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, andthey’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 stillon her hand, but nearly finished with its
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, andthey’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 stillon her hand, but nearly finished with its
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