Aïda still wasn’t talking, but Julia was. According to her, Aïda and the other Black Bolo survivors had calculated, in the last weeks, that their turn to cannibalism would be so repugnant to the survivors of Endurance as to render them permanent outcasts. Rather than passively await the judgment—which they foresaw as extremely pious, sanctimonious, and punitive—of Ivy and her claque, they would seize part or all of Endurance, beginning with her network, and then negotiate terms from a position of strength.