black water. The ship is turning into a huge solid shadow, tricked out in a constellation of little lamps. Their light seems to twirl in the wind, and creates intimate, miniature islands in all the howling wildness. I’m not sick, only leaning.

I hear footsteps, and suddenly Saskia is beside me. Her hand drops heavily onto my shoulder.

“Don’t be forgetful, narrator,” she says. “You will remember it all, won’t you?”

“Sure. Sure I will.”

She’s looking earnestly at me. I imagine she’s thinks she’s improving my morale. Has she been tapping each of the officers in turn?

That hand pats my shoulder twice, firmly.

“You will have the distinction of witnessing our glorious triumphs against the usurper, and the just punishment of traitors; and you will have the honor of telling all the world about it. And don’t worry—” she raises a finger—“All are equal together in this great task. No one will hold your color against you. There is no room for bigotry amongst us.”

She strides away.

I look out over the grain of the water, forgetting all about her, and a pang goes through me. I’m thinking miserably about the school, Twisse and Spiena, that each passing triangular wafer of water is separating me from. From whom each passing etc. I see the Edek’s eyes glare like two cold suns—they dilate at me through holes ripped in the air, and I gasp with fear and unhappiness.

*

Jil Punkinflake tells me how Thrushchurl had been institutionalized after he set fire to a wing of the Embalmer’s College.

“He kept seeing mice everywhere. Of course, there were a few. But the ones he saw were in the corners of his eyes, not in the rooms. I think he set the fire to get rid of them.

“I wasn’t in attendance at the time,” he adds. “Anyway, we should keep an eye on him ...”

He looks at me seriously.

“Just in case ...” he adds, and his face goes a little irregular. “I don’t mistrust him—I’m just thinking of the safety of the unit.”

Thrushchurl has taken up residence under some stairs; his long knees and shanks protrude into the light. I’m looking, not watching. He’s removed his silk hat; his backswept hair, split up the middle, is still pressed into a winglike pair of pancakes. The yellow gleam of his fluorescent grin is intermittently exposed, while he turns this way and that, his back to the wall, straightening out blankets, and pausing motionless from time to time, peering into a corner, or at the line where the wall meets the floor.