“Most of me, anyway,” corrected Anaander Mianaai.
“Now she’s heard it straight out she can’t ignore it. Not here. But she might be able to prevent the knowledge from reaching the parts of her that aren’t here. At least long enough to strengthen her position.”
Realization made Seivarden’s eyes widen. “She’ll need to destroy the gates as soon as possible. But it can’t work. The signal travels at the speed of light, surely. She can’t possibly overtake it.”
“The information hasn’t left the station yet,” said Anaander Mianaai. “There’s always a slight delay. It would be far more efficient to destroy the palace instead.” Which would mean turning a warship engine on the entire station, vaporizing it, along with everyone on it. “And I’d have to destroy the whole palace to stop the information going any further. There isn’t just one spot where my memories are stored. It’s made hard to destroy or tamper with on purpose.”
“Do you think,” I asked, into Seivarden’s shocked silence, “that even you could get a Sword or a Mercy to do that? Even with accesses?”
“How badly would you like the answer to that question?” asked Anaander Mianaai. “You know I’m capable of it.”
“I do,” I acknowledged. “Which option do you prefer?”
“None of the currently available choices is very good. The loss of either the palace or the gates—or both—will cause disruption on an unprecedented scale, all through Radch space. Disruption that will last for years, simply because of the size of that space. Not destroying the palace—and the gates, really they’re still part of the problem—will ultimately be even worse.”
“Does Skaaiat Awer know what’s going on?” I asked.
“Awer has been a thorn in my side for nearly three thousand years,” said Mianaai. Calmly. As though this were an ordinary, casual conversation. “So much moral indignation! I’d almost think they bred for it, but they’re not all genetically related. But if I stray from the path of propriety and justice, I’m sure to hear about it from Awer.”
“Then why not get rid of them?” asked Seivarden. “Why go and make one inspector supervisor here?”
“Pain is a warning,” said Anaander Mianaai. “What would happen if you removed all discomfort from your life? No,” Mianaai continued, ignoring Seivarden’s obvious distress at her words, “I value that moral indignation. I encourage it.”
“No you don’t,” I said. By now we were on the concourse. Security and military herded sections of the frightened crowd—many of them would have implants, would have been receiving information from Station when it suddenly cut out, with no explanation.
A ship’s captain I didn’t know spotted us, and hurried over. “My lord,” she said, bowing.
“Get these people off the concourse, Captain,” Anaander Mianaai said, “and clear the corridors, as quickly and safely as you can. Continue to cooperate with Station Security. I’m working to resolve this as quickly as possible.”
As Anaander Mianaai spoke, a flash of movement caught my eye. Gun. Instinctively I raised my armor, saw the person holding the gun was one of the people who had been following us on the concourse, just before Security had summoned us. The Lord of the Radch must have sent orders before she triggered her device and cut off all communications. Before she knew about the Garseddai gun.
The captain Anaander Mianaai had been speaking to recoiled, visibly startled by the sudden appearance of my armor. I raised my own gun, and a hammer-hard blow hit me from the side—someone else had shot at me. I fired, hit the person holding the gun. She fell, her own shot wild, hitting the temple façade behind me, shattering some god, bright-colored chips flying. Sudden, shocked silence from the already frightened citizens along the concourse. I turned, looked along the trajectory of the bullet that had hit me, saw panicked citizens and the sudden silver gleam of armor—this other shooter had seen me shoot the first, didn’t know armor wouldn’t help her. Half a meter from her another flash of silver as someone else armored herself. Citizens between me and my targets, moving unpredictably. But I was used to crowds of the frightened and the hostile. I fired, and fired again. The armor disappeared, both my targets fallen. Seivarden said, “Fuck, you are an ancillary!”
“We’d better get off the concourse,” said Anaander Mianaai. And to the nameless captain beside her, “Captain, get these people to safety.”
“But…” the captain began, but we were already moving away, Seivarden and Anaander Mianaai staying low, moving as speedily as they could.
I wondered briefly what was happening in other parts of the station. Omaugh Palace was huge. There were four other concourses, though all were smaller than this one, and level upon level of homes, workplaces, schools, public spaces, all of it full of citizens who would certainly be frightened and confused. If nothing else, anyone who lived here knew the necessity of following emergency procedures, wouldn’t stop to argue or wonder once the order to seek shelter had gone out. But of course, Station couldn’t give that order.
I couldn’t know, or help. “Who’s in the system?” I asked, as soon as we were out of earshot, climbing down an emergency access ladder well, my armor retracted.
“Near enough to matter, you mean?” Anaander Mianaai answered from above me. “Three Swords and four Mercies in easy shuttle distance.” Any order from Anaander Mianaai on the station would have to come by shuttle, because of the communications blackout. “I’m not worried about them at this very moment. There’s no possibility of giving them orders from here.” And the instant there would be, the instant that blackout was raised, the entire question would already be settled, the knowledge Anaander Mianaai was so desperate to hide from herself already speeding toward the gates that would take it through all of Radch space.
“Is anyone docked?” I asked. Right now, those would be the only ships that mattered.
“Only a shuttle from Mercy of Kalr,” said Anaander Mianaai, sounding half-amused. “It’s mine.”
“Are you certain?” And when she didn’t answer I said, “Captain Vel isn’t yours.”
“You got that impression too, did you?” Anaander Mianaai’s voice was definitely amused now. Above me, above Anaander Mianaai, Seivarden climbed, silent except for her shoes on the ladder rungs. I saw a door, halted, pulled the latch. Swung it open, and peered into the corridor beyond. I recognized the area behind the dock offices.
Once we’d all clambered into the corridor and shut the emergency door, Anaander Mianaai strode ahead, Seivarden and me following. “How do we know she’s the one she says she is?” Seivarden asked me, very quietly. Her voice still shook, and her jaw looked tight. I was surprised she hadn’t curled up in a corner somewhere, or fled.
“It doesn’t matter which one she is,” I said, not making any attempt to lower my voice. “I don’t trust any of her. If she tries to go anywhere near Mercy of Kalr’s shuttle you’re going to take this gun and shoot her.” All of what she’d said to me might easily be a ruse, intended to get me to help her to the docks, and to Mercy of Kalr, so she could destroy this station herself.
“You don’t need the Garseddai gun to shoot me,” Anaander Mianaai said, without looking behind her. “I’m not armored. Well, some of me is. But not me. Not most of me.” She turned her head briefly, to look at me. “That is troublesome, isn’t it.”
With my free hand I gestured my lack of concern or sympathy.
We turned a corner and stopped cold, confronted with Inspector Adjunct Ceit holding a stun stick, the sort of thing Station Security might use. She must have heard us talking in the corridor, because she evinced no surprise at our appearance, just a look of terrified determination. “Inspector Supervisor says I’m not to let anyone past.” Her eyes were wide, her voice unsure. She looked at Anaander Mianaai. “Especially not you.”
Anaander Mianaai laughed. “Quiet,” I said, “or Seivarden will shoot you.”
Anaander Mianaai raised an eyebrow, plainly disbelieving that Seivarden could bring herself to do any suc
h thing, but she was silent.
“Daos Ceit,” I said, in the language I knew had been her first. “Do you remember the day you came to the lieutenant’s house and found the tyrant there? You were afraid and you grabbed my hand.” Her eyes, impossibly, grew wider. “You must have woken before anyone else in your house or they’d never have let you come, not after what happened the night before.”
“But…”
“I must speak with Skaaiat Awer.”
“You’re alive!” she said, eyes still wide, still not quite believing. “Is the lieutenant… Inspector Supervisor will be so…”
“She’s dead,” I interrupted before she could get any further. “I’m dead. I’m all that’s left. I have to speak to Skaaiat Awer right now. The tyrant will stay here and if she won’t then you should hit her as hard as you can.”
I had thought Daos Ceit was mainly astonished, but now tears welled, and one dropped onto her sleeve, where she held the stick at the ready. “All right,” she said. “I will.” She looked at Anaander Mianaai and lifted the stick just slightly, the threat plain. Though it did strike me as foolhardy to post no one here but Daos Ceit.
“What’s the inspector supervisor doing?”
“She’s sent people to manually lock down all the docks.” That would take a lot of people, and a long time. It explained why Daos Ceit was here by herself. I thought of storm shutters rolling down, in the lower city. “She said it was just like that night in Ors, and the tyrant had to be doing it.”
Anaander Mianaai listened to all this, bemused. Seivarden seemed to have passed into some sort of shocked state, beyond astonishment.
“You stay here,” I said to Anaander Mianaai, in Radchaai. “Or Daos Ceit will stun you.”
“Yes, I got that much,” said Anaander Mianaai. “I see I didn’t make a very positive impression when last we met, citizen.”
“Everyone knows you killed all those people,” Daos Ceit said. Two more tears escaped. “And blamed the lieutenant for it.”
I had thought she was too young to have such strong feelings about the event. “Why are you crying?”
“I’m scared.” Not taking her eyes off Anaander Mianaai, or lowering the stick.
That struck me as very sensible. “Come on, Seivarden.” I walked past Daos Ceit.
Voices sounded ahead, where the outer office lay, past a turning. One step and then the next. It had never been anything else.
Seivarden let out a convulsive breath. It might have started as a laugh, or something she’d wanted to say. “Well,” she said then. “We survived the bridge.”
“That was easy.” I stopped and checked under my brocaded jacket, counting magazines even though I already knew how many I had. Shifted one from under the waistband of my trousers to a jacket pocket. “This is not going to be easy. Or end half as well. Are you with me?”
“Always,” she said, voice still oddly steady though I was sure she was on the point of collapse. “Haven’t I already said that?”
I didn’t understand what she meant, but now wasn’t the time to wonder, or ask. “Then let’s go.”
22
We rounded the corner, my gun at the ready, and found the outer office empty. Not silent. Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat’s voice sounded outside, slightly muted through the wall. “I appreciate that, Captain, but I’m ultimately responsible for the safety of the docks.”
An answer, muffled, words indistinguishable, but I thought I recognized the voice.
“I stand by my actions, Captain,” Skaaiat Awer answered as Seivarden and I came through the office and reached the wide lobby just outside.
Captain Vel stood, her back to an open lift shaft, a lieutenant and two troops behind her. The lieutenant still had pastry crumbs on her brown jacket. They must have climbed down the shaft, because I was quite certain Station controlled the lifts. In front of us, facing them and all the lobby’s watching gods, stood Skaaiat Awer and four dock inspectors. Captain Vel saw me, saw Seivarden, and frowned slightly in surprise. “Captain Seivarden,” she said.
Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat didn’t turn around, but I could guess what she was thinking, that she’d sent Daos Ceit to defend the back way in, all by herself. “She’s fine,” I said, answering her, and not Captain Vel. “She let me past.” And then, not having planned it, the words seeming to come out of my mouth of their own volition, “Lieutenant, it’s me, I’m Justice of Toren One Esk.”
As soon as I said it I knew she would turn. I raised the gun to aim it at Captain Vel. “Don’t move, Captain.” But she hadn’t. She and the rest of Mercy of Kalr stood puzzling out what I had just said.
Skaaiat Awer turned. “Daos Ceit would never have let me by otherwise,” I said. And remembered Daos Ceit’s hopeful question. “Lieutenant Awn is dead. Justice of Toren is destroyed. It’s only me now.”
“You’re lying,” she said, but even with my attention on Captain Vel and the others I could see she believed me.
One of the lift doors came jerkily open and Anaander Mianaai jumped out. And then another. The first turned, fist raised, as the second lunged for her. Soldiers and dock inspectors backed reflexively away from the struggling Anaanders, into my line of fire. “Mercy of Kalr stand clear!” I shouted, and the soldiers moved, even Captain Vel. I fired twice, hitting one Anaander in the head and the other in the back.
Everyone else stood frozen. Shocked. “Inspector Supervisor,” I said, “you can’t let the Lord of the Radch reach Mercy of Kalr. She’ll breach its heat shield and destroy us all.”
One Anaander still lived, struggled vainly to stand. “You’ve got it backward,” she gasped, bleeding. Dying, I thought, unless she got to a medic soon. But it hardly mattered, this was only one of thousands of bodies. I wondered what was happening in the private center of the palace proper, what sort of violence had broken out. “I’m not the one you want to shoot.”
“If you’re Anaander Mianaai,” I said, “then I want to shoot you.” Whichever half she represented, this body hadn’t heard all of that conversation in the audience hall, still thought it possible that I was on her side.
She gasped, and for a moment I thought she was gone. Then she said, faintly, “My fault.” And then, “If I were me”—a brief moment of pained amusement—“I’ll have gone to Security.”
Except, of course, unlike Anaander Mianaai’s personal guard (and whoever had shot at me on the concourse), Station Security’s “armed” was stun sticks, and “armored” was helmets and vests. They never had to face opponents with guns. I had a gun, and because of who I was, I was deadly with it. This Mianaai had missed that part of the conversation as well. “Have you noticed my gun?” I asked. “Have you recognized it?” She wasn’t armored, hadn’t realized that the gun I had shot her with was different from any other gun.
Hadn’t had, I thought, time or attention to wonder how anyone on the station could have had a gun she didn’t know about. Or maybe she just assumed I had shot her with a weapon she’d hidden from herself. But she saw now. No one else understood, no one else recognized the weapon, except Seivarden who already knew. “I can stand right here and pick off anyone who comes through the shafts. Just like I did you. I’ve got plenty of ammunition.”
She didn’t answer. Shock would defeat her in a matter of minutes, I thought.
Before any of the Mercy of Kalrs could react, a dozen vested and helmeted Station Security came thunking down the lift shaft. The first six tumbled out into the corridor, then stopped, shocked and confused by the dead Anaander Mianaais lying on the ground.
I had spoken the truth, I could pick them off, could shoot them in this moment of frozen surprise. But I didn’t want to. “Security,” I said, as firmly and authoritatively as I could. Noting which fresh magazine was nearest to hand. “Whose orders are you following?”
The senior Security officer turned and stared at me, saw Skaaiat Awer and her dock inspectors, facing Captain Vel and her two lieutenants. Hesitated as she tried to put us together in some sh
ape she understood.
“I am ordered by the Lord of the Radch to secure the docks,” she announced. As she spoke I saw on her face the moment she connected the dead Mianaais with the gun I held ready. The gun I shouldn’t have had.
“I have the docks secured,” said Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat.
“All due respect, Inspector Supervisor.” Senior Security sounded reasonably sincere. “The Lord of the Radch has to get to a gate so she can send for help. We’re to ensure she makes it safely to a ship.”
“Why not her own security?” I asked, already knowing the answer, as Senior Security did not. It was plain on her face that the question hadn’t occurred to her.
Captain Vel said, brusque, “My own ship’s shuttle is docked, I’d be more than happy to take my lord where she wants to go.” This with a pointed look at Skaaiat Awer.
Another Anaander Mianaai was almost certainly in that shaft behind those other Security officers. “Seivarden,” I said, “escort Senior Security to where Inspector Adjunct Daos Ceit is.” And to Senior Security’s look of dubious alarm, “It will make a number of things clear to you. You’ll still outnumber us and if you’re not back within five minutes they can take me down.” Or try to. They had probably never any of them met an ancillary and didn’t know how dangerous I could be.
“And if I won’t?” asked Senior Security.
I had left my face expressionless, but now, in answer, I smiled, as sweetly as I could manage. “Try it and see.”
The smile unnerved her, and she obviously had no idea what was going on, and knew it, knew things weren’t adding up to anything she could make sense of. Likely her entire career had been spent dealing with drunks, and arguments between neighbors. “Five minutes,” she said.
“Good choice,” I said, still smiling. “Do please leave the stun stick behind.”
“This way, citizen.” Seivarden, all elegant servant’s politeness.
When they had gone Captain Vel said, urgently, “Security, we outnumber them, despite the gun.”