Ancillary Justice (Imperial Radch #1) - Ann Leckie Page 0,37

milk. “Somehow I doubt I’d find these high-ranking Radchaai sympathetic.” Her tone was bitter, slightly sarcastic.

“No,” I answered. “I don’t think you’d like them much. They certainly wouldn’t have much use for you.”

She blinked and looked intently at my face, as though trying to read something from my expression. Then she shook her head and made a dismissing gesture. “Do tell.”

“When one is the agent of order and civilization in the universe, one doesn’t stoop to negotiate. Especially with nonhumans.” Which included quite a number of people who considered themselves human, but that was a topic best left undiscussed just now. “Why make a treaty with such an implacable enemy? Destroy them and be done.”

“Could you?” Strigan asked, incredulous. “Could you have destroyed the Presger?”

“No.”

She folded her arms, leaned back in her chair. “So why any debate at all?”

“I would think it was obvious,” I answered. “Some find it difficult to admit the Radch might be fallible, or that its power might have limits.”

Strigan glanced across the room, toward Seivarden. “But this is meaningless. Debate. There’s no real debate possible.”

“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,