0316246689 (S) (12 page)

Someone who could be a captain was, presumably, a person, not a piece of equipment. Didn’t (in theory at least) have to worry about her builder and owner altering her thoughts to suit that owner’s purposes, let alone doing it in uncomfortably conflicting ways. Someone who could be a captain might obey someone else, but it was through her own choice. “I understand,” I said, quietly, while the translator and the magistrate were still occupied with their conversation, “that
Sphene
is incredibly annoying, and I know it’s been trying for days to get a rise out of you.” No term of address, because I was talking to both Ship and Five. “But you know I’m going to have to reprimand you. You know you should have kept silent. And you should have kept your attention on the translator. Don’t let it happen again.”

“Sir,” acknowledged Five.

“And by the way, thank you for talking to Lieutenant Seivarden.” Five knew the basic outlines of what had happened, she was never entirely out of contact with the rest of her decade. “I thought you handled that well.” In Medical, aboard
Mercy of Kalr
, Seivarden slept. Amaat One, apprehensive, going over policies and regulations with Ship, because
she would have to stand Seivarden’s watch in a few hours. She already knew everything she needed to know, and Ship was always there to help. It was just a matter of officially demonstrating it. And of her reminding herself that she did know it. Ekalu, on watch herself, was still angry. But after some (rather fraught) discussion with Ship, Seivarden had managed a short, simple apology that had not placed blame anywhere but on herself, and had not demanded anything from Ekalu in return. So Ekalu’s anger had lessened, had faded into the background of anxiety surrounding her suddenly being in command.

“Thank you, sir,” Kalr Five said again. For Ship.

I turned back to the translator. The topic had strayed from oysters back to the fish in the courtyard basin. “It’s all right,” the magistrate was saying. “You can eat one of the fish.”

I didn’t know whether to be relieved or alarmed at the fact that it took Translator Zeiat less than five minutes to find (and catch) the exact same one, and swallow it down, still wriggling.

6

The district magistrate came herself to Queter’s interrogation. It was an unpleasant, humiliating business, made no better by the interrogator’s assurance that Citizen Queter herself would not remember it. “That only makes it worse,” said Queter, who had been brought in already drugged.

“Please speak Radchaai, citizen,” said the interrogator, with an aplomb that suggested Queter was not the first patient of hers to speak mostly in another language. And left me wondering what she would do if one of her patients spoke Radchaai very poorly, or if she could not understand their accent.

Afterward, in the corridor outside, the district magistrate, looking grim after what we had just heard, said, “Fleet Captain, I’ve moved Citizen Raughd’s interrogation up to tomorrow morning. She requested her mother as her witness, but Citizen Fosyf has refused to come.” And then, after a moment of silence, “I’ve known Raughd since she was a baby. I remember when she was born.” Sighed. “Are you always right about everything?”

“No,” I replied. Simply. Evenly. “But I’m right about this.”

I stayed long enough for Queter to recover from the drugs, so that she would know for certain that I had come. Then I went back down the hill to the river mouth, where Kalr Eight stood watch over Translator Zeiat, who sat on a red-cushioned bench on a black stone quay while a citizen shucked oysters for her.
Sphene
, who had returned to our lodgings that morning and sat down to breakfast without any sort of explanation or even a perfunctory
Good morning
, sat beside her, gazing out at the gray-and-white waves.

“Fleet Captain!” said Translator Zeiat happily. “We went out in a boat! Did you know there are millions of fish out there in that water?” She gestured toward the sea. “Some of them are quite large, apparently! And some of them aren’t actually fish! Have you ever eaten an oyster?”

“I have not.”

The translator gestured urgently to the oyster-shucking citizen, who deftly pried one open and handed it to me. “Just tip it into your mouth and chew it a few times, Fleet Captain,” she said, “and then swallow it.”

Translator Zeiat watched me expectantly as I did so. “So,” I observed, “that was an oyster.” The oyster-shucker laughed, short and sharp. Unfazed by the translator, or by me.

And remained unfazed when the translator said, “Give me one before you open it.” And, receiving it, put the entire thing, tightly closed shell and all, into her mouth. The oyster was a good twelve centimeters long, and the translator’s jaw unhinged and slid forward just a bit as she swallowed the entire thing. Her throat distended as it went down, and then her jaw moved back into place and she gently patted her upper chest, as though helping the oyster settle.

Eight, outwardly impassive, was appalled and frightened
at what she’d just seen.
Sphene
still gazed out at the water, as though it had noticed nothing—indeed, as if it were entirely alone. I looked at the oyster-shucker, who said, calmly, “Can’t none of you surprise me anymore.” Which was when I realized her imperturbability in the translator’s presence was only an act.

“Citizen,” said Translator Zeiat, “do you ever put fish sauce on oysters?”

“I can’t say I’ve ever done that, Translator.” And now I was looking for it, I noticed the very slight hesitation before she answered, the very tiny tremor in her voice. “But if it tastes good to you, why, you just go ahead.”

Translator Zeiat made a satisfied
hah
. “Can we go out in the boat again tomorrow?”

“I expect so, Translator,” replied the oyster-shucker, and I silently instructed Eight to add extra to her fee.

But we didn’t go out in the boat the next day. Halfway through her first watch, Amaat One noticed an anomaly in the data Ship was showing her. It was very tiny, just a slight moment of
nothing
where there had been
something
before. It might easily have been completely insignificant, or maybe a sign that one of
Mercy of Kalr
’s sensors needed looking at. Or that instant of
nothing
might have been a gate opening. Which would mean a military ship had arrived. And maybe in a little while its message identifying itself would reach us.

Or maybe not. If it had been a ship arriving, its captain had chosen to arrive a very long way away from Athoek Station. Almost as though she didn’t want to be seen. “Ship,” said Amaat One, no doubt having had all these thoughts in the panicked instant between her seeing that anomaly and her speaking, “please wake Lieutenant Ekalu.” And a moment of almost-relief. The rest would not be her responsibility.

By the time Lieutenant Ekalu arrived in Command, not entirely awake, still pulling on her uniform jacket, it had happened three more times. And no message had arrived, no greeting, no identification—though it was likely too soon for that anyway. “Thank you, Amaat,” she said. “Well spotted.” Ship had seen it, too, and would have said something to Amaat One if necessary, of course. Still. “Ship, can we guess where they might have come from?” She gestured, indicating Amaat One should stay in her seat. Accepted tea from another Amaat.

“The fact that they arrived within minutes of each other suggests they left from the same place at more or less the same time,” replied Ship, “and traveled by similar routes. For various reasons”—Ship displayed some of its reasons in Ekalu’s vision, calculations of distance through the unreality of gate-space, likely departure times from various other systems—“including the fact that Fleet Captain Uemi”—who was one gate away in Hrad System and our only source of news from Omaugh Palace—“has not told us any ships are coming to support us, and the fact that these ships have arrived far enough away we might reasonably have missed them, I think it likely they’ve come from Tstur Palace.”

Tstur Palace. Where the faction of Anaander Mianaai most overtly hostile to me, whose supporters had destroyed intersystem gates while civilian ships were still in them, who had herself attempted to destroy an entire station full of citizens, was now in control. “Right,” Ekalu replied. Voice steady. Face impassive. Just the smallest tremor in the hand that held her bowl of tea. “I suppose we should notify the Hrad Fleet? Is S… is the fleet captain aware of this?”

“Yes, Lieutenant.” Palpable relief, from Ekalu, from Amaat One, from the other Amaats standing watch.

“Is…” And then, silently, for Ship alone, “Is she aware that
Lieutenant Seivarden is… that Medic has removed Lieutenant Seivarden from duty?” Seivarden slept in Medical, and in theory she could be wakened to take command. But she’d spent the day drugged, undergoing testing so that Medic could at least attempt to help her with her difficulties. And the results of that testing so far suggested that it would be extremely foolhardy just now to put Seivarden under any sort of stress.

“I am,” I said silently, from downwell, where I bemusedly watched as Translator Zeiat very carefully cut a tiny fish-shaped cake into thin horizontal slices and laid them in a row on the table in front of her. “You’ll be fine, Lieutenant. Keep an eye on them, best we can, and I’ll be there as soon as I can manage it. They probably won’t move until they feel like they have a good idea of what’s going on here. Let’s act like we haven’t noticed them, for now.” The tall windows of the lodging house sitting room opened onto a view of the nighttime city, lights trailing down to the shore, the lights of the boats, blue and red and yellow out on the water. Now the sun was down the breeze had shifted, and smelled of flowers instead of the sea.
Sphene
, who had said nothing all day, sat beside me, staring out the window. “But do clear for action. Just in case.”

Behind me, Kalr Eight said to Kalr Five in the quietest of whispers, “But what I can’t stop thinking about is, what happens to the oyster shell?”

Without looking up, or pausing her slow and careful slicing, Translator Zeiat said, quite calmly, “I’m digesting it, of course. Though it does seem to be taking a while. Would you like it? It’s mostly still there.”

“No, thank you, Translator,” replied Eight in a flat, ancillary-like voice.

“It was very kind of you to offer, Translator,” I said.

Translator Zeiat completed her cut, carefully slid the piece of cake from her knife-blade onto the table. Looked up at me, frowning. “Kind? I wouldn’t have said it was
kind
.” Blinked. “Perhaps I just don’t understand that word.”

“In this context it’s just a formal way to say
thank you
, Translator,” I replied. “I’m afraid we won’t be able to go out in the boat tomorrow. I have to return to the station immediately.” Behind me Five and Eight queried Ship, and even before the reply came, Five left the sitting room to begin packing.

Translator Zeiat said only, “Oh?” Mild. Uninterested. She gestured at the thin, flat slices of fish-shaped cake arrayed on the table in front of her. “It’s the same all the way through, have you noticed? Other fish aren’t. Other fish are complicated inside.”

“Yes,” I agreed.

Tisarwat stood on the main concourse of Athoek Station, watching the line that still stretched out of Station Administration. Though some days had passed since it had first formed, it had not died away. It was, if anything, longer than it had been.

The Head of Station Security, standing beside Lieutenant Tisarwat, said, “So far so good. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that the fleet captain knew what she was talking about. But I admit I am. Still. Half the people in line right now have no assignment. If they did, the line would be shorter. I wish Administration would just find them jobs, it would make our lives easier.”

“They’d just come during their off-hours, sir,” Lieutenant Tisarwat observed. Indeed, no few places in the line were currently marked by objects left as placeholders—cushions,
mostly, or folded blankets. Quite a few citizens had spent the night here. “Or worse, skip work entirely. Then we’d have more work stoppages on our hands.” She didn’t look over toward the temple entrance, where the priests of Amaat still sat. On cushions themselves now—Eminence Ifian hadn’t lasted more than an hour on the hard concourse floor before she’d sent a junior priest for something to sit on. Watching from downwell I’d wondered how long the eminence had thought she and her priests would have to sit there—if she had expected a quick capitulation, or if she’d just not thought about that particular detail. Station likely knew, but Station, being Station, wouldn’t tell me if I asked.

Governor Giarod had made no public statement about the situation, but then, she did control the official news feeds. Which had mentioned the eminence’s work stoppage, and even quoted her on her reasons for it. The official news did not mention the line at all. Nor did the official news mention that the Xhai hierophant was willing to perform birth celebrations or funeral obsequies for any citizen, initiate of the Mysteries or not. Station Administrator Celar’s daily omen casts were reported in the blandest possible manner, with no elaboration or discussion.

Station Security, of course, was fairly firmly behind Station Administrator Celar. Still. “It might end sooner, perhaps,” said the head of Security, to Tisarwat, “without the food and beverage service.” A dozen or so Undergarden residents—Uran included, when she wasn’t at her studies—had been bringing tea and food to the citizens waiting in line, twice a day. Uran herself had offered tea to the priests in front of the temple, on the first day, and had been stonily ignored.

“Or perhaps, sir,” Tisarwat replied, “they’d be in line just as long, but hungry and caffeine-deprived.” She gestured the
obviousness of the unspoken second half of that suggestion. “Maybe they’re doing us a favor.”

“Hah!” The head of Security seemed genuinely amused. “They’re all your neighbors, aren’t they. And that youngster with them—Uran, is it?—is part of your household. A ward of the fleet captain’s, I understand?”