Her last few words rang out clear in a sudden hush, and then I heard a dozen or more children’s voices singing in unison. Not in Radchaai, and not a Radchaai tune, but one that arced in upward leaps, wide, angular intervals, and then slid downward in steps, but moving upward overall, to stop somewhere higher than it began. Citizen Fosyf’s nattering about supper stopped midsentence, brought up short by my obvious inattention. “Oh, yes,” she said, “It’s the temple’s…”
“Be silent!” I snapped. The children began another verse. I still didn’t understand the words. They sang two more verses, while the citizen before me tried to conceal her consternation. Not leaving. Determined to speak with me, it appeared. Certain that she would get her chance, if only she was patient enough.
I could query Station, but I knew what Station would tell me. Fosyf Denche was a prominent citizen here, one who believed her prominence would mean something to anyone she introduced herself to, and in this system, on this station, that meant tea.
The song ended, to a scattering of applause. I turned my attention back to Citizen Fosyf. Her expression cleared. Brightened. “Ah, Fleet Captain, I know what you are! You’re a collector! You must come visit me downwell. I’ve no ear at all, myself, but the workers on the estate near my country house let loose with all sorts of uncivilized noises that I’m assured are authentic exotic musical survivals from the days of their ancestors. I’m told it’s quite nearly a museum display. But the station administrator can tell you all about it over supper this evening. She’s a fellow collector, and I know how you collectors are, it doesn’t matter what you collect. You’ll want to compare and trade. Are you absolutely sure you’ve already got somewhere suitable to stay?”
“Go away,” I said to her, flat and brusque.
“Of course, Fleet Captain.” She bowed low. “I’ll see you at supper, shall I?” And not waiting for any answer, she turned and strode off into the crowd.
“Begging the fleet captain’s indulgence,” said Captain Hetnys, leaning close so she didn’t have to shout aloud to the entire concourse. “Citizen Fosyf’s family’s lands produce nearly a quarter of all the tea exported from Athoek. Her apartment is very near Administration, on the upper concourse, in fact.”
More and more interesting. Earlier it had been clear that Captain Hetnys had neither expected nor wanted me to stay. Now she seemed to wish that I would stay with this tea grower. “I’m going to the Governor’s Palace,” I said. I knew the system governor wasn’t there. I would still make an issue of it. “And then while I’m settling into lodgings, you can give me your report.”
“Sir. Yes, sir.” And then, when I said nothing further, “If I may ask, sir. Where are you staying?”
“Level four of the Undergarden,” I replied, my voice bland. She tried valiantly to keep her surprise and dismay off her face, but it was obvious she hadn’t expected that answer, and didn’t like it.
6
Station AIs were built—grew—as their stations were built. Shortly after Athoek Station had been finished, when resentments from the annexation had still been fresh, there had been violence. A dozen sections on four levels had been permanently damaged.
Installing an AI into an already existing construction was a dicey business. The results were rarely optimal, but it could be done. Had been done, quite a few times. But for whatever reason—perhaps a wish to forget the event, perhaps because the casts hadn’t been auspicious, perhaps some other reason—the area had not been repaired, but blocked off instead.
Of course, people had still managed to get in. There were several hundred people living in the Undergarden, though they weren’t supposed to be there. Every citizen had a tracker implanted at birth, so Station knew where they were, knew those citizens were there. But it couldn’t hear them or see them the way it could its other residents, not unless they were wired to send data to Station, and I suspected few of them were.
The section door leading to the Undergarden was propped open with the crushed remains of a table missing one of its legs. The indicator next to the entrance said that on the other side of that (supposedly closed) door was hard vacuum. It was serious business—section doors would close automatically in the event of a sudden pressure drop, to seal off hull breaches. We were likely not even close to hard vacuum, despite the indicator on the wall by this door, but no one who spent much time on ships—or who lived on stations—took such safety measures lightly. I turned toward Captain Hetnys. “Are all the section doors leading to the Undergarden disabled and propped open like this?”
“It’s as I said, Fleet Captain, this area was sealed off, but people kept breaking in. They’d just be sealing it off over and over to no purpose.”
“Yes,” I acknowledged, gesturing the obviousness of her words. “So why not just fix the doors so they work properly?”
She blinked, clearly not quite understanding my question. “No one’s supposed to be in this area, sir.” She seemed completely serious—the train of reasoning made perfect sense to her. The ancillary behind her stared blankly ahead, apparently without any opinion on the matter. Which I knew was almost certainly not the case. I didn’t answer, just turned to climb over the broken table and into the Undergarden.
In the corridor beyond, a scatter of portable light panels propped against the walls flickered into a dim glow as we passed, then faded again. The air was oppressively still, improbably humid, and smelled stale—Station wouldn’t be regulating the air flow here, and very possibly those propped-open section doors were a matter of breathing or not breathing. After a walk of fifty meters, the corridor opened out into a tiny almost-concourse, a stretch of corridors where doors had been wrenched off and grimy once-white walls torn through to make a single-storied half-open maze, lit by more portable light panels, though these seemed to be better provided with power. A handful of citizens walking through on their way to or from someplace suddenly found that their paths took them well away from where we were standing, just by chance discovered that they had no desire to look directly at us.
Away in one corner, more light spilled from a wide doorway. Beside the doorway, a person in loose shirt and trousers glanced briefly at us, seemed for a moment to consider something, and then turned back around and bent to a five-liter tub at her feet, straightened again and began dabbing carefully, purposefully around the doorframe. Where the wall was shadowed, red spirals and curlicues glowed faintly. The color of paint she was using must have been too near the shade of the wall to see well unless it was phosphorescing. Beyond the doorway, people sat at mismatched tables, drinking tea and talking. Or they’d been talking before they’d seen us.
The air really was uncomfortably close. I had a sudden flash of strong, visceral memory. Humid heat and the smell of swamp water. The sort of memory that had become less common as the years had gone by, of when I had been a ship. When I had been a unit of ancillaries under the command of Lieutenant Awn (still alive, then, every breath, every move of hers a constant part of my awareness, and myself always, always with her).
The decade room on Mercy of Kalr flashed into my awareness, Seivarden seated, drinking tea, looking at schedules for today and tomorrow, the smell of solvent stronger than usual from the corridor outside, where three Amaats scrubbed the already spotless floor. The Amaats all sang quietly in ragged, off-key unison. It all goes around, the station goes around the moon, it all goes around. Had I unthinkingly reached for it, or had Mercy of Kalr sent it unbidden in response to something it had seen in me? Or did it matter?