Provenance

by Ann Leckie

  “Ah,” said Garal, “is that still an issue? It’s been, what, a hundred years?”

  “And surely, no matter who really owns them, it’s better for everyone that they’re in the System Lareum,” Ingray agreed.

  Garal made a quick, skeptical hah sound. “I guess I’m not surprised. Though, knowing what I know now, I wonder how much of what’s in the lareum is fake to begin with.”

  “What, you think there are forgeries in the Hwae System Lareum? But you said yourself, before, that it’s too risky to fake famous vestiges. Or do you mean maybe Pahlad stole those, too? I’m not sure e would ever have had the opportunity.” She frowned. It had never occurred to her before, the possibility that anything in the System Lareum might not be what it was supposed to be. That any of it might be copies. What would be the point of that? How a vestige looked, what it was made of—none of that really mattered. What mattered was, it had been touched by certain people, actually, physically been there when pivotal, system-shaking events had happened. Events that had led to the founding of Hwae, that had made all of them who they were today. What good would copies be, of something like that? Why bother to come to the station to see them? You might as well just look at pictures. “That would be terrible.”

  “That’s not quite what I meant,” said Garal, and took another bite of eir nutrient block.

  “And what would be the point of stealing such famous vestiges? You couldn’t sell them. You could never let anyone else see them. You’d have to, what, keep them locked up, forever.”

  “Indeed,” said Garal.

  Ingray wrinkled her nose at her own nutrient bar. “Who comes up with these flavors? Stewed chicken with pickled cabbage? It’s not like they’re fooling anyone. It’s a block of yeast.”

  “I have some of the curried fish ones, if you’d rather.”

  “Ugh, no.” She tore the foil open, took a bite. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. I’m very glad you have these, and very glad you’re sharing with me.” She thought of saying But whoever makes these must hate humanity, and then remembered Garal swallowing an entire meal at a single gulp, when e’d first come to the ship, and the fact that e felt it necessary to hoard food for the future, and ate her food in silence.

  5

  Of course the day that Ingray and Garal had to walk the nine kilometers from the city transport terminal to the Aughskold house would be gray and rainy. A mild, steady rain, but within an hour of starting out Ingray’s jacket and skirts had been soaked through, her hair plastered to her head and back, her bag dripping. Garal looked similarly soaked but did not complain, did not say anything, just walked, shoulders hunched, staring down at the ground, as though e meant to disappear into the rain. They passed several mechs stepping through the wet streets on unguessable errands, but not many people, not once they’d started out on the pedestrian courses and left the transport hub behind. Everyone else had sense enough to stay inside today, or take the city trams if they had to go out. Even the black-paved plaza in front of the Arsamol District Planetary Safety Headquarters, usually full of people passing, was silent and empty but for the pattering of rain, and a boxy gray-green mech stepping stiffly along the cracks between the paving stones looking for any sign of incipient weeds. Here and there a doorway would open on light and dry warmth as someone would dash from indoors to a groundcar. By the time Ingray and Garal approached Netano’s house Ingray had lost any convincing memory of being dry.

  The front of the house, like the other houses on the street, was high and broad, and the entrance opened right onto the public walkway. Unlike its neighbors, it was built of the ruin glass that the first human settlers had found scattered all over the planet, one- and two- and even three-meter carefully placed, irregularly shaped chunks of it, blue and green and one streak of intense red slashing down, not quite in the center of the wall. Each block was shot through with twisting, convoluted shadows, some sort of inclusion maybe, but on the rare occasions someone had managed to break a block or (more frequently but still difficult) grind it down, there had been nothing but glass. At night the lights inside would shine through the wall, making the front of the house glow. Even in daylight the colors seemed luminous, particularly on gray, rainy days like this one.

  Seeing the bright house-front, Ingray felt its utter familiarity, and a yearning to be finally inside and at home. At the same time she had a disconcerting sense of strangeness, as though the house she’d grown up in had become something foreign to her. Or something she was foreign to. Was the house different, the colors faded, the twisting shadows, perhaps, changed in shape, as Ingray and her siblings had believed they did, when they were small? Or was it that it seemed forbidding to her now, returning as she was with no money at all and only the most forlorn hope of making anything of herself, of being able to remain an Aughskold much longer? She was too wet and tired to ponder for very long. The door swung open at her touch, and they stepped into the entrance hall.

  Silence, except for the sound of the rain outside and the intermittent patter of water dripping onto the amber-tiled floor. Netano kept many of her most important vestiges here, a practice that older names like Ethiat Budrakim considered showy and vulgar. There was no question, though, that visitors knew whose house they were in from the moment they entered. If they had to wait, there was a bench by the stairs from which they could contemplate the wall, bordered with red, blue, and green triangles near the ceiling but otherwise plain white, the better to show off the vestiges that hung there: entrance tickets from Assembly sessions and receptions decades and centuries in the past, all of them elaborate black script on stiff, brown-bordered paper; a scattering of invitation sheets in blue and yellow and pink and pale purple, bearing the names and dates of previous Netanos, or their illustrious friends and relations; a small grouping of black linen rectangles, with names painted in white, each one from the hand of the person named, flowing script or awkward dabbing, depending on the ability or inclination of the writer.

  “Well, well,” murmured Garal, beside her. “My own work in the Aughskold lareum. That’s an achievement.”

  “What?” Ingray turned to em, startled. Frowned at em. “Your own … is it one of the black linen ones?” That had been a very popular sort of vestige about two hundred years ago, very distinctive, and it was an easy way to make an entertainment set during that time look authentic. It would be quite easy to forge if you had the right materials and knew what names and styles of writing to use. She would never have thought of that, if she hadn’t met Garal.

  “No, not those. Though some of those may be fakes, too. I’d have to look closer to be sure.”

  “Then which …” She stopped. They shouldn’t be having this conversation in the foyer. And besides, it didn’t matter. They should both go straight upstairs to her room. There was a bath there, and dry clothes. Ingray was only about average height, and thickly built, so none of her clothes would fit tall, thin Garal particularly well, but it would be better than nothing. They would leave a long, wet trail across the foyer, up the stairs, and down the hallway to Ingray’s room. A mech would clean it up—one came stepping stiffly into the hall as Ingray thought of it, small and gray and moving straight toward the growing puddle they stood in—but Ingray didn’t like even the fact of it, the evidence of their long, miserable walk from the transport hub being laid out on the floor for anyone to read. Of course the door opening would have alerted the staff to her arrival, and any moment now …

  A servant came into the hall. Cast an outwardly impassive eye on the puddle where Ingray and Garal stood, the mech stepping toward it. “Miss Ingray. Your mother is in the front reception room.”

  Damn. That was not a neutral piece of information. It was very possibly a direct order from Netano herself. She suppressed a sigh. “Thank you.” She turned to look at Garal, silent, slouching, staring floorward. She had not anticipated having to show Garal to Netano, not just yet. But if she sent em to her room, or had em stand out in the hallway while she went in, th
at would probably attract even more attention, and curiosity. “We need to speak to Mama. Hopefully it won’t take long.” She wished she could say, out loud, Be careful, be inconspicuous. Because if Netano noticed Garal and started asking questions, well, that would be the end of everything.

  Garal said nothing, didn’t make even the smallest gesture in response, but e followed when she moved toward the reception room door.

  The front wall of the reception room was blue and green ruin glass, but the wall opposite the door where Ingray and Garal came in was all broad windows, plain and clear, looking out onto the rain-washed garden, moss-lined stones and silver-wet willows, three stone benches, swaths of flowers bent by the rain, their colors faded-looking in the gray light. The other walls were hung with slubbed silk, rough-woven in waving bands of red and yellow and green. Netano Aughskold, nearly as tall as Garal and imposingly solid, sat on a low-backed cushioned bench, her hair—thick and dark, the sort of hair that hairpins didn’t fall out of, that would stay once it was twisted or braided—was pulled back with a bright yellow headband, to fan out behind her head. If Ingray ever wished she’d been Netano’s biological child, it was because of that hair.

  Netano was talking to two visitors Ingray had never seen before, a man and a woman in perfectly ordinary loose trousers and tunics but whose pale skin, blunt features, and accent—and gaunt height—said they came from Omkem, two gates away. Ingray thought of the man in the Tyr Siilas Incomers Office—but beyond looking like Omkem these two didn’t really look like him once Ingray thought about it. The woman sat on a bench, the man on a cushion on the floor.

  And of course her brother Danach was there to see her discomfiture, half lying in a broad armchair. Danach had always been the best-looking of Netano’s children, tall and wide-bodied, his face broad-featured; his hair, which easily grew long, was thick and dark and tightly curled. He always carried himself with a sort of insolent ease that his good looks somehow made charming to everyone but Ingray.

  “Ingray!” exclaimed Netano. “Where have you been all these weeks? Your nuncle has been asking after you.”

  “Just traveling, Mama.” Danach gave a short laugh but didn’t say anything more. Ingray hoped her anxiety over Garal standing behind her would only show as embarrassment at being seen like this, dripping wet in front of guests in the formal reception room.

  “On a wander, eh?” asked the Omkem woman. “I remember my own wander! What an adventure that was. I was much younger then, of course, and thought nothing of sleeping in whatever corner I could find, or taking any sort of horrible odd job for a week or two to earn my fare on some tiny cargo ship. These days I fear it wouldn’t be half so charming.” She smiled. “But I’m so glad I did, even if it took me a month or more to recover afterward. But so much worth it, yes! I went all the way to Nilt, you know. I was determined to see the famous bridges! They are even more astonishing in person than in recordings. I’ll never forget it, as long as I live. That was the one place I brought something back from—you know, my dear, how lightly one travels on a wander! But the nomads there, who follow the bov herds, they make the most beautiful patterned rugs and blankets, all hand-spun and hand-woven, in the most delicate colors. I couldn’t resist buying one, even though it meant working an extra week to get passage away.”

  Her companion, at her feet, seemed to look vaguely off into the middle distance. As the woman spoke, his gaze changed focus to somewhere immediately in front of himself, and he blinked but said nothing. He must have been some relation to the woman—some of the Omkem had some strange ideas about families, and couldn’t speak the names of certain relatives, or even address them directly. The Omkem Federacy was a multisystem power—or they had been until recently—and sometimes seemed a bit condescending about what they considered Hwae’s lack of culture and polish, along with the Assemblies’ mere one planet and a few stations. But the family of Omkem tourists, none of whom could speak to each other, was a venerable and still-reliable way to get laughs out of a Hwaean audience.

  “But think how fortunate you are, my dear,” continued the woman, apparently ignoring her companion entirely, “you don’t have to travel far to see such wonders! People come from all over space to see what’s dull everyday to you.”

  “Yes, excellency,” Ingray agreed, though in her experience it was mostly the Omkem who were so fascinated by the glass. “Though I wouldn’t say dull. Have you come to see our ruin glass then?”

  “More than see,” said Netano. “They’re applying for permission to dig up the glass in the Eswae Parkland.”

  “All of it?” For a moment Ingray was at a loss. She knew that visitors from the Omkem Federacy would often pay good money for large pieces of ruin glass, and would spend as much or more shipping it back home. But there were other places to find glass that weren’t in a district nature preserve. There was little difference between the chunks of glass there and the ones anywhere else. “All at once?”

  “Not all at once, of course,” said the Omkem woman with a condescending smile. “We’re really looking for information, not just glass. It’s a very specific thing we hope to find, and we think we know where to find it, but we will have to do quite a lot of digging.”

  “I’m so very interested to hear about it,” said Ingray, suppressing a shiver. “And so very glad to have met you. Mama, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to make the staff very unhappy, dripping on the floor like this.” She heard Danach laugh again, briefly, but didn’t turn her head to look at him. Decided, all things considered, that she might play up her sorry state, just a bit. “It was a long, wet walk from the transport hub.”

  “Are you just come down the elevator from the station, then?” asked the Omkem man. “Did you see the Geck?”

  “I was halfway down before I heard the news they were in the system,” Ingray lied. “But I don’t imagine there’ll be much to see. I don’t think they like leaving their ship any more than they like leaving their homeworld.”

  “What times we live in!” exclaimed the man. “Who would have thought we would ever see any of this, eh? The Radch in chaos, yet another treaty conclave—and such a conclave! I remember the uproar when the Rrrrrr were first discovered, what was it, thirty, thirty-five years ago now. Or is it closer to forty? But this, well, this is something else, isn’t it.” As he spoke the Omkem woman stared off in the other direction, as though he were not there and she did not hear him. Her lips slightly pursed, as though if she did hear, she disapproved and wished he had kept silent.

  “The Geck went through Tyr Siilas back then, too,” said Netano. “But they didn’t come here. I can’t even imagine why they would come here, but they must have some reason.” She turned to Ingray. “Ingray, dear, go get dried off.” Her gaze flicked over Ingray’s shoulder, and then back. “Our guests are staying with us for the next few days, and there are no empty rooms. Your … friend will have to stay with you.”

  No hint of disapproval in her mother’s voice, but Ingray had navigated Netano’s moods before and knew it was there. Even not slouched and staring down, Garal wasn’t terribly prepossessing. But that suited Ingray just now; it meant, she was fairly sure, that Netano had not noted eir similarity to Pahlad, or thought much more about em than that e was bedraggled and badly dressed. Ingray said, soberly, “Yes, Mama.” She gave a brief nod toward Netano and her guests—none at all for Danach—and turned and left the room, Garal (she trusted) trailing behind her.

  Ingray’s room was hardly the largest in the house, but it had its own small bath (enormous luxury after the even smaller facility on Captain Uisine’s ship) and a window that looked out onto the rainy garden. Garal sat on a bench by a gold-and-mother-of-pearl-inlaid dressing table, drinking serbat, wearing a lungi Ingray had found, though it wrapped nearly twice around em and ended several more inches above eir ankles than was strictly fashionable. As e drank, e looked at the vestiges hung on the wall behind the dressing table, and Ingray found herself just a bit embarrassed. Invitations to par
ties that mattered to no one but her, including one to her own majority dinner. A few mass-produced vestiges, from places Ingray had visited, garish pink or orange blobs of glass or plastic or wood with place names and dates printed on them; a few leaves and flowers cased in resin; a strip made up of a dozen or so small folded and interlocked pieces of paper, from a friend she barely remembered and hadn’t seen since she’d come to live with Netano Aughskold. Garal, the expert, surely knew a valuable vestige when e saw one. What must e be thinking, looking at these?

  It shouldn’t matter. She had never cared about the kind of vestige collection that had so absorbed Danach. She sat on her rolled-up mattress, toweling the ends of her hair dry, reminding herself that there were other, more important things to worry about. “Are you,” she asked, setting her towel into her lap for a moment, “thinking what I’m thinking?”

  E turned away from eir examination of her vestiges. “Are you wondering just exactly how big a bribe those two would have brought to get Netano Aughskold to help them get permits to dig up Eswae Parkland?”

  Ingray blinked in surprise. “Not exactly.” She already knew how much that might cost. Or at least, she knew how much it would take for Netano to entertain these people and maybe lead them to believe she might get them the permits they wanted. It would be a very large number. And probably a cut of the future sale of any usable pieces of ruin glass they (or anyone else) wanted to remove, just as a sweetener on top. Picking up her towel again, she said, “You’re right, though, it must be huge. But the Omkem Federacy has been trying for the past five or six years to get the Assemblies of Hwae to agree to let a military fleet through our gate to Byeit.”