“You wouldn’t,” protested Lieutenant Awn. “You won’t. You can’t deliver anyway.”
“I won’t need to. The child will test well, likely get herself sent to the territorial capital for training to take a nice civil service post. If you ask me, the Orsians are being rewarded for collaborating—but they’re a minority in this system. And now the unavoidable unpleasantness of the annexation is over, we want people to start realizing that being Radchaai will benefit them. Punishing local houses for not being quick enough to surrender won’t help.”
They walked in silence for a bit, and stopped at the edge of the water, arms still linked.
“Walk you home?” asked Lieutenant Skaaiat. Lieutenant Awn didn’t answer, but looked away over the water, still angry. The green skylights in the temple’s slanted roof shone, and light poured out the open doors onto the plaza and reflected on the water—this was a season of nightly vigils. Lieutenant Skaaiat said, with an apologetic half-smile, “I’ve upset you, let me make it up to you.”
“Sure,” said Lieutenant Awn, with a small sigh. She never could resist Lieutenant Skaaiat, and indeed there was no real reason to do so. They turned and walked along the water’s edge.
“What’s the difference,” Lieutenant Awn said, so quietly it didn’t seem like a break in the silence, “between citizens and noncitizens?”
“One is civilized,” said Lieutenant Skaaiat with a laugh, “and the other isn’t.” The joke only made sense in Radchaai—citizen and civilized are the same word. To be Radchaai is to be civilized.
“So in the moment the Lord of Mianaai bestowed citizenship on the Shis’urnans, in that very instant they became civilized.” The sentence was a circular one—the question Lieutenant Awn was asking is a difficult one in that language. “I mean, one day your Issas are shooting people for failing to speak respectfully enough—don’t tell me it didn’t happen, because I know it did, and worse—and it doesn’t matter because they’re not Radchaai, not civilized.” Lieutenant Awn had switched momentarily into the bit of the local Orsian language she knew, because the Radchaai words refused to let her mean what she wished to say. “And any measures are justified in the name of civilization.”
“Well,” said Lieutenant Skaaiat, “it was effective, you have to admit. Everyone speaks very respectfully to us these days.” Lieutenant Awn was silent. Unamused. “What brought this on?” Lieutenant Awn told her about her conversation with the head priest the day before.
“Ah. Well. You didn’t protest at the time.”
“What good would it have done?”
“Absolutely none,” answered Lieutenant Skaaiat. “But that’s not why you didn’t. Besides, even if ancillaries don’t beat people, or take bribes, or rape, or shoot people out of pique—those people human troops shot… a hundred years ago they’d have been stored in suspension for future use as ancillary segments. Do you know how many we still have stockpiled? Justice of Toren’s holds will be full of ancillaries for the next million years. If not longer. Those people are effectively dead. So what’s the difference? And you don’t like my saying that, but here’s the truth: luxury always comes at someone else’s expense. One of the many advantages of civilization is that one doesn’t generally have to see that, if one doesn’t wish. You’re free to enjoy its benefits without troubling your conscience.”
“It doesn’t trouble yours?”
Lieutenant Skaaiat laughed, gaily, as though they were discussing something completely different, a game of counters or a good tea shop. “When you grow up knowing that you deserve to be on top, that the lesser houses exist to serve your house’s glorious destiny, you take such things for granted. You’re born assuming that someone else is paying the cost of your life. It’s just the way things are. What happens during annexation—it’s a difference of degree, not a difference of kind.”
“It doesn’t seem that way to me,” answered Lieutenant Awn, short and bitter.
“No, of course it doesn’t,” answered Lieutenant Skaaiat, her voice kinder. I’m quite sure she genuinely liked Lieutenant Awn. I know that Lieutenant Awn liked her, even if Lieutenant Skaaiat sometimes said things that upset her, like this evening. “Your family has been paying some of that cost, however small. Maybe that makes it easier to sympathize with whoever might be paying for you. And I’m sure it’s hard not to think of what your own ancestors went through when they were annexed.”
“Your ancestors were never annexed.” Lieutenant Awn’s voice was biting.
“Well, some of them probably were,” admitted Lieutenant Skaaiat. “But they’re not in the official genealogy.” She stopped, pulling Lieutenant Awn to a halt beside her. “Awn, my good friend. Don’t trouble yourself over things you can’t help. Things are as they are. You have nothing to reproach yourself with.”