Ancillary Justice

6

On Shis’urna, in Ors, the Justice of Ente Seven Issa who had accompanied Lieutenant Skaaiat to Jen Shinnan’s sat with me in the lower level of the house. She had a name beyond her designation—one I never used, though I knew it. Even Lieutenant Skaaiat sometimes addressed individual human soldiers under her command as merely “Seven Issa.” Or by their segment numbers.

I brought out a board and counters, and we played a silent two games. “Can’t you let me win a time or two?” she asked, when the second was concluded, and before I could answer a thump sounded from the upper floor and she grinned. “It looks like Lieutenant Stiff can unbend after all!” and she cast me a look intended to share the joke, her amusement at the contrast between Awn’s usual careful formality and what was obviously going on upstairs between her and Lieutenant Skaaiat. But the instant after Seven Issa had spoken, her smile faded. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it, it’s just what we…”

“I know,” I said. “I took no offense.”

Seven Issa frowned, and made a doubtful gesture with her left hand, awkwardly, her gloved fingers still curled around half a dozen counters. “Ships have feelings.”

“Yes, of course.” Without feelings insignificant decisions become excruciating attempts to compare endless arrays of inconsequential things. It’s just easier to handle those with emotions. “But as I said, I took no offense.”

Seven Issa looked down at the board, and dropped the counters she held into one of its depressions. She stared at them a moment, and then looked up. “You hear rumors. About ships and people they like. And I’d swear your face never changes, but…”

I engaged my facial muscles, smiled, an expression I’d seen many times.

Seven Issa flinched. “Don’t do that!” she said, indignant, but still hushed lest the lieutenants hear us.

It wasn’t that I’d gotten the smile wrong—I knew I hadn’t. It was the sudden change, from my habitual lack of expression to something human, that some of the Seven Issas found disturbing. I dropped the smile.

“Aatr’s tits,” swore Seven Issa. “When you do that it’s like you’re possessed or something.” She shook her head, and scooped up the counters and began to distribute them around the board. “All right, then, you don’t want to talk about it. One more game.”

The evening grew later. The neighbors’ conversations turned slow and aimless and finally ceased as people picked up sleeping children and went to bed.

Denz Ay arrived four hours before dawn, and I joined her, stepping into her boat without speaking. She did not acknowledge my presence, and neither did her daughter, sitting in the stern. Slowly, nearly noiselessly, we slid away from the house.

The vigil at the temple continued, the priests’ prayers audible on the plaza as an intermittent shushing murmur. The streets, upper and lower, were silent except for my own footsteps and the sound of the water, dark but for the stars brilliant overhead, the blinking of the prohibited zones’ encircling buoys, and the light from the temple of Ikkt. The Seven Issa who had accompanied us back to Lieutenant Awn’s house slept on a pallet on the ground floor.

Lieutenant Awn and Lieutenant Skaaiat lay together on the upper floor, still and on the edge of sleep.

No one else was out on the water with us. In the bottom of the boat I saw rope, nets, breathers, and a round, covered basket tied to an anchor. The daughter saw me look at it, and she kicked it under her seat, with studied nonchalance. I looked away, over the water, toward the blinking buoys, and said nothing. The fiction that they could hide or alter the information coming from their trackers was a useful one, even if no one actually believed it.

Just inside the buoys, Denz Ay’s daughter put a breather in her mouth and slid over the edge, a rope in her hand. The lake wasn’t terribly deep, especially at this time of year. Moments later she reemerged and climbed back aboard, and we pulled the crate up—a relatively easy job until it reached the surface, but the three of us managed to tip it into the boat without taking on too much water.

I wiped mud off the lid. It was of Radchaai manufacture, but that wasn’t too alarming in itself. I found the latch and popped it open.

The guns within—long, sleek, and deadly—were the sort that had been carried by Tanmind troops before the annexation. I knew each one would have an identifying mark, and the marks of any guns confiscated by us would have been listed and reported, so that I could consult the inventory and determine more or less immediately if these were confiscated weapons, or ones we had missed.

If they were confiscated weapons, this situation would suddenly become a great deal more complicated than it seemed at the moment—and it was already a complicated situation.

Lieutenant Awn was in stage one of NREM sleep. Lieutenant Skaaiat seemed to be as well. I could consult the inventory on my own initiative. Indeed, I should. But I didn’t—partly because I had just been reminded, yesterday, of the corrupt authorities at Ime, the misuse of accesses, the most appalling abuse of power, something any citizen would have thought was impossible. That reminder itself was enough to make me cautious. But also, after Denz Ay’s assertions about residents of the upper city planting evidence in the past, and the evening’s dinner conversation with its clear reminder of resentment in that upper city, something didn’t seem quite right. No one in the upper city would know I had requested information about confiscated weapons, but what if someone else was involved? Someone who could set alerts to notify her if certain questions were asked in certain places? Denz Ay and her daughter sat quietly in the boat, to all appearances unconcerned and not particularly eager to be anywhere, or to be doing anything else.

Within a few moments I had Justice of Toren’s attention. I had seen no few of those confiscated weapons—not I, One Esk, but I, Justice of Toren, whose thousands of ancillary troops had been on the planet during the annexation. If I could not consult an official inventory without alerting an authority to the fact that I had found this cache, I could consult my own memory to see if any of them had passed under my own eyes.

And they had.

I went in to where Lieutenant Awn was sleeping and put a hand on her bare shoulder. “Lieutenant,” I said, softly. In the boat I closed the crate with a soft snap and said, “Back to the city.”

Lieutenant Awn jerked awake. “I’m not asleep,” she said blearily. In the boat, Denz Ay and her daughter silently picked up their oars and started back.

“The weapons were confiscated,” I said to Lieutenant Awn, still quiet. Not wanting to wake Lieutenant Skaaiat, not wanting anyone else to hear what I was saying. “I recognized the serial numbers.”

Lieutenant Awn looked at me dazedly for a few moments, uncomprehending. Then I saw her understand. “But…” And then she woke fully, and turned to Lieutenant Skaaiat. “Skaaiat, wake up. I’ve got a problem.”

I brought the guns to the upper level of Lieutenant Awn’s house. Seven Issa didn’t even stir when I went past.

“You’re sure?” asked Lieutenant Skaaiat, kneeling by the open crate, naked but for gloves, a bowl of tea in one hand.

“I confiscated these myself,” I answered. “I remember them.” We were all speaking very quietly, so that no one outside could hear.

“Then they would have been destroyed,” argued Lieutenant Skaaiat.

“Obviously they weren’t,” said Lieutenant Awn. And then, after a brief silence, “Oh, shit. This is not good.”

Silently I messaged her. Language, Lieutenant.

Lieutenant Skaaiat made a short, breathy sound, unamused laughter. “To put it mildly.” She frowned. “But why? Why would anyone go to the trouble?”

“And how?” asked Lieutenant Awn. She seemed to have forgotten her own tea, in a bowl on the floor beside her. “They put them there without us seeing them.” I’d looked at the logs for the past thirty days and seen nothing I couldn’t already account for. Indeed, no one had been to that spot at all besides Denz Ay and her daughter thirty days ago, and just the other night.

“How is the easy part, if you’ve got the right accesses,” said Lieutenant Skaaiat. “Which might tell us something. It’s not someone who’s got high-level access to Justice of Toren, or they’d have made sure it didn’t remember these guns. Or at least couldn’t say it did.”

“Or they didn’t think of that particular detail,” suggested Lieutenant Awn. She was puzzled. And only beginning to be frightened. “Or maybe that’s part of the plan to begin with. But we’re back to why, aren’t we? It doesn’t much matter how, not right this moment.”

Lieutenant Skaaiat looked up at me. “Tell me about the trouble Jen Taa’s niece had in the lower city.”

Lieutenant Awn looked at her, frowning. “But…” Lieutenant Skaaiat shushed her with a gesture.

“There was no trouble,” I said. “She sat by herself and threw rocks in the Fore-Temple water. She bought some tea in the shop behind the temple. Beyond that, no one spoke to her.”

“You’re certain?” asked Lieutenant Awn.

“She was in my view the entire time.” And I would take care that she would be on any future visits, but that hardly needed saying.

The two lieutenants were silent a moment. Lieutenant Awn closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She was now truly frightened. “They’re lying about that,” she said, eyes still closed. “They want some excuse to accuse someone in the lower city of… something.”

“Sedition,” Lieutenant Skaaiat said. She remembered her tea, and took a sip. “And getting above themselves. That’s easy enough to see.”

“Yes, I can see that,” said Lieutenant Awn. Her accent had slipped entirely, but she hadn’t noticed. “But why the hell would anyone with this sort of access”—she gestured at the crate of guns—“want to help them?”

“That would seem to be the question,” answered Lieutenant Skaaiat. They were silent for several seconds. “What are you going to do?”

The question upset Lieutenant Awn, who presumably had been wondering just that. She looked up at me. “I wonder if this is all.”

“I can ask Denz Ay to take me out again,” I said.

Lieutenant Awn gestured affirmatively. “I’ll write the report, but I won’t file it just yet. Pending our further investigation.” Everything Lieutenant Awn did and said was observed and recorded—but as with the trackers everyone in Ors wore, there wasn’t always someone paying attention.

Lieutenant Skaaiat made a low whistle. “Is someone setting you up, dear?” Lieutenant Awn looked incomprehension at her. “Like maybe,” Lieutenant Skaaiat continued, “Jen Shinnan? I may have underestimated her. Or can you trust Denz Ay?”

“If someone wants me gone, they’re in the upper city,” said Lieutenant Awn, and privately I agreed but I didn’t say it. “But that can’t be it. If anyone who could do this,” she gestured at the crate, “wanted me out of here, it would be easy enough—just give the order. And Jen Shinnan couldn’t have done this.” Unspoken, hanging behind every word, was the memory of news from Ime. Of the fact that the person who had revealed the corruption there was condemned to die, probably was already dead. “No one in Ors could have, not without…” Not without help, from a very high level, she would surely have said, but she let the sentence trail off.

“True,” mused Lieutenant Skaaiat. Understanding her. “So it’s someone high up. Who would benefit?”

“The niece,” said Lieutenant Awn, distressed.

“Jen Taa’s niece would benefit?” asked Lieutenant Skaaiat, puzzled.

“No, no. The niece is insulted or assaulted—allegedly. I won’t do anything, I say nothing happened.”

“Because nothing happened,” said Lieutenant Skaaiat, looking as though something was beginning to come clear to her, but still puzzled.

“They can’t get justice from me, so they come down to the lower city to get it for themselves. It’s the sort of thing that happened before we came.”

“And afterward,” said Lieutenant Skaaiat, “they find all these guns. Or even during. Or…” She shook her head. “It’s not all fitting together. Let’s say you’re right. Still. Who benefits? Not the Tanmind, not if they cause trouble. They can accuse all they like, but no matter what anyone finds in the lake, they’re still for reeducation if they riot.”

Lieutenant Awn gestured doubtfully. “Someone who could get those guns here without our seeing them might be able to keep the Tanmind out of trouble. Or believably say they could.”

“Ah.” Lieutenant Skaaiat understood immediately. “A minor fine, mitigating circumstances. No doubt of it. It’ll be someone high up. Very dangerous. But why?”

Lieutenant Awn looked at me. “Go to the head priest and ask her a favor. Tell her, from me, even though it’s not the rainy season, to station someone near the storm alarm at all times.” The alarm, an earsplitting siren, was on the top of the temple residence. Its sounding would trigger the storm shutters of most of the buildings in the lower city, and would certainly wake the inhabitants of any building not automated in that fashion. “Ask her to be ready to sound it if I ask.”

“Excellent,” said Lieutenant Skaaiat. “Any mob will at least have to work a bit harder to get past the shutters. And then?”

“It might not even happen,” said Lieutenant Awn. “Whatever it is, we’ll have to take it as it comes.”

What came, the next morning, was news that Anaander Mianaai, Lord of the Radch, would be visiting us some time in the next few days.

For three thousand years Anaander Mianaai had ruled Radch space absolutely. She resided in each of the thirteen provincial palaces, and was present at every annexation. She was able to do this because she possessed thousands of bodies, all of them genetically identical, all of them linked to each other. She was still in Shis’urna’s system, some of her on the flagship of this annexation, Sword of Amaat, and some of her on Shis’urna Station. It was she who made Radchaai law, and she who decided on any exceptions to that law. She was the ultimate commander of the military, the highest head priest of Amaat, the person to whom, ultimately, all Radchaai houses were clients.

And she was coming to Ors, at some unspecified date within the next few days. It was, in fact, mildly surprising she hadn’t visited Ors sooner—small as it was, far as Orsians had fallen from their former glory, still the yearly pilgrimage made Ors a moderately important place. Important enough that officers of higher families and more influence than Lieutenant Awn had wanted this post—and tried continually to pry her out of it, despite the determined resistance of the Divine of Ikkt.

So the visit itself wasn’t unexpected. Though the timing seemed odd. It was two weeks before the start of the pilgrimage, when hundreds of thousands of Orsians and tourists would pass through the city. During pilgrimage Anaander Mianaai’s presence would be highly visible, an opportunity to impress a high number of the worshippers of Ikkt. Instead she was coming just before. And of course it was impossible not to notice the sharp coincidence between her arrival and the discovery of the guns.

Whoever had placed those guns was acting either for or against the interests of the Lord of the Radch. She should have been the one logical person to tell, and to ask for further instructions. And her being in Ors in person was incredibly convenient—it presented an opportunity to tell her about the situation without anyone else intercepting the message and either spoiling whatever the plan was, or alerting wrongdoers that their plan had been discovered, making them harder to catch.

On that account alone, Lieutenant Awn was relieved to hear of her visit. Even though for the next few days, and while she was here, Lieutenant Awn would have to wear her full uniform.

In the meantime I listened more closely to conversations in the upper city—more difficult than in the lower, because the houses were all enclosed and of course any Tanmind involved would be closemouthed if they knew I was in earshot. And no one was foolish enough to have the sort of conversation I was listening for anywhere but in person, in private. I also watched Jen Taa’s niece—or as well as I could. After the dinner party she never left Jen Shinnan’s house, but I could see her tracker data.

For two nights I went out on the marsh with Denz Ay and her daughter, and we found two more crates of guns. Once again I had no way of determining who had left them, or when, though Denz Ay’s oblique statements, careful not to implicate the fishermen I knew usually poached in those areas, implied that they must have arrived some time in the past month or two.

“I’ll be glad when the Lord of Mianaai gets here,” said Lieutenant Awn to me, quietly, late one night. “I don’t think I should be handling something like this.”

And in the meantime I noticed that no one but Denz Ay went out on the water at night, and in the lower city no one sat or lay where the shutters might come down—a routine precaution during the rainy season, even though there were safeties to stop them if someone was in their way, but one that was usually ignored in the dry season.

The Lord of the Radch arrived in the middle of the day, on foot, a single one of her walking down through the upper city, no trace of her in the tracker logs, and went straight to the temple of Ikkt. She was old, gray-haired, broad shoulders slightly stooping, the almost-black skin of her face lined—which accounted for the lack of guards. The loss of one body that was more or less near death anyway would not be a large one. The use of such older bodies allowed the Lord of the Radch to walk unprotected, without any sort of entourage, when she wished, without much risk.

She wore not the jeweled coat and trousers of the Radchaai, nor the coverall or trousers and shirt a Shis’urnan Tanmind would wear, but instead the Orsian lungi, shirtless.

As soon as I saw her, I messaged Lieutenant Awn, who came as quickly as she could to the temple, and arrived while the head priest was prostrating herself in the plaza before the Lord of the Radch.

Lieutenant Awn hesitated. Most Radchaai were never in the personal presence of Anaander Mianaai in such circumstances. Of course she was always present during annexations, but the sheer number of troops compared to the number of bodies the Lord of the Radch sent made it unlikely one would run into her by chance. And any citizen can travel to one of the provincial palaces and ask for an audience—for a request, for an appeal in a legal case, for whatever reason—but in such a case, an ordinary citizen is briefed beforehand on how to conduct herself. Perhaps someone like Lieutenant Skaaiat would know how to draw Anaander Mianaai’s attention to herself without breaching propriety, but Lieutenant Awn did not.

“My lord,” Lieutenant Awn said, heart speeding with fear, and knelt.

Anaander Mianaai turned to her, eyebrow raised.

“I beg my lord’s pardon,” said Lieutenant Awn. She was slightly dizzy, either from the weight of her uniform in the heat, or from nerves. “I must speak with you.”

The eyebrow rose farther. “Lieutenant Awn,” she said, “yes?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“This evening I attend the vigil in the temple of Ikkt. I’ll speak to you in the morning.”

It took Lieutenant Awn a few moments to digest this. “My lord, a moment only. I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

The Lord of the Radch tilted her head inquisitively. “I understood you had this area under control.”

“Yes, lord, it’s just…” Lieutenant Awn stopped, panicked, at a loss for words for a second. “Relations between the upper and lower city just now…” She halted again.

“Concern yourself with your own job,” said Anaander Mianaai. “And I will concern myself with mine.” She turned away from Lieutenant Awn.

A public slight. An inexplicable one—there was no reason the Lord of the Radch could not have turned aside for a few urgent words with the officer who was chief of local security. And Lieutenant Awn had done nothing to deserve such a slight. At first I thought that was the only reason for the distress I read coming from Lieutenant Awn. The matter of the guns could be communicated in the morning just as well as now, and there seemed no other difficulty. But as the Lord of the Radch had walked through the upper city, word of Anaander Mianaai’s presence had spread, as of course it would, and the residents of the upper city had come out of their houses and begun gathering on the northern edge of the Fore-Temple water to watch the Lord of the Radch, dressed like an Orsian, stand in front of the temple of Ikkt with the Divine. And listening to the mutterings of the watching Tanmind, I realized that at this particular instant the guns were only a secondary concern.

The Tanmind residents of the upper city were wealthy, well-fed, the owners of shops and farms and tamarind orchards. Even in the precarious months following the annexation, when supplies had been scarce and food expensive, they had managed to keep their families fed. When Jen Shinnan had said, a few evenings earlier, that no one here had starved, she had likely believed that to be true. She had not, nor had anyone she knew well, nearly all of them wealthy Tanmind. As much as they complained, they had come out of the annexation relatively comfortably. And their children did well when they took the aptitudes, and would continue to do so, as Lieutenant Skaaiat had said.

And yet these same people, when they saw the Lord of the Radch walk straight through the upper city to the temple of Ikkt, concluded that this gesture of respect to the Orsians was a calculated insult to them. This was clear in their expressions, in their indignant exclamations. I had not foreseen it. Perhaps the Lord of the Radch had not foreseen it. But Lieutenant Awn had realized it would happen, when she saw the Divine on the ground in front of the Lord of the Radch.

I left the plaza, and some of the upper city streets, and went to where the Tanmind were standing, a half-dozen of me. I didn’t draw any weapons, didn’t make any threats. I said, merely, to anyone near me, “Go home, citizens.”

Most turned away and left, and if their expressions weren’t pleasant, they offered no actual protest. Others took longer to leave, testing my authority, perhaps, though not far—anyone with the stomach to do such a thing had been shot sometime in the last five years, or at least had learned to restrain such a near-suicidal impulse.

The Divine, rising to escort Anaander Mianaai into the temple, cast an unreadable look at Lieutenant Awn, where she still knelt on the plaza stones. The Lord of the Radch did not even glance at her.