“The moths are living in the Glasshouse, above the cactus people, in Riverskin.”

“Damn,” hissed Isaac, after a silence. “Are they animals? Or are they cunning? It’s inspired, whichever. Best damn place I can think of.”

“Why?” said Yagharek unexpectedly.

Isaac and Derkhan looked at him.

“New Crobuzon cactacae ain’t like the Cymek variety, Yag,” said Isaac. “Or rather, they are, and maybe that’s the problem. You’ve dealt with ‘em in Shankell, doubtless. You know what they’re like. Our cactus people here are a branch of those same desert cactacae who came north. I don’t know anything about the others, the mountain cactus, up in the steppes, east. But I do know the southern style, and their lifestyle never translated so well up here.” He paused and sighed and rubbed his head. He was exhausted and his head still ached. He had to concentrate, to think through the simmering memories of Lin just behind his eyes. He swallowed hard and continued.

“All that puffed-up hard-man stuff that rules the roost in Shankell starts looking a bit dubious up here. That’s why they built the Glasshouse, you ask my opinion. Have a nasty little bit of the Cymek in New Crobuzon. They got special dispensation in law when the Glasshouse was put up-gods only know what deals they had to cut to get that. Technically it’s an independent country. No entry for anyone without permission, including the militia. They’ve got their own laws in there, their own everything.

“Now, obviously, that’s a joke. You can bet your arse the Glasshouse wouldn’t mean shit without New Crobuzon. Masses of the cactacae troop out every day, go to work, surly buggers that they are, then take the shekels back to Riverskin. New Crobuzon owns the Glasshouse. And I don’t think for one minute the militia can’t go in any godsdamn time they choose. But Parliament and the city governors go through with this charade. You don’t just walk into the Glasshouse, Yag, and if you do get in…damned if I’d know what to expect in there.

“I mean, you do hear rumours. Some people have been inside, of course. And there are stories of what the militia have seen through the dome from above in their airships. But most of us-me included-have no real idea what goes on in there, or how to get in.”

“But we could get in,” said Derkhan. “Maybe Pigeon’ll crawl back, sniffing for your gold. Eh? And if he does, I bet he could get us in. You can’t tell me there’s no crime in the Glasshouse. I just don’t believe it.” She looked fierce. Her eyes were glinting with purpose. “Council,” she said, and turned towards the naked man. “Do you have any…of you…in the Glasshouse?”

The avatar shook his head.

“The cactus people do not use many constructs. None of me have been inside. That is why I cannot be exact about where the slake-moths are. Except that they sleep within that dome.”

As the avatar spoke, Isaac was hit by a sudden revelation.

He was mulling over the problem, thinking for ways into the Glasshouse, when he realized with astonishment that he could simply walk away from this. Lemuel’s exasperated advice came back to him: leave it to the professionals.

He had waved the suggestion off in irritation, but now he realized that he could choose to do exactly that. There were a thousand ways to tip off the militia without delivering himself to them: the state made informing easy. He knew now where the slake-moths were: he could tell the government, with all its might, its hunters and scientists, its massive resources. He could let them know where the slake-moths nested, and he could run. And the militia could hunt them for him, and they could recapture the monstrous things. The moth which had hunted him was gone: he had no special reason to be afraid.

The possibility struck him hard.

But it was never, even for a fraction of a second, a temptation.

Isaac remembered Vermishank’s interrogation. The man had tried not to show his fear, but it had been obvious he had no faith at all in the militia’s ability to catch the slake-moths. And now, in the Construct Council, for the first time Isaac was faced with a power that had shown it could kill these unthinkable predators. A power that was not working with the state, but rather that offered its services to him and his companions-or that commandeered their services for itself.

He was unsure of the Council’s motivations, its reasons for remaining hidden. But it was enough to know that this weapon could not be wielded by the militia. And it was the best chance the city had. He could not deny it that.

That was one thing.

But more powerful by far, deep-ingrained in his gut, was something more base. A hatred. He looked up at Derkhan and remembered why he was her friend. His mouth twisted.

I would not trust Rudgutter, he thought coldly, if the murdering bastard swore by his children’s souls.

If the state found the moths, Isaac realized, it would do everything in its power to recapture them. Because they were so damned valuable. They might be dragged out of the night skies, the danger might be contained again, but they would be locked up once more in some laboratory, hawked in another foul auction, returned to their commercial purpose.

Once again, they would be milked. And fed.

No matter how ill-suited he was to tracking the slake-moths down and destroying them, Isaac knew he would try. He would not be party to the alternatives.

They talked on, until the darkness began to leech from the eastern fringe of the sky. Tentative suggestions began to coalesce. They were all conditionals. But even hedged around with a hundred qualifications, the half-schemes grew and took shape. Slowly, a sequence of actions suggested itself. With a growing astonishment, Isaac and Derkhan realized that they had a kind of plan.

As they talked, the Council sent its mobile selves into the depths of the dump. They rummaged unseen among the mounds of trash, to re-emerge carrying bent wire, battered saucepans and colanders, even one or two broken helmets, and great glinting piles of mirror, savage random jags.

“Can you find a welder, or a metallo-thaumaturge?” asked the avatar. “You must make defensive helmets.” He described the mirrors that must be mounted before the lines of sight.

“Yeah,” said Isaac. “We’ll return tomorrow night to make the helmets. And then…then we have a day to…to ready ourselves. Before we go in.”

While the night was still fully ascendant, the various constructs began to creep away. They returned to their masters’ homes, early enough that their night’s journeys were unnoticed.

The daylight had spread and the occasional guttural sound of the trains increased. The raucous and filthy early morning dialogue of the barge-families began, shouted across the water on the other side of the rubbish. The early shifts of workers began to trudge into the factories and abase themselves before the vast chains, the steam engines and juddering hammers of those profane cathedrals.

There were only the five figures left in the clearing: Isaac and his companions; the ghastly lich that spoke for the Construct Council; and the looming Council itself, moving its segmented limbs sedately.

Isaac, Derkhan and Yagharek rose to go. They were exhausted and in varying degrees of pain, from knees and hands flayed by the barbed ground to Isaac’s still-shuddering head. They were smeared with muck and grime. They shed dust as thick as smoke. It was as if they burned.

They stashed the mirrors and the material to make helmets in a place they would remember in the dump. Isaac and Derkhan looked around in confusion at the landscape so utterly changed by daylight, its threatening demeanour become pathetic, the half-glimpsed looming forms revealed as broken prams and torn mattresses. Yagharek picked his bound feet up high, stumbling a little, and walked unerringly towards the pathway from where they had come.