"They’re dangerous," said Bellis simply. "They’re fanatics. I’ve no idea if they can really cross the Empty Ocean, but godspit! I do not want to find out. I… I’ve heard them, Silas, when they’re alone." He looked at her piercingly, but did not ask her how. "I know what they’re like. I’m not letting people like that-visionaries, gods help us-command me to the other end of the world, to a place that may not even exist, and that if it does is the most deadly place in Bas-Lag. We’d be traveling further and farther from New Crobuzon. And I’ve still not given up on getting back there."

Bellis realized she was shaking at the thought of leaving her home so far behind. And if Uther and the others were right? If they survived the crossing?

A multitude of possibilities. The thought chilled her. She found it utterly threatening, existentially undermining. It made her feel so completely contingent that it offended and frightened her.

Like some waterhole in the veldt,she thought unclearly, where the weak and the strong and predatory drink together in a truce: the gazelle, the wildebeest, the mafadet, and the lion. All the possibilities lined up together in fucking harmony, and the winner, the strongest, the fact , the real, letting the others that have failed live, letting them all live. Pacifist and pathetic.

"That’s why they’re not telling," she said. "They know people won’t stand for it."

"They’re afraid," Silas murmured.

"The Lovers are strong," said Bellis, "but they couldn’t face all the other ridings. And, more to the point, they couldn’t face their own people."

"Revolt," breathed Silas, and Bellis smiled without humor.

" Mutiny," she said. "They’re afraid of mutiny. And that’s why we need Simon Fench."

Silas nodded slowly; then there was a long silence.

"He’s got to spread the word," he said eventually. "Pamphlets, rumors, and all. That’s what he does best; I can make sure he does that."

"I’m sorry, Bellis," Silas said when she stood to go. "I’ve not been a great friend. I’ve been so… Things have been busy, and difficult. I was rude when I saw you, and I’m sorry."

Observing him, Bellis felt dislike-as well, paradoxically, as the last faint stirrings of what had once been affection. Like a shred of memory.

"Silas," she said, smiling coldly, "we owe each other nothing. And we’re not friends. But we have a shared interest in the Lovers’ failing. And I can’t stop it, and it’s just possible that you might be able to. I expect you to try, and to tell me what’s happening, and that’s all. That’s all the communication I expect from you. I don’t want you to contact me as a friend."