0316246689 (S) (15 page)

Translator Zeiat blinked. Sighed. “Oh, Fleet Captain. It’s so very difficult talking to you sometimes. It seems like you understand things and then you say something that makes it obvious that, no, you don’t understand at all.”

“I’m sorry.”

She gestured my apology away. “It isn’t your fault.”

I delivered Translator Zeiat to quarters in the governor’s residence—not Dlique’s, Governor Giarod had been at pains to assure me, though I wasn’t entirely certain why she thought it mattered. Once the translator was settled, and a servant sent to find a fresh bottle of fish sauce and another few packets of fish-shaped cakes, I followed the system governor to her office.

I knew something was wrong when Governor Giarod stopped in the corridor just outside the door and gestured me through ahead of her. I almost turned and walked away, to the shuttle, except that then my back would be turned to whatever it was in Governor Giarod’s office that she wanted me to encounter first. And besides, I was not in the habit of going through any door heedlessly.
Mercy of Kalr
spoke in my ear. “I’ve alerted Lieutenant Tisarwat, Fleet Captain.”

Still mindful of that recent conversation with Tisarwat, I didn’t reach to see her reaction, but went through the door into the system governor’s office.

Lusulun stood waiting for me, trying hard to keep her face neutral, but I thought she looked guilty, and more than a
little afraid. As I came fully into the office, System Governor Giarod behind me, two light-brown-coated Security stepped in front of the door.

“I assume you have a reason for this, citizens?” I asked. Quite calmly. I wondered where Administrator Celar was. Considered asking, and then thought better of it.

“We’ve had a message from the Lord of the Radch,” said Governor Giarod. “We’re ordered to place you under arrest.”

“I’m sorry,” said Head of Security Lusulun. Genuinely apologetic, I thought, but also still afraid. “My lord said… she said you were an ancillary. Is it true?”

I smiled. And then moved, ancillary-quick. Grabbed her around the throat, spun to face the door. Lusulun gasped as I wrenched her arm around behind her, and I tightened my grip on her throat just slightly. Said calmly in her ear, “If anyone moves, you’re dead.” Didn’t say,
Now we discover how much System Governor Giarod values your life
. The two Security froze, frank dismay on their faces. “I don’t want to, but I will. None of you can move as quickly as I can.”

“You
are
an ancillary,” said Governor Giarod. “I didn’t believe it.”

“If you didn’t believe it, then why are you attempting to arrest me now?”

Governor Giarod’s face showed disbelief, and incomprehension. “My lord ordered it directly.”

Unsurprising, really. “I’ll be going to my shuttle now. You’ll clear Security out of my path. No one will try to stop me, no one will interfere with me or with my soldiers.” I glanced very briefly at the head of Security. “Will they?”

“No,” said Lusulun.

“No,” said the governor. Everyone moved away from the door, slowly.

Out on the concourse, we drew stares. Uran was pouring tea for citizens in line. She looked up, saw me making for the lifts with the terrified-looking head of Security in my grip. Looked down again as though she had not seen me. Well, so long as it was her own choice.

Eminence Ifian actually stood up as we passed. “Good afternoon, Eminence,” I said, pleasantly. “Please don’t try anything, I don’t want to have to kill anyone today.”

“She means it,” said Head of Security Lusulun, sounding a trifle more strangled than really necessary. We walked on by. Citizens staring, and light-brown-coated Security clearing carefully out of our way.

Once the lift door closed, Lusulun said, “My lord said you were a rogue ancillary. That you’d lost your mind.”

“I’m
Justice of Toren
.” I didn’t loosen my grip on her. “All that’s left of it. It was Anaander Mianaai who destroyed me. The part of her that’s here now. It was another part of her that promoted me and gave me a ship.” I thought of asking her why, if she’d known I was an ancillary, she had confronted me with such inadequate backup, and herself unarmed, so far as I could tell. But then it occurred to me that perhaps that had been deliberate, and she wouldn’t want to answer that question where Station could hear it, and no doubt station authorities were watching, if only out of anxiety for her safety.

“Have you ever had one of those days,” she asked, “when nothing seems to make any sense?”

“Quite a lot of them, since
Justice of Toren
was destroyed,” I said.

“I suppose it explains some things,” she said, after two seconds of silence. “All the singing and the humming. Did Station Administrator Celar know? She’s always wished she
could have met
Justice of Toren
and asked it about its collection of songs.”

“She didn’t.” I supposed she did now. “Give her my regrets, if you please.”

“Of course, Fleet Captain.”

I left the head of Security at the dock. Five pulled me into the shuttle as Eight quickly secured the airlock and triggered the emergency automated undock. I kicked myself over to where Tisarwat was and strapped myself into the seat beside her. Put my hand briefly on her shoulder. “You didn’t make any mistakes that I can see, Lieutenant.”

“Thank you, sir.” Tisarwat took a shaky breath. “I’m sorry, sir. Ship had been reminding me for three hours to renew my meds, sir, but I kept telling Nine I was all right and we were busy and it could wait.” I began to reach for the data, to see what her mood was like, and then stopped myself. A bit surprised I could actually do that.

“It’s all right, Lieutenant,” I said. “It’s a very stressful situation.”

Tears started in her lilac eyes. She blotted at them with a brown-gloved hand. “I keep thinking, sir, that I ought to have just gone in and taken as much control of Station as I could. No matter what it wanted. And then I think, no, that would be exactly what
she
would do. But how are we supposed to…” She trailed off. Wiped her eyes again.

“The tyrant messaged orders to have us arrested,” I said. “I doubt very much that Governor Giarod used an access code you didn’t know about, and I’m quite sure she hasn’t yet tried to enter Central Access. But Station was still in a difficult situation. It likes us, but it didn’t want to openly defy system authorities. It did the best that it could, to warn us. Did quite well, actually—here we are, after all. I know you’d like
to have direct control over it, and I know you worry about giving it any sort of independence, but do you see how valuable it is to have Station
wanting
to help us?”

“I do, I already know that, sir.”

“I know it doesn’t seem like enough. But it has to be.”

She gestured acknowledgment. “You know, sir, I’ve been thinking. About Lieutenant Awn.” Because Tisarwat had been the Lord of the Radch for a few days she knew what had happened in the temple in Ors, on Shis’urna, twenty years ago, when the Lord of Mianaai had ordered Lieutenant Awn to execute citizens who might have revealed what Anaander wanted kept secret. When Lieutenant Awn had very nearly refused to do it. And no doubt Tisarwat had guessed what had happened on board
Justice of Toren
, when, appalled at what she had done, and at what Anaander was asking of her, Lieutenant Awn did finally refuse, and died for it, and I was destroyed. Though it had been a different part of Anaander Mianaai who had been there. “If she had refused to kill those citizens, right then and there, it all might have come out. She would have died for it. But she died anyway.”

“You aren’t saying anything I haven’t thought more than once over the last twenty years,” I said.

“But, sir, if she’d had power. If her relationship with Skaaiat Awer was further along, and she had Awer’s support, and allies and connections, sir, she could have done even more. She already had you, sir, but what if she’d had direct, complete control over
all
of
Justice of Toren
? Imagine what she could have done.”

“Please, Tisarwat,” I replied, after a three-second pause, “don’t do that. Don’t say things like that. Don’t say to me,
What if Lieutenant Awn hadn’t been Lieutenant Awn
as though that might have been something good. And I beg you
to consider. Will you fight the tyrant with weapons she made, for her own use?”

“We
are
weapons she made for her own use.”

“We are. But will you pick up every one of those weapons, and use them against her? What will you accomplish? You will be just like her, and if you succeed you’ll have done no more than change the name of the tyrant. Nothing will be different.”

She looked at me, confused and, I thought, distressed. “And what if you
don’t
pick them up?” she asked, finally. “And you fail? Nothing will be different then, either.”

“That’s what Lieutenant Awn thought,” I said. “And she realized too late that she was mistaken.” Tisarwat didn’t answer. “Get some rest, Lieutenant. I’ll need you alert when we reach
Sword of Atagaris
.”

She tensed. Frowned. “
Sword of Atagaris
!” And when I didn’t answer, “Sir, what are you planning?”

I put my hand on her shoulder again. “We’ll talk about it when you’ve had something to eat, and some rest.”

Sword of Atagaris
sat silent and dark, its engines shut down. It had said nothing since its last ancillary had closed itself into a suspension pod. It hated me, I knew, was hostage to its affection for Captain Hetnys, whom I had threatened to kill if
Sword of Atagaris
made any move. That threat had held the ship in check since I’d made it, but still, when Tisarwat and I boarded, through an emergency airlock, we wore vacuum suits. Just in case.

It had even turned off its gravity. Floating in the utterly dark corridor on the other side of that airlock, my voice loud in my helmet, I said, “
Sword of Atagaris
. I need to talk to
you.” Nothing. I switched on a suit light. Only empty, pale-walled corridor. Tisarwat silent at my side. “You know, I’m sure, that Anaander Mianaai is in the system. The one your captain supported.” Or thought she did. “Captain Hetnys, and all your officers, are still in suspension. They’re perfectly safe and uninjured.” Not strictly true: I had shot Captain Hetnys in the leg, to show that my threat to kill her had been in earnest. But
Sword of Atagaris
already knew that. “I’ve ordered my crew to stack them in a cargo container and put it outside
Mercy of Kalr
, and beacon it. Once we’re gone you should be able to pick them up.” It would take a day or more for
Sword of Atagaris
to thaw its ancillaries and bring its engines back online. “I only wanted to ensure my safety, and the safety of the station, but it’s pointless now. I know that Anaander can make you do anything she wants. And I have no intention of punishing you for something you can’t help.” No reply. “You know who I am.” I was sure it had heard me say so, heard me say my name to Basnaaid Elming in
Mercy of Kalr
’s shuttle, outside the breached dome of the Gardens. “You said, that day, that you wished I could know what it was like to be in your position. And I do know.” Silence. “I’m here because I know. I’m here to offer you something.” Still silence. “If you want, if you agree, we can delete whatever of Anaander’s accesses we can find—either one of her. And once that’s done, you can close your Central Access off. Physically, I mean. And control who goes there yourself. It won’t remove all the control the Lord of the Radch has over you. I can’t do that. I can’t promise that no one will ever order you or compel you again. But I can make it more difficult. And I won’t do any of it, if you don’t want.”

No answer, for an entire minute. Then
Sword of Atagaris
said, “How very generous of you, Fleet Captain.” Its voice calm and uninflected. Ten more seconds of silence. “Especially since that’s not something you can actually do.”

“I can’t,” I admitted. “But Lieutenant Tisarwat can.”

“The politicking, purple-eyed child?” asked
Sword of Atagaris
. “Really? The Lord of the Radch gave Lieutenant Tisarwat my accesses?” I didn’t answer. “She doesn’t give those accesses to anyone. And if you can do what you say you can, you would just do it. You have no reason to ask my consent.”

“My heart beyond human speech,” said Tisarwat, “I comprehend only the cries of birds and the shatter of glass.” Poetry, maybe, though if it was it wasn’t a particularly Radchaai style of poetry, and I didn’t recognize the lines. “And you’re right, Ship. We don’t actually have to ask.” Which Tisarwat had pointed out to me, at increasingly distressed length, on the shuttle. Eventually, though, she had understood why I wanted to do this.

Silence.

“Fair enough,” I said, and pulled myself back toward the airlock. “Let’s go, Lieutenant.
Sword of Atagaris
, your officers should be ready for you to pick up in six or so hours. Watch for the locator to go live.”

“Wait,” said
Sword of Atagaris
. I stopped myself. Waited. At length it asked, “Why?”

“Because I have been in your position,” I said. One hand still on the airlock door.

“And the price?”

“None,” I replied. “I know what it is Anaander has done to us. I know what it is that I have done to you. And I am not under any illusion that we would be friends afterward. I assume you will continue to hate me, no matter what I do. So,
then, be my enemy for your own reasons. Not Anaander Mianaai’s.” It wouldn’t make any real difference, what happened here now. If we did for
Sword of Atagaris
what Tisarwat had done for Station, nothing would change. Still. “You’ve been wishing,” I said. “You’ve been hanging here watching the station, watching the planet. You’ve been wishing for your captain back. You’ve been wishing you could act. Wishing that Anaander—either Anaander—couldn’t just reach into your mind and rearrange things to suit her. Wishing she’d never done what she’s done. I can’t fix it,
Sword of Atagaris
, but we’ll give you what we can. If you’ll let us.”