London

“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 rumours 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.

> Chapter 11: Airhaven, Mortal Engines, page 41/152

It was a strange time for London. The city was still travelling at quite high speed, as if there was
a catch in sight, but there was no other town to be seen on the grey, muddy plains of the north western Hunting Ground, and everybody was wondering what the Lord Mayor could be planning. “We can’t just go driving on like this,” Katherine heard one of her servants mutter. “There are big cities further east, and they’ll scoff us up and spit out the bones!” But Mrs Mallow the housekeeper whispered back, “Don’t you know nothing, Sukey Blinder? Ain’t Mr Valentine himself being sent off on a hexpedition to spy out the land ahead? Him and Magnus Crome have got their eye on some vast great prize, you can be sure of it!”

> > [...]

“Well, Kate,” he admitted, “the fact is, Crome has asked me to take a look into Shan Guo.”

Shan Guo was the leading nation of the Anti-Traction League, the barbarian alliance which
controlled the old Indian sub-continent and what was left of China, protected from hungry cities by a great chain of mountains and swamps that marked the eastern limits of the Hunting Ground. Katherine had studied it in Geography. There was only one pass through those mountains, and it was protected by the dreadful fortress-city of Batmunkh Gompa, the Shield-Wall, beneath whose guns a hundred cities had come to grief in the first few centuries of Traction. “But why there?” she asked. “London can’t be going there!”

“I didn’t say it was,” replied Valentine. “But one day we may have to go to Shan Guo and breach
the League’s defences. You know how short prey has become. Cities are starting to starve, and turn on one another.”

> Chapter 7: High London, pg 32/152

As quickly as he could, Tom told her what he had seen. She made a hissing sound through her clenched teeth. “He has come after our Air-Fleet! He means to cripple us!”
“One man cannot destroy an Air-Fleet!” protested Khora, smiling at the notion.
“You’ve never seen Valentine at work!” said the aviatrix. She was already on her feet, excited at the prospect of crossing swords with London’s greatest agent. “Sathya, go and rouse the guard, tell them the High Eyries are in danger.” She turned to Tom. “Thank you for warning us,” she said gently, as if she understood the agonizing decision he had had to make.

> Mortal Engines, Chapter 28: A stranger in the mountains of Heaven, pg 118/152