“That’s beside the point,” answered Rose-and-Azure. “The point is, it was mutiny. Mutiny winked at, but one can’t make a plain statement of fact about the dangers of promoting the ill-bred and vulgar to positions of authority, or policies that encourage the most vile sort of behavior, and even undermine everything civilization has always stood for, without losing business contacts or promotions.”
“You must be very brave, then, to speak so,” I observed. But I was sure Rose-and-Azure wasn’t particularly brave. She spoke as she did because she could do so without danger to herself.
Calm. I could control my breathing, keep it smooth and regular. My skin was too dark to show a flush, but Station would see the temperature change. Station might just think I was angry about something. I had good reason to be angry.
“Honored,” Seivarden said abruptly. From the set of her jaw and shoulders, she was suppressing an urge to cross her arms. Would be, quite soon, in one of those silently-facing-the-wall moods. “We’ll be late to our next engagement.” She rose, more abruptly than was strictly polite.
“Indeed,” I acknowledged, and set down my untasted tea. Hoped her action was on her own account, and not because she’d seen any sign of my agitation. “Captain Vel, thank you for your very kind invitation. It was an honor to meet you all.”
Out on the main concourse, Seivarden, walking behind me, muttered, “Fucking snobs.” People passed, mostly not paying any attention to us. That was good. That was normal. I could feel my adrenaline levels dropping.
Better. I stopped and turned to look at Seivarden, raised an eyebrow.
“Well, but they are snobs,” she said. “What do they think the aptitudes are for? The whole point is that anyone can test into anything.”
I remembered twenty-years-younger Lieutenant Skaaiat asking, in the humid darkness of the upper city, if the aptitudes had lacked impartiality before, or lacked them now, and answering, for herself, both. And Lieutenant Awn’s hurt and distress.
Seivarden crossed her arms, then uncrossed them, balled her gloved hands into fists. “And of course someone from a lower house is going to be ill-bred and have a vulgar accent. They can hardly help it.
“And what were they thinking,” Seivarden continued, “to have a conversation like that. In a tea shop. On a palace station. I mean, not just when we were young and provincials are vulgar but the aptitudes are corrupt? The military is badly mismanaged?” I didn’t speak, but she answered as though I had. “Oh, of course, everyone complains things are mismanaged. But not like that. What’s going on?”
“Don’t ask me.” Though of course I knew—or thought I did. And wondered again what it meant that Rose-and-Azure, and others there, had felt so freely able to speak as they had. Which Anaander Mianaai might hold an advantage here? Though such free speaking might only mean the Lord of the Radch preferred to let her enemies identify themselves clearly and unambiguously. “And have you always been in favor of the ill-bred testing into high positions?” I asked, knowing she hadn’t.
Realizing, suddenly, that if Station had never met anyone from the Gerentate, Anaander Mianaai very possibly had. Why had that not occurred to me before? Something programmed into my ship-mind, invisible to me until now, or just the limitations of this one small brain remaining to me?
I might have deceived Station, and everyone else here, but I had not for a moment deceived the Lord of the Radch. She had certainly known from the instant I set foot on the palace docks that I was not what I said I was.
It would fall where it fell, I told myself.
“I thought about what you told me, about Ime,” Seivarden said, as though it answered my question. Oblivious to my renewed distress. “I don’t know if that unit leader did the right thing. But I don’t know what the right thing to do would have been. And I don’t know if I’d have had the courage to die for that right thing if I knew what it was. I mean…” She paused. “I mean, I’d like to think I would. There was a time I’d have been sure I would. But I can’t even…” She trailed off, her voice shaking slightly. She seemed on the verge of breaking into tears, like the Seivarden of a year ago, nearly any feelings at all too raw for her to handle. That sustained politeness, back in the tea shop, must have been the result of considerable effort.
I hadn’t paid much attention to the people passing us as we walked. But now something struck me as wrong. I was suddenly aware of the location and direction of the people around us. Something indefinite troubled me, something about the way certain people moved.
At least four people were watching us, surreptitiously. Had no doubt been following us, and I had not noticed until now. This had to be new, surely. I would have noticed if I had been followed from the moment I’d stepped onto the docks. I was sure I would have.
Station had certainly seen my startlement back in the tea shop, when Rose-and-Azure had said, “Justice of Toren.” Station would certainly have wondered why I had reacted the way I had. Would certainly have begun to watch me even more closely than it had been. Still, Station didn’t need to have me followed to watch me. This was not merely observation.
This was not Station.
I had never been given to panic. I would not panic now. This throw was mine, and if I had miscalculated slightly the trajectory of one piece, I had not miscalculated the others. Keeping my voice very, very even I said to Seivarden, “We’ll be early for the inspector supervisor.”
“Do we have to go to that Awer’s?” Seivarden asked.
“I think we should.” Having said it, immediately wishing I hadn’t. I didn’t want to see Skaaiat Awer, not now, not in this state.
“Maybe we shouldn’t,” said Seivarden. “Maybe we should go back to the room. You can meditate or pray or whatever it is, and then we can have supper and listen to some music. I think that would be better.”
She was worried about me. Clearly she was. And she was right, back to the room would be better. I would have a chance to calm down, to take stock.
And Anaander Mianaai would have a chance to make me disappear with no one watching, no one the wiser. “The inspector supervisor’s,” I said.
“Yes, honored,” Seivarden replied, subdued.
Skaaiat Awer’s quarters were their own small maze of corridors and rooms. She lived there with a collection of dock inspectors and clients and even clients of clients. She was certainly not Awer’s only presence here, and the house would have had its own quarters elsewhere on the station, but Skaaiat evidently preferred this arrangement. Eccentric, but that was expected of any Awer. Though as with so many Awers, there was a practical edge to her eccentricity—we were very near the docks here.
A servant admitted us, escorted us to a sitting room floored with blue-and-white stone, walled floor to ceiling with plants of all kinds, dark or light green, narrow-leaved or broad-, trailing or upright, some flowering, spots and swaths here and there of white, red, purple, yellow. Likely they were the entire occupation of at least one member of this household.
Daos Ceit waited for us there. Bowed low, seeming genuinely pleased to see us. “Honored Breq, Citizen Seivarden. Inspector Supervisor will be so pleased you’ve come. Do please sit.” She gestured to the chairs spread around. “Will you have tea? Or are you full up? I know you had another engagement today.”
“Tea would be nice, thank you,” I said. Neither I nor Seivarden had actually drunk any at Captain Vel’s gathering. But I didn’t want to sit. All the chairs looked as though they’d impede my freedom of movement if I was attacked and had to defend myself.
“Breq?” Seivarden, voice very quiet. Concerned. She could see something was wrong, but she couldn’t discreetly ask what it was.
Daos Ceit handed me a bowl of tea, smiling, to all appearances sincerely. Oblivious, it seemed, to the state of tension I was in, which was so obvious to Seivarden. How had I not recognized her the moment I’d seen her? Not immediately identified her Orsian accent?
How had I not realized I couldn’t possibly deceive Anaander Mian
aai for more than the smallest instant?
I couldn’t stand through this, not courteously. I would have to choose a seat. None of the available chairs was tenable. But I was more dangerous than nearly anyone here realized, even sitting. I still had the gun, a reassuring pressure against my ribs, under my jacket. I still had the attention of Station, of all of Anaander Mianaai, yes, and that was what I had wanted. This was still my game. It was. Choose a seat. The omens will fall where they fall.
Before I could make myself sit, Skaaiat Awer came into the room. As modestly jeweled as when she was working, but I’d seen the pale-yellow fabric of her elegantly cut jacket on a bolt at that expensive clothier’s shop. On her right sleeve cuff that cheap, machine-stamped gold tag flashed.
She bowed. “Honored Breq. Citizen Seivarden. How good to see you both. I see Adjunct Ceit has given you tea.” Seivarden and I acknowledged this with polite gestures. “Let me say, before anyone else arrives, that I’m hoping you’ll both stay to supper.”
“You tried to warn us yesterday, didn’t you?” asked Seivarden.
“Seivarden,” I began.
Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat raised one elegantly yellow-gloved hand. “It’s all right, honored. I knew Captain Vel prided herself on being old-fashioned. On knowing how much better things were when children respected their elders and good taste and refined manners were the rule. All familiar enough, I’m sure you heard such talk a thousand years ago, citizen.” Seivarden gave a small, acknowledging ha. “I’m sure you heard all about how Radchaai have a duty to bring civilization to humanity. And that ancillaries are far more efficient for that purpose than human soldiers.”
“Well, as to that,” said Seivarden, “I’d say they are.”
“Of course you would.” Skaaiat showed a small flash of anger. Seivarden probably couldn’t see it, didn’t know her well enough. “You probably don’t know, citizen, that I commanded human troops during an annexation myself.” Seivarden hadn’t known that. Her surprise was obvious. I had known, of course. My lack of surprise would be obvious to Station. To Anaander Mianaai.
There was no point in worrying about it. “It’s true,” Skaaiat continued, “that you don’t have to pay ancillaries, and they never have personal problems. They do whatever you ask them to, without any sort of complaint or comment, and they do it well and completely. And that wasn’t true of my human troops. And most of my soldiers were good people, but it’s so easy, isn’t it, to decide the people you’re fighting aren’t really human. Or maybe you have to do it, to be able to kill them. People like Captain Vel love pointing out the atrocities that human troops have committed, that ancillaries never would. As though making those ancillaries was not an atrocity in itself.
“They’re more efficient, as I said.” In Ors, Skaaiat would have been sarcastic on this topic, but she spoke seriously. Carefully and precisely. “And if we were still expanding we would have to still use them. Because we couldn’t do it with human soldiers, not for long. And we’re built to expand, we’ve been expanding for more than two thousand years and to stop will mean completely changing what we are. Right now most people don’t see that, don’t care. They won’t, until it affects their lives directly, and for most people it doesn’t yet. It’s an abstract question, except to people like Captain Vel.”
“But Captain Vel’s opinion is meaningless,” said Seivarden. “So is anyone else’s. The Lord of the Radch has decided, for whatever reason. And it’s foolish to go around saying anything against it.”
“She might decide otherwise, if persuaded,” answered Skaaiat. All of us still standing. I was too tense to sit, Seivarden too agitated, Skaaiat, I thought, angry. Daos Ceit standing frozen, trying to pretend she wasn’t hearing any of this. “Or the decision might be a sign that the Lord of the Radch has been corrupted in some way. Captain Vel’s sort certainly doesn’t approve of all the talking with aliens we’ve been doing. The Radch has always stood for civilization, and civilization has always meant pure, uncorrupted humanity. Actually dealing with nonhumans instead of just killing them can’t be good for us.”
“Is that what that business at Ime was about?” asked Seivarden, who had clearly spent our walk here thinking about this. “Someone decided to set up a base and stockpile ancillaries and… and what? Force the issue? You’re talking about rebellion. Treason. Why would anyone be talking about something like that now? Unless, when they got the people responsible for Ime, they didn’t get everyone. And now they’re letting a few people put their heads up and make some noise, and once they think everyone involved has identified themselves…” She was openly angry now. It was a fairly good guess, it might well be more or less right. Depending on which Anaander had the upper hand here. “Why didn’t you warn us?”
“I tried, citizen, but I ought to have spoken more directly. Even so, I wasn’t sure Captain Vel had gone so far. All I knew was that she idealized the past in a way I can’t agree with. The noblest, most well-intentioned people in the world can’t make annexations a good thing. Arguing that ancillaries are efficient and convenient is not, to me, a point in favor of using ancillaries. It doesn’t make it better, it only makes it look a little cleaner.”
And that only if you ignored what ancillaries were to begin with. “Tell me”—I almost said Tell me, Lieutenant, but caught myself in time—“Tell me, Inspector Supervisor, what happens to the people waiting to be made into ancillaries?”
“Some are still in storage, or on troop carriers,” Skaaiat said. “But most have been destroyed.”
“Well, that makes it all better then,” I said, seriously. Evenly.
“Awer was against it from the start,” said Skaaiat. She meant the continual expansion, not any expansion at all. And the Radch had used ancillaries long before Anaander Mianaai had made herself into what she was. There just hadn’t been quite so many of them. “Awer’s lords have said so to the Lord of the Radch, repeatedly.”
“But the lords of Awer have not refused to profit from it.” I kept my voice even. Pleasant.
“It’s so easy to go along with things, isn’t it?” Skaaiat said. “Especially when, as you say, it profits you.” She frowned then, and cocked her head slightly, listened a few seconds to something only she could hear. Looked questioningly at me, at Seivarden. “Station Security is at the door. Asking for Citizen Seivarden.” Asking was certainly more polite than the reality. “Excuse me a moment.” She stepped into the corridor, followed by Daos Ceit.
Seivarden looked at me, oddly calm. “I’m beginning to wish I were still frozen in my escape pod.” I smiled, but apparently it didn’t convince her. “Are you all right? You haven’t been all right since we left that Vel Osck person. Damn Skaaiat Awer for not speaking more directly! Usually you can’t get an Awer to stop saying unpleasant things. She picks now to be discreet!”
“I’m fine,” I lied.
As I spoke, Skaaiat returned with a citizen in the light brown of Station Security, who bowed and said to Seivarden, “Citizen, will you and this person come with me?” The courtesy was, of course, merely a form. One didn’t refuse Station Security’s invitations. Even if we tried there were reinforcements outside, placed there to make sure we didn’t refuse. They wouldn’t be Station Security, those people who had followed us from Captain Vel’s meeting. They would be Special Missions, or even Anaander Mianaai’s own guard. The Lord of the Radch had put all the pieces together and decided to remove me before I could do any serious damage. But it was almost certainly too late for that. All of her was paying attention. The fact that she’d sent Station Security to arrest me, and not some Special Missions officer to kill me quickly and quietly, told me that.
“Of course,” Seivarden answered, all calm courtesy. Of course. She knew she was innocent of any wrongdoing, she was sure I was Special Missions and working for Anaander herself, why should she worry? But I knew that finally the moment had come. The omens that had been in the air for twenty years were about to come down and show me—show Anaander Mianaai?
??what pattern they made.
This Security officer didn’t even twitch an eyebrow as she answered. “The Lord of the Radch wishes to speak with you privately, citizen.” Not a glance at me. She likely didn’t know why she’d been sent to escort us to the Lord of the Radch, didn’t realize I was dangerous, that she needed the backup that awaited us out in the station’s corridors. If she even knew it was there.
The gun still sat under my jacket, and extra magazines tucked here and there, wherever the bulge wouldn’t show. Anaander Mianaai almost certainly didn’t know what I intended.
“Is this my audience I requested, then?” asked Seivarden.
The Security officer gestured ambiguity. “I couldn’t say, citizen.”
Anaander Mianaai couldn’t have known my object in coming, knew only that I had disappeared some twenty years ago. Part of her might know that she’d been aboard my last voyage, but none of her could know what had happened after I’d gated out of Shis’urna’s system.
“I did ask,” said Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat, “if you might have tea and supper first.” The fact she’d asked said something about her relationship with Security. The fact she’d been refused said something about the urgency behind this arrest—it was an arrest, I was sure.
Security, oblivious, made an apologetic gesture. “My orders, Inspector Supervisor. Citizen.”
“Of course,” said Skaaiat, smooth and unruffled, but I knew her, heard worry hidden in her voice. “Citizen Seivarden. Honored Breq. If there’s any assistance I can provide please don’t hesitate to call on me.”
“Thank you, Inspector Supervisor,” I said, and bowed. My fear and uncertainty, my near panic, drained away. The omen Stillness had flipped, become Movement. And Justice was about to land before me, clear and unambiguous.
The Security officer escorted us not to the main entrance of the palace proper, but into the temple, quiet at this hour when many people were visiting, or sitting home with family and a bowl of tea. A young priest sat behind the now-half-empty baskets of flowers, bored and sullen. She gave us a resentful glance as we entered, but didn’t even turn her head as we passed.