Ancillary Justice (Imperial Radch #1)(31)

“Certainly,” I agreed. “You’re the expert.”

“Oh ho!” she exclaimed, sitting straighter. “I’ve made you angry.”

I was sure I hadn’t changed my expression. “I don’t think you’ve ever been to the Radch. I don’t think you know many Radchaai, not personally. Not well. You look at it from the outside, and you see conformity and brainwashing.” Rank on rank of identical silver-armored soldiers, with no wills of their own, no minds of their own. “And it’s true the lowest Radchaai thinks herself immeasurably superior to any noncitizen. What people like Seivarden think of themselves is past bearing.” Strigan made a brief, amused snort. “But they are people, and they do have different opinions about things.”

“Opinions that don’t matter. Anaander Mianaai declares what will be, and that’s how it is.”

That was a more complicated issue than she realized, I was certain. “Which only adds to their frustration. Imagine. Imagine your whole life aimed at conquest, at the spread of Radchaai space. You see murder and destruction on an unimaginable scale, but they see the spread of civilization, of Justice and Propriety, of Benefit for the universe. The death and destruction, these are unavoidable by-products of this one, supreme good.”

“I don’t think I can muster much sympathy for their perspective.”

“I don’t ask it. Only stand there a moment, and look. Not only your life, but the lives of all your house, and your ancestors for a thousand years or more before you, are invested in this idea, these actions. Amaat wills it. God wills it, the universe itself wills all this. And then one day someone tells you maybe you were mistaken. And your life won’t be what you imagined it to be.”

“Happens to people all the time,” said Strigan, rising from her seat. “Except most of us don’t delude ourselves that we ever had great destinies.”

“The exception is not an insignificant one,” I pointed out.

“And you?” She stood beside the chair, her cup and bowl in her hands. “You’re certainly Radchaai. Your accent, when you speak Radchaai”—we were speaking her own native language—“sounds like you’re from the Gerentate. But you have almost no accent right now. You might just be very good with languages—inhumanly good, I might even say—” She paused. “The gender thing is a giveaway, though. Only a Radchaai would misgender people the way you do.”

I’d guessed wrong. “I can’t see under your clothes. And even if I could, that’s not always a reliable indicator.”

She blinked, hesitated a moment as though what I’d said made no sense to her. “I used to wonder how Radchaai reproduced, if they were all the same gender.”

“They’re not. And they reproduce like anyone else.” Strigan raised one skeptical eyebrow. “They go to the medic,” I continued, “and have their contraceptive implants deactivated. Or they use a tank. Or they have surgery so they can carry a pregnancy. Or they hire someone to carry it.”

None of it was very different from what any other kind of people did, but Strigan seemed slightly scandalized. “You’re certainly Radchaai. And certainly very familiar with Captain Seivarden, but you’re not like him. I wondered from the start if you were an ancillary, but I don’t see much in the way of implants. Who are you?”

She would have to look a good deal closer than she already had to see evidence of what I was—to a casual observer I looked as though I had one or two communications and optical implants, the sort of thing millions of people got as a matter of course, Radchaai or not. And during the last twenty years I’d found ways of concealing the specifics of what I had.

I picked up my own dishes, rose. “I’m Breq, from the Gerentate.” Strigan snorted, disbelieving. The Gerentate was far enough from where I’d been for the last nineteen years to conceal any small mistakes I might make.

“Just a tourist,” Strigan observed, in a tone that made it clear she didn’t believe me at all.

“Yes,” I agreed.

“So what’s the interest in…” She gestured again at Seivarden, still sleeping, breathing slow and even. “Just a stray animal that needed rescuing?”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t know the answer, truthfully.

“I’ve met people who collect strays. I don’t think you’re one of them. There’s something… something cold about you. Something edged. You’re far more self-possessed than any tourist I’ve ever seen.” And of course I knew she had the gun, which no one but herself and Anaander Mianaai should have known existed. But she couldn’t say that without admitting she had it. “There’s no way in seventeen hells you’re a Gerentate tourist. What are you?”

“If I told you it would spoil your fun,” I said.

Strigan opened her mouth to say something—possibly something angry, to judge from her expression—when an alarm tone sounded. “Visitors,” she said instead.

By the time we got our coats on, and got out the two doors, a crawler had made a ragged path up to the house, dragging a white trench across the moss-tinged snow, its half-spinning halt missing my flier by centimeters.

The door popped open and a Nilter slid out, shorter than many I had met, bundled in a scarlet coat embroidered in bright blue and a screaming shade of yellow, but overlaid with dark stains—snowmoss, and blood. The person halted a moment, and then saw us standing at the entrance to the house.