For all those three days, neither mentioned any of it. Tisarwat was worried I already knew, and that I would disapprove, but also hopeful—no doubt her success so far suggested I might also approve of this last small thing.
On the third evening of silent supper, I said, “Citizen Uran, lessons begin the day after tomorrow.”
Uran looked up from her plate, surprised, I thought, and then back down. “Yes, sir.”
“Sir,” said Tisarwat. Anxious, but concealing it, her voice calm and measured. “Begging your indulgence…”
I gestured the superfluity of it. “Yes, Lieutenant, Citizen Uran appears to be popular in your waiting room. I’ve no doubt she’ll continue to be helpful to you, but I have no intention of slighting her education. I’ve arranged for her to study in the afternoons. She may do as she likes in the morning. Citizen”—directing my words now to Uran—“considering where we’re living, I did engage someone to teach you Raswar, which the Ychana here speak.”
“It’s a sight more useful than poetry, anyway,” said Tisarwat, relieved and pleased.
I raised an eyebrow. “You surprise me, Lieutenant.” That brought on a rise in her general background level of unhappiness, for some reason. “Tell me, Lieutenant, how does Station feel about what’s been going on?”
“I think,” replied Tisarwat, “that it’s glad repairs are going forward, but you know stations never tell you directly if they’re unhappy.” In the antechamber, someone requested entry. Kalr Eight moved to answer the door.
“It wants to see everyone, all the time,” said Uran. Greatly daring. “It says it wouldn’t be the same as someone spying on you.”
“It’s very different from a planet, on a station,” I said, as Eight opened the door, revealing Sirix Odela. “Stations like to know their residents are all well. They don’t feel right, otherwise. Do you talk to Station often, Citizen?” Wondering as I spoke what Sirix was doing here, whom I had not seen since Eight had seen her talking to Captain Hetnys.
In the dining room, Uran was saying, “It talks to me, Rad… Fleet Captain. And it translates things for me, or reads notices to me.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” I said. “Station is a good friend to have.”
In the antechamber, Citizen Sirix apologized to Eight for arriving at such an awkward hour, when the household was at supper. “But Horticulturist Basnaaid wanted very much to speak to the fleet captain, and she’s unavoidably detained in the Gardens.”
In the dining room I rose, not responding to Tisarwat’s reply to my words, and went out to the antechamber. “Citizen Sirix,” I said, as she turned toward me. “How can I assist you?”
“Fleet Captain,” said Sirix, with a small, tight nod of her head. Uncomfortable. After our conversation three days ago, and the strangeness of her errand, entirely unsurprising. “Horticulturist Basnaaid wishes very much to speak with you in person on what I understand is a private matter. She’d have come herself but she is, as I was saying, unavoidably detained in the Gardens.”
“Citizen,” I replied. “You’ll recall that when last I spoke to the horticulturist, she quite understandably said she never wanted to see me again. Should she have changed her mind I am, of course, at her service, but I must admit to some surprise. And I am at a loss to imagine what might be so urgent that it could not have waited until an hour more convenient for herself.”
Sirix froze for just an instant, a sudden tension that, in someone else, I would have taken for anger. “I did, Fleet Captain, suggest as much. She said only, it’s like the poet said: The touch of sour and cold regret, like pickled fish.”
That poet had been Basnaaid Elming, aged nine and three quarters. It would have been difficult to imagine a more carefully calculated tug at my emotions, knowing as she did that Lieutenant Awn had shared her poetry with me.
When I didn’t reply, Sirix made an ambivalent gesture. “She said you’d recognize it.”
“I do.”
“Please tell me that’s not some beloved classic.”
“You don’t like pickled fish?” I asked, calm and serious. She blinked in uncomfortable surprise. “It is not a classic, but one she knew that I would recognize, as you say. A work with personal associations.”
“I had hoped as much,” Sirix said, wryly. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, Fleet Captain, it’s been a long day and I’m late for my own supper.” She bowed and left.
I stood in the antechamber, Eight standing still and curious behind me. “Station,” I said aloud. “How are things in the Gardens right now?”
Station’s reply seemed just the smallest bit delayed. “Fine, Fleet Captain. As always.”
At age nine and three quarters, Basnaaid Elming had been an ambitious poet, without a particularly delicate sense of language, but an abundance of melodrama and overwrought emotion. The bit Sirix had quoted was part of a long narrative of betrayed friendship. It had also been incomplete. The entire couplet was, The touch of sour and cold regret, like pickled fish / ran down her back. Oh, how had she believed the awful lies?
She said you’d recognize it, Sirix had said. “Has Sirix gone home, Station? Or has she gone back to the Gardens?”
“Citizen Sirix is on her way home, Fleet Captain.” No hesitation that time.
I went to my room, took out the gun that was invisible to Station, invisible to any sensors but human eyes. Put the gun under my jacket, where I could reach it quickly. Said to Eight, as I passed her in the antechamber, “Tell Lieutenant Tisarwat and Citizen Uran to finish their supper.”
“Sir,” Eight replied, puzzled but not worried. Good.
Perhaps I was overreacting. Perhaps Basnaaid had merely changed her mind about wanting to never speak to me again. Perhaps her anxiety about the supports under the lake had grown strong enough to overcome her misgivings about me. And she had misremembered her own poetry, or remembered only part of it, meaning to remind me (as though I needed reminding) of my old association with her long-dead sister. Maybe she truly, urgently needed to speak to me now, at an hour when many citizens were at supper, and she truly could not leave work. Didn’t want to be so rude as to summon me via Station, and sent Sirix with her message instead. Surely she knew that I would come if she asked, when she asked.
Surely Sirix knew it, too. And Sirix had been talking to Captain Hetnys.
I considered—briefly—bringing my Kalrs with me, and even Lieutenant Tisarwat. I was not particularly concerned about being wrong. If I was wrong, I would send them back to the Undergarden and have whatever conversation Horticulturist Basnaaid wished. But what if I wasn’t wrong?
Captain Hetnys had two Sword of Atagaris ancillaries with her, here on the station. None of them would have guns, unless they had disobeyed my order to disarm. Which was a possibility. But even so, I was confident I could deal with Captain Hetnys and so few of Sword of Atagaris. No need to trouble anyone else.
And if it was more than just Captain Hetnys? If Governor Giarod had also been deceiving me, or Station Administrator Celar, if Station Security was waiting for me in the Gardens? I would not be able to deal with that by myself. But I would not be able to deal with that even with the assistance of Lieutenant Tisarwat and all four of my Mercy of Kalrs. Best to leave them clear, in that case.
Mercy of Kalr was another matter. “Yes,” Ship said, without my having to say anything at all. “Lieutenant Seivarden is in Command and the crew is clearing for action.”
There was little else I could do for Mercy of Kalr, and so I focused on the matter at hand.
It would have been easiest for me to enter the Gardens the same way I had when I had first arrived at Athoek. It might not make a difference—there were two entrances to the Gardens that I knew of, and two ancillaries to watch them. But on the off chance that someone was waiting for me and assuming that I would come by the most convenient way, and on the off chance that Station might take its favorite course of resistance and just not mention the fact, I thought it worth taking the long way.