Anaander Mianaai raised an eyebrow, plainly disbelieving that Seivarden could bring herself to do any such thing, but she was silent.
“Daos Ceit,” I said, in the language I knew had been her first. “Do you remember the day you came to the lieutenant’s house and found the tyrant there? You were afraid and you grabbed my hand.” Her eyes, impossibly, grew wider. “You must have woken before anyone else in your house or they’d never have let you come, not after what happened the night before.”
“But…”
“I must speak with Skaaiat Awer.”
“You’re alive!” she said, eyes still wide, still not quite believing. “Is the lieutenant… Inspector Supervisor will be so…”
“She’s dead,” I interrupted before she could get any further. “I’m dead. I’m all that’s left. I have to speak to Skaaiat Awer right now. The tyrant will stay here and if she won’t then you should hit her as hard as you can.”
I had thought Daos Ceit was mainly astonished, but now tears welled, and one dropped onto her sleeve, where she held the stick at the ready. “All right,” she said. “I will.” She looked at Anaander Mianaai and lifted the stick just slightly, the threat plain. Though it did strike me as foolhardy to post no one here but Daos Ceit.
“What’s the inspector supervisor doing?”
“She’s sent people to manually lock down all the docks.” That would take a lot of people, and a long time. It explained why Daos Ceit was here by herself. I thought of storm shutters rolling down, in the lower city. “She said it was just like that night in Ors, and the tyrant had to be doing it.”
Anaander Mianaai listened to all this, bemused. Seivarden seemed to have passed into some sort of shocked state, beyond astonishment.
“You stay here,” I said to Anaander Mianaai, in Radchaai. “Or Daos Ceit will stun you.”
“Yes, I got that much,” said Anaander Mianaai. “I see I didn’t make a very positive impression when last we met, citizen.”
“Everyone knows you killed all those people,” Daos Ceit said. Two more tears escaped. “And blamed the lieutenant for it.”
I had thought she was too young to have such strong feelings about the event. “Why are you crying?”
“I’m scared.” Not taking her eyes off Anaander Mianaai, or lowering the stick.
That struck me as very sensible. “Come on, Seivarden.” I walked past Daos Ceit.
Voices sounded ahead, where the outer office lay, past a turning. One step and then the next. It had never been anything else.
Seivarden let out a convulsive breath. It might have started as a laugh, or something she’d wanted to say. “Well,” she said then. “We survived the bridge.”
“That was easy.” I stopped and checked under my brocaded jacket, counting magazines even though I already knew how many I had. Shifted one from under the waistband of my trousers to a jacket pocket. “This is not going to be easy. Or end half as well. Are you with me?”
“Always,” she said, voice still oddly steady though I was sure she was on the point of collapse. “Haven’t I already said that?”
I didn’t understand what she meant, but now wasn’t the time to wonder, or ask. “Then let’s go.”
22
We rounded the corner, my gun at the ready, and found the outer office empty. Not silent. Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat’s voice sounded outside, slightly muted through the wall. “I appreciate that, Captain, but I’m ultimately responsible for the safety of the docks.”
An answer, muffled, words indistinguishable, but I thought I recognized the voice.
“I stand by my actions, Captain,” Skaaiat Awer answered as Seivarden and I came through the office and reached the wide lobby just outside.
Captain Vel stood, her back to an open lift shaft, a lieutenant and two troops behind her. The lieutenant still had pastry crumbs on her brown jacket. They must have climbed down the shaft, because I was quite certain Station controlled the lifts. In front of us, facing them and all the lobby’s watching gods, stood Skaaiat Awer and four dock inspectors. Captain Vel saw me, saw Seivarden, and frowned slightly in surprise. “Captain Seivarden,” she said.
Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat didn’t turn around, but I could guess what she was thinking, that she’d sent Daos Ceit to defend the back way in, all by herself. “She’s fine,” I said, answering her, and not Captain Vel. “She let me past.” And then, not having planned it, the words seeming to come out of my mouth of their own volition, “Lieutenant, it’s me, I’m Justice of Toren One Esk.”
As soon as I said it I knew she would turn. I raised the gun to aim it at Captain Vel. “Don’t move, Captain.” But she hadn’t. She and the rest of Mercy of Kalr stood puzzling out what I had just said.
Skaaiat Awer turned. “Daos Ceit would never have let me by otherwise,” I said. And remembered Daos Ceit’s hopeful question. “Lieutenant Awn is dead. Justice of Toren is destroyed. It’s only me now.”