Ancillary Justice (7 page)

“They confiscated my entire harvest.” This was the cousin of Jen Shinnan’s, the owner of several tamarind orchards not far from the upper city. She tapped her plate emphatically with her utensil. “The
entire
harvest.”

The center of the table was laden with trays and bowls filled with eggs, fish (not from the marshy lake, but from the sea beyond), spiced chicken, bread, braised vegetables, and half a dozen relishes of various types.

“Didn’t they pay you, citizen?” asked Lieutenant Awn, speaking slowly and carefully, as she always did when she was anxious her accent might slip. Jen Shinnan and her cousin both spoke Radchaai, so there was no need to translate, nor any anxiety over gender or status or anything else that would have been essential in Tanmind or Orsian.

“Well, but I would certainly have gotten more if I could have taken it to Kould Ves and sold it myself!”

There had been a time when a property owner like her would have been shot early on, so someone’s client could take over her plantation. Indeed, not a few Shis’urnans had died in the initial stages of the annexation simply because they were in the way, and
in the way
could mean any number of things.

“As I’m sure you understand, citizen,” said Lieutenant Awn, “food distribution is a problem we’re still solving, and we all need to endure some hardship while that’s accomplished.” Her sentences, when she was uncomfortable, became uncharacteristically formal, and sometimes dangerously convoluted.

Jen Shinnan gestured to a laden plate of fragile pale-pink glass. “Another stuffed egg, Lieutenant Awn?”

Lieutenant Awn held up one gloved hand. “They’re delicious, but no thank you, citizen.”

But the cousin had landed in a track she found it hard to deviate from, despite Jen Shinnan’s diplomatic attempt to derail her. “It’s not like fruit is a necessity. Tamarind, of all things! And it’s not like anyone is starving.”

“Indeed it isn’t!” agreed Lieutenant Skaaiat, heartily. She
smiled brightly at Lieutenant Awn. Lieutenant Skaaiat—dark-skinned, amber-eyed, aristocratic as Lieutenant Awn was not. One of her Seven Issas stood near me, by the door of the dining room, as straight and still as I was.

Though Lieutenant Awn liked Lieutenant Skaaiat a good deal, and appreciated her sarcasm on this occasion, she could not bring herself to smile in response. “Not this year.”

“Your business is doing better than mine, Cousin,” said Jen Shinnan, voice placating. She too owned farmland not far from the upper city. But she had also owned those dredgers that sat, silent and still, in the marsh water. “Though I suppose I can’t be too regretful, it was a great deal of trouble for very little return.”

Lieutenant Awn opened her mouth to speak, and then closed it again. Lieutenant Skaaiat saw it, and said, vowels effortlessly broad and refined, “What is it, another three years for the fishing prohibitions, Lieutenant?”

“Yes,” said Lieutenant Awn.

“Foolishness,” said Jen Shinnan. “Well-intentioned, but foolishness. You saw what it was like when you arrived. As soon as you open them, they’ll be fished out again. The Orsians may have been a great people once, but they’re no longer what their ancestors were. They have no ambition, no sense of anything beyond their short-term advantage. If you show them who’s boss, then they can be quite obedient, as I’m sure you’ve discovered, Lieutenant Awn, but in their natural state they are, with few exceptions, shiftless and superstitious. Though I suppose that’s what comes of living in the Underworld.” She smiled at her own joke. Her cousin laughed outright.

The space-dwelling nations of Shis’urna divided the universe into three parts. In the middle lay the natural environment of
humans—space stations, ships, constructed habitats. Outside those was the Black—heaven, the home of God and everything holy. And within the gravity well of the planet Shis’urna itself—or for that matter any planet—lay the Underworld, the land of the dead from which humanity had had to escape in order to become fully free of its demonic influence.

You can see, perhaps, how the Radchaai conception of the universe as being God itself might seem the same as the Tanmind idea of the Black. You might also see why it seemed a bit odd, to Radchaai ears, to hear someone who believed gravity wells were the land of the dead call people superstitious for worshiping a lizard.

Lieutenant Awn managed a polite smile, and Lieutenant Skaaiat said, “And yet you live here too.”

“I don’t confuse abstract philosophical concepts with reality,” said Jen Shinnan. Though that too sounded odd, to a Radchaai who knew what it meant for a Tanmind stationer to descend to the Underworld and return. “Seriously. I have a theory.”

Lieutenant Awn, who had been exposed to several Tanmind theories about the Orsians, managed a neutral, even almost curious expression and said, blandly, “Oh?”

“Do share!” encouraged Lieutenant Skaaiat. The cousin, having scooped a quantity of spiced chicken into her mouth moments before, made a gesture of support with her utensil.

“It’s the way they live, all out in the open like that, with nothing but a roof,” Jen Shinnan said. “They can’t have any privacy, no sense of themselves as real individuals, you understand, no sense of any sort of separate identity.”

“Let alone private property,” said Jen Taa, having swallowed her chicken. “They think they can just walk in and take whatever they want.”

Actually, there were rules—if unstated ones—about entering a house uninvited, and theft was rarely a problem in the lower city. Occasionally during pilgrimage season, almost never otherwise.

Jen Shinnan gestured acknowledgment. “And no one
here
is ever really starving, Lieutenant. No one has to work, they just fish in the swamp. Or fleece visitors during pilgrimage season. They have no chance to develop any ambition, or any desire to improve themselves. And they don’t—can’t, really—develop any sort of sophistication, any kind of…” She trailed off, searching for the right word.

“Interiority?” suggested Lieutenant Skaaiat, who enjoyed this game much more than Lieutenant Awn did.

“That’s it exactly!” agreed Jen Shinnan. “Interiority, yes.”

“So your theory is,” said Lieutenant Awn, her tone dangerously even, “that the Orsians aren’t really
people
.”

“Well, not
individuals
.” Jen Shinnan seemed to sense, remotely, that she’d said something to make Lieutenant Awn angry, but didn’t seem entirely certain of it. “Not as such.”

“And of course,” interjected Jen Taa, oblivious, “they see what we have, and don’t understand that you have to
work
for that sort of life, and they’re envious and resentful and blame
us
for not letting them have it, when if they’d only
work
…”

“They send what money they have to support that half-broken-down temple, and then complain they’re poor,” said Jen Shinnan. “And they fish out the marsh and then blame us. They’ll do the same to you, Lieutenant, when you open the prohibited zones again.”

“Your dredging up the mud by the ton to sell as fertilizer didn’t have anything to do with the fish disappearing?” asked Lieutenant Awn, her voice edged. Actually, the fertilizer had
been a by-product of the main business of selling the mud to space-dwelling Tanmind for religious purposes. “That was due to irresponsible fishing on the part of the Orsians?”

“Well of course it had
some
effect,” said Jen Taa, “but if they’d only managed their resources properly…”

“Quite right,” agreed Jen Shinnan. “You blame me for ruining the fishing. But I gave those people jobs. Opportunities to improve their lives.”

Lieutenant Skaaiat must have sensed that Lieutenant Awn was at a dangerous point. “Security on a planet is very different from on a station,” she said, her voice cheerful. “On a planet there’s always going to be some… some slippage. Some things you don’t see.”

“Ah,” said Jen Shinnan, “but you’ve got everyone tagged so you always know where we are.”

“Yes,” agreed Lieutenant Skaaiat. “But we’re not always
watching
. I suppose you could grow an AI big enough to watch a whole planet, but I don’t think anyone has ever tried it. A station, though…”

I watched Lieutenant Awn see Lieutenant Skaaiat spring the trap Jen Shinnan had walked into moments ago. “On a station,” Lieutenant Awn said, “the AI sees everything.”

“So much easier to manage,” agreed Lieutenant Skaaiat happily. “Almost no need for security at all.” That wasn’t quite true, but this was no time to point that out.

Jen Taa set down her utensil. “Surely the AI doesn’t see
everything
.” Neither lieutenant said anything. “Even when you…?”

“Everything,” answered Lieutenant Awn. “I assure you, citizen.”

Silence, for nearly two seconds. Beside me, Lieutenant Skaaiat’s Seven Issa guard’s mouth twitched, something that
might have been an itch or some unavoidable muscle spasm, but was, I suspected, the only outward manifestation of her amusement. Military ships possessed AIs just as stations did, and Radchaai soldiers lived utterly without privacy.

Lieutenant Skaaiat broke the silence. “Your niece, citizen, is taking the aptitudes this year?”

The cousin gestured yes. So long as her own farming provided income, she wouldn’t need an assignment, and neither would her heir—however many heirs the land might support. The niece, however, had lost her parents during the annexation.

“These aptitudes,” said Jen Shinnan. “You took them, Lieutenants?” Both indicated affirmatively. The aptitudes were the only way into the military, or any government post—though that didn’t encompass all assignments available.

“No doubt,” said Jen Shinnan, “the test works well for you, but I wonder if it’s suited to us Shis’urnans.”

“Why is that?” asked Lieutenant Skaaiat, with slightly frowning amusement.

“Has there been a problem?” asked Lieutenant Awn, still stiff, still annoyed with Jen Shinnan.

“Well.” Jen Shinnan picked up a napkin, soft and bleached a snowy white, and wiped her mouth. “Word is, last month in Kould Ves all the candidates for civil service were ethnic Orsians.”

Lieutenant Awn blinked in confusion. Lieutenant Skaaiat smiled. “You mean to say,” she said, looking at Jen Shinnan but also directing her words to Lieutenant Awn, “that you think the testing is biased.”

Jen Shinnan folded her napkin and set it down on the table beside her bowl. “Come now, Lieutenant. Let us be honest. There’s a reason so few Orsians occupied such posts before
you arrived. Every now and then you find an exception—the Divine is a very respectable person, I grant you. But she’s an exception. So when I see twenty Orsians destined for civil service posts, and not a single Tanmind, I can’t help but think either the test is flawed, or… well. I can’t help but remember that it was the Orsians who first surrendered, when you arrived. I can’t blame you for appreciating that, for wanting to… acknowledge that. But it’s a mistake.”

Lieutenant Awn said nothing. Lieutenant Skaaiat asked, “Assuming you’re correct, why would that be a mistake?”

“It’s as I said before. They just aren’t suited to positions of authority. Some exceptions, yes, but…” She waved a gloved hand. “And with the bias of the assignments being so obvious, people won’t have confidence in it.”

Lieutenant Skaaiat’s smile grew broader in proportion to Lieutenant Awn’s silent, indignant anger. “Your niece is nervous?”

“A bit!” admitted the cousin.

“Understandably,” drawled Lieutenant Skaaiat. “It’s a momentous event in any citizen’s life. But she needn’t fear.”

Jen Shinnan laughed, sardonic. “Needn’t fear? The lower city resents us, always has, and now we can’t make any legal contracts without either taking transport to Kould Ves or going through the lower city to your house, Lieutenant.” Any legally binding contract had to be made in the temple of Amaat. Or, a recent (and extremely controversial) concession, on its steps, if one of the parties was an exclusive monotheist. “During that pilgrimage thing it’s nearly impossible. We either lose an entire day traveling to Kould Ves, or endanger ourselves.”

Jen Shinnan visited Kould Ves quite frequently, often merely to visit friends, or shop. All the Tanmind in the upper city did, and had done so before the annexation. “Has there
been some unreported difficulty?” asked Lieutenant Awn, stiff, angry. Utterly polite.

“Well,” said Jen Taa. “In fact, Lieutenant, I’ve been wanting to mention. We’ve been here a few days, and my niece seems to have had a bit of trouble in the lower city. I told her it was better not to go, but you know how teenagers are when you tell them not to do something.”

“What sort of trouble?” asked Lieutenant Awn.

“Oh,” said Jen Shinnan, “you know the sort of thing. Rude words, threats—empty, no doubt, and of course nothing next to what things will be like in a week or two, but the child was quite shaken.”

The child in question had spent the past two afternoons staring at the Fore-Temple water and sighing. I had spoken to her once and she had turned her head away without answering. After that I had left her alone. No one had troubled her.
No problems that I saw
, I messaged Lieutenant Awn.

“I’ll keep an eye on her,” said Lieutenant Awn, silently acknowledging my information with a twitch of her fingers.

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” said Jen Shinnan. “I know we can count on you.”

“You think it’s funny.” Lieutenant Awn tried to relax her too-tight jaw. I could tell from the increasing tension of her facial muscles that without intervention she would soon have a headache.

Lieutenant Skaaiat, walking beside her, laughed outright. “It’s pure comedy. Forgive me, my dear, but the angrier you get the more painstakingly correct your speech becomes, and the more Jen Shinnan mistakes you.”

“Surely not. Surely she’s asked about me.”

“You’re still angry. Worse,” said Lieutenant Skaaiat,
hooking her arm around Lieutenant Awn’s, “you’re angry with
me
. I’m sorry. And she
has
asked. Very obliquely, just
interested
in you, only natural, of course.”

“And you answered,” suggested Lieutenant Awn, “equally obliquely.”