He was surrounded by bricks and tarred beams. The sounds of the factory ships and the rig Sorghum ebbed behind him, losing him in the twists of the city. His tentacles swung, and moved very gently. They were wrapped in soothing brine-soaked bandages.

Last night, for the third time in succession, Shekel had not come home.

He was with Angevine again.

Tanner thought about Shekel and the woman, still a little shamed by his own jealousy. Jealous of Shekel or of Angevine-it was a knot of resentment too tangled for him to untie. He tried not to feel deserted, which he knew was not fair. He determined that he would look out for the boy no matter what, would keep a home for him for whenever he came back, would let him go with as much grace as Tanner could muster.

He was just sad that it had come so fast.

Tanner could see the masts of Grand Easterly dominating the skyline to star’d. Aerostats sailed like submersibles through the city’s rigging. He descended to Winterstraw Market and made his way over its little vessels accosted by vendors and jostled by early shoppers.

The water was very close to him here, just below his feet. It slopped all around him in the grooves between the boats that made up the bazaar, awash with rubbish. The smell and sound of it were strong.

He closed his eyes momentarily and imagined himself hovering in the cool saltwater. Descending, feeling the pressure increase as the sea cosseted him. His tentacles grasping at passing fish. Making sense of the mysteries of the city’s underside: the obscure dark shapes in the distance, the gardens of pulp and rockweed and algae.

Tanner felt his resolve waxing, and he walked more quickly.

In The Clockhouse Spur riding he almost became lost in the unfamiliar environs. He referred carefully to his hand-scrawled map. Tanner made his way along winding walkways stretched out over low boats, and across ornately reconfigured caravels, to the Duneroller, a fat old gunship. An unstable-looking tower tottered at the ship’s rear, tethered by guy ropes to the rigging.

This was a quiet quarter. Even the water coursing between these boats seemed subdued. This was a neighborhood of back-alley thaumaturges and apothecaries, the scientists of Booktown.

In the office at the top of the tower, Tanner looked out from the imperfectly cut window. He could see across the restless shipscape to the horizon that pitched gently, swung up and down in the window frame as the Duneroller listed with the sea.

There was no word in Salt for Remaking. Serious augmentation or change was not common. Major work-to ameliorate the effects of the New Crobuzon punishment factories or, rarely, for some more proactive purpose-relied on a handful of practitioners. Self-taught biothaumaturges, specialist doctors, and chirurgeons and-rumor held-a few exiles from New Crobuzon whose expertise had been gleaned years before in the punitive service of the state.