NO , we read in her hand. NOT AT ALL , and REALLY? CF HARRIS ET AL , and LUNACY!! MAD!!!  and so on. Ashil took it from me.

“She understood Orciny better than anyone,” I said. “That’s where she kept the truth.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

“THEY’VE BOTH BEEN TRYING TO FIND OUT what’s happened to you,” Ashil said. “Corwi and Dhatt.”

“What did you tell them?”

A look: We don’t speak to them at all . That evening he brought me colour copies, bound, of every page, and inside and outside covers, of Mahalia’s Ul Qoma copy ofBetween . This was her notebook. With effort and attention, I could follow a particular line of reasoning from each tangled page, could track each of her readings in turn.

That evening Ashil walked with me in that both-cities. The sweep and curves of Ul Qoman byzanterie ajut over and around the low mittel –continental and middle-history brickwork of Besźel, its bas-relief figures of scarfed women and bombardiers, Besźel’s steamed food and dark breads fugging with the hot smells of Ul Qoma, colours of light and cloth around grey and basalt tones, sounds now both abrupt, schwa-staccatoed-sinuous and  throaty swallowing. Being in both cities had gone from being in Besźel and Ul Qoma to being in a third place, that nowhere-both, that Breach.

Everyone, in both cities, seemed tense. We had returned through the two crosshatched cities not to the offices where I had woken—they were in Rusai Bey in Ul Qoma or TushasProspekta in Besźel, I had back-figured-out—but to another, a middling-smart apartment with a concierge’s office, not too far from that larger HQ. On the top floor the rooms extended across what must be two or three buildings, and in the warrens of that, Breach came and went. There were anonymous bedrooms, kitchens, offices, outdated-looking computers, phones, locked cabinets. Terse men and women.

As the two cities had grown together, places, spaces had opened between them, or failed to be claimed, or been those controversial dissensi . Breach lived there.

“What if you get burgled? Doesn’t that happen?”

“Time to time.”

“Then …”

“Then they’re in Breach, and they’re ours.”

The women and men stayed busy, carrying out conversations that fluctuated through Besź, Illitan, and the third form. The featureless bedroom into which Ashil put me had bars on its windows, another camera somewhere, for sure. There was an en-suite toilet. He did not leave. Another two or three Breach joined us.

“Look at this,” I said. “You’re evidence this could all be real.” The interstitiality which made Orciny so absurd to most citizens of Besźel and Ul Qoma was not only possible but inevitable. Why would Breach disbelieve life could thrive in that little gap? The anxiety was now rather something like We have never seen them , a very different concern.

“It can’t be,” Ashil said.

“Ask your superiors. Ask the powers. I don’t know.” What other, higher or lower, powers were there in Breach? “You know we’re watched. Or they were—Mahalia, Yolanda, Bowden—by something somewhere.”

“There’s nothing linking the shooter to anything.” That was one of the others, speaking Illitan.

“Alright.” I shrugged. I spoke in Besź. “So he was just a random, very lucky right-winger. If you say so. Or maybe you think it’s insiles, doing this?” I said. None of them denied the existence of the fabled scavenging interstitial refugees. “They used Mahalia, and when they were done they killed her. They killed Yolanda, in a way exactly so you couldn’t chase them. As if of all the things in Besźel, Ul Qoma, or anywhere, what they’re most scared of is Breach.”

“But”—a woman pointed at me—“look what you did.”

“Breached?” I had given them a way in to whatever this war was. “Yes. What did Mahalia know? She worked something out about what they had planned. They killed her.” The overlaid glimmer of nighttime Ul Qoma and Besźel lit me through the window. I made my ominous point to a growing audience of Breach, their faces like owls’.

They locked me in overnight. I read Mahalia’s annotations. I could discern phases of annotation, though not in any pagewise chronology—all the notes were layered, a palimpsest of evolving interpretation. I did archaeology.

Early on, in the lowest layers of marks, her handwriting was more careful, the notes longer and neater, with more references to other writers and to her own essays. Her idiolect and unorthodox abbreviations made it hard to be sure. I started page on page trying to read, transcribe, those early thoughts. Mostly what I discerned was her anger.

I felt a something-stretched-out over the night streets. I wanted to talk to those I had known in Besźel or Ul Qoma, but I could only watch.

Whatever unseen bosses, if any, waited in the Breach’s bowels, it was Ashil who came for me again the next morning, found me going over and over those notes. He led me the length of a corridor to an office. I imagined running—no one seemed to be watching me. They would stop me, though. And if they did not, where would I go, hunted in-betweener refugee?

There were twelve or so Breach in the cramped room, sitting, standing, precarious on the edge of desks, low muttering in two or three languages. A discussion midway. Why was I shown this?

“… Gosharian says it hasn’t, he just called …”

“What about SusurStrász? Wasn’t there some talk …?”

“Yes, but everyone’s accounted for.”

This was a crisis meeting. Mutterings into phones, quick checks against lists. Ashil said to me, “Things are moving.” More people came and joined the talk.

“What now?” The question, spoken by a young woman wearing the headscarf of a married Besźel woman from a traditional family, was addressed to me, prisoner, condemned, consultant. I recognised her from the previous night. Silence went through the room, leaving itself behind, with all the people watching me. “Tell me again about when Mahalia was taken,” she said.

“Are you trying to close in on Orciny?” I said. I had nothing to suggest to her, though something felt close to my reach.

They continued their quick back-and-forth, using shorthands and slang I did not know, but I could tell they were debating each other, and I tried to understand over what—some strategy, some question of direction. Periodically everyone in the room murmured something final-sounding and paused, and raised or did not raise a hand, and glanced around to count how many did which.

“We have to understand what got us here,” Ashil said. “What would you do to find out what Mahalia knew?” His comrades were growing agitated, interrupting each other. I recalled Jaris and Yolanda talking about Mahalia’s anger at the end. I sat up hard.

“What is it?” Ashil said.

“We need to go to the dig.” I said. He regarded me.

“Ready with Tye,” Ashil said. “Coming with me.” Three-quarters of the room raised their hands briefly.

“Said my piece about him,” said the headscarfed woman, who did not raise hers.

“Heard,” Ashil said. “But.” He pointed her eyes around the room. She had lost a vote.

I left with Ashil. It was there on the streets, that something fraught.

“You feel this?” I said. He even nodded. “I need … can I call Dhatt?” I said.

“No. He’s still on leave. And if you see him …”

“Then?”

“You’re in Breach. Easier for him if you leave him alone. You’ll see people you know. Don’t put them in positions. They need to know where you are.”

“Bowden …”

“He’s under surveillance by militsya . For his protection. No one in Besźel or Ul Qoma can find any link between Yorjavic and him. Whoever tried to kill him—”

“Are we still saying it’s not Orciny? There’s no Orciny?”

“—might try again. The leaders of True Citizens are with the policzai . But if Yorj and any other of their members were some secret cell, they don’t seem to know. They’re angry about it. You saw the film.”