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She didn’t move. “They don’t like me to speak anything but Radchaai,” she said, in that language. “It won’t help with my evaluation, they tell me. I’m fine. As you see.” A pause, and then, “How is Uran?”

“She’s well. Have they been giving you her messages?”

“They must have been in Delsig,” Queter said, with only a trace of bitterness.

They had been. “She wanted very badly to come with me.” She had wept when I’d told her that Queter had asked that she not.

Queter looked away, toward the end of the corridor where Five stood,
Sphene
beside her, and then back. “I didn’t want her to see me like this.”

I had suspected as much. “She understands.” Mostly she did. “I’m to give you her love.” That struck Queter as funny. She laughed, brief and jagged. “Have you had any outside news?” I asked, when she didn’t say anything. “Did you know the fieldworkers on the mountain tea plantations have all stopped work? They won’t go back, they say, until they’re given their full wages, and their rights as citizens are restored.” Fosyf Denche had cheated her fieldworkers for years, kept them in debt to her, and being transportees from Valskaay they’d had no one beyond the tea fields to speak up for them.

“Hah!” Suddenly, fiercely, she smiled. Almost like her old self, I thought. Then the smile was gone—though the fierceness was still there. Mostly hidden. Her arms still straight at her sides, she made her gloved hands into fists. “Do you know when it’s going to be? When I ask they tell me it’s not good for me to worry about it. It
won’t help with my evaluation
.” Definitely bitter that time.

“Your interrogation? I’m told it’s tomorrow morning.”

“You’ll make sure they don’t do anything they aren’t supposed to?”

And she hadn’t thought I would come. “Yes.”

“And when they… when they re-educate me? Will you be there?”

“If you want me to, I’ll try. I don’t know if I can.” She didn’t say anything, her expression didn’t change. I switched languages, back to Delsig. “Uran really is doing well. You’d be proud of him. Shall I let your grandfather know you’re all right?”

“Yes, please.” In Radchaai still. “I should go back. They get nervous here if anything doesn’t go according to routine.”

“I apologize for causing you difficulties. I wanted to see for myself that you were well, and I wanted you to know that I had come.” A brown-uniformed guard approached the end of the corridor behind Queter, obviously having been waiting for the least signal that our conversation might be over.

Queter said only, “Yes.” And went with the guard away down the corridor, the very image of calm and unconcern, except that her hands were still clenched into fists.

I took the cable tram back down the hill, Xhenang Serit spread black and gray and green below me, the sea beyond. Five and
Sphene
on the seats behind me. Kalr Eight was with Translator Zeiat at a manufactory down by the water, watching a slithering, silver mass of dead fish tumble into a wide, deep vat, while a visibly terrified worker explained how fish sauce was made. “So, why do the fish do this?” asked Translator Zeiat, when the worker stopped for breath.

“They… they don’t have much choice in the matter, Translator.”

Translator Zeiat thought about that a moment, and then asked, “Do you think fish sauce would be good in tea?”

“N… no, Translator. I don’t think that would be entirely proper.” And then, trying, I supposed, to salvage some shred of sense out of the experience, “There are these little cakes that are
shaped
like fish. Some people like to dip them in their tea.”

“I see, I see.” Translator Zeiat gestured understanding. “Do you have any of those here?”

“Translator,” said Kalr Eight, before the worker was forced to admit that no, she did not have any fish-shaped cakes at
this particular moment, “I’m sure we can find you some later today.”

“Next,” announced the manufactory worker, with a grateful look at Eight, “salt is added to the fish…”

On Athoek Station, Tisarwat sat talking with the head priest of the Mysteries. This was a local sect, very popular not only with the Xhai here but also with outsystem Radchaai. The hierophant of the Mysteries was, herself, popular and influential. “Lieutenant,” the hierophant was saying, “I will be entirely frank. This business appears to be some argument between Eminence Ifian and your fleet captain.” The hierophant’s apartment sat above and behind the temple of the Mysteries. It was small, as such apartments go, and the brightly lit room they sat in was plainly furnished, just a low table and a few chairs with undecorated cushions. But orchids bloomed by the dozen on shelves and in brackets around the walls, purple and yellow and blue and green, and the air was sweet with their scent. It wasn’t uncommon for station residents to scrimp a little on their water ration in order to keep a plant or two, but this lush growth wasn’t a result of the hierophant’s saving a bit of water out of her bath every now and then. “I would also observe,” she continued, “that the eminence certainly hasn’t taken a step like this, particularly in obvious opposition to the station administrator, without being certain of the support of Governor Giarod. You want me to step in the middle of that. And for what? I don’t have the training to do the daily cast, and even if I did I’m sure most citizens wouldn’t accept it from me.”

“You might be surprised,” observed Tisarwat, with a calm smile. Her distress at losing control of Undergarden residents’ communication with Station Administration had faded,
now she had this challenge in front of her. “You’re widely respected here. But Station Administrator Celar will make the casts, starting tomorrow morning. After all, you don’t
have
to be a priest to do it, and Station Administrator Celar does actually have the training, although she hasn’t used it for some time. No, all we’re asking for is births and funerals. And maybe not every station resident will find that acceptable, but quite a lot of Xhai will, I think.”

If the hierophant felt any surprise at having this conversation with someone as young and presumably inexperienced as Tisarwat, she didn’t show it. “Quite a lot of Xhai wouldn’t mind at all if the Ychana were permanently expelled from the Undergarden. Or better yet forcibly shipped downwell or to the outstations. Which is the likely outcome of the eminence getting what she wants, I suspect. So those Xhai who might be disposed to accept my services are likely also disposed to support the eminence. And Eminence Ifian is my neighbor, and for reasons I’m sure I don’t need to explain to you, I’d prefer to remain on good terms with her. So I ask you again, why should I put myself in the middle of this?”

Lieutenant Tisarwat still smiled, and I saw a tiny surge of satisfaction. As though the priest had just walked into a trap Tisarwat had laid. “I don’t ask you to put yourself anywhere. I ask you to be where you are.”

The hierophant’s eyes widened in surprise. “Lieutenant, I don’t recall inducting you. And you’re young enough I’d remember it.” Innocuous as Tisarwat’s words had seemed to me, they must have referred to the Mysteries somehow. And of course Anaander Mianaai would be familiar with them—no mysteries or secret societies that didn’t admit the Lord of the Radch were allowed to continue.

Tisarwat frowned, false puzzlement. “I don’t know what you mean, Hierophant. I only intended to say that you know where justice lies in this situation. Yes, technically the Ychana were in the Undergarden illegally. But you know well enough that before any of them moved there, their Xhai neighbors will have done everything they could to drive them away. They found a way to live despite that, and now, through no fault of their own, they’re cast adrift. And for what? For the foolish prejudices of
some
Xhai, and Eminence Ifian’s determination to pursue a feud with the fleet captain. One the fleet captain has no interest in, by the way.”

“Nor you, I gather,” observed the hierophant dryly.

“
I
want to sleep somewhere besides out in a corridor,” Tisarwat replied. “And I want my neighbors back in their own homes. Fleet Captain Breq wants the same. I don’t know why Eminence Ifian has taken against the fleet captain, and I certainly don’t understand why she’s chosen a way to do it that leaves so many station residents not only in uncomfortable circumstances but in doubt of their futures. It seems as though she’s forgotten that the authority of the temple isn’t properly wielded for one’s own convenience.”

The hierophant drew a considering breath. Blew it out with a quick
hah
. “Lieutenant, with all respect, you are one manipulative piece of work.” And before Tisarwat could protest her innocence, “And this business I hear about a conspiracy, about the Lord of the Radch having been infiltrated by aliens?”

“Mostly nonsense,” Tisarwat replied. “The Lord of the Radch is having an argument with herself, and it’s broken out into open fighting on the provincial palace stations. Some military ships have chosen one faction or the other, and
they’re responsible for the destruction of several intersystem gates. The system governor feels it would be… counterproductive to announce this generally.”

“So you’ll just spread it as a rumor.”

“Hierophant, I’ve said nothing about it to anyone until now, and that only because you’ve asked me directly, and we’re alone.” Not, strictly speaking, true—Station could hear, and there was almost certainly a servant or another priest nearby. “If you’ve heard it as a rumor, it won’t have come from Fleet Captain Breq, or me, or any of our crew, that I know of.”

“And what is this supposed argument about, and which faction do you support?”

“The argument is a complicated one, but it mostly involves the future direction of Anaander Mianaai herself, and Radch space with her. The end of annexations, the end of making ancillaries. The end to certain assumptions about who is fit to command—these are things that Anaander Mianaai is quite literally divided over. And Fleet Captain Breq doesn’t support either one. She’s here to keep this system safe and stable while that argument plays out in the palaces.”

“Yes, I’ve noticed how much more peaceful Athoek has been, since you arrived.” The priest’s voice was utterly serious.

“It was such a haven of prosperity and justice for every citizen before,” Tisarwat observed, just as seriously. Leaning just a bit on that
every citizen
.

The priest closed her eyes and sighed, and Tisarwat knew she had won.

On
Mercy of Kalr
, Seivarden had just come off duty. Now she sat on her bunk, arms tightly crossed. The corrective still
on her hand, but nearly finished with its work. “Lieutenant,” Ship said in her ear, “would you like some tea?”

“It was a
compliment
!” For the past few days, Ekalu had been stiffly, formally correct in her every interaction with Seivarden. Everyone on board knew something had gone wrong between them. None of them knew about her kef addiction, and would not recognize that arms-crossed gesture for what it was, a sign that the stresses of the past few days—probably weeks—had piled up beyond her ability to cope.

“Lieutenant Ekalu didn’t take it as a compliment,” Ship pointed out. And told Amaat Four to hold off on bringing tea.

“Well I
meant
it as one,” insisted Seivarden. “I was being
nice
. Why doesn’t she understand that?”

“I’m sure the lieutenant does understand that,” Ship replied. Seivarden scoffed. After a pause of three seconds, Ship added, “Begging the lieutenant’s indulgence,” and Seivarden blinked and frowned in confusion. It wasn’t the sort of thing a ship generally said to its own officers. “But I would like to point out that as soon as Lieutenant Ekalu let you know that actually, your intended compliment was offensive to her, you immediately stopped trying to be nice.”

Seivarden stood up off the bunk, arms still crossed tight, and paced her tiny quarters, all of two steps long. “What are you saying, Ship?”

“I’m saying I think you owe Lieutenant Ekalu an apology.” Downwell, halfway down the hillside on the cable tram, I was startled back to myself. I had never, ever heard a ship say something that directly critical to an officer.

But just days ago Ship had declared itself someone who could be a captain. Essentially an officer itself. And ultimately it was I who had suggested the idea, weeks ago at Omaugh Palace. I shouldn’t have been surprised. I reached
again. Seivarden had stopped still, had just said, indignant, “Owe
her
an apology? What about me?”

“Lieutenant Seivarden,” said Ship, “Lieutenant Ekalu is hurt and upset, and it was you who hurt and upset her. And this sort of thing affects the entire crew. For which, may I remind you, you are currently responsible.” As Ship spoke, Seivarden’s anger intensified. Ship added, “Your emotional state—and your behavior—have been erratic for the past few days. You have been insufferable to everyone you’ve dealt with. Including me. No, don’t punch the wall again, it won’t do any good. You are in command here. Act like it. And if you can’t act like it—which I am increasingly convinced is the case—then take yourself to Medical. Fleet Captain would say the same to you, if she were here.”

That last hit Seivarden like a blow. With no warning her anger collapsed into despair, and she sat heavily on her bunk. Drew up her legs and put her forehead on her knees, arms still crossed. “I fucked it up,” she moaned after a few moments. “I got another chance and I fucked it up.”

“Not irrevocably,” replied Ship. “Not yet. I know that considering the condition you’re in right now, it’s pointless to tell you to stop feeling sorry for yourself. But you can still get up and go to Medical.”

Except Medic was that moment on watch. “The problem is,” Medic said, silently, to the information Ship had just given her, “to even start, I’m going to need up-to-date aptitudes data to work with, and I don’t have that. And I’m not a tester or an interrogator. I’m just a regular medic. Some things I could handle, but I’m afraid this is beyond me. And I’m not sure we could trust any of the specialists here in the system. We have the same problem with Lieutenant Tisarwat,
of course.” She gave an exasperated sigh. “Why is this happening
now
?”