Ancillary Mercy Read online

  The provincial palaces farthest from Omaugh (where this conflict had broken into the open) had gone silent weeks ago, and remained so. There had been no word out of Tstur Palace since it had fallen. The governors of Tstur Province’s outlying systems were near panic—their systems, particularly the ones without habitable planets, were in dire need of resources that were no longer coming through the intersystem gates. They might very naturally have asked neighboring systems for help, but those neighbors were in Omaugh Province, where rumor said a different Anaander was in charge. Rumor also said that governors of systems closer to Tstur Palace who had been deemed insufficiently loyal to Tstur had been executed.

  And all this time, the official news feeds went on as they always had, a steady parade of local events, discussions of inconsequential local gossip, recordings of public entertainments, punctuated now and then with official reassurance that this inconvenience, this brief disturbance, would be over soon. Was even now being dealt with.

  “I fear,” Fleet Captain Uemi sent, at the end of all this, “that some of the more recently annexed systems may try to break away. Shis’urna, particularly, or Valskaay. It’ll be a bloody business if they do. Have you perhaps heard anything?” I had spent time in both systems, had participated in both annexations. And a small population of Valskaayans lived on Athoek, and might well have had an interest in that question. “It really would be better for everyone if they don’t rebel,” Fleet Captain Uemi’s message continued. “I’m sure you know that.”

  And I was sure she wanted me to pass that on, to whatever contacts I might have in either of those places. “Graciously thanking Fleet Captain Uemi for her compliments,” I replied, “I am not currently concerned with any system but Athoek. I am sending local intelligence, and my own official reports, with many thanks for the fleet captain’s offer to pass them on to the appropriate authorities.” And bundled that up with a week’s worth of every scrap of official news I could find, including the results of seventy-five regional downwell radish-growing competitions that had been announced just that morning, which I flagged as worthy of special attention. And a month’s worth of my own routine reports and status records, dozens of them, every single line of every single one of them filled out with exactly the same two words: Fuck off.

  Next afternoon, Governor Giarod stood beside me at a hatch on the docks. Gray floor and walls, grimier than I liked, but then for most of my life I had been used to a military standard of cleanliness. The system governor seemed calm, but in the time it had taken for the Presger courier to reach Athoek Station from the Ghost Gate, she’d had plenty of opportunity to worry. Was possibly even more worried now that we were only waiting for the pressure to equalize between the station and the Presger ship. Just the two of us, no one else, not even any of my soldiers, though Kalr Five stood outwardly impassive, inwardly fretting, in the corridor outside the bay.

  “Have the Presger been in the Ghost System all this while?” It was the third time she had asked that question, in as many days. “Did you ask, what is its name, Sphene, you said?” She frowned. “What sort of name is that? Didn’t Notai ships usually have long names? Like Ineluctable Ascendancy of Mind Unfolding or The Finite Contains the Infinite Contains the Finite?”

  Both of those ship names were fictional, characters in more or less famous melodramatic entertainments. “Notai ships were named according to their class,” I said. “Sphene is one of the Gems.” None of them had ever been famous enough to inspire an adventure serial. “And it wouldn’t say what might or might not be with it in the Ghost System.” I had asked, and gotten only a cold stare. “But I don’t think this courier came from there. Or if it did, it was only there in order to access the Ghost Gate.”

  “If it hadn’t been for all that… unpleasantness last week, we might have asked Sword of Atagaris.”

  “We might,” I replied. “But we would have had good reason not to trust its answer.” The same went for Sphene, actually, but I didn’t point that out.

  A moment of silence from Governor Giarod, and then, “Have the Presger broken the treaty?” That was a new question. Likely she had been holding it back all this time.

  “Because they must have gated inside human territory, to get to the Ghost System, you mean? I doubt it. They cited the treaty on arrival, you may recall.” This tiny ship didn’t look like it had the capability to make its own intersystem gates, but the Presger had surprised us before.

  The hatch clicked, and thunked, and swung open. Governor Giarod stiffened, trying, I supposed, to stand straighter than she already was. The person who came stooping through the open hatchway looked entirely human. Though of course that didn’t mean she necessarily was. She was quite tall—there must have barely been room for her to stretch out in her tiny ship. To look at her, she might have been an ordinary Radchaai. Dark hair, long, tied simply behind her head. Brown skin, dark eyes, all quite unremarkable. She wore the white of the Translators Office—white coat and gloves, white trousers, white boots. Spotless. Crisp and unwrinkled, though in such a small space there could barely have been room for a change of clothes, let alone to dress so carefully. But not a single pin, or any other kind of jewelry, to break that shining white.

  She blinked twice, as though adjusting to the light, and looked at me and at Governor Giarod, and frowned just slightly. Governor Giarod bowed, and said, “Translator. Welcome to Athoek Station. I’m System Governor Giarod, and this”—she gestured toward me—“is Fleet Captain Breq.”

  The translator’s barely perceptible frown cleared, and she bowed. “Governor. Fleet Captain. Honored and pleased to make your acquaintance. I am Presger Translator Dlique.”

  The governor was very good at looking as though she were quite calm. She drew breath to speak, but said nothing. Thinking, no doubt, of Translator Dlique herself, whose corpse was even now in suspension in Medical. Whose death we were going to have to explain.

  That explanation was apparently going to be even more difficult than we had thought. But perhaps I could make at least that part of it a bit easier. When I had first met Translator Dlique, and asked her who she was, she had said, I said just now I was Dlique but I might not be, I might be Zeiat. “Begging your very great pardon, Translator,” I said, before Governor Giarod could make a second attempt at speech, “but I believe that you’re actually Presger Translator Zeiat.”

  The translator frowned, in earnest this time. “No. No, I don’t think so. They told me I was Dlique. And they don’t make mistakes, you know. When you think they have, it’s just you looking at it wrong. That’s what they say, anyway.” She sighed. “They say all sorts of things. But you say I’m Zeiat, not Dlique. You wouldn’t say that unless you had a reason to.” She seemed just slightly doubtful of this.

  “I’m quite certain of it,” I replied.

  “Well,” she said, her frown intensifying for just a moment, and then clearing. “Well, if you’re certain. Are you certain?”

  “Quite certain, Translator.”

  “Let’s start again, then.” She shrugged her shoulders, as though adjusting the set of her spotless, perfect coat, and then bowed again. “Governor, Fleet Captain. Honored to make your acquaintance. I am Presger Translator Zeiat. And this is very awkward, but now I really do need to ask you what’s happened to Translator Dlique.”

  I looked at Governor Giarod. She had frozen, for a moment not even breathing. Then she squared her broad shoulders and said, smoothly, as though she had not been on the edge of panic just the moment before, “Translator, we’re so very sorry. We do owe you an explanation, and a very profound apology.”

  “She went and got herself killed, didn’t she,” said Translator Zeiat. “Let me guess, she got bored and went somewhere you’d told her not to go.”

  “More or less, Translator,” I acknowledged.

  Translator Zeiat gave an exasperated sigh. “That would be just like her. I am so glad I’m not Dlique. Did you know she dismembered her sister once? She was bored, she said, and w
anted to know what would happen. Well, what did she expect? And her sister’s never been the same.”

  “Oh,” said Governor Giarod. Likely all she could manage.

  “Translator Dlique mentioned it,” I said.

  Translator Zeiat scoffed. “She would.” And then, after a brief pause, “Are you certain it was Dlique? Perhaps there’s been some sort of mistake. Perhaps it was someone else who died.”

  “Your very great pardon, Translator,” replied Governor Giarod, “but when she arrived, she introduced herself as Translator Dlique.”

  “Well, that’s just the thing,” Translator Zeiat replied. “Dlique is the sort of person who’ll say anything that comes into her mind. Particularly if she thinks it will be interesting or amusing. You really can’t trust her to tell the truth.”

  I waited for Governor Giarod to reply, but she seemed paralyzed again. Perhaps from trying to follow Translator Zeiat’s statement to its obvious conclusion.

  “Translator,” I said, “are you suggesting that since Translator Dlique isn’t entirely trustworthy, she might have lied to us about being Translator Dlique?”

  “Nothing more likely,” replied Zeiat. “You can see why I’d much rather be Zeiat than Dlique. I don’t much like her sense of humor, and I certainly don’t want to encourage her. But I’d much rather be Zeiat than Dlique just now, so I suppose we can just let her have her little bit of fun this time. Is there anything, you know…” She gestured doubt. “Anything left? Of the body, I mean.”

  “We put the body in a suspension pod as quickly as we could, Translator,” said Governor Giarod, trying very hard not to look or sound aghast. “And… we didn’t know what… what customs would be appropriate. We held a funeral…”

  Translator Zeiat tilted her head and looked very intently at the governor. “That was very obliging of you, Governor.” She said it as though she wasn’t entirely sure it was obliging.

  The governor reached into her coat, pulled out a silver-and-opal pin. Held it out to Translator Zeiat. “We had memorials made, of course.”

  Translator Zeiat took the pin, examined it. Looked back up at Governor Giarod, at me. “I’ve never had one of these before! And look, it matches yours.” We were both wearing the pins from Translator Dlique’s funeral. “You’re not related to Dlique, are you?”

  “We stood in for the translator’s family, at the funeral,” Governor Giarod explained. “For propriety’s sake.”

  “Oh, propriety.” As though that explained everything. “Of course. Well, it’s more than I would have done, I’ll tell you. So. That’s all cleared up, then.”

  “Translator,” I said, “may one properly inquire as to the purpose of your visit?”

  Governor Giarod added, hastily, “We are of course pleased you’ve chosen to honor us.” With a very small glance my way that was as much objection as she could currently make to the directness of my question.

  “The purpose of my visit?” asked Zeiat, seeming puzzled for a moment. “Well, now, that’s hard to say. They told me I was Dlique, you recall, and the thing about Dlique is—aside from the fact that you can’t trust a word she says—she’s easily bored and really far too curious. About the most inappropriate things, too. I’m quite sure she came here because she was bored and wanted to see what would happen. But since you tell me I’m Zeiat, I suspect I’m here because that ship is really terribly cramped and I’ve been inside it far too long. I’d really like to be able to walk around and stretch a bit, and perhaps eat some decent food.” A moment of doubt. “You do eat food, don’t you?”

  It was the sort of question I could imagine Translator Dlique asking. And perhaps she had asked it, when she’d first arrived, because Governor Giarod replied, calmly, “Yes, Translator.” On, it seemed, firmer ground for the moment. “Would you like to eat something now?”

  “Yes, please, Governor!”

  Even before the translator arrived, Governor Giarod had wanted to bring Translator Zeiat to the governor’s residence by a back route, through an access tunnel. Before the treaty the Presger had torn apart human ships and Stations—and their inhabitants—for no comprehensible reason. No attempt to fight them, to defend against them, had ever been successful. Until the advent of the Presger translators, no human had managed to communicate with them at all. Humans in close proximity to Presger simply died, often slowly and messily. The treaty had put an end to that, but people were afraid of the Presger, for very good reasons, and since I had insisted that we not conceal Translator Dlique’s death, people would have good reason to worry about the arrival of the Presger now.

  I had pointed out that keeping Translator Dlique’s presence a secret had not ended well. That it seemed likely no Presger translator could be successfully concealed or confined in any event, and that while most station residents were no doubt entirely understandably afraid of the Presger, and apprehensive of the translator’s arrival, she herself would likely look passably human and non-threatening, and the sight of her might actually be reassuring. Governor Giarod had finally agreed, and so we took the lift to the main concourse. It was midmorning on the station’s schedule, and plenty of citizens were out, walking, or standing in groups to talk. Just like every day, except for two things: the four rows of priests sitting in front of the entrance to the temple of Amaat—Eminence Ifian in the center of the very first row, sitting right on the dingy ground; and a long, snaking line of citizens that reached from Station Administration to nearly three-quarters of the way down the concourse.

  “Well,” I remarked, quietly, to Governor Giarod, who had stopped cold, three steps out of the lift, “you did tell Station that your assistant could handle anything that came up while you were busy with the translator.” Who had stopped when I and the governor had stopped, and was gazing curiously and openly around at the people, the windows on the second level, the huge reliefs of the four Emanations on the façade of the temple of Amaat.

  I could guess what Eminence Ifian was up to. A quick, silent query to Station confirmed it. The priests of Amaat were on strike. Ifian had announced that she would not make the day’s cast, because it had become clear that Station Administration didn’t care to listen to the messages Amaat provided. And incidentally, while the priests sat in front of the temple, no contracts of clientage could be made, no births or deaths registered, and no funerals held. I couldn’t help but admire the strategy—technically, most funeral obsequies that traditionally were attended to by a priest of Amaat could also be performed by any citizen; the filing of an actual clientage contract was arguably less important than the relationship itself and could easily enough be left for later; and one could argue that on a station with an AI, no births or deaths could possibly go unnoticed or unrecorded. But these were all things that meant a fair amount to most citizens. It wasn’t a terribly Radchaai form of citizen protest, but the eminence did have the example of the striking field workers downwell. Whom I had spoken in support of, and so I couldn’t openly oppose the priests’ work stoppage without exposing myself as a hypocrite.

  As for that long line of citizens outside Station Administration—there weren’t many forms of large-scale protest realistically available to most citizens, but one of them was standing in line when you didn’t actually need to. In theory, of course, no Radchaai on a station like Athoek ever needed to wait in much of a line for anything. One needed only put in a request and receive either an appointment, or a place in the queue, and notification when it was nearly your turn. And it’s much easier for an official to be nonchalant about a list of requests to meet that nine times out of ten can be put off till the next day than to ignore a long line of people actually standing outside her door.

  Such lines generally began more or less spontaneously, but once they reached a certain size, decisions to join became more organized. This one was well beyond that threshold. Light-brown-uniformed Security strolled up and down, watching, occasionally exchanging a few words. Just letting everyone know they were there. In theory—again—Sec
urity could order everyone to disperse. That would end with the line re-forming first thing tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. Or perhaps a similar line stretching out of Security’s headquarters. It was better to keep things calm, and let the line run its course. So was this line in support of Eminence Ifian’s agenda, or protesting it?

  Either way, we would have to walk by both the line and the seated priests to reach the governor’s residence. Governor Giarod was fairly good at not panicking visibly, but, I had discovered, not good at actually not panicking. She looked up at Translator Zeiat. “Translator, what sort of food do you like?”

  The translator turned her attention back to us. “I don’t know that I’ve ever had any, Governor.” And then, distracted again, “Why are all those people sitting on the ground over there?”

  I was hard-pressed to guess if Governor Giarod was more alarmed by the question about the striking priests, or the assertion that Translator Zeiat had never actually eaten anything. “Your pardon, Translator—you’ve never had food?”

  “The translator has only been Zeiat since she stepped out of the shuttle,” I pointed out. “There hasn’t been time. Translator, those priests are sitting down in front of the temple as a protest. They want to pressure Station Administration into changing a policy they don’t like.”

  “Really!” She smiled. “I didn’t think you Radchaai did that sort of thing.”