‘These cities saved a generation from the floods. We house millions of happy, productive citizens. We can’t look after everyone. You would ruin all those lives just to share out the misery? Wreck the future of our innocent children? Kill your own people?’ ‘There are millions of innocents abandoned in the world outside,’ Fox counters. ‘Aren’t they our people too? I don’t want to wreck or ruin or kill. I want—’ ‘You’re bombing us!’ ‘We’re bombing the walls and the entrances to the towers. Not the people.’ Make war on places not people: a crucial pillar of wisdom for the Surge. ‘I’m not asking you to house the refugees,’ he tells his father. ‘Just let them have the high lands of the world. Let them live.’ ‘It took two generations of the best human minds to create this empire,’ Mungo rages. ‘Blow it all up then – let’s all live in boats!’ He never could listen, Fox remembers. His temper always got in the way. Mungo stops his furious pacing.
