Ancillary Sword (29 page)

“The gates, sir,” Captain Hetnys protested. “Beg to remind the fleet captain, anyone might come through the gates.”

“No, Captain,” I said, “no one will come through the gates. They’re too easy to watch, and too easily defended.” And I would certainly mine them, one way or another. I wasn’t certain if Captain Hetnys hadn’t thought of that possibility, or if she had thought I might not think of it. Either was possible. “Certainly no one will come by the Ghost Gate.”

The merest twitch of muscles around her eyes and her mouth, the briefest of expressions, too quickly gone to be readable.

She believed someone might. I was increasingly sure that she had lied when she had said that she had never encountered anyone else in that other, supposedly empty, system. That she wanted to conceal the fact that someone was there, or had been there. Might be there now. Of course, if she had sold away Valskaayan transportees, she would want to conceal that fact in order to avoid reeducation or worse. And there remained, still, the question of whom she might have sold them to, or why.

I could not rely on her. Would not. Would be very, very careful to watch her and her ship.

“You’ve sent
Mercy of Kalr
away, sir,” Captain Hetnys pointed out. My ship’s departure would have been obvious, though of course the reason for it would not be.

“A brief errand.” Certainly I did not want to say what that errand was. Not to Captain Hetnys. “It will be back in a few days. Do you have confidence in the abilities of your Amaat lieutenant?”

Captain Hetnys frowned. Puzzled. “Yes, sir.”

“Good.” There was, then, no reason for her to insist on returning immediately to
Sword of Atagaris
. Once she did, her position—should she be able to recognize the fact—would be stronger than I wanted. I waited for her to request it, to ask permission to return to her ship.

“Well, sir,” she said, still sitting across from me, rose glass teabowl in one brown-gloved hand, “perhaps none of this will be needed, and we’ll have exerted ourselves for nothing.” A breath. Deliberate, I thought, deliberately calm.

No question that I would need to keep Captain Hetnys
nearby. And off her ship, if possible. I knew what a captain meant, to a ship. And while no ancillary ever gave much information about its emotional state, I had seen the Atagaris ancillary, downwell, with that shard of glass jutting out of its back. Tears in its eyes.
Sword of Atagaris
did not want to lose its captain.

I had been a ship. I did not want to deprive
Sword of Atagaris
of its captain. But I would if I had to. If it meant keeping the residents of this system safe. If it meant keeping Basnaaid safe.

After breakfast, before letting Uran wander as she pleased, Eight took her to buy clothes. She could have gotten them from Station stores, of course, every Radchaai was due food, and shelter, and clothing. But Eight didn’t even allow this possibility to arise. Uran was living in my household and would be dressed accordingly.

I might, of course, have bought clothes for her myself. But to Radchaai, this would have implied either that I had adopted Uran into my house, or that I had given her my patronage. I doubted Uran wanted as much as the fiction of being even further separated from her family, and while clientage didn’t necessarily imply a sexual relationship, in situations where patron and client were very unequal in circumstances it was often assumed. It might not matter to some. I would not assume that it did not matter to Uran. So I had set her up with an allowance for such things. Hardly any different from my just outright giving her what she needed, but on such details propriety depended.

I saw that Eight and Uran were standing just outside the entrance to the temple of Amaat, on the grimy white floor, just under the bright-painted but dusty EskVar, Eight explaining,
not-quite-ancillary calm, that Amaat and the Valskaayan god were fairly obviously the same, and so it would be entirely proper for Uran to enter and make an offering. Uran, looking somewhat uncomfortable in her new clothes, doggedly refusing. I was on the point of messaging Eight to stop when, glancing over Uran’s shoulder, she saw Captain Hetnys pass, followed by a
Sword of Atagaris
ancillary, and speaking earnestly to Sirix Odela.

Captain Hetnys had never once, that I could remember, spoken to Sirix or even acknowledged her presence while we had been downwell. It surprised Eight, too. She stopped midsentence, resisted frowning, and thought of something that made her suddenly abashed. “Your very great pardon, Citizen,” she said to Uran.

“… tizens are not going to be happy about that,” Governor Giarod was saying, where we sat above in her office, and I had no attention to spare for other things.

Next day, Uran went to Lieutenant Tisarwat’s makeshift office. Not because she’d been told to—Tisarwat had said nothing more about the matter. Uran had merely walked in—she’d stopped and looked in several times, the day before—and rearranged the tea things to her satisfaction. Tisarwat, seeing her, said nothing.

This went on for three days. I knew that Uran’s presence had been a success—since she was Valskaayan, and from downwell, she couldn’t be assumed to already be on one side or another of any local dispute, and something about her shy, unsmiling seriousness had been appealing to the Undergarden residents who’d called. One or two of them had found, in her silence, a good audience for their tale of difficulties with their neighbors, or with Station Administration.

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.

The entrance gave onto the rocky ledge overlooking the lake. Off to my right, the waterfall gushed and foamed its way down the rocks. The path led to my left, down to the water, past a thick stand of ornamental grass nearly two meters tall. I would not walk past that without a great deal of caution.

Ahead, a waist-high railing guarded the drop to the water, rocks jutting up just below and here and there in the lake.
On the tiny island with its fluted stone, Captain Hetnys stood, her hand tight on Basnaaid’s arm, a knife held to her throat, the sort of thing you might use to bone a fish. Small enough, but sufficient for the purpose. Also on the island, at the head of the bridge, stood
Sword of Atagaris—
one of it—armored, gun drawn. “Oh,
Station
,” I said, quietly. It didn’t answer. I could easily imagine its reasons for not warning me, or calling for help. Doubtless it valued Basnaaid’s life more than mine. This was suppertime for many on the station, and so there were no bystanders. Possibly Station had been turning people away on some pretext.

On the ledge, the grass trembled. Unthinking, I pulled my gun out of my jacket, raised my armor. The bang of a gun firing, a blow to my body—whoever was in that stand of grass had taken aim at precisely that part of me that was covered first. I was entirely enclosed before any second shot could be fired.

A silver-armored ancillary rushed out of the grass, inhumanly quick, reached to grapple with me, thinking, no doubt, that the gun I held was no threat, armored as it was. We ought to have been equally matched hand to hand, but my back was to empty air and it had momentum on its side. I fired, just as it shoved me over the rail.

Radchaai armor is essentially impenetrable. The energy of the bullet
Sword of Atagaris
had fired at me had been bled off, mostly as heat. Not all of it, of course, I’d still felt its impact. So when my shoulder hit the jagged stone at the foot of that seven-and-a-half-meter-high rock wall, the actual impact wasn’t particularly painful. However, the top of the stone was narrow, and while my shoulder stopped, the rest of me kept going. My shoulder bent backward, painfully, definitely not in any way it was meant to, and then I slid off the
stone into the water. Which fortunately was only a little over a meter deep where I was, about four meters from the island.

I got to my feet in the waist-deep water, the pain of my left shoulder making me catch my breath. Something had happened during my fall, I didn’t have time to ask
Mercy of Kalr
exactly what, but Lieutenant Tisarwat had apparently followed me, and I had been too absorbed in my own thoughts to notice. She stood at the shore end of the bridge, armor up, gun raised.
Sword of Atagaris
faced her, its gun also raised. Why hadn’t Ship warned me that Tisarwat had followed me?

Captain Hetnys faced me, also now silver-armored. She likely knew the ancillary on the ledge was injured or even dead but didn’t realize, I was sure, that her armor would do her no good against my gun. Though perhaps the Presger hadn’t bothered to make the gun waterproof.

“Well, Fleet Captain,” said Captain Hetnys, voice distorted by her armor, “you do have human feelings after all.”

“You fish-witted
fuck
,” cried Lieutenant Tisarwat, vehemence clear in her voice even through the warping of her armor. “If you weren’t such an easily manipulated ass you’d
never
have been given a ship.”

“Hush, Tisarwat,” I said. If Lieutenant Tisarwat was here, depend on it, so was Bo Nine. If my shoulder didn’t hurt so much I’d be able to think clearly enough to know where she was.

“But, sir! She has
no fucking idea
…”

“Lieutenant!” I didn’t need Tisarwat thinking in those terms. Didn’t need her here.
Mercy of Kalr
wasn’t telling me what was wrong with my shoulder, whether it was dislocated or broken.
Mercy of Kalr
wasn’t telling me what Tisarwat was feeling, or where Bo Nine was. I reached, but could not find Seivarden, whom I had last seen in Command, who had
said, to
Sword of Atagaris
’s Amaat lieutenant, days and days ago,
the next time you threaten this ship you’d best be able to make good on it
.
Sword of Atagaris
must have made its move when I fell off the rock wall. At least Ship would not have been caught entirely by surprise. But
Swords
were faster, and better armed, and if
Mercy of Kalr
was gone, I would make Seivarden’s warning good, if I possibly could.

Captain Hetnys stood facing me on the island, still gripping Basnaaid, who stood rigid, eyes wide. “Who did you sell them to, Captain?” I asked. “Who did you sell the transportees to?” Captain Hetnys didn’t answer. She was a fool, or desperate, or both, to threaten Basnaaid. “That is what precipitated this rather hasty action, is it not?” Governor Giarod had let something slip, or outright told Captain Hetnys. I had never told the governor who I suspected, or perhaps she would have been more cautious. “You had a confederate at the storage facility, you loaded up
Sword of Atagaris
with suspension pods, and you took them through the Ghost Gate. Who did you sell them to?” She
had
sold them. That Notai tea set. And Sirix had never heard the story of how Captain Hetnys had sold it to Fosyf. She hadn’t been able to make that connection. But Captain Hetnys had realized that I had made it. Had needed to know where I might be vulnerable, and after two weeks in the same house, even never speaking to her, she had known what Sirix would respond to best. Or perhaps
Sword of Atagaris
had suggested such an approach to its captain.