She didn’t answer at first. Her distress was too strong, but it told me I’d been right. Her reeducation would have made the contemplation of certain actions strongly, viscerally unpleasant for her, and I’d reminded her directly of exactly the events that had brought her through Security. And of course any Radchaai found the bare mention of reeducation deeply distasteful. “If the fleet captain’s remarks are complete,” she said finally, tense but just a bit fainter than her usual tone, “I have work to do.”
“Of course. I apologize.” She blinked, surprised, I thought. “You’re trimming dead leaves from the lilies?”
“And dead flowers.” She bent, reached under the water, pulled up a slimy, withered stem.
“How deep is the lake?” She looked at me, looked down at the water she was standing in. Up again at me. “Yes,” I agreed, “I can see how deep it is here. Is it all the same?”
“About two meters at its deepest.” Her voice had steadied, she had recovered her earlier composure, it seemed.
“Are there partitions under the water?”
“There are not.” As though to confirm her words, a purple and green fish swam into the lily-free space where she was standing, a broad, bright-scaled thing that must have been nearly three quarters of a meter long. It hung under the water, seeming to look up at us, gaping. “I don’t have anything,” she said to the fish, and held her sodden-gloved hands out. “Go wait by the bridge, someone will come. They always do.” The fish only gaped and gaped again. “Look, here they come now.”
Two children rounded a bush, came running down the path to the bridge. The smaller jumped from the land to the bridge with a resounding thump. The water alongside the bridge began to roil, and the purple and green fish turned and glided away. “There’s a food dispenser at the bridge,” explained the person standing in the water. “It’ll be quite crowded in an hour or so.”
“Then I’m glad to have come early,” I said. “If it wouldn’t be too much trouble, could you tell me what safety measures are in place here?”
She gave a short, sharp laugh. “It makes you nervous, Fleet Captain?” She gestured toward the dome overhead. “And that?”
“And that,” I admitted. “They’re both alarming.”
“You needn’t worry. It’s not Athoeki built, it’s all good, solid Radchaai construction. No embezzling, no bribes, no replacing components with cheaper materials and pocketing the difference, no shirking on the job.” She said this with every appearance of sincerity, not even traces of the sarcasm I might have expected. She meant it. “And of course Station’s always watching and would let us know at the slightest sign of trouble.”
“But Station can’t see under the Gardens, can it?”
Before she could answer, a voice called out, “How is it coming along, Sirix?”
I knew that voice. Had heard recordings of it, childish, years ago. It was like her sister’s, but not the same. I turned to see her. She was like her sister, her relationship to Lieutenant Awn obvious in her face, her voice, the way she stood, a bit stiff in the green Horticulture uniform. Her skin was a bit darker than Lieutenant Awn’s had been, her face rounder, not a surprise. I had seen recordings of Basnaaid Elming as a child, messages for her sister. I had known what she looked like now. And it had been twenty years since I had lost Lieutenant Awn. Since I had killed Lieutenant Awn.
“Almost finished, Horticulturist,” said the person from the tea shop, still knee-deep in the water. Or I presumed she was, I was still looking at Basnaaid Elming. “This fleet captain is here to see you.”
Basnaaid looked directly at me. Took in the brown and black uniform, frowned slightly in puzzlement, and then saw the gold tag. The frown disappeared, replaced with an expression of cold disapproval. “I don’t know you, Fleet Captain.”
“No,” I said. “We’ve never met. I was a friend of Lieutenant Awn’s.” An awkward way to say it, an awkward way to refer to her, for a friend. “I was hoping you might have tea with me sometime. When it’s convenient for you.” Stupid, nearly rude to be so direct. But she didn’t seem to be in a mood to stand and chat, and Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat had warned me she wouldn’t be happy to see me. “Begging your indulgence, there are some things I’d like to discuss with you.”
“I doubt we have anything to discuss.” Basnaaid was still frostily calm. “If you feel the need to tell me something, by all means do so now. What did you say your name was?” Outright rude, that was. But I knew why, I knew where this anger came from. Basnaaid was easier in her educated accent than Lieutenant Awn had ever been—she had begun practicing it earlier, for one thing, and I suspected her ear was better from the start. But it was still, to some degree, a cover. Like her sister, Basnaaid Elming was acutely aware of condescension and insult. Not without good reason.
“My name is Breq Mianaai.” I managed not to choke on the house name the Lord of the Radch had imposed on me. “You won’t recognize it, I used another name when I knew your sister.” That name she’d have recognized. But I couldn’t give it. I was the ship your sister served on. I was the ancillaries she commanded, that served her. As far as anyone here knew, that ship had disappeared twenty years ago. And ships weren’t people, weren’t fleet captains or officers of any sort, didn’t invite anyone to tea. If I told her who I really was, she would doubt my sanity. Which might be a good thing, considering the next step, after the name, would be to tell her what had happened to her sister.
“Mianaai.” Basnaaid’s tone was disbelieving.
“As I said, it wasn’t my name at the time I knew your sister.”
“Well.” She almost spat the word out. “Breq Mianaai. My sister was just, and proper. She never knelt to you, no matter what you may have thought, and none of us wants payment from you. None of us needs it. Awn didn’t need it, or want it.” In other words, if Lieutenant Awn had had any sort of relationship with me—knelt implied a sexual one—it hadn’t been because she’d been looking for some sort of benefit from it. When Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat had offered Basnaaid clientage for Lieutenant Awn’s sake, the implication had been that Awn and Skaaiat’s relationship had been based on the expectation of exchange—sex for social position. It was a common enough trade, but citizens moving from low on the ladder to noticeably higher were open to accusations that their promotions or assignments had been made in exchange for sexual favors, and not on merit.
“You’re quite right, your sister never knelt, not to me, not to any other person, ever. Anyone who says she did, you will kindly send to me, and I will relieve them of their misapprehension.” It would really have been better to lead up to this, to have had tea and food and polite, indirect conversation beforehand, to feel out the approach, to take the edge off the foolishness of what I meant to suggest. But, I saw, Basnaaid would never have allowed it. I might as well state my business here and now. “The debt I owe your sister is far larger, and impossible to repay adequately, even if she were still alive. I can only offer the smallest token to you in her place. I propose to make you my heir.”