I had thought that the pain of losing myself, of losing Lieutenant Awn, had—not healed, exactly, I didn’t think it would ever do that—but that it had receded to a tolerable, dull ache. But just seeing Basnaaid Elming had thrown me off-balance, and I had not handled it well. And had, as a result, not handled Lieutenant Tisarwat well, just now. I knew about the emotional upheavals of seventeen-year-old lieutenants. Had dealt with them in the past. And whatever Tisarwat had been, whoever she turned out to be, however ancient her memories or her sense of herself, her body was still seventeen, her reactions today very much those of someone in the last throes of adolescence. I had seen it, known it for what it was, and I ought to have responded more reasonably. “Ship,” I said, silently, “was I smug when I thought I’d sorted out Seivarden and Ekalu?”
“Maybe just the tiniest bit, Fleet Captain.”
“Sir,” said Kalr Five, who had come into the anteroom, all ancillary-like impassivity, “Captain Hetnys is in the dining room.” And did not add, she’s fretting, and beginning to be angry at being made to wait so long.
“Thank you, Five.” Despite my permission earlier to go in shirtsleeves here in the Undergarden, she was still in her jacket. All my Mercy of Kalrs were, I saw, querying Ship. “You’ve offered her breakfast and tea?”
“Yes, sir. She said she didn’t want anything.” A trace of disappointment there—no doubt she felt deprived of an opportunity to show off her dishes.
“Right. I’ll go in, then.” I took a breath, did my best to clear both Basnaaid and Tisarwat from my mind, and went in to receive Captain Hetnys’s report.
10
Captain Hetnys had sent Mercy of Ilves on a survey of the outstations. She’d brought a few of her Atagaris ancillaries with her to Athoek Station, and her Var lieutenant and decade to run Security for the Undergarden.
She tried to explain to me why she’d set Sword of Atagaris to watch a gate that led to a system of airless rocks, gas giants with icy moons, no inhabitants, and no other gates.
“The Presger can travel without the gates, sir, they might…”
“Captain. If the Presger decide to attack us, there will be nothing we can do about it.” The days when the Radch had commanded fleets huge enough to overwhelm entire systems were past. And even then, opposing the Presger would have been hopeless. It was the main reason Anaander Mianaai had finally agreed to a treaty. It was the reason people were still frightened of them. “And honestly, Captain, the biggest danger, for now, is going to be from Radchaai ships on one side or the other attempting to control or destroy resources another side might use. That planet downwell, for instance.” All that food. A base, if they could secure it. If I could. “And it’s possible Athoek will be left alone entirely. Certainly I don’t think anyone’s going to be able to muster anything like a real fleet, not for some time, if ever.” I didn’t think anyone could surprise us. A military ship could gate to within kilometers of the station or the planet, but I didn’t think it likely any would try. If someone came, we’d have time to watch them approach. “We should concentrate our defenses around this station, and this planet.”
She didn’t like that, thought of an argument, but closed her mouth on it, unsaid. The question of where my authority came from, of where Captain Hetnys’s loyalties lay in this conflict, didn’t come up at all. There was no point pressing the issue, no advantage for me, or for her. If I was lucky, everyone else would ignore Athoek and it would never be an issue. But I wasn’t going to bet on that.
Once Captain Hetnys had gone, I thought for a bit about what to do next. Meet with Governor Giarod, probably, and find out what, besides medical supplies, might come up short in the near future, and what we might do about that. Find something to keep Sword of Atagaris and Mercy of Phey busy—and out of trouble—but also ready to respond if I needed them. I sent a query to Mercy of Kalr. Lieutenant Tisarwat was above, on level two of the Undergarden, in a wide, shadowed room irregularly illuminated by light panels leaning here and there against the dark walls. Tisarwat, Raughd Denche, and half a dozen others reclined on long, thick cushions, the daughters, Ship indicated, of tea growers and station officials. They were drinking something strong and stinging—Tisarwat hadn’t decided if she liked it or not, but she seemed to be mostly enjoying herself. Piat, the daughter of the station administrator, a bit more animated than I’d seen her the evening before, had just said something vulgar and everyone was laughing. Raughd said, in an undertone that can’t have carried much past Tisarwat, who was sitting near both of them, “Aatr’s tits, Piat, you’re such a fucking ridiculous bore sometimes.”
Tisarwat, where only Ship and I could see it, reacted with instant revulsion. “Piat,” she said, “I don’t think Citizen Raughd appreciates you. Come sit closer, I need someone to tell me amusing things.”
The whole exchange, plus Piat’s hesitation and Raughd’s ostensibly amused reply—I was only joking, Lieutenant, don’t be so sensitive!—told me unpleasant things about their relationship. If they had been my officers, when I had been a ship, I’d have intervened in some way, or spoken to their senior lieutenant. I wondered for an instant at Station’s apparently not having done anything, and then it occurred to me that Raughd had perhaps been very, very careful about where she said what. Station couldn’t see into the Undergarden, and though everyone in that room was certainly wired for communications, they had probably switched their implants off. That was very possibly the whole purpose of carousing here rather than elsewhere.
Below, in my own quarters, Kalr Five spoke. “Sir.” Trepidation behind her stolid exterior.
“It’s all right,” called an unfamiliar voice from behind her, in the next room. “I’m all grown up, I’m not going to eat anyone!” The accent was an odd one, half well-educated Radchaai and half something else I couldn’t place, nothing like the accents I’d heard here so far.
“Sir,” Kalr Five said again. “Translator Dlique.” She stumbled slightly over the oddness of the name.
“Translator?” No one had mentioned that anyone from the Translators Office was in the system, and there was no reason why anyone should be. I queried Ship and saw its memory of Kalr Five opening the door to a person in the loose, bright shirt and trousers people in the Undergarden wore—gloved, though, plain, stiff gray. No jewelry. No mention of a house name or of the division of the Translators Office she worked for, no hint of family affiliation or rank. I blinked the vision away. Rose. “Send her in.”
Five stood aside, and Translator Dlique entered, smiling broadly. “Fleet Captain! How glad I am to see you. The governor’s residence is terribly boring. I’d much rather have stayed on my ship, but they said there was a hull breach and if I stayed I wouldn’t be able to breathe. I don’t know, it doesn’t seem like much, does it? Breathing?” She took a deep breath, gestured irritated indecision. “Air! It’s just stupid, really. I’d as soon do without, but they insisted.”
“Translator.” I didn’t bow, as she had not. And a horrible suspicion occurred. “It would appear you have the advantage of me.”
She drew her shoulders up, her eyes widening in astonishment. “Me! The advantage! You’re the one with all the soldiers.”
The suspicion was growing into a certainty. This person certainly wasn’t Radchaai. Translator for one of the aliens the Radch dealt with, then. But not for the Geck or the Rrrrrr—I’d met translators for the Geck before, and I knew something about the humans who translated for the Rrrrrr, and this person didn’t seem to be either sort. And that odd accent. “I mean,” I said, “that you appear to know who I am, but I don’t know who you are.”