be honest, my own discomfort at events—made her seem oddly flat and unreal to me.
“I understand Jen Shinnan’s part in this,” Lieutenant Awn said. “I do, I get that. But I don’t understand how… how anyone else would benefit.” The question she couldn’t ask directly was, of course, why Anaander Mianaai would be involved, or why she would want to return to some previous, proper order, given she herself had certainly approved any changes. And why, if she wanted such a thing, she didn’t merely order the things she desired. If questioned, both lieutenants could, and likely would, say they weren’t speaking of the Lord of the Radch, but about some unknown person who must be involved, but I was certain that wouldn’t hold up under an interrogation with drugs. Fortunately, such an event was unlikely. “And I don’t see why anyone with that sort of access couldn’t just order me gone and put someone they preferred in my place, if that was all they wanted.”
“Maybe that wasn’t all they wanted,” answered Lieutenant Skaaiat. “But clearly, someone did at the very least want those things, and thought they would benefit from doing it this particular way. And you did as much as you could to avoid people getting killed. Anything else wouldn’t have made any difference.” She emptied her own cup. “You’re going to stay in touch with me,” she said, not a question, not a request. And then, more gently, “I’ll miss you.”
For a moment I thought Lieutenant Awn might cry again. “Who’s replacing me?”
Lieutenant Skaaiat named an officer, and a ship.
“Human troops then.” Lieutenant Awn was momentarily disquieted, and then sighed, frustrated. I imagine she was remembering that Ors was no longer her problem.
“I know,” said Lieutenant Skaaiat. “I’ll talk to her. You watch yourself. Now annexations are a thing of the past, ancillary troop carriers are crowded with the useless daughters of prestigious houses, who can’t be assigned to anything lower.” Lieutenant Awn frowned, clearly wanting to argue, thinking, maybe, of her fellow Esk lieutenants. Or of herself. Lieutenant Skaaiat saw her expression and smiled ruefully. “Well. Dariet is all right. It’s the rest I’m warning you to look out for. Very high opinions of themselves and very little to justify it.” Skaaiat had met some of them during the annexation, had always been entirely, correctly polite to them.
“You don’t need to tell me that,” said Lieutenant Awn.
Lieutenant Skaaiat poured more arrack, and for the rest of the night their conversation was the sort that needs no reporting.
At length Lieutenant Awn slept again, and by the time she woke I had hired boats to take us to the mouth of the river, near Kould Ves, and loaded them with our scant luggage, and my dead segment. In Kould Ves the mechanism that controlled its armor, and a few other bits of tech, would be removed for another use.
If you’re going to do something that crazy, save it for when it’ll make a difference, Lieutenant Skaaiat had said, and I had agreed. I still agree.
The problem is knowing when what you are about to do will make a difference. I’m not only speaking of the small actions that, cumulatively, over time, or in great numbers, steer the course of events in ways too chaotic or subtle to trace. The single word that directs a person’s fate and ultimately the fates of those she comes in contact with is of course a common subject of entertainments and moralizing stories, but if everyone were to consider all the possible consequences of all one’s possible choices, no one would move a millimeter, or even dare to breathe for fear of the ultimate results.
I mean, on a larger and more obvious scale. In the way that Anaander Mianaai herself determined the fates of whole peoples. Or the way my own actions could mean life or death for thousands. Or merely eighty-three, huddled in the temple of Ikkt, surrounded. I ask myself—as surely Lieutenant Awn asked herself—what would have been the consequences of refusing the order to fire? Straightforwardly, obviously, her own death would have been an immediate consequence. And then, immediately afterward, those eighty-three people would have died, because I would have shot them at Anaander Mianaai’s direct order.
No difference, except Lieutenant Awn would be dead. The omens had been cast, and their trajectories were straightforward, calculable, direct, and clear.
But neither Lieutenant Awn nor the Lord of the Radch knew that in that moment, had one disk shifted, just slightly, the whole