“I have some guesses about what we might find there,” I admitted. “But first things first. And don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself.”
“Yes, sir,” Seivarden agreed.
At breakfast next morning, Queter’s sister stood silent, eyes downcast, as Lieutenant Tisarwat and I said the daily prayer. The flower of justice is peace. Silent as we named the dead. Still stood as Tisarwat and I sat.
“Sit, child,” I said to her, in Delsig.
“Yes, Radchaai.” She sat, obedient. Eyes still downcast. She had traveled with my Kalrs, eaten with them until this morning.
Tisarwat, beside her, cast her a quick, curious glance. Relaxed—or at least calm, preoccupied, I thought, with the things she wanted to accomplish today. Relieved that I had said nothing to her—so far—about the initiative she’d taken since I’d been gone downwell. Five brought us our breakfast—fish, and slices of dredgefruit, on the blue and violet Bractware, of course, which Five had missed. Was still enjoying.
Five was apprehensive, though—she’d learned, last night, about the apartments Tisarwat had taken over, down the corridor. No one I could read had looked this morning, but I was quite sure there would already be half a dozen Undergarden residents there, sitting on makeshift chairs, waiting to speak to Lieutenant Tisarwat. There would be more as the morning progressed. Complaints about repairs and construction that were already underway, requests for other areas to have attention sooner, or later, than scheduled.
Five poured tea—not Daughter of Fishes, I noticed—and Tisarwat set to her breakfast with a will. Queter’s sister didn’t touch hers, only looked down at her lap. I wondered if she felt all right—but if homesickness was the problem, asking her to speak her feelings aloud might only make things worse. “If you’d rather have gruel, Uran,” I said, still in Delsig, “Five can bring you some.” Another thought occurred. “No one is charging you for your meals, child.” A reaction, there, the tiniest lift of her head. “What you’re served here is your food allowance. If you’d like more you can have more, it’s not extra.” At sixteen, she was doubtless hungry nearly all the time.
She looked up, barely lifting her head. Glanced over at Tisarwat, already three quarters of the way through her fish. Started, hesitantly, with the fruit.
I switched to Radchaai, which I knew she spoke. “It will take a few days to find suitable tutors, Citizen. Until then, you are free to spend your time as you wish. Can you read the warning signs?” Life on a station was very, very different from life on a planet. “And you know the markings for section doors?”
“Yes, Citizen.” In fact, she couldn’t read Radchaai well, but the warning signs were bright and distinctive on purpose, and I knew Five and Eight had gone over them with her, on the trip here.
“If you take the warning signs very seriously, Citizen, and always listen to Station if it speaks to you through your handheld, you may go around the station as you like. Have you thought about the aptitudes?”
She had just put some fish in her mouth. Now she froze in alarm, and then, so that she could speak, she gulped it nearly unchewed. “I am at the citizen’s disposal,” she said, faintly. Winced, either at hearing herself say it, or at the lump of fish she’d just swallowed nearly whole.
“That isn’t what I asked,” I pointed out. “I’m not going to require you to do anything you don’t wish to. You can still be on the ration list if you claim an exemption from the tests, you just can’t take any civil or military assignments.” Uran blinked in surprise, almost raised her head to look at me, but quickly stopped herself. “Yes, it’s a rule recently made, expressly for Valskaayans, and away from Valskaay not much taken advantage of.” It was one any of the Valskaayan field workers might have invoked—but it wouldn’t have changed anything. “You’re still required to accept what assignment Administration gives you, of course. But there’s no hurry to ask them for one, just yet.”
And best not to make that application until Uran had spent some time with her tutors. I could understand her when she spoke Radchaai, but the overseers downwell had all behaved as though the speech of the Valskaayan field workers was completely incomprehensible. Possibly it was the accent, and I was used to speaking to people with various accents, was well acquainted with the accents of native Delsig-speakers.
“But you don’t have an assignment yet, Citizen?” asked Lieutenant Tisarwat. A shade eagerly. “Can you make tea?”
Uran took a deliberate breath. Hiding panic, I thought. “I am pleased to do whatever the citizen requires.”
“Lieutenant,” I said, sharply. “You are not to require anything of Citizen Uran. She is free to spend the next few days as she likes.”
Tisarwat said, “It’s only, sir, that Citizen Uran isn’t Xhai. Or Ychana. When residents…” She realized, suddenly, that she would have to openly acknowledge what she’d been up to. “I’d have asked Station Administration to assign me a few people, but the residents in the Undergarden, sir, they’re more comfortable speaking to me because we don’t have a history here.” We did have a history here, and doubtless everyone in the Undergarden was conscious of it. “The citizen might enjoy it. And it would be good experience.” Experience for what, she didn’t specify.
“Citizen Uran,” I said. “Except for questions of safety or security, you are not required to do what Lieutenant Tisarwat asks you.” Uran still stared down, at her now-empty plate, no remaining trace of breakfast. I looked pointedly to Lieutenant Tisarwat. “Is that understood, Lieutenant?”
“Sir,” Tisarwat acknowledged. And then, with inward trepidation, “Might I have a few more Bos, then, sir?”
“In a week or so, Lieutenant. I’ve just sent Ship away on an inspection.”
I couldn’t read Tisarwat’s thoughts, but I guessed from her emotional responses—brief surprise, dismay, rapidly replaced by a moment of bright certainty and then nervous hesitation—that she had realized I might still order Seivarden to send her Bos on a shuttle. And then reached the conclusion that I certainly would have suggested that, if I’d wanted to. “Yes, sir.” Crestfallen, and at the same time relieved, perhaps, that I hadn’t yet disapproved of her improvised office, her negotiations with Undergarden residents.
“You got yourself into this, Lieutenant,” I said, mildly. “Just try not to antagonize Station Administration.” Not likely, I knew. By now, Tisarwat and Piat were fast friends, and their social circle included Station Administration staff as well as Station Security and even people who worked for Governor Giarod. It was these people Tisarwat would doubtless have drawn on, in requesting people to be assigned to her, but they all had, as she had put it, a history here.
“Yes, sir.” Tisarwat’s expression didn’t change—she’d learned a few things from her Bos, I thought—and her lilac eyes showed only the slightest trace of how pleased and relieved she was to hear me speak so. And then, at the back of that, the regular undercurrent of anxiety, of unhappiness. I could only guess at what caused that—though I was sure it wasn’t anything that had gone wrong here. Left over, then, from the trip here to Athoek, from what had happened during that time. She turned again to Uran. “You know, Citizen, you wouldn’t really actually have to make tea. Bo Nine does that, at least she brings in the water in the morning. Really all you’d have to do is give people tea and be pleasant to them.”
Uran, who from the moment I had met her had been quietly anxious not to offend (when she had not been quietly miserable), looked up, right at Tisarwat, and said, in very plain Radchaai, “I don’t think I’d be very good at that.”
Lieutenant Tisarwat blinked, astonished. Taken quite aback. I smiled. “I am pleased to see, Citizen Uran, that your sister didn’t get all the fire, between the two of you.” And did not say that I was also glad Raughd had not managed to put what there was completely out. “Have a care, Lieutenant. I’ll have no sympathy if you get burned again.”
“Yes, sir,” replied Tisarwat. “If I may be excused, sir.” Uran looked quickly down agai
n, eyes on her empty plate.
“Of course, Lieutenant.” I pushed my own chair back. “I have my own business to attend to. Citizen.” Uran looked up and down again quickly, the briefest flash of a glance. “By all means ask Five for more breakfast if you’re still hungry. Remember about the warning signs, and take your handheld with you if you leave the apartments.”
“Yes, sir,” replied Uran.
I had sent for Captain Hetnys. She walked past the door to Lieutenant Tisarwat’s makeshift office, looked in. Hesitated, frowned. Walked on to receive Lieutenant Tisarwat’s bow—I had seen Captain Hetnys through her eyes. Tisarwat experienced a moment of pleased malice to see Captain Hetnys frown, but did not show it on her face. I strongly suspected Captain Hetnys turned to watch Tisarwat go into the office, but as Tisarwat didn’t turn to see it, I didn’t, either.
Eight showed Captain Hetnys into my sitting room. After the predictable round of tea (in the rose glass, now she knew about the Bractware, and Five could be sure she knew she wasn’t drinking from it), I said, “How is your Atagaris doing?”
Captain Hetnys froze an instant, surprised, I thought. “Sir?” she asked.
“The ancillary that was injured.” There were only the three Atagarises here. I had ordered Sword of Atagaris Var off of the station.
She frowned. “It’s recovering well, sir.” A slight hesitation. “If I may beg the fleet captain’s indulgence.” I gestured the granting of it. “Why did you have the ancillary treated?”
What answers I might have given to that question would doubtless have made little sense to Captain Hetnys. “Not doing so would have been a waste, Captain. And it would have made your ship unhappy.” Still the frown. I’d been right. She didn’t understand. “I have been considering how best to dispose of our resources.”
“The gates, sir,” Captain Hetnys protested. “Beg to remind the fleet captain, anyone might come through the gates.”
“No, Captain,” I said, “no one will come through the gates. They’re too easy to watch, and too easily defended.” And I would certainly mine them, one way or another. I wasn’t certain if Captain Hetnys hadn’t thought of that possibility, or if she had thought I might not think of it. Either was possible. “Certainly no one will come by the Ghost Gate.”
The merest twitch of muscles around her eyes and her mouth, the briefest of expressions, too quickly gone to be readable.
She believed someone might. I was increasingly sure that she had lied when she had said that she had never encountered anyone else in that other, supposedly empty, system. That she wanted to conceal the fact that someone was there, or had been there. Might be there now. Of course, if she had sold away Valskaayan transportees, she would want to conceal that fact in order to avoid reeducation or worse. And there remained, still, the question of whom she might have sold them to, or why.
I could not rely on her. Would not. Would be very, very careful to watch her and her ship.
“You’ve sent Mercy of Kalr away, sir,” Captain Hetnys pointed out. My ship’s departure would have been obvious, though of course the reason for it would not be.
“A brief errand.” Certainly I did not want to say what that errand was. Not to Captain Hetnys. “It will be back in a few days. Do you have confidence in the abilities of your Amaat lieutenant?”
Captain Hetnys frowned. Puzzled. “Yes, sir.”
“Good.” There was, then, no reason for her to insist on returning immediately to Sword of Atagaris. Once she did, her position—should she be able to recognize the fact—would be stronger than I wanted. I waited for her to request it, to ask permission to return to her ship.
“Well, sir,” she said, still sitting across from me, rose glass teabowl in one brown-gloved hand, “perhaps none of this will be needed, and we’ll have exerted ourselves for nothing.” A breath. Deliberate, I thought, deliberately calm.
No question that I would need to keep Captain Hetnys nearby. And off her ship, if possible. I knew what a captain meant, to a ship. And while no ancillary ever gave much information about its emotional state, I had seen the Atagaris ancillary, downwell, with that shard of glass jutting out of its back. Tears in its eyes. Sword of Atagaris did not want to lose its captain.
I had been a ship. I did not want to deprive Sword of Atagaris of its captain. But I would if I had to. If it meant keeping the residents of this system safe. If it meant keeping Basnaaid safe.
After breakfast, before letting Uran wander as she pleased, Eight took her to buy clothes. She could have gotten them from Station stores, of course, every Radchaai was due food, and shelter, and clothing. But Eight didn’t even allow this possibility to arise. Uran was living in my household and would be dressed accordingly.
I might, of course, have bought clothes for her myself. But to Radchaai, this would have implied either that I had adopted Uran into my house, or that I had given her my patronage. I doubted Uran wanted as much as the fiction of being even further separated from her family, and while clientage didn’t necessarily imply a sexual relationship, in situations where patron and client were very unequal in circumstances it was often assumed. It might not matter to some. I would not assume that it did not matter to Uran. So I had set her up with an allowance for such things. Hardly any different from my just outright giving her what she needed, but on such details propriety depended.
I saw that Eight and Uran were standing just outside the entrance to the temple of Amaat, on the grimy white floor, just under the bright-painted but dusty EskVar, Eight explaining, not-quite-ancillary calm, that Amaat and the Valskaayan god were fairly obviously the same, and so it would be entirely proper for Uran to enter and make an offering. Uran, looking somewhat uncomfortable in her new clothes, doggedly refusing. I was on the point of messaging Eight to stop when, glancing over Uran’s shoulder, she saw Captain Hetnys pass, followed by a Sword of Atagaris ancillary, and speaking earnestly to Sirix Odela.
Captain Hetnys had never once, that I could remember, spoken to Sirix or even acknowledged her presence while we had been downwell. It surprised Eight, too. She stopped midsentence, resisted frowning, and thought of something that made her suddenly abashed. “Your very great pardon, Citizen,” she said to Uran.
“… tizens are not going to be happy about that,” Governor Giarod was saying, where we sat above in her office, and I had no attention to spare for other things.
20
Next day, Uran went to Lieutenant Tisarwat’s makeshift office. Not because she’d been told to—Tisarwat had said nothing more about the matter. Uran had merely walked in—she’d stopped and looked in several times, the day before—and rearranged the tea things to her satisfaction. Tisarwat, seeing her, said nothing.
This went on for three days. I knew that Uran’s presence had been a success—since she was Valskaayan, and from downwell, she couldn’t be assumed to already be on one side or another of any local dispute, and something about her shy, unsmiling seriousness had been appealing to the Undergarden residents who’d called. One or two of them had found, in her silence, a good audience for their tale of difficulties with their neighbors, or with Station Administration.
For all those three days, neither mentioned any of it. Tisarwat was worried I already knew, and that I would disapprove, but also hopeful—no doubt her success so far suggested I might also approve of this last small thing.
On the third evening of silent supper, I said, “Citizen Uran, lessons begin the day after tomorrow.”
Uran looked up from her plate, surprised, I thought, and then back down. “Yes, sir.”
“Sir,” said Tisarwat. Anxious, but concealing it, her voice calm and measured. “Begging your indulgence…”
I gestured the superfluity of it. “Yes, Lieutenant, Citizen Uran appears to be popular in your waiting room. I’ve no doubt she’ll continue to be helpful to you, but I have no intention of slighting her education. I’ve arranged for her to study in the afternoons. She may do as she likes in the morning. Citizen”—directing
my words now to Uran—“considering where we’re living, I did engage someone to teach you Raswar, which the Ychana here speak.”
“It’s a sight more useful than poetry, anyway,” said Tisarwat, relieved and pleased.
I raised an eyebrow. “You surprise me, Lieutenant.” That brought on a rise in her general background level of unhappiness, for some reason. “Tell me, Lieutenant, how does Station feel about what’s been going on?”
“I think,” replied Tisarwat, “that it’s glad repairs are going forward, but you know stations never tell you directly if they’re unhappy.” In the antechamber, someone requested entry. Kalr Eight moved to answer the door.
“It wants to see everyone, all the time,” said Uran. Greatly daring. “It says it wouldn’t be the same as someone spying on you.”
“It’s very different from a planet, on a station,” I said, as Eight opened the door, revealing Sirix Odela. “Stations like to know their residents are all well. They don’t feel right, otherwise. Do you talk to Station often, Citizen?” Wondering as I spoke what Sirix was doing here, whom I had not seen since Eight had seen her talking to Captain Hetnys.
In the dining room, Uran was saying, “It talks to me, Rad… Fleet Captain. And it translates things for me, or reads notices to me.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” I said. “Station is a good friend to have.”
In the antechamber, Citizen Sirix apologized to Eight for arriving at such an awkward hour, when the household was at supper. “But Horticulturist Basnaaid wanted very much to speak to the fleet captain, and she’s unavoidably detained in the Gardens.”