“I have some guesses about what we might find there,” I admitted. “But first things first. And don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself.”
“Yes, sir,” Seivarden agreed.
At breakfast next morning, Queter’s sister stood silent, eyes downcast, as Lieutenant Tisarwat and I said the daily prayer. The flower of justice is peace. Silent as we named the dead. Still stood as Tisarwat and I sat.
“Sit, child,” I said to her, in Delsig.
“Yes, Radchaai.” She sat, obedient. Eyes still downcast. She had traveled with my Kalrs, eaten with them until this morning.
Tisarwat, beside her, cast her a quick, curious glance. Relaxed—or at least calm, preoccupied, I thought, with the things she wanted to accomplish today. Relieved that I had said nothing to her—so far—about the initiative she’d taken since I’d been gone downwell. Five brought us our breakfast—fish, and slices of dredgefruit, on the blue and violet Bractware, of course, which Five had missed. Was still enjoying.
Five was apprehensive, though—she’d learned, last night, about the apartments Tisarwat had taken over, down the corridor. No one I could read had looked this morning, but I was quite sure there would already be half a dozen Undergarden residents there, sitting on makeshift chairs, waiting to speak to Lieutenant Tisarwat. There would be more as the morning progressed. Complaints about repairs and construction that were already underway, requests for other areas to have attention sooner, or later, than scheduled.
Five poured tea—not Daughter of Fishes, I noticed—and Tisarwat set to her breakfast with a will. Queter’s sister didn’t touch hers, only looked down at her lap. I wondered if she felt all right—but if homesickness was the problem, asking her to speak her feelings aloud might only make things worse. “If you’d rather have gruel, Uran,” I said, still in Delsig, “Five can bring you some.” Another thought occurred. “No one is charging you for your meals, child.” A reaction, there, the tiniest lift of her head. “What you’re served here is your food allowance. If you’d like more you can have more, it’s not extra.” At sixteen, she was doubtless hungry nearly all the time.
She looked up, barely lifting her head. Glanced over at Tisarwat, already three quarters of the way through her fish. Started, hesitantly, with the fruit.
I switched to Radchaai, which I knew she spoke. “It will take a few days to find suitable tutors, Citizen. Until then, you are free to spend your time as you wish. Can you read the warning signs?” Life on a station was very, very different from life on a planet. “And you know the markings for section doors?”
“Yes, Citizen.” In fact, she couldn’t read Radchaai well, but the warning signs were bright and distinctive on purpose, and I knew Five and Eight had gone over them with her, on the trip here.
“If you take the warning signs very seriously, Citizen, and always listen to Station if it speaks to you through your handheld, you may go around the station as you like. Have you thought about the aptitudes?”
She had just put some fish in her mouth. Now she froze in alarm, and then, so that she could speak, she gulped it nearly unchewed. “I am at the citizen’s disposal,” she said, faintly. Winced, either at hearing herself say it, or at the lump of fish she’d just swallowed nearly whole.
“That isn’t what I asked,” I pointed out. “I’m not going to require you to do anything you don’t wish to. You can still be on the ration list if you claim an exemption from the tests, you just can’t take any civil or military assignments.” Uran blinked in surprise, almost raised her head to look at me, but quickly stopped herself. “Yes, it’s a rule recently made, expressly for Valskaayans, and away from Valskaay not much taken advantage of.” It was one any of the Valskaayan field workers might have invoked—but it wouldn’t have changed anything. “You’re still required to accept what assignment Administration gives you, of course. But there’s no hurry to ask them for one, just yet.”
And best not to make that application until Uran had spent some time with her tutors. I could understand her when she spoke Radchaai, but the overseers downwell had all behaved as though the speech of the Valskaayan field workers was completely incomprehensible. Possibly it was the accent, and I was used to speaking to people with various accents, was well acquainted with the accents of native Delsig-speakers.
“But you don’t have an assignment yet, Citizen?” asked Lieutenant Tisarwat. A shade eagerly. “Can you make tea?”
Uran took a deliberate breath. Hiding panic, I thought. “I am pleased to do whatever the citizen requires.”
“Lieutenant,” I said, sharply. “You are not to require anything of Citizen Uran. She is free to spend the next few days as she likes.”
Tisarwat said, “It’s only, sir, that Citizen Uran isn’t Xhai. Or Ychana. When residents…” She realized, suddenly, that she would have to openly acknowledge what she’d been up to. “I’d have asked Station Administration to assign me a few people, but the residents in the Undergarden, sir, they’re more comfortable speaking to me because we don’t have a history here.” We did have a history here, and doubtless everyone in the Undergarden was conscious of it. “The citizen might enjoy it. And it would be good experience.” Experience for what, she didn’t specify.
“Citizen Uran,” I said. “Except for questions of safety or security, you are not required to do what Lieutenant Tisarwat asks you.” Uran still stared down, at her now-empty plate, no remaining trace of breakfast. I looked pointedly to Lieutenant Tisarwat. “Is that understood, Lieutenant?”
“Sir,” Tisarwat acknowledged. And then, with inward trepidation, “Might I have a few more Bos, then, sir?”
“In a week or so, Lieutenant. I’ve just sent Ship away on an inspection.”
I couldn’t read Tisarwat’s thoughts, but I guessed from her emotional responses—brief surprise, dismay, rapidly replaced by a moment of bright certainty and then nervous hesitation—that she had realized I might still order Seivarden to send her Bos on a shuttle. And then reached the conclusion that I certainly would have suggested that, if I’d wanted to. “Yes, sir.” Crestfallen, and at the same time relieved, perhaps, that I hadn’t yet disapproved of her improvised office, her negotiations with Undergarden residents.
“You got yourself into this, Lieutenant,” I said, mildly. “Just try not to antagonize Station Administration.” Not likely, I knew. By now, Tisarwat and Piat were fast friends, and their social circle included Station Administration staff as well as Station Security and even people who worked for Governor Giarod. It was these people Tisarwat would doubtless have drawn on, in requesting people to be assigned to her, but they all had, as she had put it, a history here.
“Yes, sir.” Tisarwat’s expression didn’t change—she’d learned a few things from her Bos, I thought—and her lilac eyes showed only the slightest trace of how pleased and relieved she was to hear me speak so. And then, at the back of that, the regular undercurrent of anxiety, of unhappiness. I could only guess at what caused that—though I was sure it wasn’t anything that had gone wrong here. Left over, then, from the trip here to Athoek, from what had happened during that time. She turned again to Uran. “You know, Citizen, you wouldn’t really actually have to make tea. Bo Nine does that, at least she brings in the water in the morning. Really all you’d have to do is give people tea and be pleasant to them.”
Uran, who from the moment I had met her had been quietly anxious not to offend (when she had not been quietly miserable), looked up, right at Tisarwat, and said, in very plain Radchaai, “I don’t think I’d be very good at that.”