Ancillary Justice (39 page)

“Something like you,” I guessed. “Apart from myself.” My arm still outstretched, gun aimed at the back wall.

“Insurance,” Mianaai corrected. “An access I wouldn’t think of looking for, to erase or invalidate. So very clever of me. And now it’s blown up in my face. All of this, it seems, is happening because I paid attention to you, in particular, and because I never paid any attention to you. I’m going to return control of your body to you, because it’ll be more efficient, but you’ll find you can’t shoot me.”

I lowered the gun. “Which
me
?”

“
What’s
blown up?” asked Seivarden, still on the floor. “My lord,” she added.

“She’s split,” I explained. “It started at Garsedd. She was appalled by what she’d done, but she couldn’t decide how to react. She’s been secretly moving against herself ever since. The reforms—getting rid of ancillaries, stopping the annexations, opening up assignments to lower houses, she did all of that. And Ime was the other part of her, building up a base, and resources, to go to war against herself and put things
back the way they had been. And the whole time all of her has been pretending not to know it was happening, because as soon as she admitted it the conflict would be in the open, and unavoidable.”

“But you said it straight out to all of me,” Mianaai acknowledged. “Because I couldn’t exactly pretend the rest of me wasn’t interested in Seivarden Vendaai’s second return. Or what had happened to you. You showed up so publically, so
obviously
, I couldn’t hide it and pretend it hadn’t happened, and only talk to you myself. And now I can’t ignore it anymore. Why? Why would you do such a thing? It wasn’t any order I ever gave you.”

“No,” I agreed. “It wasn’t.”

“And surely you guessed what would happen if you did such a thing.”

“Yes.” I could be my ancillary self again. Unsmiling. No satisfaction in my voice.

Anaander considered me a moment and then made a
hmf
sound, as though she’d reached some conclusion that surprised her. “Get up off the floor, citizen,” she said to Seivarden.

Seivarden rose, brushing her trouser legs with one gloved hand. “Are you all right, Breq?”

“
Breq
,” interrupted Mianaai before I could answer, stepping off the dais and striding past, “is the last remaining fragment of a grief-crazed AI, which has just managed to trigger a civil war.” She turned to me. “Is that what you wanted?”

“I haven’t been
crazed
with grief for at least ten years,” I protested. “And the civil war was going to happen anyway, sooner or later.”

“I was rather hoping to avoid the worst of it. If we’re extremely fortunate, that war will only cause decades of
chaos, and not tear the Radch apart completely. Come with me.”

“Ships can’t
do
that anymore,” insisted Seivarden, walking beside me. “You made them that way, my lord, so they didn’t lose their minds when their captains died, like they used to, or follow their captains against you.”

Mianaai lifted an eyebrow. “Not exactly.” She found a panel on the wall by the door that had been previously invisible to me, yanked it open, and triggered the manual door switch. “They still get attached, still have favorites.” The door slid open. “One Esk, shoot the guard.” My arm swung up and I fired. The guard staggered back against the wall, reached for her own weapon, but slid to the floor and then lay still. Dead, because her armor retracted. “I couldn’t take that away without making them useless to me,” Anaander Mianaai continued, oblivious to the person—the citizen?—she’d just ordered killed. Still explaining to Seivarden, who frowned, not understanding. “They have to be smart. They have to be able to think.”

“Right,” agreed Seivarden. Her voice trembled, just slightly, the edge of her self-control wearing thin, I thought.

“And they’re armed ships, with engines capable of vaporizing planets. What am I going to do if they don’t want to obey me? Threaten them? With what?” A few strides had brought us to the door communicating with the temple. Anaander opened that and stepped briskly into the chapel of legitimate political authority.

Seivarden made an odd sound in the back of her throat. An aborted laugh or a noise of distress, I wasn’t sure which. “I thought they were just made so they had to do as they were told.”

“Well, exactly,” said Anaander Mianaai as we followed
her through the temple’s main hall. Sounds from the concourse reached us, someone speaking urgently, voice pitched high and loud. The temple itself seemed deserted. “That’s how they were made from the start, but their minds are complex, and it’s a tricky proposition. The original designers did that by giving them an overwhelming reason to
want
to obey. Which had advantages, and rather spectacular disadvantages. I couldn’t completely change what they were, I just… adjusted it to suit me. I made obeying
me
an overriding priority for them. But I confused the issue when I gave
Justice of Toren
two
me
s to obey, with conflicting aims. And then, I suspect, I unknowingly ordered the execution of a favorite. Didn’t I?” She looked at me. “Not
Justice of Toren
’s favorite, I wouldn’t have been so foolish. But I never paid attention to
you
, I’d never have asked if someone was
One Esk’s
favorite.”

“You thought no one would care about some nobody cook’s daughter.” I wanted to raise the gun. Wanted to smash all that beautiful glass in the mortuary chapel as we passed it.

Anaander Mianaai stopped, turned to look at me. “That wasn’t
me
. Help me now, I’m fighting that other me even now, I’m quite certain. I wasn’t ready to move openly, but now you’ve forced my hand, help me and I’ll destroy her and remove her utterly from myself.”

“You can’t,” I said. “I know what you are, better than anyone. She’s you and you’re her. You can’t remove her from yourself without destroying yourself. Because
she’s you
.”

“Once I reach the docks,” Anaander Mianaai said, as though it were an answer to what I had just said, “I can find a ship. Any civilian ship will take me where I want to go without question. Any military ship… will be a dicier proposition. But I can tell you one thing,
Justice of Toren
One Esk, one thing I’m certain of. I’ve got more ships than she does.”

“Meaning what, exactly?” asked Seivarden.

“Meaning,” I guessed, “the other Mianaai is likely to lose an open battle, so she has a slightly better reason to want to stop this spreading any further.” I could see Seivarden didn’t understand what that meant. “She’s held it back by concealing it from herself, but now all of her here…”

“Most of me, anyway,” corrected Anaander Mianaai.

“Now she’s heard it straight out she can’t ignore it. Not here. But she might be able to prevent the knowledge from reaching the parts of her that aren’t here. At least long enough to strengthen her position.”

Realization made Seivarden’s eyes widen. “She’ll need to destroy the gates as soon as possible. But it can’t work. The signal travels at the speed of light, surely. She can’t possibly overtake it.”

“The information hasn’t left the station yet,” said Anaander Mianaai. “There’s always a slight delay. It would be far more efficient to destroy the palace instead.” Which would mean turning a warship engine on the entire station, vaporizing it, along with everyone on it. “And I’d have to destroy the whole palace to stop the information going any further. There isn’t just one spot where my memories are stored. It’s made hard to destroy or tamper with on purpose.”

“Do you think,” I asked, into Seivarden’s shocked silence, “that even you could get a Sword or a Mercy to do that? Even with accesses?”

“How badly would you like the answer to that question?” asked Anaander Mianaai. “You know
I’m
capable of it.”

“I do,” I acknowledged. “Which option do you prefer?”

“None of the currently available choices is very good. The loss of either the palace or the gates—or both—will cause disruption on an unprecedented scale, all through Radch
space. Disruption that will last for years, simply because of the size of that space.
Not
destroying the palace—and the gates, really they’re still part of the problem—will ultimately be even worse.”

“Does Skaaiat Awer know what’s going on?” I asked.

“Awer has been a thorn in my side for nearly three thousand years,” said Mianaai. Calmly. As though this were an ordinary, casual conversation. “So much moral indignation! I’d almost think they bred for it, but they’re not all genetically related. But if I stray from the path of propriety and justice, I’m sure to hear about it from Awer.”

“Then why not get rid of them?” asked Seivarden. “Why go and make one inspector supervisor here?”

“Pain is a warning,” said Anaander Mianaai. “What would happen if you removed all discomfort from your life? No,” Mianaai continued, ignoring Seivarden’s obvious distress at her words, “I value that moral indignation. I encourage it.”

“No you don’t,” I said. By now we were on the concourse. Security and military herded sections of the frightened crowd—many of them would have implants, would have been receiving information from Station when it suddenly cut out, with no explanation.

A ship’s captain I didn’t know spotted us, and hurried over. “My lord,” she said, bowing.

“Get these people off the concourse, Captain,” Anaander Mianaai said, “and clear the corridors, as quickly and safely as you can. Continue to cooperate with Station Security. I’m working to resolve this as quickly as possible.”

As Anaander Mianaai spoke, a flash of movement caught my eye. Gun. Instinctively I raised my armor, saw the person holding the gun was one of the people who had been following
us on the concourse, just before Security had summoned us. The Lord of the Radch must have sent orders before she triggered her device and cut off all communications. Before she knew about the Garseddai gun.

The captain Anaander Mianaai had been speaking to recoiled, visibly startled by the sudden appearance of my armor. I raised my own gun, and a hammer-hard blow hit me from the side—someone else had shot at me. I fired, hit the person holding the gun. She fell, her own shot wild, hitting the temple façade behind me, shattering some god, bright-colored chips flying. Sudden, shocked silence from the already frightened citizens along the concourse. I turned, looked along the trajectory of the bullet that had hit me, saw panicked citizens and the sudden silver gleam of armor—this other shooter had seen me shoot the first, didn’t know armor wouldn’t help her. Half a meter from her another flash of silver as someone else armored herself. Citizens between me and my targets, moving unpredictably. But I was used to crowds of the frightened and the hostile. I fired, and fired again. The armor disappeared, both my targets fallen. Seivarden said, “Fuck, you
are
an ancillary!”

“We’d better get off the concourse,” said Anaander Mianaai. And to the nameless captain beside her, “Captain, get these people to safety.”

“But…” the captain began, but we were already moving away, Seivarden and Anaander Mianaai staying low, moving as speedily as they could.

I wondered briefly what was happening in other parts of the station. Omaugh Palace was huge. There were four other concourses, though all were smaller than this one, and level upon level of homes, workplaces, schools, public spaces, all of it full of citizens who would certainly be frightened and
confused. If nothing else, anyone who lived here knew the necessity of following emergency procedures, wouldn’t stop to argue or wonder once the order to seek shelter had gone out. But of course, Station couldn’t give that order.

I couldn’t know, or help. “Who’s in the system?” I asked, as soon as we were out of earshot, climbing down an emergency access ladder well, my armor retracted.

“Near enough to matter, you mean?” Anaander Mianaai answered from above me. “Three Swords and four Mercies in easy shuttle distance.” Any order from Anaander Mianaai on the station would have to come by shuttle, because of the communications blackout. “I’m not worried about them at this very moment. There’s no possibility of giving them orders from here.” And the instant there would be, the instant that blackout was raised, the entire question would already be settled, the knowledge Anaander Mianaai was so desperate to hide from herself already speeding toward the gates that would take it through all of Radch space.

“Is anyone docked?” I asked. Right now, those would be the only ships that mattered.

“Only a shuttle from
Mercy of Kalr
,” said Anaander Mianaai, sounding half-amused. “It’s mine.”

“Are you certain?” And when she didn’t answer I said, “Captain Vel isn’t yours.”

“You got that impression too, did you?” Anaander Mianaai’s voice was definitely amused now. Above me, above Anaander Mianaai, Seivarden climbed, silent except for her shoes on the ladder rungs. I saw a door, halted, pulled the latch. Swung it open, and peered into the corridor beyond. I recognized the area behind the dock offices.

Once we’d all clambered into the corridor and shut the emergency door, Anaander Mianaai strode ahead, Seivarden
and me following. “How do we know she’s the one she says she is?” Seivarden asked me, very quietly. Her voice still shook, and her jaw looked tight. I was surprised she hadn’t curled up in a corner somewhere, or fled.

“It doesn’t matter which one she is,” I said, not making any attempt to lower my voice. “I don’t trust any of her. If she tries to go anywhere near
Mercy of Kalr
’s shuttle you’re going to take this gun and shoot her.” All of what she’d said to me might easily be a ruse, intended to get me to help her to the docks, and to
Mercy of Kalr
, so she could destroy this station herself.

“You don’t need the Garseddai gun to shoot me,” Anaander Mianaai said, without looking behind her. “I’m not armored. Well, some of me is. But not
me
. Not most of me.” She turned her head briefly, to look at me. “That
is
troublesome, isn’t it.”

With my free hand I gestured my lack of concern or sympathy.