She walked her favorite route, along what had once been a corridor between ship’s cabins and was now an ivy-smothered canyon. The walls were studded with passion flowers, broken windows just visible beneath a mesh of roots. Where the old cabin-hills sank into the grassy surface and the pathway opened out into the sun, there was a fringe of pungent honeysuckle purring with bees.

This is a good moment,thought Bellis carefully as she walked, Johannes shy and wondering behind her. But you’ll have to spoil it in a moment, Johannes-you’ll have to speak.

And after some more minutes of flowers and grass, when the only sound was the vibrato of warm insects, he did.

They talked for a long time about the work below the city.

"I’ve been down in a submersible a couple of times," Johannes told her. "It’s extraordinary, Bellis. The speed with which they’re constructing it-it’s truly amazing."

"Well, I’ve seen the rate they’ve decommissioned the Terpsichoria, among others," she said. "I can just imagine."

Johannes was wary of her, still, but he was eager to feel the connection they had once had. She could feel him reaching to her, explaining away to himself any curtness she might display.

"You’ve not told me much about the island," he said.

Bellis sighed. "It was hard," she said. "I don’t relish discussing it." But she gave him a little more than that: told him of the excruciating heat, the constant fear, the gurning curiosity of the he-anophelii and the murderous hunger of their mates.

He tried to gauge her. She wondered whether he thought he was shrewd and subtle.

"They took Aum away, yesterday," she continued, and he turned to her, startled. "I’ve been teaching him Salt for a couple of weeks, that’s all. He learns at a rate that frightens me. He takes notes on everything I say-he’s already amassed enough for a textbook. But, still, I didn’t think he was capable of conversing without my help-not yet. But yesterday afternoon, when we’d concluded with Tintinnabulum and the engineers’ committee, they took him away and told me I wasn’t needed for a while.

"Perhaps their opinion of his Salt is higher than mine. Or perhaps one of their other High Kettai experts has practiced enough to come in useful." This she said with a superior sneer, and Johannes laughed briefly. "They’ve been telling me for some time that I’m to bring him to fluency in Salt at the very earliest possible time; that he’ll be needed for projects that don’t concern me. They’re trying to get rid of me."

She turned to Johannes and held his gaze. They were alone in a clearing, ringed by trees and briars, stunted spring roses.