“Chaverim,” he said to them. A category stolen from an old language. “Chaver,” they said back-comrade, equal, conspirator.

One Remade man, and it was the first time he had come. His arms were crossed at the wrists and were fused, and when he clenched and unclenched his fingers it was as if he imitated a bird.

There were two women from a sweatshop under the Skulkford railway arches, knit-machine workers, by a docker and a machinist, and a vodyanoi clerk in light-cloth mimicry of a human suit that he could wear in the water, complete with stitched-on tie. A cactus-man stood. The barrels of cheap beer and wine served as tables for dissident publications: a crumpled Shout, The Forge, and several copies of the best-known seditionist sheet, Runagate Rampant.

“Chaverim, I want to thank you for coming.” A middle-aged man spoke with calm authority. “I want to welcome our new friend Jack.” He nodded at the Remade. “War with Tesh. Militia infiltration. Free trade unions. The strike at Purrill’s Bakery. I’ve word on each of those. But I want to take a few minutes to talk about my approach-our approach, Double-R ’s approach-to the question of race.” He glanced at the vodyanoi, at the cactus-man, and began to speak.

It was these introductions, these discussions, that had first brought Ori close to the Runagate Rampant circles. He had bought a copy every fortnight for three months from a fruit-seller in Murkside, and eventually the man had asked him whether he was interested in talking through the issues covered, had directed Ori to these hidden meetings. Ori had been a regular, raising more points and objections, engaging with more enthusiasm-and eventually less-until after one meeting, while they were alone, with affecting trust the convenor had told Ori his real name, Curdin. Ori had responded, though like everyone they still went by Jack to each other within the meetings.

“Yes, yes,” Curdin was saying, “I think that’s right, Jack, but the question is why?”

Ori unfolded his Runagate Rampant, read it in snippets. Exhortations for unity in action that he had seen before, angry and illuminating analyses, columns and columns of strikes. Each workplace, each two or three people who had put their tools down, won or lost, a gathering of twenty or a hundred, a half-hour walkout, the disappearance of every guildsmember or suspected unioner. A catalogue of every dispute, murderous or paltry. It bored him.

There were stories missing. Ori’s frustrations with the meet-ings was growing. Nothing was happening here. It was elsewhere, though, fleetingly. As in Fallybeggar’s.

He tapped his Runagate Rampant. “Where’s Toro?” he said. “Toro took another one. I heard it. In Chnum. Him and his crew took out the guards, shot the magister that lived there. Why’s that not in here?”

“Jack… it’s clear what we say about Toro,” Curdin said. “We had the column last-but-one issue. We don’t… it ain’t the way we’d do things…”

“I know, Jack, I know. You criticise. Carp at him.”

The convenor said nothing.

“Toro’s out there and he’s doing something, yeah? He’s fighting, and he’s not waiting like you keep waiting. And you sit and wait, and tell him he’s getting ahead of himself?”

“It’s not like that. I won’t snip at anyone fighting the magisters, or the militia, or the Mayor, but Toro can’t change things on his own, or with his little crew, Jack…”

“Yeah but he’s changing something.”

“Not enough.”

“But he’s changing something. ”

Ori respected Curdin, had learnt so much from him and his pamphlets, he did not want to alienate him. But the complacency of his convenor had begun to infuriate him. The man was more than twice his age-was he just old? They sat and glowered at each other wordlessly while the others looked back and forth between them.

Afterward Ori apologised for his bad temper. “It’s nothing to me,” said Curdin. “Be as rude as you want. But I tell you the truth, Jack”-they were alone and he corrected himself-“I tell you the truth, Ori. I’m worried. Seems to me you’re going down a certain road. All your plays and puppets…” He shook his head and sighed. “I ain’t against it, I swear to you, I heard what happened at Fallybeggar’s and, you know, good on you, on your friends. But shock and shooting ain’t enough. Let me ask you something. Your friends the Flexible Puppeteers-why’d they choose that name?”

“You know why.”

“No I don’t. I know it’s a homage, and I’m glad for that, but why him, why not Seshech or Billy le Ginsen, why not Poppy Lutkin?”

“Because we’d get arrested if we tried that.”

“Don’t play stupid, lad. You know what I mean-there’s scores of names you could’ve chose to send a message, to piss in the Mayor’s bath, but you honoured him. The founding editor of Runagate Rampant -not The Forge or Toilers’ War or The Bodkin. Why him?” Curdin tapped his paper against his thigh. “I’ll tell you why, lad-whether you know it or not, he’s the one scares the powers. Because he was right. About factions, about war, about the plurality. And Bill and Poppy and Neckling Verdant, and them others-Toro, Ori, Toro and his band and all, even Jack Half-a-Prayer-good people, chaverim, but on stuff like this their strategy’s for shit. Ben was right, and Toro’s wrong.”

Ori heard arrogance, or commitment, or fervour, or analysis in Curdin’s voice. Angry as he was, he did not care to disentangle them.

“You going to sneer at Half-a-Prayer now?”

“I didn’t mean that, I ain’t saying that…”

“Godspit, who you think you are? Toro’s doing things, Curdin. He’s making things happen. You-you’re talking, Double-R ’s just talking. And Benjamin Flex is dead. Been dead for a long time.”

“You ain’t being fair,” he heard Curdin say. “You ain’t hardly got fluff on your chin, and you’re telling me about Benjamin Flex, for Jabber’s sake.” And his voice was not unkind. He meant it lightly, but Ori was outraged.

“At least I done something!” he shouted. “At least I’m doing something. ”

CHAPTER EIGHT

No one seemed to know what had started the war with Tesh. The Runagaters had their theories, and there were official stories and the unseen machinations behind them, but among Ori’s circle no one knew quite what had started it, or even exactly when it had begun.

As the long recession had bitten, years before, merchant ships from New Crobuzon had started returning to dock reporting piratical manoeuvres against them, sudden brigandry from unknown ships. The city’s exploration and its trade were under attack. History was marked by New Crobuzon’s oscillations between autarky and engagement, but never, its wounded captains said, had its emergence into mercantilism been so punished, so unexpectedly.

After centuries of uncertainty and strange relations, the city had made understandings with the Witchocracy, and the passage of New Crobuzon ships through the Firewater Straits had been unhindered. So a sea-route was open to the grasslands and islands, the legendary places on the far side of the continent. Ships came back and said they had been to Maru’ahm. They sailed for years and brought back jewelled cakes from thousands of miles away, from the crocodile double-city called The Brothers. And then the piracy had begun, hard, and New Crobuzon came slowly to understand that it was being attacked.

The arcane Tesh ships, the barquentines and dandy catboats all raggedy with coloured cloth, whose crews wore henna and filed their teeth, had ceased coming to New Crobuzon’s docks. There was a rumour that through long-disused channels, Tesh’s secret and hidden ambassador had told the Mayor that their two states were at war.