Mortal Engines

“‘Never forget, Apprentices, that we Historians are the most important Guild in our city. We don't make as much money as the Merchants but we create knowledge, which is worth a great deal more. We may not be responsible for steering London, like the Navigators, but where would the Navigators be if we hadn't preserved the ancient maps and charts? And as for the Guild of Engineers, just remember that every machine they have ever developed is based on some fragment of Old Tech—ancient high technology that our museum keepers have preserved or our archaeologists have dug up.’”

Tom remembers Valentine giving this speech several years ago. When taken beside Valentine’s character, his words show that he’s an excellent motivational speaker. He’s in league with Crome and the Guild of Engineers, but he builds up the influence of the Guild of Historians, making them sound equal to the Engineers, when the Engineers believe the opposite. This speech also might represent how Valentine truly feels and indicate that his actions throughout the book were a mask he donned for his and Katherine’s survival. Regardless of Valentine’s feelings, he points to the importance of preserving the past to inform and guide the future.

“A hundred miles ahead the sunrise shone on Circle Park, the elegant loop of lawns and flower beds that encircled Tier One. It gleamed in ornamental lakes and on pathways glistening with dew, and it glittered on the white metal spires of Clio House, Valentine’s villa, which stood among dark cedars at the park’s edge like some gigantic conch shell abandoned by a freak high tide.”

Tier One—where Valentine and Katherine live—is London’s second-lowest tier, below the Top Tier. This description reveals the beautifully manicured environment their privilege gives them. This description starkly contrasts with the deplorable conditions on the lower tiers and in the city’s Gut. Clio House is named after the goddess Clio from Greek mythology, one of the nine Muses and the patron of history. Reeve doesn’t indicate whether the house was so named because Valentine is leader of the Guild of History or if the name is ironic.

“‘How do you know about Valentine?’ asked Tom.

‘Oh, everyone has heard about Thaddeus Valentine.’ She laughed. ‘I know that he is London's greatest Historian, and I also know that that is just a cover for his real work: as Crome's secret agent.’

‘That's not true!’ Tom started to say, still instinctively defending his ex-hero. But there had always been rumors that Valentine’s expeditions involved something darker than mere archaeology, and now that he had seen the great man's ruthless handiwork, he believed them. He blushed, ashamed for Valentine, and ashamed of himself for having loved him.”

This conversation between Tom and Anna Fang is the first time Tom consciously admits to himself that Valentine isn’t the hero he wants the man to be. Previously, Hester tried to tell Tom about Valentine’s dark side, but Tom didn’t listen because he wasn’t ready to hear the truth and because he, consciously or subconsciously, considered her too biased against Valentine to admit anything good about him. Hearing similar accounts from Fang forces Tom to confront his deepest suspicions. Fang hasn’t been directly wronged by Valentine and thus, to Tom, is a more reliable source.

“‘HESTER SHAW!’ screeched a voice like a saw cutting metal. Over by the doorway a sudden cloud of vapor bloomed, and out of it stepped a Stalker.

It was seven feet tall, and beneath its coat shone metal armor. The flesh of its long face was pale, glistening with a sluglike film of mucus, and here and there a blue-white jag of bone showed through the skin. Its mouth was a slot full of metal teeth. Its nose and the top of its head were covered by a long metal skullpiece with tubes and electric cords trailing down like dreadlocks, their ends plugged into ports on its chest. Its round glass eyes gave it a startled look, as if it had never got over the horrible surprise of what had happened to it.

Because that was the worst thing about the Stalkers: They had been human once, and somewhere beneath that iron cowl a human brain was trapped.”

Grike arrives at the restaurant on Airhaven, and Tom gets his first good look at the Stalker. Grike’s description highlights a few things about Stalkers and how they’re made. First, the exposed tubes and wires show that even during the time of the ancients, integrating technology with human life was a messy process. Second, the remnants of flesh and bone suggest that the formation of Stalkers weren’t formed with care—as long as they worked, their appearance wasn’t important. The final paragraph reveals that Stalkers were once human—and calls into question whether Stalkers are alive or not in the sense of consciousness. The book later clarifies that a person must die to be resurrected as a Stalker, but no consideration is given to whether or not resurrection grants Stalkers actual life or simply an existence powered by technology that causes electrical impulses harnessed from a restarted brain and heart.

“And what about Anna Fang? He realized that Grike had probably murdered her, along with all her friends. That kind, laughing aviatrix was dead, as dead as his own parents. It was as if there were a curse on him that destroyed everybody who was kind to him. If only he had never met Valentine! If only he had stayed safely in the Museum, where he belonged!”

Tom’s thoughts follows Grike’s attack at Airhaven. He has lived through things he has no frame of reference for and is trying to puzzle out how to feel about the violence and possible death of people he knew and liked. He goes through a cycle of blaming himself and his actions, even though he has no proof these events can be linked back to his choice to leave the museum. Crome might have sent Grike out after Hester regardless of Tom’s involvement, and the events of Airhaven may have played out the same way.

“Ever since Nikolas Quirke had been declared a god, most Londoners had stopped giving much thought to the older gods and goddesses, and so Katherine had the temple to herself. She liked Clio, who had been her mother’s goddess back in Puerto Angeles, and whose statue looked a bit like Mama too, with its kind dark eyes and patient smile. She remembered what Mama had taught her, about how the poor goddess was being blown constantly backward into the future by the storm of progress, but how she could reach back sometimes and inspire people to change the whole course of history.”

Katherine sits in the Temple of Clio, puzzling over what’s troubling her father. She takes strength from Clio’s battles with progress, which ultimately help her see past Crome’s lies. These lines offer additional context into the world’s history. Nikolas Quirke (whose real name is Nikola Quercus) is a former mayor from London’s time as a static city and is referenced in the prequel books to the Hungry City Chronicles. Quirke is credited with inventing traction cities even though he wasn’t actually responsible for the idea, showing again how time distorts facts. Why his name was changed in the histories isn’t mentioned.

“He has been driven far down into the mud like a screaming tent peg, ground and crushed and twisted. His left arm hangs by a few frayed wires; his right leg will not move. One of his eyes is dark and blind, and the view from the other is cloudy, so that he has to keep twitching his head to clear it. Bits of his memory have vanished, but others come up unbidden. As he wades out of the suburb’s wheel marks, he remembers the ancient wars that he was built for. At Hill 20 the Tesla runs crackled like iced lightning, wrapping him in fire until his flesh began to fry on his iron bones. But he survived. He is the last of the Lazarus Brigade, and he always survives. It will take a lot more than being run over by a couple of towns to finish Grike.

Slowly, slowly, he claws his way to firmer ground, and sniffs and scouts and scans until he is sure that Hester escaped alive. He feels very proud of her. His heart’s desire! Soon he will find her again, and the loneliness of his everlasting life will be over.”

Grike has emerged from the marshes after being run over by the pirate suburb on which Tom and Hester hitched a ride. Grike’s condition, coupled with his ability to continue the hunt, show the unstoppable nature of Stalkers. Even battered and half-broken as he is, he can still move and gather information. The bits and pieces of memory are yet more context about the world before the war. Tesla may refer either to Nikola Tesla the scientist or to the company Tesla, which may have lasted to the time of the war and provided weapons and vehicles. Lazarus is a figure from the Bible, showing how the Christian religion persisted to the time of the war.

“‘It’s appalling,’ agreed Nimmo. ‘The sort of prisoners we are being sent these days are just too feeble. If the Guild of Merchants made more of an effort to solve the food shortage, they might be a bit healthier, or if the Navigators stopped lazing about and tracked down some decent prey for once. But I think you have seen enough, Miss Valentine. Kindly ask Apprentice Pod whatever it is your father wishes to know, and I shall take you back to the elevators.’”

Nimmo is a supervisor in the Gut and appears in this one scene, in which Katherine ventures to the Gut to find Bevis and ask about her father. These lines come after one of the convict Gut workers is fished out of a waste tank and dies. Nimmo’s disregard for the convict’s life comments on how companies often see employees as little more than disposable commodities. Nimmo’s readiness to blame everyone else for the state of the Gut’s workers implies that he doesn’t take responsibility for the people he oversees and contrasts with Katherine’s sheltered life of importance.

“He gave Tom and Hester a guided tour of the Town Hall and introduced them to his ‘councillors,’ a rough-looking gang with names to match: Janny Maggs and Thick Mungo and Stadtsfesser Zeb, Pogo Nadgers and Zip Risky and the Traktiongrad Kid. Then it was time for afternoon tea in his private quarters, a room full of looted treasures high in the Town Hall where his rabble of whining, snot-nosed children kept getting under everybody’s feet. His eldest daughter, Cortina, brought tea in delicate porcelain cups, and cucumber sandwiches on a blast-glass tray. She was a dim, terrified girl with watery blue eyes, and when her father saw that she hadn’t cut the crusts off the sandwiches, he knocked her backward over the ottoman. ‘Thomas ’ere is from LONDON!’ he shouted, hurling the sandwiches at her. ‘He expects things POSH! And you should have done ’em in little TRIANGLES!’

‘What can you do?’ he said plaintively, turning to Tom. ‘I’ve tried to brung her up ladylike, but she won’t learn. She’s a good girl, though. I look at her sometimes and almost wish I hadn't shot her mum...’ He sniffed and dabbed at his eyes with a huge skull-and-crossbones hanky, and Cortina came trembling back with fresh sandwiches.”

This passage comes shortly after the mayor of the pirate suburb realizes that Tom is from London. The pirate suburb is a parody of “proper” London society and meant to show the peculiarities of posh living. Anyone from the mayor’s idea of upper-crust London who set foot on his suburb would find the place distasteful and lowbrow. The mayor comes across almost as a child playing dress-up. He has given himself a proper title and assigned some of his people as counsellors, even though little mayoring or counseling is likely done. The skull-and-crossbones handkerchief shows that no matter how poshly he tries to act, he’s still a pirate.

“‘I’m glad you came, Miss. I’ve been wanting to talk to you ever since you come down to Section Sixty, but I didn’t want the Guild to know I’d been in touch with you. They don’t like us talking to outsiders. But I’ve got the day off ’cos they're preparing for a big meeting, so I came up here. You don’t see many Engineers eating in here.’

‘I’m not surprised,’ said Katherine to herself looking at the menu. There was a big color picture of something called a ‘Cheery Meal,’ a wedge of impossibly pink meat sandwiched between two rounds of algae bread. She ordered mint tea. It came in a glastic tumbler and tasted of chemicals. ‘Are all Tier Five restaurants like this?’

‘Oh, no,’ said Bevis Pod. ‘This one’s much nicer than the rest.’”

Katherine meets with Bevis on Tier Five. Although it’s only four tiers beneath her home, the difference in quality of life is apparent from the sad-looking food and chemical-tasting drink. The “Cheery Meal” is likely a reference to the McDonald’s “Happy Meal”—and comments on the state of fast food in 2001, when Mortal Engines was published. Katherine and Bevis’s opinions of the restaurant show the difference that privilege makes in worldview. As a high-society person, Katherine is disgusted by the restaurant, but Bevis, as an Engineer from the lower tiers, rarely eats in such a nice place.

“It had taken almost two weeks for Tunbridge Wheels to pick its slow way through the quagmire, and although Chrysler Peavey had taken quite a shine to Tom, he had still not explained what he hoped to find on the far side. His men had not been told either, but they were happy enough snapping up the tiny townships that had taken shelter in the mazes of the Rustwater, semi-static places with moss-covered wheels and delicate, beautiful carvings on their wooden upperworks. They were so small that they were barely worth eating, but Tunbridge Wheels ate them anyway, and murdered or enslaved their people, and fed the lovely carvings to its furnaces.

It was a horrible, confusing time for Tom. He had been brought up to believe that Municipal Darwinism was a noble, beautiful system, but he could see nothing noble or beautiful about Tunbridge Wheels.”

Tunbridge Wheels is the pirate suburb, and this passage sums up the two weeks that Tom and Hester spend aboard the town. The suburb’s eating patterns show how some towns are worse than London. Whereas London hunts to keep itself moving and uses what it can from the prey it devours, the suburb hunts for the sake of hunting and gives no thought to the people or towns it eats. The semi-static towns referenced here aren’t described; possibly, part of the town moves and returns to the static part with supplies.

“‘We’re going to Airhaven, aren’t we?’ she replied in a whisper. ‘It’s laired up ahead somewhere, and Peavey’s little gang will never take it, not with the Mossies and the Airhaven people ranged against them. They’ll be killed, and we’ll find a ship to take us north to London. Anna Fang’s there, remember. She might help us again.’

‘Oh, her!’ said Tom angrily. ‘Didn’t you hear what Peavey said? She’s a League spy.’

‘I thought so,’ admitted Hester. ‘I mean, all those questions she kept asking us about London, and Valentine.’

‘You should have told me!’ he protested. ‘I might have revealed an important secret!’

‘Why would I care?’ asked Hester. ‘And since when have Apprentice Historians known any important secrets? Anyway, I thought you realized she was a spy.’

‘She didn’t look like one.’

‘Well, spies don’t, generally. You can’t expect them to wear a big sandwich board with ‘SPY’ on it, or a special spying hat.’”

Tom and Hester have this conversation as the pirate suburb approaches the Sea of Khazak on its way to the Black Island. Tom still holds anger for the Anti-Traction League, as evident in his disdain for Fang and his resentment at not knowing she was a spy. Hester is teasing Tom about not being able to tell people are spies by their looks, but the points she makes are valid. Tom’s belief that he could tell a spy just by looking at them reflects his sheltered upbringing and the notion that Anti-Tractionists are so different that their static beliefs show in everything they do. In reality, Anti-Tractionists are no different than Tom—something he’s just starting to realize here.

“Katherine had spent the whole day restlessly waiting for Bevis to arrive with her disguise. To while away the time, she had looked up the name Hester Shaw in the indexes of all her father's books but couldn’t find it. A Complete Catalogue of the London Museum contained one brief reference to a Pandora Shaw, but it just said she was an Out-Country scavenger who had supplied a few minor fossils and pieces of Old Tech to the Historians’ Guild, and gave the date of her death, seven years ago. After that she tried looking up MEDUSA, only to learn that it was some sort of monster in an old story. She didn’t think Magnus Crome and his Engineers believed in monsters.”

Katherine does research while waiting to sneak into the Engineers’ meeting where MEDUSA will be revealed. The lack of information about Hester and her mother shows how history is controlled by those with power. Pandora was Valentine’s assistant and likely made significant contributions to history and archeology in her own right, but to keep Valentine’s past a secret, those contributions are reduced to a footnote in London’s official account of history. Likewise, mention of the weapon MEDUSA and any research surrounding it is kept out of the public’s reach. This is the only place in the novel where MEDUSA is likened to the gorgon from Greek mythology. Perhaps the weapon was given this name because it’s meant to instill fear and destroy all before it. In myth, MEDUSA’s name was believed to mean “the Guardian,” so the weapon may be seen as the guardian of London’s safety and future.

“He sat up, wincing at the sharp pain in his chest and the memory of all that had happened. ‘I’m not going anywhere with you,’ he said.

The aviatrix laughed as if she thought he was joking, then realized he wasn't and sat down on the bed, looking concerned. ‘Tom? Have I done something to upset you?’

‘You work for the League!’ he said angrily. ‘You’re a spy, no better than Valentine! You only helped us because you hoped we’d tell you things about London!’

Miss Fang's smile faded entirely. ‘Tom,’ she said gently, ‘I helped you because I like you. And if you had seen your family slave to death aboard a ruthless city, might you not have decided to help the League in its fight against Municipal Darwinism?’

She reached out to brush the tousled hair away from his forehead, and Tom remembered something he had forgotten, a time when he was little and very ill and his mother had sat with him like this. But the badge of the League was still on Miss Fang’s breast, and the wound of Valentine’s betrayal was still raw: He would not let himself be tricked by smiles and kindness again. ‘You kill people!’ he said, pushing her hand away. ‘You sank Marseilles...’

‘If I had not, it would have attacked the Hundred Islands, killing or enslaving hundreds more people than I drowned with my little bomb.’

‘And you strangled the...the Someone of Somewhere-or-Other!’

‘The Sultana of Palau Pinang?’ The smile came flickering back. ‘I didn’t strangle her! What a horrible suggestion! I simply broke her neck. She let amphibious raft cities refuel at her island, so she had to be disposed of.’

Tom didn't see that it was anything to smile about. He remembered Wreyland’s men slumped in the shadows of the air quay at Stayns, and Miss Fang telling him they were just unconscious.

‘I may be no better than Valentine,’ she went on, ‘but there is a difference between us. Valentine tried to kill you, and I want to keep you alive. So will you come with me?’”

This exchange between Tom and Fang follows MEDUSA’s test and Grike’s death. Tom has just fought with Hester and witnessed the far-reaching effects of MEDUSA. As a result, he’s feeling fragile and unable to trust anyone, especially someone he thinks lied to him and betrayed him. Fang’s explanations for her actions show that she’s both dedicated and ruthless. She doesn’t shy away from what she saw as necessary to the Anti-Traction League’s goals, but she doesn’t take pride in the destruction either. She sees the wrongness of war but is dedicated to doing what she believes is right, something Tom’s uncomfortable with because he’s still working out his feelings about traction and static cities.

“‘We’ve been talking about the destruction of Panzerstadt-Bayreuth,’ said Pomeroy, pressing a hot mug of cocoa into her hands. ‘This horrible MEDUSA device.’

‘Everybody else seems to think it’s wonderful,’ said Katherine bitterly. ‘I could hear them laughing and shouting “Good old Crome!” half the night. I know they’re relieved that we didn’t get eaten, but...Well, I don't think blowing up another city is anything to be happy about.’

‘It’s a disaster!’ agreed old Dr. Arkengarth, wringing his bony hands. ‘The vibrations from that vile machine played havoc with my ceramics!’

‘Oh, bother your ceramics, Arkengarth,’ snapped Pomeroy, who could see how upset Katherine was. ‘What about Panzerstadt-Bayreuth? Burned to a cinder!’

‘That’s what comes of the Engineers’ obsession with Old Tech!’ said Professor Pewtertide. ‘Countless centuries of history to learn from, and all they are interested in is a few ancient machines!’

‘And what did the Ancients ever achieve with their devices anyway?’ whined Arkengarth. ‘They just made a horrible mess of their world and then blew themselves up!’”

Katherine meets with the Guild of Historians the morning after MEDUSA’s trial. While most of London is enthusiastic about having such power at the city’s fingertips, Katherine and the Historians see the real danger of MEDUSA—both to London and to its victims. The final lines of this passage get to the heart of the difference between the Historians and the Engineers. The Historians respect all history, whether it has mechanical application or not, and they learn from art, literature, and science. By contrast, the Engineers are interested only in the pieces of history they can use as weapons. To the Guild of Engineers, the people of the past are only good for what they offer that will give London an advantage. The Engineers don’t see those people as fully human but rather as a society that mastered greater technology that must be harnessed for London’s welfare.

“THE WORLD WAS CHANGING. That was nothing new, of course; the first thing an Apprentice Historian learned was that the world was always changing, but now it was changing so fast that you could actually see it happening. Looking down from the flight deck of the Jenny Haniver, Tom saw the wide plains of the Eastern Hunting Ground speckled with speeding towns, spurred into flight by whatever it was that had bruised the northern sky, heading away from it as fast as their tracks or wheels could carry them, too preoccupied to try to catch each other.”

Tom’s thoughts after MEDUSA’s test speak to the nature of history. History may move along at a snail’s pace for years, where little happens and life just goes on. However, a single event, such as the launch of MEDUSA, can change the speed and trajectory of history. When looking back on such events, they seem as if they occurred in a blink, but here, Tom is experiencing the harrowing uncertainty of not knowing how history will one day depict these moments. The towns running from London and ignoring one another show MEDUSA’s effect on Municipal Darwinism. Rather than hunt for resources, the towns are more concerned with making sure they aren’t the next victim, which is very different from the desperation of predator towns to find prey in earlier chapters.

“Alone, he mooched down to the terrace where the taxi-balloons waited and sat on a stone bench there, feeling angry and betrayed and thinking of things that he should have said to Miss Fang, if only he had thought of them in time. Below him the rooftops and terraces of Batmunkh Gompa stretched away into the shadows below the white shoulders of the mountains, and he found himself trying to imagine what it must be like to live here and wake up every day of your life to the same view. Didn’t the people of the Shield-Wall long for movement and a change of scene? How did they dream, without the grumbling vibrations of a city’s engines to rock them to sleep? Did they love this place? And suddenly he felt terribly sad that the whole bustling, colorful, ancient city might soon be rubble under London’s tracks.”

Tom’s thoughts reveal the moment when he rejects traction life as the right way to live. His entire life aboard London got him used to moving, constant sound, and what he believes everyone must need to feel normal. Sitting in the static city and watching its people thrive, Tom realizes that the stillness and certainty of static life is just as important to these people as movement was to him. Just because something is different doesn’t mean it’s wrong or should be destroyed.

“Tom didn't know what to feel. He was frightened, of course, to be so close to the man who had tried to murder him, but at the same time he was thrilled by Valentine’s daring. What courage it must have taken to sneak into the great stronghold of the League, under the very noses of London’s enemies! It was the sort of adventure that Valentine had written about, in books that Tom had read again and again, huddled under the blankets in the Third Class Apprentices’ dorm with a flashlight, long after lights-out.”

Tom has just realized that Valentine is disguised as a monk and wandering the streets of Batmunkh Gompa. Even though Tom has come to see Valentine for the villain he is, he still has respect for Valentine’s bravery and daring. Tom’s attitude speaks to separating people from their actions or creators from their creations. Tom can still respect Valentine’s traits without respecting Valentine himself. The same goes for most situations where we might disagree with another person’s ideals or beliefs. We can appreciate a person’s beliefs without agreeing with them. Even when a person uses those beliefs to harm others, their dedication can still be respected—but respecting differences is vastly more difficult when those they’re used for harm, which Tom discovers when he realizes that Valentine is there to destroy the airship fleet.

“‘Gentlemen,’ said Pomeroy nervously, ‘you are on the property of the Guild of Historians. I suggest that you unhand those young people immediately.’

‘Immediately!’ agreed Dr. Karuna, training her dusty musket on the red wheel between Vambrace’s eyebrows.

The Engineer began to laugh. ‘You old fools! Do you think you can defy us? Your Guild will be disbanded because of what you’ve done here today. Your silly trifles and trinkets will be fed to the furnaces, and your bodies will be broken on engines of pain in the Deep Gut. We’ll make you history, since history is all you care about! We are the Guild of Engineers! We are the future!’”

Pomeroy and the rest of the Historians stand up against the Engineers, who’ve arrested Katherine and Bevis. Throughout the novel, Katherine grapples with her privilege and how others live in such terrible conditions while she’s afforded luxury. The words of the Engineer here show another way that privilege can affect those who have it. Rather than seeing disparities and wanting to do better, the Engineer believes that his privilege puts him above others and always will. His belief in the future as the most important thing prevents him from recognizing the Historians’ contributions—or any perspective but his own.

“It was bigger than he remembered, and much uglier. Strange how when he’d lived there, he had believed everything the Goggle Screens told him about the city’s elegant lines, its perfect beauty. Now he saw that it was ugly—no better than any other town, just bigger: a storm front of smoke and belching chimneys, a wave of darkness rolling toward the mountains, with the white villas of High London surfing on its crest like some delicate ship. It didn’t look like home.”

Tom sees London from the outside for the first time. The city looks nothing like the elegant marvel of construction he was told it was, and he realizes that much of what he knew living aboard the city was a lie. Other than propaganda, there was no reason for Tom to believe that London was any more beautiful than other traction cities. London still had to travel, eat, and dispose of waste like other towns, but he wanted to believe that he knew the truth and so never questioned what he was told. The final line of this quotation shows how Tom has moved on from his old life. London doesn’t look like the place he thought it was, and it isn’t the home he thought he had.

“‘Think, Lord Mayor. How long will a new hunting ground support us? A thousand years? Two thousand? One day there will be no more prey left anywhere, and London will have to stop moving. Perhaps we should accept it; stop now, before any more innocent people are killed; take what you have learned from MEDUSA and use it for peaceful purposes...’

Crome smiles. ‘Do you really think I am so short-sighted?’ he asks. ‘The Guild of Engineers plans further ahead than you suspect. London will never stop moving. Movement is life. When we have devoured the last wandering city and demolished the last static settlement, we will begin digging. We will build great engines, powered by the heat of the earth’s core, and steer our planet from its orbit. We will devour Mars, Venus, and the asteroids. We shall devour the sun itself, and then sail on across the gulf of space. A million years from now our city will still be traveling, no longer hunting towns to eat, but whole new worlds!’”

This exchange between Valentine and Crome comes shortly before the second and final time MEDUSA is fired. Valentine recently fought with Katherine about his past and MEDUSA, and this appeal to Crome is his attempt to stop the violence he’s helped promote. Crome’s response is characteristic of someone driven only by ambition. Crome sees no limit to what London can achieve. He has no proof that what he’s proposing is possible, but his thirst for power won’t let him see any option but continued domination. He hasn’t considered that there must be an end to what he can devour and that power only gives him something if he has someone to hold it over.

“Magnus Crome came running to clutch at his sleeve. ‘The machine has gone mad!’ he wailed. ‘Quirke alone knows what commands your daughter fed it! We can’t fire it and we can’t stop the energy buildup! Do something, Valentine! You discovered the damned thing! Make it stop!’

Valentine shoved him aside and started up the steps, through the rising veils of light, the crackling static; through air that smelled like burning tin.

‘I only wanted to help London!’ the Lord Mayor sobbed. ‘I only wanted to make London strong!’”

These lines follow Katherine falling on MEDUSA’s keyboard, inadvertently feeding the machine the incorrect codes and causing it to malfunction. Crome begs Valentine for help, but Valentine has finally realized that Katherine is more important than power or status. Crome’s final words expose the problem with the quest for power: Crome did what he did to keep his city moving and strong, never considering what could go wrong until this moment. Even if his intentions were good, he and the Engineers have been messing with incredibly destructive forces they don’t understand, and their mistake has caught up to them. Crome’s desire for strength and power is his undoing.

“The gondola was much bigger inside than she expected. In fact, it was a lot like Clio House, and Dog and Bevis were both waiting for her there, and her hiccups had stopped, and her wound wasn't as bad as everyone had thought, it was just a scratch. Sunlight streamed in through the windows as Tom flew them all up and up into a sky of the most perfect crystal blue, and she relaxed gratefully into her father’s arms.”

This passage reveals Katherine’s final thoughts as she dies. The peaceful settling of the mind, a common depiction of death, is evident as Katherine rejoins the loved ones she’s lost. Her physical surroundings—Tom’s piloting the airship and her father holding her—influence these images. Reeve doesn’t explicitly state that Katherine has died until several lines later, when Hester sees Valentine cradling Katherine’s lifeless body. He uses the collective idea of peaceful death and imagery to show death from Katherine’s perspective.