I was nearly two hours in the temple admiring the shrines of subsidiary gods. The entire place must have taken up whatever part of this side of the station was not occupied by the palace proper. The two were certainly connected, since Anaander Mianaai acted as priest here at regular intervals, though the accesses wouldn’t be obvious.
I left the mortuary shrine for last. Partly because it was the part of the temple most likely to be crowded with tourists, and partly because I knew it would make me unhappy. It was larger than the other subsidiary shrines, nearly half the size of the vast main hall, filled with shelves and cases crowded with offerings for the dead. All food or flowers. All glass. Glass teacups holding glass tea, glass steam rising above. Mounds of delicate glass roses and leaves. Two dozen different kinds of fruit, fish and greens that nearly gave off a phantom aroma of my supper the night before. You could buy mass-produced versions of these in shops well away from the main concourse, and put them in your home shrine, for gods or for the dead, but these were different, each one a carefully detailed work of art, each one conspicuously labeled with the names of the living donor and the dead recipient, so every visitor could see the pious mourning—and wealth and status—on display.
I probably had enough money to commission such an offering. But if I did so, and labeled it with the appropriate names, it would be the last thing I ever did. And doubtless the priests would refuse it. I had already considered sending money to Lieutenant Awn’s sister, but that, too, would attract unwelcome curiosity. Maybe I could arrange it so that whatever was left would go to her, once I had done what I’d come here to do, but I suspected that would be impossible. Still, thinking it, and thinking of my luxurious room and expensive, beautiful clothes, gave me a twinge of guilt.
At the temple entrance, just as I was about to step out onto the concourse, a soldier stepped into my path. Human, not an ancillary. She bowed. “Excuse me. I have a message from the citizen Vel Osck, captain of Mercy of Kalr.”
The captain who had stared at me as I made my offering to Amaat. The fact she’d sent a soldier to accost me said she thought me worth more trouble than a message through Station’s systems, but not enough to send a lieutenant, or approach me herself. Though that might also have been due to a certain social awkwardness she preferred to push off onto this soldier. It was hard not to notice the slight clumsiness of a sentence designed to avoid a courtesy title. “Your pardon, citizen,” I said. “I don’t know the citizen Vel Osck.”
The soldier gestured, slight, deferential apology. “This morning’s cast indicated the captain would have a fortuitous encounter today. When she noticed you making your offering she was sure you were who was meant.”
Noticing a stranger in the temple, in a place as big as this, was hardly a fortuitous encounter. I was slightly offended that the captain hadn’t even tried to put more effort into it. Mere seconds of thought would have produced something better. “What is the message, citizen?”
“The captain customarily takes tea in the afternoons,” said the soldier, bland and polite, and named a shop just off the concourse. “She would be honored if you would join her.”
The time and place suggested the sort of “social” meeting that was, in reality, a display of influence and associations, and where ostensibly unofficial business would be done.
Captain Vel had no business with me. And she would gain no advantage in being seen with me. “If the captain wants to meet citizen Seivarden…” I began.
“It wasn’t Captain Seivarden the captain encountered in the temple,” the solder answered, again slightly apologetic. Surely she knew how transparent her errand was. “But of course if you wanted to bring Captain Seivarden, Captain Vel would be honored to meet her.”
Of course. And even houseless and broke, Seivarden would get a personal invitation from someone she knew, not a message through station systems, or a this-edge-of-insulting invite from Captain Vel’s errand-runner. But it was exactly what I had wanted. “I can’t speak for Citizen Seivarden, of course,” I said. “Do please thank Captain Vel for the invitation.” The soldier bowed, and left.
Off the concourse I found a shop selling cartons of what was advertised merely as “lunch,” which turned out to be fish again, stewed with fruit. I took it back to my room and sat at the table, eating, considering that console on the wall, a visible link with Station.
Station was as smart as I had ever been, when I had still been a ship. Younger, yes. Less than half my age. But not to be dismissed, not at all. If I was discovered, it would almost certainly be because of Station.
Station hadn’t detected my ancillary implants, all of which I had disabled and hidden as best I could. If it had, I would have already been under arrest. But Station could see at least the basics of my emotional state. Could, with enough information about me, tell when I was lying. Was, certainly, watching me closely.
But emotional states, from Station’s view, from mine when I was Justice of Toren, were just assemblages of medical data, data that were meaningless without context. If, in my present dismal mood, I had just stepped off a ship, Station would possibly see it, but not understand why I felt the way I did, and would not be able to draw any conclusions from it. But the longer I was here, the more of me Station saw, the more data Station would have. It would be able to assemble its own context, its own picture of what I was. And would be able to compare that to what it thought I ought to be.
The danger would be if those two didn’t match. I swallowed a mouthful of fish, looked at the console. “Hello,” I said. “The AI who’s watching me.”
“Honored Ghaiad Breq,” said Station from the console, a placid voice. “Hello. I am usually addressed as Station.”
“Station, then.” Another bite of fish and fruit. “So you are watching me.” I was, genuinely, worried about Station’s surveillance. I wouldn’t be able to hide that from Station.
“I watch everyone, honored. Is your leg still troubling you?” It was, and doubtless Station could see me favor it, see the effects of it in the way I sat now. “Our medical facilities are excellent. I’m sure one of our doctors could find a solution to your problem.”
An alarming prospect. But I could make that look entirely understandable. “No, thank you. I’ve been warned about Radchaai medical facilities. I’d rather endure a little inconvenience and still be who I am.”
Silence, for a moment. Then Station asked, “Do you mean the aptitudes? Or reeducation? Neither would change who you are. And you aren’t eligible for either one, I assure you.”
“All the same.” I set my utensil down. “We have a saying, where I come from: Power requires neither permission nor forgiveness.”
“I have never met anyone from the Gerentate before,” said Station. I had, of course, been depending on that. “I suppose your misapprehension is understandable. Foreigners often don’t understand what the Radchaai are really like.”
“Do you realize what you’ve just said? Literally that the uncivilized don’t understand civilization? Do you realize that quite a lot of people outside Radch space consider themselves to be civilized?” The sentence was nearly impossible in Radchaai, a self-contradiction.
I waited for That wasn’t what I meant, but it didn’t come. Instead, Station said, “Would you have come here if not for Citizen Seivarden?”
“Possibly,” I answered, knowing I could not lie outright to Station, not with it watching me so closely. Knowing that now any anger or resentment—or any apprehension about Radchaai officials—that I felt would be attributed to my being resentful and fearful of the Radch. “Is there any music in this very civilized place?”
“Yes,” answered Station. “Though I don’t think I have any music from the Gerentate.”
“If I only ever wanted to hear music from the Gerentate,” I said, acid, “I would never have left there.”
This did not seem to faze Station. “Would you prefer to go out or stay in?”
I preferred to stay in. Station called up an ent
ertainment for me, new this year but a comfortably familiar sort of thing—a young woman of humble family with hopes of clientage to a more prestigious house. A jealous rival who undermines her, deceiving the putative patron as to her true, noble nature. The eventual recognition of the heroine’s superior virtue, her loyalty through the most terrible trials, even uncontracted as she is, and the downfall of her rival, culminating in the long-awaited clientage contract and ten minutes of triumphant singing and dancing, the last of eleven such interludes over four separate episodes. It was a very small-scale work—some of these ran for dozens of episodes that added up to days or even weeks. It was mindless, but the songs were nice and improved my mood considerably.
I had nothing urgent to do until word came of Seivarden’s appeal, and if Seivarden’s request for an audience, and for me to accompany her, was granted, that would mean another, even longer wait. I rose, brushed my new trousers straight, put on shoes and jacket. “Station,” I said. “Do you know where I can find the citizen Seivarden Vendaai?”
“The citizen Seivarden Vendaai,” answered Station from the console, in its always even voice, “is in the Security office on sublevel nine.”
“Excuse me?”
“There was a fight,” said Station. “Normally Security would have contacted her family, but she has none here.”
I wasn’t her family, of course. And she could have called for me if she’d wanted me. Still. “Can you direct me to the Security office on sublevel nine, please?”
“Of course, honored.”
The office on sublevel nine was tiny: nothing more, really, than a console, a few chairs, a table with mismatched tea things, and some storage lockers. Seivarden sat on a bench at the back wall. She wore gray gloves and an ill-fitting jacket and trousers of some stiff, coarse fabric, the sort of thing extruded on demand, not sewn, and probably produced in a preset range of sizes. My own uniforms, when I had been a ship, had been made that way, but had looked better. Of course I’d sized each one properly, it had been a simple thing for me to do at the time.
The front of Seivarden’s gray jacket was spattered with blood, and one glove was soaked with it. Blood was crusted on her upper lip, and the small clear shell of a corrective sat across the bridge of her nose. Another corrective lay across a bruise forming on one cheek. She stared dully ahead, not looking up at me, or at the Security officer who had admitted me. “Here’s your friend, citizen,” said Security.
Seivarden frowned. Looked up, around the small space. Then she looked more closely at me. “Breq? Aatr’s tits, that’s you. You look…” She blinked. Opened her mouth to finish the sentence, stopped again. Took another, somewhat ragged breath. “Different,” she concluded. “Really, really different.”
“I only bought clothes. What happened to you?”
“There was a fight,” said Seivarden.
“Just happened on its own, did it?” I asked.
“No,” she admitted. “I was assigned a place to sleep, but there was already someone living there. I tried to talk to her but I could hardly understand her.”
“Where did you sleep last night?” I asked.
She looked down at the floor. “I managed.” Looked up again, at me, at the Security officer beside me. “But I wasn’t going to be able to keep managing.”
“You should have come to us, citizen,” said Security. “Now you’ve got a warning on your record. Not something you want.”
“And her opponent?” I asked.
Security made a negating gesture. It wasn’t something I was supposed to ask.
“I’m not managing very well on my own, am I,” said Seivarden, miserably.
Heedless of Skaaiat Awer’s disapproval, I bought Seivarden new gloves and jacket, dark green, still the sort of thing that was extruded on demand, but at least it fit better, and the higher quality was obvious. The gray ones were past laundering, and I knew the supply office wouldn’t issue more clothes so soon. When Seivarden had put them on, and sent the old ones for recycling, I said, “Have you eaten? I was planning to offer you supper when Station told me where you were.” She’d washed her face, and now looked more or less reputable, give or take the bruising under the corrective on her cheek.
“I’m not hungry,” she said. A flicker of something—regret? Annoyance? I couldn’t quite tell—flashed across her face. She crossed her arms and quickly uncrossed them again, a gesture I hadn’t seen in months.
“Can I offer you tea, then, while I eat?”
“I would love tea,” she said with emphatic sincerity. I remembered that she had no money, had refused to let me give her any. All that tea we had carried with us was in my luggage, she had taken none of it with her when we’d parted the night before. And tea, of course, was an extra. A luxury. Which wasn’t really a luxury. Not by Seivarden’s standards, anyway. Likely not by any Radchaai’s standards.
We found a tea shop, and I bought something rolled in a sheet of algae, and some fruit and tea, and we took a table in a corner. “Are you sure you don’t want anything?” I asked. “Fruit?”
She feigned lack of interest in the fruit, and then took a piece. “I hope you had a better day than I did.”
“Probably.” I waited a moment, to see if she wanted to talk about what had happened, but she said nothing, just waited for me to continue. “I went to the temple this morning. And ran into some ship’s captain who stared quite rudely and then sent one of her soldiers after me to invite me to tea.”
“One of her soldiers.” Seivarden realized her arms were crossed, uncrossed them, picked up her tea cup, set it down again. “Ancillary?”
“Human. I’m pretty sure.”
Seivarden lifted an eyebrow briefly. “You shouldn’t go. She should have invited you herself. You didn’t say yes, did you?”
“I didn’t say no.” Three Radchaai entered the tea shop, laughing. All wore the dark blue of dock authority. One of them was Daos Ceit, Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat’s assistant. She didn’t seem to notice me. “I don’t think the invitation was on my account. I think she wants me to introduce her to you.”
“But…” She frowned. Looked at the bowl of tea in one green-gloved hand. Brushed the front of the new jacket with the other. “What’s her name?”
“Vel Osck.”
“Osck. Never heard of them.” She took another drink of tea. Daos Ceit and her friends bought tea and pastries, sat at a table on the other side of the room, talking animatedly. “Why would she want to meet me?”
I raised an eyebrow, incredulous. “You’re the one who believes any unlikely event is a message from God,” I pointed out. “You’re lost for a thousand years, found by accident, disappear again, and then turn up at a palace with a rich foreigner. And you’re surprised when that gets attention.” She made an ambiguous gesture. “Absent Vendaai as a functioning house, you need to establish yourself somehow.”
She looked so dismayed, just for the shortest instant, that I thought my words had offended her in some way. But then she seemed to recover herself. “If Captain Vel wanted my good will, or cared at all about my opinion, she made a bad start by insulting you.” Her old arrogance lurked behind those words, a startling difference from her barely suppressed dejection up to now.
“What about that inspector supervisor?” I asked. “Skaaiat, right? She seemed polite enough. And you seemed to know who she was.”
“All the Awers seem polite enough,” Seivarden said, disgustedly. Over her shoulder I watched Daos Ceit laugh at something one of her companions had said. “They seem totally normal at first,” Seivarden went on, “but then they go having visions, or deciding something’s wrong with the universe and they have to fix it. Or both at once. They’re all insane.” She was silent a moment, and then turned to see what I was looking at. Turned back. “Oh, her. Isn’t she kind of… provincial-looking?”
I turned my full attention on Seivarden. Looked at her.
She looked down at the table. “I’m sorry. That was… that was just wrong. I
don’t have any…”
“I doubt,” I interrupted, “that her pay allows her to wear clothes that make her look… ‘different.’ ”
“That’s not what I meant.” Seivarden looked up, distress and embarrassment obvious in her expression. “But what I meant was bad enough. I just… I was just surprised. All this time, I guess I’ve just assumed you were an ascetic. It just surprised me.”
An ascetic. I could see why she would have assumed that, but not why it would have mattered that she was wrong. Unless… “You’re not jealous?” I asked, incredulous. Well-dressed or not, I was just as provincial-looking as Daos Ceit. Just from a different province.
“No!” And then the next moment, “Well, yes. But not like that.”
I realized, then, that it wasn’t just other Radchaai who might get the wrong impression from that gift of clothes I’d just made. Even though Seivarden surely knew I couldn’t offer clientage. Even though I knew that if she thought about it for longer than thirty seconds, she would never want from me what that gift implied. Surely she couldn’t think that I’d meant that. “Yesterday the inspector supervisor told me I was in danger of giving you false expectations. Or of giving others the wrong impression.”
Seivarden made a scornful noise. “That would be worth considering if I had the remotest interest in what Awer thinks.” I raised an eyebrow, and she continued, in a more contrite tone, “I thought I’d be able to handle things by myself, but all last night, and all today, I’ve just been wishing I’d stayed with you. I guess it’s true, all citizens are taken care of. I didn’t see anyone starving. Or naked.” Her face momentarily showed disgust. “But those clothes. And the skel. Just skel, all the time, very carefully measured out. I didn’t think I’d mind. I mean, I don’t mind skel, but I could hardly choke it down.” I could guess the mood she’d been in, when she’d gotten into that fight. “I think it was knowing I wasn’t going to get anything else for weeks and weeks. And,” she said, with a rueful smile, “knowing I’d have had better if I’d asked to stay with you.”