Eventually Bellis spoke. "Pirates?" she whispered.

"Possible." Johannes shrugged. "But the freebooters out here couldn’t take a ship our size, or with our guns. They go for smaller merchants, the wooden hulls. And if it’s privateers…" He pursed his lips. "Well, if they’re licensed by Figh Vadiso or wherever, then they just might have the firepower to engage us, but they’d be insane to risk war with New Crobuzon. The Pirate Wars are over, for Jabber’s sake!"

"Right!" the captain shouted. "This is your last warning." Four musketeers had stationed themselves at the rail. They took aim at the airborne visitor.

Instantly the sound of his motor changed. The man jerked and began to move erratically away from the ship.

"Fire, dammit!" shouted the captain, and the muskets sounded, but the man had sped up and away and beyond their aim. For a long time he receded, sinking slowly toward the horizon. Nothing was visible in the direction the aeronaut was headed.

"His ship must be twenty miles away or more," said Johannes. "It’ll take him at least an hour to reach it."

The captain was yelling at the crew, organizing them into units and arming them, stationing them around the ship’s edge. They fingered their rifles nervously, staring across the slowly moving sea.

Cumbershum trotted up toward the congregated passengers and ordered them back to their cabins or to the mess. His tone was curt.

"The Terpsichoria is more than a match for any pirate, and that scout could easily see that," he said. "But until we’re back behind the Fins, the captain insists that you remain out of the way of the crew. Now, please."

Bellis sat for a long while with her letter in her pocket. She smoked and drank water and tea in the half-empty mess. At first the air was tense, but after an hour fear had dissipated somewhat. She began to read.

And then there were muffled shouts and the vibration of running feet. Bellis spilled her dregs and ran with the other passengers to the window.

Racing toward them out of the sea were a handful of dark shapes.

Squat little ironclad scouts.

"They’re lunatics!" hissed Dr. Mollificatt. "There’s, what, five of them? They can’t take us!"

A shattering boom sounded from the deck of the Terpsichoria, and the sea yards in front of the leading boat exploded in a huge crater of steam and water.

"That’s a warning shot," someone said. "But they’re not turning."

The little craft drove on through the violent spray, hurtling suicidally toward the big iron ship. There was the sound of more running from above, more shouted orders.

"This is going to be hideous," grimaced Dr. Mollificatt, and as he spoke the Terpsichoria yawed violently with the grind of metal on metal.

In the hold, Tanner Sack fell violently across his neighbor. There was a massed shout of fear. As the Remade smacked into each other, scabs and infected flesh broke open. There were shrieks of pain.