Ancillary Justice (22 page)

I had set down near the medical facility. The lodgings
surrounding it were some of them luxurious, but many were smaller and less comfortable than the one I’d rented in the village where I’d found Seivarden, though a bit more expensive. Bright-coated southerners came and went, speaking a language I didn’t understand. Others spoke the one I knew, and fortunately this was the same language the signs used.

I chose lodging—roomier, at least, than the suspension-pod-size holes that were the cheapest available—and took Seivarden off to the first clean-looking and moderately priced food shop I could find.

When we entered, Seivarden eyed the shelves of bottles on the far wall. “They have arrack.”

“It’ll be incredibly expensive,” I said, “and probably not very good. They don’t make it here. Have a beer instead.”

She had been showing some signs of stress, and wincing slightly at the profusion of bright colors, so I expected some sort of irritable outburst, but instead she merely gestured acquiescence. Then she wrinkled her nose, slight disgust. “What do they make beer out of here?”

“Grain. It grows nearer the equator. It’s not as cold there.” We found seats on the benches that lined three rows of long tables, and a waiter brought us beer, and bowls of something she told us was the house specialty,
Extra beautiful eating, yes
, she said, in a badly mangled approximation of Radchaai, and it was in fact quite good, and turned out to have actual vegetables in it, a good proportion of thinly sliced cabbage among whatever the rest of it was. The smaller lumps appeared to be meat—probably bov. Seivarden cut one of the larger lumps in two with her spoon, revealing plain white. “Probably cheese,” I said.

She grimaced. “Why can’t these people eat
real
food? Don’t they know better?”

“Cheese is real food. So is cabbage.”

“But this sauce…”

“Tastes good.” I took another spoonful.

“This whole place smells funny,” she complained.

“Just eat.” She looked dubiously at her bowl, scooped a spoonful, sniffed it. “It can’t possibly smell worse than that fermented milk drink,” I said.

She actually half-smiled. “No.”

I took another spoonful, pondering the implications of this better behavior. I wasn’t sure what it meant, about her state of mind, about her intentions, about who or what she thought I was. Maybe Strigan had been right, and Seivarden had decided the most profitable course, for now, was to not alienate the person who was feeding her, and that would change as soon as her options changed.

A high voice called out from another table. “Hello!”

I turned—the girl with the Tiktik set waved to me from where she sat with her mother. For an instant I was surprised, but we were near the medical center, where I knew they had brought their injured relative, and they had come from the same direction we had, and so they had likely parked on the same side of town. I smiled and nodded, and she got up and came to where we were sitting. “Your friend is better!” she said, brightly. “That’s good. What are you eating?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “The waiter said it was the house specialty.”

“Oh, that’s very good, I had it yesterday. When did you get here? It’s so hot it’s like summer already, I can’t imagine what it’s like further north.” Clearly she’d had time to recover her more usual spirits since the accident that had brought her to Strigan’s house. Seivarden, spoon in hand, watched her, bemused.

“We’ve been here an hour,” I said. “We’re only stopping for the night, on our way to the ribbon.”

“We’re here until Uncle’s legs are better. Which will probably be another week.” She frowned, counting days. “A little longer. We’re sleeping in our flier, which is terribly uncomfortable, but Mama says the price for lodging here is outright theft.” She sat down on the end of the bench, next to me. “I’ve never been in space, what’s it like?”

“It’s very cold—even
you
would find it cold.” She thought that was funny, gave a little laugh. “And of course there’s no air and hardly any gravity so everything just floats.”

She frowned at me, mock rebuke. “You know what I mean.”

I glanced over to where her mother sat, stolid, eating. Unconcerned. “It’s really not very exciting.”

The girl made a gesture of indifference. “Oh! You like music. There’s a singer at a place down the street tonight.” She used the word I had used mistakenly, not the one she had corrected me with, in Strigan’s house. “We didn’t go to hear her last night because they charge. And besides she’s my cousin. Or she’s in the next lineage over from mine, and she’s my mother’s cousin’s daughter’s aunt, that’s close enough anyway. I heard her at the last ingather, she’s very good.”

“I’ll be sure to go. Where is it?”

She gave me the name of the place, and then said she had to finish her supper. I watched her go back to her mother, who only looked up, briefly, and gave a curt nod, which I returned.

The place the girl had named was only a few doors down, a long, low-ceilinged building, its back wall all shutters, open just now on a walled yard, where Nilters sat uncoated in the
one-degree air, drinking beer, listening silently to a woman playing a bowed, stringed instrument I’d never seen before.

I quietly ordered beer for myself and Seivarden, and we took seats on the inner side of the shutters—slightly warmer than the yard for the lack of a breeze, and with a wall to put our backs against. A few people turned to look at us, stared a moment, then turned away more or less politely.

Seivarden leaned three centimeters in my direction and whispered, “Why are we here?”

“To hear the music.”

She raised an eyebrow. “This is
music
?”

I turned to look at her directly. She flinched, just slightly. “Sorry. It’s just…” She gestured helplessly. Radchaai do have stringed instruments, quite a variety of them, in fact, accrued through several annexations, but playing them in public is considered a slightly risqué act, because one has to play either bare-handed, or in gloves so thin as to be nearly pointless. And this music—the long, slow, uneven phrases that made its rhythms difficult for the Radchaai ear to hear, the harsh, edged tone of the instrument—was not what Seivarden had been brought up to appreciate. “It’s so…”

A woman at a nearby table turned and made a reproving, shushing noise. I gestured conciliation, and turned a cautioning look on Seivarden. For a moment her anger showed in her face and I was sure I would have to take her outside, but she took a breath, and looked at her beer, and drank, and afterward looked steadily ahead in silence.

The piece ended, and the audience rapped fists gently on their tables. The string player somehow looked both impassive and gratified, and launched into another, this one noticeably faster and loud enough for Seivarden to safely whisper to me again. “How long are we going to be here?”

“A while,” I said.

“I’m tired. I want to go back to the room.”

“Do you know where it is?”

She gestured assent. The woman at the other table eyed us disapprovingly. “Go,” I whispered, as quietly as I could and still, I hoped, be heard by Seivarden.

Seivarden left. Not my concern anymore, I told myself, whether she found her way back to our lodgings (and I congratulated myself on having had the foresight to lock my pack in the facility’s safe for the night—even without Strigan’s warning I didn’t trust Seivarden with my belongings or my money) or wandered aimlessly through the city, or walked into the river and drowned—whatever she did, it was no concern of mine and nothing I needed to worry about. I had, instead, a jar of sufficiently decent beer and an evening of music, with the promise of a good singer, and songs I’d never heard before. I was nearer to my goal than I’d ever dared hope to be, and I could, for just this one night, relax.

The singer was excellent, though I didn’t understand any of the words she sang. She came on late, and by then the place was crowded and noisy, though the audience occasionally fell silent over their beer, listening to the music, and the knocking between pieces grew loud and boisterous. I ordered enough beer to justify my continued presence, but did not drink most of it. I’m not human, but my body is, and too much would have dulled my reactions unacceptably.

I stayed quite late, and then walked back to our lodgings along the darkened street, here and there a pair or threesome walking, conversing, ignoring me.

In the tiny room I found Seivarden asleep—motionless, breathing calm, face and limbs slack. Something indefinably
still about her suggested that this was the first I’d seen her in real, restful sleep. For the briefest instant I found myself wondering if she’d taken kef, but I knew she had no money, didn’t know anyone here, and didn’t speak any of the languages I had heard so far.

I lay down beside her and slept.

I woke six hours later, and incredibly, Seivarden still lay beside me, still asleep. I didn’t think she had waked while I slept.

She might as well get as much rest as she could. I was, after all, in no hurry. I rose and went out.

Further toward the medical center the street became noisy and crowded. I bought a bowl of hot, milky porridge from a vendor along the side of the walkway, and continued along where the road curved around the hospital and off toward the center of the town. Buses stopped, let passengers off, picked others up, continued on.

In the stream of people, I saw someone I recognized. The girl from Strigan’s, and her mother. They saw me. The girl’s eyes widened, and she frowned slightly. Her mother’s expression didn’t change, but they both swerved to approach me. They had, it seemed, been watching for me.

“Breq,” said the girl, when they had stopped in front of me. Subdued. Uncharacteristically, it seemed.

“Is your uncle all right?” I asked.

“Yes, Uncle is fine.” But clearly something troubled her.

“Your friend,” said her mother, impassive as always. And stopped.

“Yes?”

“Our flier is parked near yours,” the girl said, clearly dreading the communication of bad news. “We saw it when we got back from supper last night.”

“Tell me.” I didn’t enjoy suspense.

Her mother actually frowned. “It’s not there now.”

I said nothing, waiting for the rest.

“You must have disabled it,” she continued. “Your friend took money, and the people who paid him towed the flier away.”

The lot staff must not have questioned it, they had seen Seivarden with me.

“She doesn’t speak any languages,” I protested.

“They made lots of motions!” explained the girl, gesturing widely. “Lots of pointing and speaking very slow.”

I had badly underestimated Seivarden. Of course—she had survived, going from place to place with no language but Radchaai, and likely no money, but still had managed to nearly overdose on kef. More than once, likely. She could manage herself, even if she managed badly. She was entirely capable of getting what she wanted without help. And she had wanted kef, and she had obtained it. At my expense, but that was of no importance to her.

“We knew it couldn’t be right,” said the girl, “because you said you were only stopping the night on the way to space, but no one would have listened to us, we’re just bov herders.” And no doubt the sort of person who would buy a flier with no documentation, no proof of ownership—a flier, moreover, that had obviously been deliberately disabled to prevent its being moved by anyone but the owner—it might very well be a good idea to avoid confronting such a person.

“I would not presume to say,” said the girl’s mother, oblique condemnation, “what sort of friend your friend is.”

Not my friend. Never my friend, now or at any other time. “Thank you for telling me.”

I walked to the lot, and the flier was indeed gone. When I returned to the room, I found Seivarden still sleeping, or at any
rate still unconscious. I wondered just how much kef the flier had bought her. I only wondered long enough to retrieve my pack from the lodging’s safe, pay for the night—after this Seivarden would have to fend for herself, which apparently posed very little problem for her—and went looking for transport out of town.

There was a bus, but the first had left fifteen minutes before I asked after it, and the next would not leave for three hours. A train ran alongside the river, northward once a day, and like the bus it had already left.

I didn’t want to wait. I wanted to be gone from here. More specifically, I didn’t want to chance seeing Seivarden again, even briefly. The temperature here was mostly above freezing and I was entirely capable of walking long distances. The next town worth the name was, according to maps I’d seen, only a day away, if I cut across the glass bridge and then straight across the countryside instead of following the road, which curved to avoid the river and the bridge’s wide chasm.

The bridge was several kilometers out of town. The walk would do me good; I had not had enough exercise lately. The bridge itself might be mildly interesting. I set off toward it.

When I had walked a little over half a kilometer, past the lodgings and food shops that surrounded the medical center, into what looked like a residential neighborhood—smaller buildings, groceries, clothes shops, complexes of low, square houses joined by covered passageways—Seivarden came up behind me. “Breq!” she gasped, out of breath. “Where are you going?”

I didn’t answer, only walked faster. “Breq, damn it!”

I stopped, but did not turn around. Considered speaking. Nothing I thought of saying was remotely temperate, nor would anything I said do any sort of good. Seivarden caught up with me.

“Why didn’t you wake me up?” she asked. Answers occurred to me. I refrained from speaking any of them aloud, and instead began walking again.

I didn’t look back. I didn’t care if she followed me or not, hoped, in fact, she wouldn’t. I could certainly have no continued sense of responsibility, no fears that without me she would be helpless. She could take care of herself.

“Breq, damn it!” Seivarden called again. And then swore, and I heard her footsteps behind me, and her labored breath again as she caught up. This time I didn’t stop, but quickened my pace slightly.