Ancillary Justice (Imperial Radch #1) - Ann Leckie Page 0,87

Anaander Mianaai, “would you wish to make?”

“The sort of difference,” Lieutenant Awn replied, mouth gone dry, “that Mercy of Sarrse soldier made. If she hadn’t done what she did, all the business at Ime would still be going on.” As she spoke I’m sure she realized what it was she was saying. That this was dangerous territory. Her next words made it plain she did know. “She died for it, yes. But she revealed all that corruption to you.”

I had had a week to think about the things Anaander Mianaai had said to me. By now I had worked out how the governor of Ime might have had the accesses that prevented Ime Station from reporting her activities. She could only have gotten those accesses from Anaander Mianaai herself. The only question was, which Anaander Mianaai had enabled it?

“It was on all the public news channels,” Anaander Mianaai observed. “I would have preferred it wasn’t. Oh, yes,” she said, in answer to Lieutenant Awn’s surprise. “That wasn’t by my desire. The entire incident has sown doubt where before there was none. Discontent and fear where there had been only confidence in my ability to provide justice and benefit.

“Rumors I could have dealt with, but reports through approved channels! Broadcast where every Radchaai could see and hear! And without the publicity I might have let the Rrrrrr take the traitors away quietly. Instead I had to negotiate for their return, or else let them stand as an invitation to further mutiny. It caused me a great deal of trouble. It’s still causing trouble.”

“I didn’t realize,” said Lieutenant Awn, panic in her voice. “It was on all the public channels.” Then realization struck her. “I haven’t… I haven’t said anything about Ors. To anyone.”

“Except Skaaiat Awer,” the Lord of the Radch pointed out. Which was hardly just—Lieutenant Skaaiat had been nearby, close enough to see with her own eyes the evidence that something had happened. “No,” Mianaai continued, in answer to Lieutenant Awn’s inarticulate query, “it hasn’t turned up on public channels. Yet. And I can see that the idea that Skaaiat Awer might be a traitor is distressing to you. I think you’re having trouble believing it.”

Once again, Lieutenant Awn struggled to speak. “That is correct, my lord,” she finally managed.

“I can offer you,” said Mianaai in reply, “the opportunity to prove her innocence. And to better your situation. I can manipulate your assignment so that you can be close to her again. You need only take clientship when Skaaiat offers—oh, she’ll offer,” the Lord of the Radch said, seeing, I’m sure, Lieutenant Awn’s despair and doubt at her words. “Awer has been collecting people like you. Upstarts from previously unremarkable houses who suddenly find themselves in positions advantageous for business. Take clientship, and observe.” And report was left unsaid.

The Lord of the Radch was trying to turn her enemy’s instrument into her own. What would happen if she couldn’t do that?

But what would happen if she did? No matter what choice Lieutenant Awn made now, she would be acting against Anaander Mianaai, the Lord of the Radch.

I had already seen her choice once, when faced with death. She would choose the path that kept her alive. And she—and I—could puzzle out the implications of that path later, would see what the options were when matters were less immediately urgent.

In the Esk decade room Lieutenant Dariet asked, alarmed, “Ship, what’s wrong with One Esk?”

“My lord,” said Lieutenant Awn, her voice shaking with fear, face, as ever, to the floor. “Do you order me?”

“Stand by, Lieutenant,” I said, directly into Lieutenant Dariet’s ear, because I could not make One Esk speak.

Anaander Mianaai laughed, short and sharp. Lieutenant Awn’s answer had been as bald a refusal as a plain Never would have been. Ordering such a thing would be useless.

“Interrogate me when we reach Valskaay,” Lieutenant Awn said. “I demand it. I am loyal. So is Skaaiat Awer, I swear it, but if you doubt her, interrogate her as well.”

But of course Anaander Mianaai couldn’t do that. Any interrogation would have witnesses. Any skilled interrogator—and there would be no point in using an unskilled one—would hardly fail to understand the drift of the questions put to either Lieutenant Awn or Lieutenant Skaaiat. It would be too open a move, spread information this Mianaai didn’t want spread.

Anaander Mianaai sat silent for four seconds. Impassive.

“One Var,” she said, when those four seconds had passed, “shoot Lieutenant Awn.”

I was not, now, a single fragmentary segment, alone