Ms. Smartarse’s Reviews > Babel > Status Update

... that was part of the genius of Babel. By keeping [the students] isolated, by distracting them with coursework so that they never had a chance to form bonds outside their cohort, it had cut off all avenues towards meaningful solidarity, had made them believe for so long that they were the only ones caught in their particular web.

They had assumed that Oxford might not betray them. Their dependence on Babel was ingrained, unconscious. On some level, they had still believed that the university, and their status as its scholars might protect them. They had assumed, in spite of every indication otherwise, that those with the most to gain from the Empire's continued expansion might find it within themselves to do the right thing.

Her distress belied a deeper terror, a terror which Robin felt as well, that Anthony had been expendable. That they were all expendable. That this tower - this place where they had for the first time found belonging - treasured and loved them when they were alive and useful but didn't, in fact, care about them at all. That they were, in the end, only vessels for the languages they spoke.

Why had they not paused to interrogate their differences in birth, in raising, that meant they were not and could never be on the same side?
But the answer was obvious -- that they were all four of them drowning in the unfamiliar, and they saw in each other a raft, and clinging to one another was the only way to stay afloat.