“Why did she leave this?”
Tisarwat blinked. Frowned. Then understood. “Sir. It’s not a big problem. And it’s useful to have somewhere you can… do things in secret.” Indeed. Useful to any and all parts of the Lord of the Radch, but I didn’t say that. She would already know it. “And really, you know, sir, the people here got on all right until Captain Hetnys showed up.”
“Got on all right, did they? With no water, and no Medical to come in emergencies, and apparently nobody questioning Hetnys’s methods here?” She looked down at her feet. Ashamed. Miserable.
Looked up. “They’re getting water from somewhere, sir. They grow mushrooms. There’s this dish that…”
“Lieutenant.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What was she going to do here?”
“Help you, sir. Mostly. Unless you were going to do anything that would prevent her from… reassembling herself once this was done.” I didn’t reply to this immediately, and she added, “She thinks that’s likely, sir.”
“This situation in the Undergarden needs fixing. I’m about to talk to the station administrator about it. Use your contacts—surely she sent you here with contacts—to get it done. Once the funeral is done, I’ll be unable to do anything directly, but I will be watching you.”
Tisarwat left, and Kalr Five ushered Station Administrator Celar into the sitting room. She wore the light blue of Administration today, managed to make the standard uniform look elegant on her broad and heavy form. I sat when she sat. Did not offer her tea, as would ordinarily have been polite. In my current state no one but my own household could eat or drink in my presence. “The situation in the Undergarden is intolerable,” I said, with no preamble, no softening. No thanks for coming here at what was surely considerable inconvenience. “I am frankly astonished that it’s been left this way for so long. But I am not asking for reasons or excuses. I expect repairs to begin immediately.”
“Fleet Captain,” said Station Administrator Celar, bristling at my words, though my tone had been calm and flat, “there’s only so much that—”
“Then do that much. And don’t tell me that no one is supposed to be here. Clearly people are here. And”—this was entering delicate territory—“I doubt very much any of this could have happened without at least some collusion from Station. I strongly suspect Station has been concealing things from you. You have a problem there, and it’s of your own making.” Station Administrator Celar frowned, not immediately understanding me. Offended. “I would urge you to look at this from Station’s point of view. A not inconsiderable part of itself has been damaged. Restoring it entirely isn’t possible, but no attempt has been made to even mitigate it. You just sealed it off and tried to forget it. But Station can’t just forget it.” And it struck me as likely that having people here felt better to Station than a numb, empty hole. And at the same time constantly reminded it of its injury. But I didn’t think I could find a way to explain why, or how I’d come to that conclusion. “And the people who live here, they’re Station’s residents, who Station is made to care for. You don’t treat them particularly well, though, and I imagine Station resents that. Though it can’t ever say that directly to you, and so instead it just… leaves things out. Does and says exactly what you ask of it and very little more. I’ve met unhappy AIs.” I didn’t say how, or that I’d been an AI myself. “And you have one here.”
“How can an AI be unhappy when it’s doing exactly what it was made to do?” asked Station Administrator Celar. Not, thankfully, how it could possibly matter whether an AI was happy or not. And then, demonstrating that she had not been given her office merely on the strength of her looks, Station Administrator Celar said, “But you say we’ve prevented Station from doing that. That is the substance of what you’ve said, yes?” She sighed. “When I arrived, my predecessor depicted the Undergarden as a morass of crime and squalor, that no one could find a way to safely clear out. Everything I saw seemed to indicate she was right. And it had been that way so long, fixing it seemed impossible. Everyone agreed it was so. But that’s no excuse, is it. It’s my responsibility.”
“Repair the section doors,” I said. “Fix the plumbing and the lights.”
“And the ventilation,” said Station Administrator Celar, fanning herself briefly with one blue-gloved hand.
I gestured agreement. “Confirm the current occupants in their places. Just for a start.” Getting Medical here, and Security patrols that would not cause more problems than they might solve, would be next, and more difficult.
“Somehow, Fleet Captain, I don’t think it could possibly be that simple.”
Likely not. But. “I couldn’t say. But we have to do something.” I saw her notice that we. “And now I need to speak to you about your daughter Piat.” Station Administrator Celar frowned in puzzlement. “She and Citizen Raughd are lovers?”
Still the frown. “They’ve been sweethearts since they were children. Raughd grew up downwell, and Piat often went down to visit, and keep her company. Not many other children Raughd’s age in the family, at the time. Not in the mountains, anyway.”
Downwell. Where Station couldn’t see more than trackers. “You like Raughd,” I said. “It’s a good connection, and she’s very charming, isn’t she.” Station Administrator Celar gestured assent. “Your daughter is very subdued. Doesn’t talk to you much. Spends more time in other households than home with you. You feel, perhaps, she’s driven you away.”
“What are you aiming at, Fleet Captain?”
Even if Station had seen the way Raughd treated Piat when she thought no one was looking, it wouldn’t have reported it directly. On a station, privacy was paradoxically both nonexistent and an urgent necessity. Station saw your most intimate moments. But you always knew Station would never tell just anyone what it saw, wouldn’t gossip. Station would report crimes and emergencies, but for anything else it would, at most, hint here or guide there. A station household could be, in some ways, very self-contained, very secret, even though living at close quarters with so many others. Even though every moment it was under Station’s constant, all-seeing eye.
The hints could often be enough. But if Station was unhappy, it might not even do that. “Raughd is only charming when she wants to be,” I said. “When everyone is looking. In private, to certain people, she’s very different. I’m going to ask my ship to send you a recording of something that happened here in the Undergarden last night.”
Her fingers twitched, calling up the file. She blinked, her eyes moving in a way that told me she was watching that scene of Raughd, her daughter, others, reclining on those cushions, drinking. I saw on her face the moment she heard Citizen Raughd say, You’re such a fucking ridiculous bore. The stunned disbelief, and then a look of determined anger as she kept watching, through Raughd’s increasing aggression as Lieutenant Tisarwat, drunk as she was, tried to maneuver Piat out of Raughd’s way. Station Administrator Celar gestured the recording away.
“Am I correct,” I asked, before she could speak, “in guessing that Citizen Raughd never took the aptitudes? Because she was already Citizen Fosyf’s heir?” Station Administrator Celar gestured yes. “The tester would almost certainly have seen the potential for this sort of thing, and routed her toward some sort of treatment, or an assignment where her personality would have been of benefit. Sometimes, combined with other things, it suits someone for a military career, and the discipline helps keep them in check and teaches them to behave better.” Gods help the crew of such a person who was promoted to any position of authority without learning to behave better. “They can be very, very charming. No one ever suspects what they’re like in private. Most won’t believe it if you tell them.”