Ancillary Justice (Imperial Radch #1)(49)

“Will you get one?”

“Probably. Any citizen can ask for one, and will almost certainly receive it. I wouldn’t be going as a citizen…”

Strigan scoffed. “How are you going to pass as non-Radchaai?”

“I will walk onto the docks of a provincial palace with no gloves, or the wrong ones, announce my foreign origin, and speak with an accent. Nothing more will be required.”

She blinked. Frowned. “Not really.”

“I assure you. As a noncitizen my chances of obtaining an audience will depend on my reasons for asking.” I hadn’t thought that part all the way through yet. It would depend on what I found when I got there. “Some things can’t be planned too far in advance.”

“And what are you going to do about…” She waved an ungloved hand toward unconscious Seivarden.

I had avoided asking myself that question. Avoided, from the moment I found her, thinking more than one step ahead when it came to what I was going to do about Seivarden.

“Watch him,” she said. “He might have reached the point where he’s ready to give up the kef for good, but I don’t think he has.”

“Why not?”

“He hasn’t asked me for help.”

It was my turn to raise a skeptical eyebrow. “If he asked, would you help?”

“I’d do what I could. Though of course, he’d need to address the problems that led him to use in the first place, if it was going to work long-term. Which I don’t see any sign of him doing.” Privately I agreed, but I didn’t say anything.

“He could have asked for help anytime,” Strigan continued. “He’s been wandering around for, what, at least five years? Any doctor could have helped him, if he’d wanted it. But that would mean admitting he had a problem, wouldn’t it? And I don’t see that happening anytime soon.”

“It would be best if sh—if he went back to the Radch.” Radch medics could solve all her problems. And would not trouble themselves with whether or not Seivarden had asked for their help, or wanted it in any way.

“He won’t go back to the Radch unless he admits he has a problem.”

I gestured, not my concern. “He can go where he likes.”

“But you’re feeding him, and no doubt you’ll pay his fare up the ribbon, and to whatever system you take ship for next. He’ll stay with you as long as it’s to his advantage, as long as there’s food and shelter. And he’ll steal anything he thinks will get him another hit of kef.”

Seivarden wasn’t as strong as she had once been, or as clear, mentally. “Do you think he’ll find that easy?”

“No,” admitted Strigan, “but he’ll be very determined.”

“Yes.”

Strigan shook her head, as though to clear it. “What am I doing? You won’t listen to me.”

“I’m listening.”

But she clearly didn’t believe me. “It’s none of my concern, I know. Just…” She pointed to the black box. “Just kill as many of Mianaai as you can. And don’t send him after me.”

“You’re leaving?” Of course she was, there was no need to answer such a foolish question, and she didn’t bother. Instead she went back into her room, saying nothing else, and closed the door.

I opened my pack, took out the money and set it on the table, slid the black box into its place. Touched it in the pattern that would make it disappear, nothing but folded shirts, a few packets of dried food. Then I went over to where Seivarden lay, and prodded her with one booted foot. “Wake up.” She started, sitting suddenly, and flung her back against the nearby bench, breathing hard. “Wake up,” I said again. “We’re leaving.”





12


Except for those hours when communications had been cut off, I had never really lost the sense of being part of Justice of Toren. My kilometers of white-walled corridor, my captain, the decade commanders, each decade’s lieutenants, each one’s smallest gesture, each breath, was visible to me. I had never lost the knowledge of my ancillaries, twenty-bodied One Amaat, One Toren, One Etrepa, One Bo, and Two Esk, hands and feet for serving those officers, voices to speak to them. My thousands of ancillaries in frozen suspension. Never lost the view of Shis’urna itself, all blue and white, old boundaries and divisions erased by distance. From that perspective events in Ors were nothing, invisible, completely insignificant.

In the approaching shuttle I felt the distance decrease, felt more forcefully the sensation of being the ship. One Esk became even more what it had always been—one small part of myself. My attention was no longer commanded by things apart from the rest of the ship.

Two Esk had taken One Esk’s place while One Esk was on the planet. Two Esk prepared tea in the Esk decade room for its lieutenants—my lieutenants. It scrubbed the white-walled corridor outside Esk’s baths, mended uniforms torn on leave. Two of my lieutenants sat over a game board in the decade room, placing counters around, swift and quiet, three others watching. The lieutenants of the Amaat, Toren, Etrepa, and Bo decades, the decade commanders, Hundred Captain Rubran, administrative officers, and medics, talked, slept, bathed, according to their schedules and inclinations.

Each decade held twenty lieutenants and its decade commander, but Esk was now my lowest occupied deck. Below Esk, from Var down—half of my decade decks—was cold and empty, though the holds were still full. The emptiness and silence of those spaces where officers had once lived had disturbed me at first, but I was used to it by now.