Ancillary Justice (Imperial Radch #1) - Ann Leckie Page 0,48

heard is greatly exaggerated. It can’t turn you into someone you’re not. Not in any useful way.”

“Erase memories.”

“Suppress them, I think. Add new ones, maybe. You have to know what you’re doing or you could damage someone badly.”

“No doubt.”

Seivarden stared frowning at us, watching us talk, unable to understand what we were saying.

Strigan half-smiled. “You aren’t a product of reeducation.”

“No,” I acknowledged.

“It was surgery. Sever a few connections, make a few new ones. Install some implants.” She paused a moment, waiting for me to answer, but I didn’t. “You pass well enough. Mostly. Your expression, your tone of voice, it’s always right but it’s always… always studied. Always a performance.”

“You think you’ve solved the puzzle,” I guessed.

“Solved isn’t the right word. But you’re a corpse soldier, I’m certain of it. Do you remember anything?”

“Many things,” I said, still bland.

“No, I mean from before.”

It took me nearly five seconds to understand what she meant. “That person is dead.”

Seivarden suddenly, convulsively stood and walked out the inner door and, by the sound of it, through the outer as well.

Strigan watched her go, gave a quick, breathy hm, and then turned back to me. “Your sense of who you are has a neurological basis. One small change and you don’t believe you exist anymore. But you’re still there. I think you’re still there. Why the bizarre desire to kill Anaander Mianaai? Why else would you be so angry with him?” She tilted her head to indicate the exit, Seivarden outside in the cold with only one coat.

“He’ll take the crawler,” I warned. The girl and her mother had taken the flier, and left the crawler outside Strigan’s house.

“No he won’t. I disabled it.” I gestured my approval, and Strigan continued, returning to her previous subject. “And the music. I don’t suppose you were a singer, not with a voice like yours. But you must have been a musician, before, or loved music.”

I considered making the bitter laugh Strigan’s guess called for. “No,” I said, instead. “Not actually.”

“But you are a corpse soldier, I’m right about that.” I didn’t answer. “You escaped somehow or… are you from his ship? Captain Seivarden’s?”

“Sword of Nathtas was destroyed.” I had been there, been nearby. Relatively speaking. Seen it happen, nearly enough. “And that was a thousand years ago.”

Strigan looked toward the door, back at me. Then she frowned. “No. No, I think you’re Ghaonish, and they were only annexed a few centuries ago, weren’t they? I shouldn’t have forgotten that, it’s why you’re passing as someone from the Gerentate, isn’t it? No, you escaped somehow. I can bring you back. I’m sure I can.”

“You can kill me, you mean. You can destroy my sense of self and replace it with one you approve of.”

Strigan didn’t like hearing that, I could see. The outer door opened, and then Seivarden came shivering through the inner. “Put on your outer coat next time,” I told her.

“Fuck off.” She grabbed a blanket off her pallet and wrapped it around her shoulders, and stood, still shivering.

“Very unbecoming language, citizen,” I said.

For a moment she looked as though she might lose her temper. Then she seemed to remember what might happen if she did. “Fuck.” She sat on the nearest bench, heavily. “Off.”

“Why didn’t you leave him where you found him?” asked Strigan.

“I wish I knew.” It was another puzzle for her, but not one I had made deliberately. I didn’t know myself. Didn’t know why I cared if Seivarden froze to death in the storm-swept snow, didn’t know why I had brought her with me, didn’t know why I cared if she took someone else’s crawler and fled, or walked off into the green-stained frozen waste and died.

“And why are you so angry with him?”

That I knew. And truth to tell, it wasn’t entirely fair to Seivarden that I was angry. Still, the facts remained what they were, and my anger as well.

“Why do you want to kill Anaander Mianaai?” Seivarden’s head turned slightly, her attention hooked by the familiar name.

“It’s personal.”

“Personal.” Strigan’s tone was incredulous.

“Yes.”

“You’re not a person anymore. You’ve said as much to me. You’re equipment. An appendage to a ship’s AI.” I said nothing, and waited for her to consider her own words. “Is there a ship that’s lost its mind? Recently, I mean.”

Insane Radchaai ships were a staple of melodrama, inside and outside Radchaai space. Though Radchaai entertainments in that direction were usually historicals. When Anaander Mianaai had taken control of the core of Radch space some few