Ancillary Justice (33 page)

The lift doors slid open onto a broad and dazzling view—an avenue paved in black stone veined with white, seven hundred meters long and twenty-five wide, the roof sixty meters above. Directly ahead stood the temple. The steps were not really steps, but an area marked out on the paving with red and green and blue stones; actions on the steps of the temple potentially had legal significance. The entrance was itself forty meters high and eight wide, framed with representations of hundreds of gods, many human-shaped, some not, a riot of colors. Just inside the entrance lay a basin for
worshippers to wash their hands in, and beyond that containers of cut flowers, a swath of yellow and orange and red, and baskets of incense, for purchase as offerings. Away down either side of the concourse, shops, offices, balconies with flowered vines snaking down. Benches, and plants, and even at an hour when most Radchaai would be at supper hundreds of citizens walked or stood talking, uniformed (white for the Translators Office, light brown for Station Security, dark brown for military, green for Horticulture, light blue for Administration) or not, all glittering with jewelry, all thoroughly Civilized. I saw an ancillary follow its captain into a crowded tea shop, and wondered which ship it was. What ships were here. But I couldn’t ask, it wasn’t the sort of thing Breq from the Gerentate would care about.

I saw them all, suddenly, for just a moment, through non-Radchaai eyes, an eddying crowd of unnervingly ambiguously gendered people. I saw all the features that would mark gender for non-Radchaai—never, to my annoyance and inconvenience, the same way in each place. Short hair or long, worn unbound (trailing down a back, or in a thick, curled nimbus) or bound (braided, pinned, tied). Thick-bodied or thin-, faces delicate-featured or coarse-, with cosmetics or none. A profusion of colors that would have been gender-marked in other places. All of this matched randomly with bodies curving at breast and hip or not, bodies that one moment moved in ways various non-Radchaai would call feminine, the next moment masculine. Twenty years of habit overtook me, and for an instant I despaired of choosing the right pronouns, the right terms of address. But I didn’t need to do that here. I could drop that worry, a small but annoying weight I had carried all this time. I was home.

This was home that had never been home, for me. I had
spent my life at annexations, and stations in the process of becoming this sort of place, leaving before they did, to begin the whole process again somewhere else. This was the sort of place my officers came from, and departed to. The sort of place I had never been, and yet it was completely familiar to me. Places like this were, from one point of view, the whole reason for my existence.

“It’s a bit longer walk, this way,” Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat said, “but a dramatic entrance.”

“It is,” I agreed.

“Why all the jackets?” asked Seivarden. “That bothered me last time. Though the last place, anyone in a coat was wearing it knee-length. Here it looks like it’s either jackets or coats down to the floor. And the collars are just
wrong
.”

“Fashion didn’t trouble you the other places we’ve been,” I said.

“The other places were
foreign
,” Seivarden answered, irritably. “They weren’t supposed to be
home
.”

Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat smiled. “I imagine you’ll get used to it eventually. The palace proper is this way.”

We followed her across the concourse, my and Seivarden’s uncivilized clothes and bare hands attracting some curious and disgusted looks, and came to the entrance, marked simply with a bar of black over the doorway.

“I’ll be fine,” said Seivarden, as though I’d spoken. “I’ll catch up with you when I’m done.”

“I’ll wait.”

Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat watched Seivarden go into the palace proper and then said, “Honored Breq, a word, please.”

I acknowledged her with a gesture, and she said, “You’re very concerned about Citizen Seivarden. I understand that,
and it speaks well of you. But there’s no reason to worry for her safety. The Radch takes care of its citizens.”

“Tell me, Inspector Supervisor, if Seivarden were some nobody from a nothing house who had left the Radch without permits—and whatever else it was she did, to be honest I don’t know if there was anything else—if she were someone you had never heard of, with a house name you didn’t recognize and know the history of, would she have been met courteously at the dock and given tea and then escorted to the palace proper to make her appeal?”

Her right hand lifted, the barest millimeter, and that small, incongruous gold tag flashed. “She’s not in that position anymore. She’s effectively houseless, and broke.” I said nothing, only looked at her. “No, there’s something in what you say. If I didn’t know who she was I wouldn’t have thought to do anything for her. But surely even in the Gerentate things work that way?”

I made myself smile slightly, hoping for a more pleasant impression than I had likely been making. “They do.”

Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat was silent a moment, watching me, thinking about something, but I couldn’t guess what. Until she said, “Do you intend to offer her clientage?”

That would have been an unspeakably rude question, if I had been Radchaai. But when I had known her Skaaiat Awer had often said things most others left unsaid. “How could I? I’m not Radchaai. And we don’t make that sort of contract in the Gerentate.”

“No, you don’t,” Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat said. Blunt. “I can’t imagine what it would be like to suddenly wake up a thousand years from now having lost my ship in a notorious incident, all my friends dead, my house gone. I might run away too. Seivarden needs to find a way she can belong
somewhere. To Radchaai eyes, you look like you’re offering that to her.”

“You’re concerned I’m giving Seivarden false expectations.” I thought of Daos Ceit in the outer office, that beautiful, very expensive pearl-and-platinum pin that wasn’t a token of clientage.

“I don’t know what expectations Citizen Seivarden has. It’s just… you’re acting as though you’re responsible for her. It looks wrong to me.”

“If I were Radchaai, would it still look wrong to you?”

“If you were Radchaai you would behave differently.” The tightness of her jaw argued she was angry but trying to conceal it.

“Whose name is on that pin?” The question, unintended, came out more brusquely than was politic.

“What?” She frowned, puzzled.

“That pin on your right sleeve. It’s different from everything else you’re wearing.”
Whose name is on it?
I wanted to ask again, and,
What have you done for Lieutenant Awn’s sister?

Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat blinked, and shifted slightly backward, almost as though I had struck her. “It’s a memorial for a friend who died.”

“And you’re thinking about her now. You keep shifting your wrist, turning it toward yourself. You’ve been doing it for the past few minutes.”

“I think of her frequently.” She took a breath, let it out. Took another. “I think maybe I’m not being fair to you, Breq Ghaiad.”

I knew. I knew what name was on that pin, even though I hadn’t seen it.
Knew
it. Wasn’t sure if, knowing, I felt better about Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat, or much, much worse.
But I was in danger, at this moment, in a way I had never anticipated, never predicted, never dreamed might happen. I had already said things I should never, ever have said. Was about to say more. Here was the one single person I had met in twenty long years who would know who I was. The temptation to cry out,
Lieutenant, look, it’s me, I’m
Justice of Toren
One Esk
was overwhelming.

Instead, very carefully, I said, “I agree with you that Seivarden needs to find herself a home here. I just don’t trust the Radch the way you do. The way she does.”

Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat opened her mouth to answer me, but Seivarden’s voice cut across whatever Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat would have said. “That didn’t take long!” Seivarden came up beside me, looked at me, and frowned. “Your leg is bothering you again. You need to sit down.”

“Leg?” asked Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat.

“An old injury that didn’t heal quite right,” I said, glad of it for the moment, that Seivarden would attribute any distress she saw to that. That Station would, if it was watching.

“And you’ve had a long day, and I’ve kept you standing here. I’ve been quite rude, please forgive me, honored,” Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat said.

“Of course.” I bit back words that wanted to come out of my mouth behind that, and turned to Seivarden. “So where do things stand now?”

“I’ve requested my appeal, and should have a date sometime in the next few days,” she said. “I put your name in too.” At Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat’s raised eyebrow Seivarden added, “Breq saved my life. More than once.”

Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat only said, “Your audience probably won’t be for a few months.”

“Meantime,” continued Seivarden with a small, still-cross-armed acknowledging gesture, “I’ve been assigned lodgings and I’m on the ration list and I’ve got fifteen minutes to report to the nearest supplies office and get some clothes.”

Lodgings. Well, if her staying with me had looked wrong to Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat, doubtless it would, for the same reasons, look wrong to Seivarden herself. And even if she was no longer my servant, she had requested I accompany her to her audience. That was, I reminded myself, the important issue. “Do you want me to come with you?” I didn’t want to. I wanted to be alone, to recover my equilibrium.

“I’ll be fine. You need to get off that leg. I’ll catch up with you tomorrow. Inspector Supervisor, it was good to meet you.” Seivarden bowed, perfectly calculated courtesy toward a social equal, received an identical bow from Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat, and then was off down the concourse.

I turned to Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat. “Where do you recommend I stay?”

Half an hour later I was as I had wished to be, alone in my room. It was an expensive one, just off the main concourse, an incredibly luxurious five meters square, a floor of what might almost have been real wood, dark-blue walls. A table and chairs, and an image projector in the floor. Many—though not all—Radchaai had optical and auditory implants that allowed them to view entertainments or listen to music or messages directly. But people still liked to watch things together, and the very wealthy sometimes made a point of turning their implants off.

The blanket on the bed felt as if it might be actual wool, not anything synthetic. On one wall a fold-down cot for a servant, which of course I no longer had. And, incredible
luxury for the Radch, the room had its own tiny bath—a necessity for me, given the gun and ammunition strapped to my body under my shirt. Station’s scans hadn’t picked it up, and wouldn’t, but human eyes could see it. If I left it in the room, a searcher might find it. I certainly couldn’t leave it in the dressing room of a public bath.

A console on the wall near the door would give me access to communications. And Station. And it would allow Station to observe me, though I was certain it wasn’t the only way Station could see into the room. I was back in the Radch, never alone, never private.

My luggage had arrived within five minutes of my taking the room, and with it a tray of supper from a nearby shop, fish and greens, still steaming and smelling of spices.

There was always the chance that no one was paying attention. But my luggage, when I opened it, had clearly been searched. Maybe because I was foreign. Maybe not.

I took out my tea flask and cups, and the icon of She Who Sprang from the Lily, set them on the low table beside the bed. Used a liter of my water allowance to fill the flask, and then sat down to eat.

The fish was as delicious as it smelled, and improved my mood slightly. I was, at least, better able to confront my situation once I’d eaten it, and had a cup of tea.

Station could certainly see a large percentage of its residents with the same intimate view I’d had of my officers. The rest—including me, now—it saw in less detail. Temperature. Heart rate. Respiration. Less impressive than the flood of data from more closely monitored residents, but still a great deal of information. Add to that a close knowledge of the person observed, her history, her social context, and likely Station could very nearly read minds.

Nearly. It couldn’t
actually
read thoughts. And Station didn’t know my history, had no prior experience with me. It would be able to see the traces of my emotions, but wouldn’t have many grounds for guessing accurately why I felt as I did.

My hip had in fact been hurting. And Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat’s words to me had been, in Radchaai terms, incredibly rude. If I had reacted with anger, visible to Station if it was looking (visible to Anaander Mianaai if she had been looking), that was entirely natural. Neither one could do more than guess what had angered me. I could play the part now of the exhausted traveler, pained by an old injury, in need of nothing more than food and rest.

The room was so quiet. Even when Seivarden had been in one of her sulking moods it hadn’t seemed this oppressively silent. I hadn’t grown as used to solitude as I had thought. And thinking of Seivarden, I saw suddenly what I had not seen, there on the concourse and blind-angry with Skaaiat Awer. I had thought then that Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat had been the only person I had met who might know me, but that wasn’t true. Seivarden would have.

But Lieutenant Awn had never expected anything from Seivarden, had never stood to be hurt or disappointed by her. If they had ever met, Seivarden would surely have made her disdain clear. Lieutenant Awn would have been stiffly polite, with an underlying anger that I would have been able to see, but she would never have had that sinking dismay and hurt she felt when then–Lieutenant Skaaiat said, unthinkingly, something dismissive.

But perhaps I was wrong to think my reactions to the two, Skaaiat Awer and Seivarden Vendaai, were very different. I had already put myself in danger once, out of anger with Seivarden.

I couldn’t untangle it. And I had a part to play, for whoever might be watching, an image I had carefully built on the way here. I set my empty cup beside the tea flask, and knelt on the floor before the icon, hip protesting slightly, and began to pray.