Station knew where I was going, but it wouldn’t open any doors for me without my giving the most explicit of requests. I turned, stepped quickly into the dockbound lift after them, saw the lift door close on Five standing, horrified, on the black stone pavement of the concourse. The lift moved, the three citizens chattered. I closed my eyes and saw Kalr Five staring at the lift, hyperventilating slightly. She frowned just the smallest amount—possibly no one passing her would notice. Her fingers twitched, summoning Mercy of Kalr’s attention, though with some trepidation, as though maybe she feared it wouldn’t answer.
But of course Mercy of Kalr was already paying attention. “Don’t worry,” said Mercy of Kalr, voice serene and neutral in Five’s ear and mine. “It’s not you Fleet Captain’s angry with. Go ahead. It’ll be all right.”
True enough. It wasn’t Kalr Five I was angry with. I pushed away the data coming from her, received a disorienting flash of Seivarden, asleep, dreaming, and Lieutenant Ekalu, still tense, in the middle of asking one of her Etrepas for tea. Opened my eyes. The citizens in the lift with me laughed at something, I didn’t know or care what, and as the lift door slid open we walked out into the broad lobby of the docks, lined all around with icons of gods that travelers might find useful or comforting. It was sparsely populated for this time of day, except by the entrance to the dock authority office, where a line of ill-tempered ship captains and pilots waited for their turn to complain to the overburdened inspector adjuncts. Two intersystem gates had been disabled in last week’s upheaval, more were likely to be in the near future, and the Lord of the Radch had forbidden any travel in the remaining ones, trapping dozens of ships in the system, with all their cargo and passengers.
They moved aside for me, bowing slightly as though a wind had blown through them. It was the uniform that had done it—I heard one captain whisper to another one, “Who is that?” and the responding murmur as her neighbor replied and others commented on her ignorance or added what they knew. I heard Mianaai and Special Missions. The sense they’d managed to make out of last week’s events. The official version was that I had come to Omaugh Palace undercover, to root out a seditious conspiracy. That I had been working for Anaander Mianaai all along. Anyone who’d ever been part of events that later received an official version would know or suspect that wasn’t true. But most Radchaai lived unremarkable lives and would have no reason to doubt it.
No one questioned my walking past the adjuncts, into the outer office of the Inspector Supervisor. Daos Ceit, who was her assistant, was still recovering from injuries. An adjunct I didn’t know sat in her place but rose swiftly and bowed as I entered. So did a very, very young lieutenant, more gracefully and collectedly than I expected in a seventeen-year-old, the sort who was still all lanky arms and legs and frivolous enough to spend her first pay on lilac-colored eyes—surely she hadn’t been born with eyes that color. Her dark-brown jacket, trousers, gloves, and boots were crisp and spotless, her straight, dark hair cut close. “Fleet Captain. Sir,” she said. “Lieutenant Tisarwat, sir.” She bowed again.
I didn’t answer, only looked at her. If my scrutiny disturbed her, I couldn’t see it. She wasn’t yet sending data to Mercy of Kalr, and her brown skin hadn’t darkened in any sort of flush. The small, discreet scatter of pins near one shoulder suggested a family of some substance but not the most elevated in the Radch. She was, I thought, either preternaturally self-possessed or a fool. Neither option pleased me.
“Go on in, sir,” said the unfamiliar adjunct, gesturing me toward the inner office. I did, without a word to Lieutenant Tisarwat.
Dark-skinned, amber-eyed, elegant and aristocratic even in the dark-blue uniform of dock authority, Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat Awer rose and bowed as the door shut behind me. “Breq. Are you going, then?”
I opened my mouth to say, Whenever you authorize our departure, but remembered Five and the errand I’d sent her on. “I’m only waiting for Kalr Five. Apparently I can’t ship out without an acceptable set of dishes.”
Surprise crossed her face, gone in an instant. She had known, of course, that I had sent Captain Vel’s things here, and that I didn’t own anything to replace them. Once the surprise had gone I saw amusement. “Well,” she said. “Wouldn’t you have felt the same?” When I had been in Five’s place, she meant. When I had been a ship.
“No, I wouldn’t have. I didn’t. Some other ships did. Do.” Mostly Swords, who by and large already thought they were above the smaller, less prestigious Mercies, or the troop carrier Justices.
“My Seven Issas cared about that sort of thing.” Skaaiat Awer had served as a lieutenant on a ship with human troops, before she’d become Inspector Supervisor here at Omaugh Palace. Her eyes went to my single piece of jewelry, a small gold tag pinned near my left shoulder. She gestured, a change of topic that wasn’t really a change of topic. “Athoek, is it?” My destination hadn’t been publicly announced, might, in fact, be considered sensitive information. But Awer was one of the most ancient and wealthy of houses. Skaaiat had cousins who knew people who knew things. “I’m not sure that’s where I’d have sent you.”
“It’s where I’m going.”
She accepted that answer, no surprise or offense visible in her expression. “Have a seat. Tea?”
“Thank you, no.” Actually I could have used some tea, might under other circumstances have been glad of a relaxed chat with Skaaiat Awer, but I was anxious to be off.
This, too, Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat took with equanimity. She did not sit, herself. “You’ll be calling on Basnaaid Elming when you get to Athoek Station.” Not a question. She knew I would be. Basnaaid was the younger sister of someone both Skaaiat and I had once loved. Someone I had, under orders from Anaander Mianaai, killed. “She’s like Awn, in some ways, but not in others.”
“Stubborn, you said.”
“Very proud. And fully as stubborn as her sister. Possibly more so. She was very offended when I offered her clientage for her sister’s sake. I mention it because I suspect you’re planning to do something similar. And you might be the only person alive even more stubborn than she is.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Not even the tyrant?” The word wasn’t Radchaai, was from one of the worlds annexed and absorbed by the Radch. By Anaander Mianaai. The tyrant herself, almost the only person on Omaugh Palace who would have recognized or understood the word, besides Skaaiat and myself.
Skaaiat Awer’s mouth quirked, sardonic humor. “Possibly. Possibly not. In any event, be very careful about offering Basnaaid money or favors. She won’t take it kindly.” She gestured, good-natured but resigned, as if to say, but of course you’ll do as you like. “You’ll have met your new baby lieutenant.”
Lieutenant Tisarwat, she meant. “Why did she come here and not go directly to the shuttle?”
“She came to apologize to my adjunct.” Daos Ceit’s replacement, there in the outer office. “Their mothers are cousins.” Formally, the word Skaaiat used referred to a relation between two people of different houses who shared a parent or a grandparent, but in casual use meant someone more distantly related who was a friend, or someone you’d grown up with. “They were supposed to meet for tea yesterday, and Tisarwat never showed or answered any messages. And you know how military gets along with dock authorities.” Which was to say, overtly politely and privately contemptuously. “My adjunct took offense.”