I saw them all, suddenly, for just a moment, through non-Radchaai eyes, an eddying crowd of unnervingly ambiguously gendered people. I saw all the features that would mark gender for non-Radchaai—never, to my annoyance and inconvenience, the same way in each place. Short hair or long, worn unbound (trailing down a back, or in a thick, curled nimbus) or bound (braided, pinned, tied). Thick-bodied or thin-, faces delicate-featured or coarse-, with cosmetics or none. A profusion of colors that would have been gender-marked in other places. All of this matched randomly with bodies curving at breast and hip or not, bodies that one moment moved in ways various non-Radchaai would call feminine, the next moment masculine. Twenty years of habit overtook me, and for an instant I despaired of choosing the right pronouns, the right terms of address. But I didn’t need to do that here. I could drop that worry, a small but annoying weight I had carried all this time. I was home.
This was home that had never been home, for me. I had spent my life at annexations, and stations in the process of becoming this sort of place, leaving before they did, to begin the whole process again somewhere else. This was the sort of place my officers came from, and departed to. The sort of place I had never been, and yet it was completely familiar to me. Places like this were, from one point of view, the whole reason for my existence.
“It’s a bit longer walk, this way,” Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat said, “but a dramatic entrance.”
“It is,” I agreed.
“Why all the jackets?” asked Seivarden. “That bothered me last time. Though the last place, anyone in a coat was wearing it knee-length. Here it looks like it’s either jackets or coats down to the floor. And the collars are just wrong.”
“Fashion didn’t trouble you the other places we’ve been,” I said.
“The other places were foreign,” Seivarden answered, irritably. “They weren’t supposed to be home.”
Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat smiled. “I imagine you’ll get used to it eventually. The palace proper is this way.”
We followed her across the concourse, my and Seivarden’s uncivilized clothes and bare hands attracting some curious and disgusted looks, and came to the entrance, marked simply with a bar of black over the doorway.
“I’ll be fine,” said Seivarden, as though I’d spoken. “I’ll catch up with you when I’m done.”
“I’ll wait.”
Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat watched Seivarden go into the palace proper and then said, “Honored Breq, a word, please.”
I acknowledged her with a gesture, and she said, “You’re very concerned about Citizen Seivarden. I understand that, and it speaks well of you. But there’s no reason to worry for her safety. The Radch takes care of its citizens.”
“Tell me, Inspector Supervisor, if Seivarden were some nobody from a nothing house who had left the Radch without permits—and whatever else it was she did, to be honest I don’t know if there was anything else—if she were someone you had never heard of, with a house name you didn’t recognize and know the history of, would she have been met courteously at the dock and given tea and then escorted to the palace proper to make her appeal?”
Her right hand lifted, the barest millimeter, and that small, incongruous gold tag flashed. “She’s not in that position anymore. She’s effectively houseless, and broke.” I said nothing, only looked at her. “No, there’s something in what you say. If I didn’t know who she was I wouldn’t have thought to do anything for her. But surely even in the Gerentate things work that way?”
I made myself smile slightly, hoping for a more pleasant impression than I had likely been making. “They do.”
Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat was silent a moment, watching me, thinking about something, but I couldn’t guess what. Until she said, “Do you intend to offer her clientage?”
That would have been an unspeakably rude question, if I had been Radchaai. But when I had known her Skaaiat Awer had often said things most others left unsaid. “How could I? I’m not Radchaai. And we don’t make that sort of contract in the Gerentate.”
“No, you don’t,” Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat said. Blunt. “I can’t imagine what it would be like to suddenly wake up a thousand years from now having lost my ship in a notorious incident, all my friends dead, my house gone. I might run away too. Seivarden needs to find a way she can belong somewhere. To Radchaai eyes, you look like you’re offering that to her.”
“You’re concerned I’m giving Seivarden false expectations.” I thought of Daos Ceit in the outer office, that beautiful, very expensive pearl-and-platinum pin that wasn’t a token of clientage.
“I don’t know what expectations Citizen Seivarden has. It’s just… you’re acting as though you’re responsible for her. It looks wrong to me.”
“If I were Radchaai, would it still look wrong to you?”
“If you were Radchaai you would behave differently.” The tightness of her jaw argued she was angry but trying to conceal it.
“Whose name is on that pin?” The question, unintended, came out more brusquely than was politic.
“What?” She frowned, puzzled.
“That pin on your right sleeve. It’s different from everything else you’re wearing.” Whose name is on it? I wanted to ask again, and, What have you done for Lieutenant Awn’s sister?
Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat blinked, and shifted slightly backward, almost as though I had struck her. “It’s a memorial for a friend who died.”
“And you’re thinking about her now. You keep shifting your wrist, turning it toward yourself. You’ve been doing it for the past few minutes.”
“I think of her frequently.” She took a breath, let it out. Took another. “I think maybe I’m not being fair to you, Breq Ghaiad.”
I knew. I knew what name was on that pin, even though I hadn’t seen it. Knew it. Wasn’t sure if, knowing, I felt better about Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat, or much, much worse. But I was in danger, at this moment, in a way I had never anticipated, never predicted, never dreamed might happen. I had already said things I should never, ever have said. Was about to say more. Here was the one single person I had met in twenty long years who would know who I was. The temptation to cry out, Lieutenant, look, it’s me, I’m Justice of Toren One Esk was overwhelming.
Instead, very carefully, I said, “I agree with you that Seivarden needs to find herself a home here. I just don’t trust the Radch the way you do. The way she does.”
Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat opened her mouth to answer me, but Seivarden’s voice cut across whatever Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat would have said. “That didn’t take long!” Seivarden came up beside me, looked at me, and frowned. “Your leg is bothering you again. You need to sit down.”
“Leg?” asked Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat.
“An old injury that didn’t heal quite right,” I said, glad of it for the moment, that Seivarden would attribute any distress she saw to that. That Station would, if it was watching.
“And you’ve had a long day, and I’ve kept you standing here. I’ve been quite rude, please forgive me, honored,” Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat said.
“Of course.” I bit back words that wanted to come out of my mouth behind that, and turned to Seivarden. “So where do things stand now?”
“I’ve requested my appeal, and should have a date sometime in the next few days,” she said. “I put your name in too.” At Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat’s raised eyebrow Seivarden added, “Breq saved my life. More than once.”
Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat only said, “Your audience probably won’t be for a few months.”
“Meantime,” continued Seivarden with a small, still-cross-armed acknowledging gesture, “I’ve been assigned lodgings and I’m on the ration list and I’ve got fifteen minutes to report to the nearest supplies office and get some clothes.”
Lodgings. Well, if her staying with me had looked wrong to Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat, doubtless it would, for the same reasons, look wrong to Seivarden herself. And
even if she was no longer my servant, she had requested I accompany her to her audience. That was, I reminded myself, the important issue. “Do you want me to come with you?” I didn’t want to. I wanted to be alone, to recover my equilibrium.
“I’ll be fine. You need to get off that leg. I’ll catch up with you tomorrow. Inspector Supervisor, it was good to meet you.” Seivarden bowed, perfectly calculated courtesy toward a social equal, received an identical bow from Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat, and then was off down the concourse.
I turned to Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat. “Where do you recommend I stay?”
Half an hour later I was as I had wished to be, alone in my room. It was an expensive one, just off the main concourse, an incredibly luxurious five meters square, a floor of what might almost have been real wood, dark-blue walls. A table and chairs, and an image projector in the floor. Many—though not all—Radchaai had optical and auditory implants that allowed them to view entertainments or listen to music or messages directly. But people still liked to watch things together, and the very wealthy sometimes made a point of turning their implants off.
The blanket on the bed felt as if it might be actual wool, not anything synthetic. On one wall a fold-down cot for a servant, which of course I no longer had. And, incredible luxury for the Radch, the room had its own tiny bath—a necessity for me, given the gun and ammunition strapped to my body under my shirt. Station’s scans hadn’t picked it up, and wouldn’t, but human eyes could see it. If I left it in the room, a searcher might find it. I certainly couldn’t leave it in the dressing room of a public bath.
A console on the wall near the door would give me access to communications. And Station. And it would allow Station to observe me, though I was certain it wasn’t the only way Station could see into the room. I was back in the Radch, never alone, never private.
My luggage had arrived within five minutes of my taking the room, and with it a tray of supper from a nearby shop, fish and greens, still steaming and smelling of spices.
There was always the chance that no one was paying attention. But my luggage, when I opened it, had clearly been searched. Maybe because I was foreign. Maybe not.
I took out my tea flask and cups, and the icon of She Who Sprang from the Lily, set them on the low table beside the bed. Used a liter of my water allowance to fill the flask, and then sat down to eat.
The fish was as delicious as it smelled, and improved my mood slightly. I was, at least, better able to confront my situation once I’d eaten it, and had a cup of tea.
Station could certainly see a large percentage of its residents with the same intimate view I’d had of my officers. The rest—including me, now—it saw in less detail. Temperature. Heart rate. Respiration. Less impressive than the flood of data from more closely monitored residents, but still a great deal of information. Add to that a close knowledge of the person observed, her history, her social context, and likely Station could very nearly read minds.
Nearly. It couldn’t actually read thoughts. And Station didn’t know my history, had no prior experience with me. It would be able to see the traces of my emotions, but wouldn’t have many grounds for guessing accurately why I felt as I did.
My hip had in fact been hurting. And Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat’s words to me had been, in Radchaai terms, incredibly rude. If I had reacted with anger, visible to Station if it was looking (visible to Anaander Mianaai if she had been looking), that was entirely natural. Neither one could do more than guess what had angered me. I could play the part now of the exhausted traveler, pained by an old injury, in need of nothing more than food and rest.
The room was so quiet. Even when Seivarden had been in one of her sulking moods it hadn’t seemed this oppressively silent. I hadn’t grown as used to solitude as I had thought. And thinking of Seivarden, I saw suddenly what I had not seen, there on the concourse and blind-angry with Skaaiat Awer. I had thought then that Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat had been the only person I had met who might know me, but that wasn’t true. Seivarden would have.
But Lieutenant Awn had never expected anything from Seivarden, had never stood to be hurt or disappointed by her. If they had ever met, Seivarden would surely have made her disdain clear. Lieutenant Awn would have been stiffly polite, with an underlying anger that I would have been able to see, but she would never have had that sinking dismay and hurt she felt when then–Lieutenant Skaaiat said, unthinkingly, something dismissive.
But perhaps I was wrong to think my reactions to the two, Skaaiat Awer and Seivarden Vendaai, were very different. I had already put myself in danger once, out of anger with Seivarden.
I couldn’t untangle it. And I had a part to play, for whoever might be watching, an image I had carefully built on the way here. I set my empty cup beside the tea flask, and knelt on the floor before the icon, hip protesting slightly, and began to pray.
19
Next morning I bought clothes. The proprietor of the shop Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat had recommended was on the verge of throwing me out when my bank balance flashed onto her console, unbidden I suspected, Station sparing her embarrassment—and simultaneously telling me how closely it was watching me.
I needed gloves, certainly, and if I was going to play the part of the spendthrift wealthy tourist I would need to buy more than that. But before I could speak up to say so, the proprietor brought out bolts of brocade, sateen, and velvet in a dozen colors. Purple and orange-brown, three shades of green, gold, pale yellow and icy blue, ash gray, deep red.
“You can’t wear those clothes,” she told me, authoritative, as a subordinate handed me tea, managing to mostly conceal her disgust at my bare hands. Station had scanned me and provided my measurements, so I needed do nothing. A half-liter of tea, two excruciatingly sweet pastries, and a dozen insults later, I left in an orange-brown jacket and trousers, an icy white, stiff shirt underneath, and dark-gray gloves so thin and soft I might almost have still been barehanded. Fortunately current fashion favored jackets and trousers cut generously enough to hide my weapon. The rest—two more jackets and pairs of trousers, two pairs of gloves, half a dozen shirts, and three pairs of shoes—would be delivered to my lodgings by the time, the proprietor told me, I was done visiting the temple.
I exited the shop, turned a corner onto the main concourse, crowded at this hour with a throng of Radchaai going in and out of the temple or the palace proper, visiting the (no doubt expensive and fashionable) tea shops, or merely being seen in the right company. When I had walked through before, on my way to the clothes shop, people had stared and whispered, or just raised their eyebrows. Now, it seemed, I was mostly invisible, except for the occasional similarly well-dressed Radchaai who dropped her gaze to my jacket front looking for signs of my family affiliation, eyes widening in surprise to see none. Or the child, one small gloved hand clutching the sleeve of an accompanying adult, who turned to frankly stare at me until she was drawn past and out of sight.
Inside the temple, citizens crowded the flowers and incense, junior priests young enough to look like children to my eyes bringing baskets and boxes of replacements. As an ancillary I wasn’t supposed to touch temple offerings, or make them myself. But no one here knew that. I washed my hands in the basin and bought a handful of bright yellow-orange flowers, and a piece of the sort of incense I knew Lieutenant Awn had favored.
There would be a place within the temple set aside for prayers for the dead, and days that were auspicious for making such offerings, though this wasn’t such a day, and as a foreigner I shouldn’t have Radchaai dead to remember. Instead I walked into the echoing main hall, where Amaat stood, a jeweled Emanation in each hand, already knee-deep in flowers, a hill of red and orange and yellow as high as my head, growing incrementally as worshippers tossed more blooms on the pile. When I reached the front of the crowd I added my own, made the gestures and mouthed the prayer, dropped the incense into the box that, when it filled, would be emptied by more junior priests. It was only a token—it would retu
rn to the entrance, to be purchased again. If all the incense offered had been burned, the air in the temple would have been too thick with smoke to breathe. And this wasn’t even a festival day.
As I bowed to the god, a brown-uniformed ship’s captain came up beside me. She made to throw her handful of flowers, and then stopped, staring at me. The fingers of her empty left hand twitched, just slightly. Her features reminded me of Hundred Captain Rubran Osck, though where Captain Rubran had been lanky, and worn her hair long and straight, this captain was shorter and thick-bodied, hair clipped close. A glance at her jewelry confirmed this captain was a cousin of hers, a member of the same branch of the same house. I remembered that Anaander Mianaai hadn’t been able to predict Captain Rubran’s allegiance, and didn’t want to tug too hard on the web of clientage and contacts the hundred captain belonged to. I wondered if that was still true, or if Osck had come down on one side or the other.
It didn’t matter. The captain still stared, presumably receiving by now answers to her queries. Station or her ship would tell her I was a foreigner and the captain would, I presumed, lose interest. Or not, if she learned about Seivarden. I didn’t wait to see which was the case, but finished my prayer and turned to work my way through the people waiting to make offerings.
Off the sides of the temple were smaller shrines. In one, three adults and two children stood around an infant they had laid at the breast of Aatr—the image being constructed to allow this, its arm crooked under the god’s often-sworn-by breasts—hoping for an auspicious destiny, or at least some sign of what the future might hold for the child.
All the shrines were beautiful, glittering with gold and silver, glass and polished stone. The whole place rumbled and roared with the echoes of hundreds of quiet conversations and prayers. No music. I thought of the nearly empty temple of Ikkt, the Divine of Ikkt telling me of hundreds of singers long gone.