by Ann Leckie
“About the Undergarden?” Governor Giarod guessed.
“Among other things.”
In my sitting room on level four of the Undergarden, my Kalrs ordered to leave us to speak privately, I said to Tisarwat, “I’ll have to spend the next two weeks in mourning. Which means I won’t be able to do any work. Lieutenant Seivarden is of course in command of Mercy of Kalr during that time. And you will be in charge here in the household.”
She had awakened miserably hungover. Tea and meds had begun to remedy that, but not entirely. “Yes, sir.”
“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 help
s 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.”
“I wouldn’t have,” she admitted. “If you hadn’t shown me…” She gestured forward, meaning to indicate the recording that had just played in her vision, in her ears.
“That’s why I showed it to you,” I said, “despite the impropriety of doing so.”
“Nothing just can be improper,” replied Station Administrator Celar.
“There’s more, Station Administrator. As I said, Station has been keeping things back that you have not explicitly asked for. There was at least one occasion on which Citizen Piat reported to Medical with bruises on her face. She said she’d been drinking in the Undergarden and tripped and stumbled into a wall. The bruises didn’t look like the right sort for that, not to my eye. Not to Medical’s either, but they weren’t about to get involved in any personal business of yours. I’m sure they thought if it was really a problem, Station would have said something.” And no one else would have noticed. A corrective, a few hours, and the bruises would be gone. “There was no one around, at the time, except Raughd. I’ve seen this sort of thing before. Raughd will have apologized and sworn never to do it again. I strongly suggest asking Station explicitly about each and every visit your daughter has made to Medical, no matter how minor. I’d also ask Station about her use of first aid correctives. I queried Station directly, with the intention of finding this sort of incident, because I’ve seen this sort of thing before and knew it was almost certainly there. Station only answered me because System Governor Giarod ordered it, at my request.”
Station Administrator Celar said nothing. She barely seemed to breathe. Maybe watching the record of her daughter’s visit to Medical. Maybe not.
“So,” I continued after a moment. “No doubt you’re aware of the difficulty this morning that ended in the death of the Presger Translator Dlique.”
She blinked, startled at the sudden change of topic. Frowned. “Fleet Captain, this morning was the first I’d heard the translator even existed, I assure you.”
I waved that away. “Station was explicitly asked who had stood near that wall, in the right time frame, for long enough to paint those words. Station answered with two names: Sirix Odela and Raughd Denche. Security immediately arrested Citizen Sirix, on the assumption that Raughd wouldn’t have done such a thing. But Station was not asked if either citizen had paint on her clothes. And since Station was not asked, it did not volunteer that information.” I was not connected to Station at the moment, though I thought it very likely Station Administrator Celar was. “This is not something I think you should blame Station for. As I said earlier.”
“Surely,” said Station Administrator Celar, “it was a prank, something done for amusement. Youthful high spirits.”
“What amusement,” I asked, my own voice carefully even, “could youthful high spirits have anticipated? Watching Sword of Atagaris Var arrest completely innocent citizens? Putting those completely innocent citizens through interrogation to prove their innocence, or worse not interrogating them at all, convicting them without any evidence beyond Raughd Denche could never have done that? Further alarming you, and the governor, and Captain Hetnys at a time when things were already tense? And if, for the sake of argument, we pretend those are harmless amusements, then why has no one said of Citizen Sirix, It’s nothing, it must have been a prank?” Silence. Her fingers twitched, just slightly, the station administrator speaking to Station no doubt. “There’s paint on Citizen Raughd’s gloves, isn’t there?”
“Her personal attendant,” acknowledged Station Administrator Celar, “is even now trying to wash the paint off of them.”
“So,” I said. This was going to be even more delicate than the problem with Station. “Citizen Fosyf is prominent, and wealthy. You have authority here, but it’s just easier to get the things you want done when you have the support of people like Fosyf. And, no doubt, she gives you gifts. Valuable ones. The romance between your daughter and hers is convenient. When you sent Citizen Piat downwell to keep Raughd company, you were already thinking of this. And you might be wondering if you’d noticed that your daughter was unhappy. Or how long ago you’d first seen the signs of it, and maybe you told yourself that it was nothing, really, that everyone has to put up with a little stress, for the sake of family connections, family benefit. That if it was ever really bad, surely Station would say something. To you, of all people. And it’s so easy to just go along. So easy not to see what’s happening. And the longer you don’t see it, the harder it becomes to see it, because then you have to admit that you ignored it all that time. But this is the moment when it’s laid before you, clear and unambiguous. This is the sort of person Raughd Denche is. This is what she’s doing to your daughter. Are her mother’s gifts worth your daughter’s well-being? Is political convenience worth that? Does the wider benefit to your house outweigh it? You can’t put off the choice any longer. Can’t pretend there’s no choice there to make.”
“You are very uncomfortable company, Fleet Captain,” observed Station Administrator Celar, her voice bitter and sharp. “Do you do this sort of thing everywhere you go?”
“Lately it seems so,” I admitted.
As I spoke, Kalr Five came silently into the room, and stood ancillary-stiff. Very clearly wanted my attention. “Yes, Five?” She wouldn’t have interrupted without very good reason.
“Begging the fleet captain’s indulgence, sir. Citizen Fosyf’s personal attendant has inquired about the possibility of the citizen inviting you and Captain Hetnys to spend the two weeks after Translator Dlique’s funeral on her estate downwell.” Such an invitation was properly made in person—this sort of inquiry beforehand, through servants, prevented any inconvenience or embarrassment. “She has more than one house on her land, so you’ll be able to spend the mourning period in proper fashion, very conveniently, she says.”
I looked over at Station Administrator Celar, who gave a small laugh. “Yes, I thought it was odd, too, when I first came. But here at Athoek, if you can afford it, you don’t spend your two weeks in your quarters.” After the initial days of fasting, after the funeral, residents in a mourning household did no work, but instead stayed mostly at home, accepting consolatory visits from clients and friends. I’d assumed that Captain Hetnys and I would stay here in the Undergarden for that time. “If you’re accustomed to have things done for you,” Station Administrator Celar continued, “especially if you don’t pick your meals up at the common refectories but rather have someone in your household cook for you, it can be a long two weeks. So you go to stay somewhere that’s technically its own house, but servants nearby can cook and clean for you. There’s a place right off the main concourse that specializes in it—but they’re filled up right now with people who just need someplace to stay.”
“And that’s considered entirely proper, is it?” I asked doubtfully.
“There has been some suspicion,” Celar replied wryly, “that my not being familiar with the practice when I arrived indicates that my upbringing wasn’t what it might have been. Your not being familiar with it will be a shock they may never recover from.”
I shouldn’t have been surprised. I had known officers from nearly every province, had known that the details of funeral practice (among other things) could differ from place to place. Things widely considered mandatory were sometimes only actually available to citizens with sufficient resources, though that was rarely acknowledged. And beyond that, I knew that small details often went unmentioned, on the assumption that of course all Radchaai did things the same way and there was no need to discuss it. But I was used to those being fairly small details—what sort of incense was appropriate, prayers added to or subtracted from the daily observances, odd food restrictions.
I considered
Five. She stood there outwardly impassive, but wanting me to see something, impatient I hadn’t yet. Her announcement had, from her point of view, been heavy with suggestion. “It’s customary to pay for such services?” I asked Station Administrator Celar.
“Often,” she agreed, still with a wry smile. “Though I’m sure Fosyf is just being generous.”
And self-serving. It would not surprise me if Fosyf had realized, one way or another, what part her own daughter had played in the episode that had led to Translator Dlique’s death. Hoped, perhaps, that hosting me during the mourning period would be, if not a bribe, at least a gesture toward remorse for what her daughter had done. But it might well be useful. “Raughd could come downwell with us, of course,” I observed. “And stay after. For quite some time.”
“I’ll see to it,” said Station Administrator Celar, with a small, bitter smile that, had I been Raughd Denche, would have made me shiver.
12
Athoek’s sky was a clear cerulean, shot here and there with bright streaks—the visible parts of the planet’s weather control grid. For some hours we’d flown over water, blue-gray and flat, but now mountains loomed, brown and green below, black and gray and streaked with ice at their tops. “Another hour or so, Fleet Captain, Citizens,” said the pilot. We had been met, at the base of the elevator, by two fliers. Between one thing and another—including maneuvering on the part of Kalr Five—Fosyf and Raughd had ended up in the other one, along with Captain Hetnys and the Sword of Atagaris ancillary who accompanied her. Both Captain Hetnys and I were in full mourning—the hair we’d shaved off barely beginning to grow back, no cosmetics but a broad white stripe painted diagonally across our faces. Once full mourning was over, Translator Dlique’s memorial token would join Lieutenant Awn’s plain gold tag on my jacket: a two-centimeter opal, Translator Dlique Zeiat Presger engraved large and clear on the silver setting. They were the only names we knew to use.