The evening grew later. The neighbors’ conversations turned slow and aimless and finally ceased as people picked up sleeping children and went to bed.
Denz Ay arrived four hours before dawn, and I joined her, stepping into her boat without speaking. She did not acknowledge my presence, and neither did her daughter, sitting in the stern. Slowly, nearly noiselessly, we slid away from the house.
The vigil at the temple continued, the priests’ prayers audible on the plaza as an intermittent shushing murmur. The streets, upper and lower, were silent except for my own footsteps and the sound of the water, dark but for the stars brilliant overhead, the blinking of the prohibited zones’ encircling buoys, and the light from the temple of Ikkt. The Seven Issa who had accompanied us back to Lieutenant Awn’s house slept on a pallet on the ground floor.
Lieutenant Awn and Lieutenant Skaaiat lay together on the upper floor, still and on the edge of sleep.
No one else was out on the water with us. In the bottom of the boat I saw rope, nets, breathers, and a round, covered basket tied to an anchor. The daughter saw me look at it, and she kicked it under her seat, with studied nonchalance. I looked away, over the water, toward the blinking buoys, and said nothing. The fiction that they could hide or alter the information coming from their trackers was a useful one, even if no one actually believed it.
Just inside the buoys, Denz Ay’s daughter put a breather in her mouth and slid over the edge, a rope in her hand. The lake wasn’t terribly deep, especially at this time of year. Moments later she reemerged and climbed back aboard, and we pulled the crate up—a relatively easy job until it reached the surface, but the three of us managed to tip it into the boat without taking on too much water.
I wiped mud off the lid. It was of Radchaai manufacture, but that wasn’t too alarming in itself. I found the latch and popped it open.
The guns within—long, sleek, and deadly—were the sort that had been carried by Tanmind troops before the annexation. I knew each one would have an identifying mark, and the marks of any guns confiscated by us would have been listed and reported, so that I could consult the inventory and determine more or less immediately if these were confiscated weapons, or ones we had missed.
If they were confiscated weapons, this situation would suddenly become a great deal more complicated than it seemed at the moment—and it was already a complicated situation.
Lieutenant Awn was in stage one of NREM sleep. Lieutenant Skaaiat seemed to be as well. I could consult the inventory on my own initiative. Indeed, I should. But I didn’t—partly because I had just been reminded, yesterday, of the corrupt authorities at Ime, the misuse of accesses, the most appalling abuse of power, something any citizen would have thought was impossible. That reminder itself was enough to make me cautious. But also, after Denz Ay’s assertions about residents of the upper city planting evidence in the past, and the evening’s dinner conversation with its clear reminder of resentment in that upper city, something didn’t seem quite right. No one in the upper city would know I had requested information about confiscated weapons, but what if someone else was involved? Someone who could set alerts to notify her if certain questions were asked in certain places? Denz Ay and her daughter sat quietly in the boat, to all appearances unconcerned and not particularly eager to be anywhere, or to be doing anything else.
Within a few moments I had Justice of Toren’s attention. I had seen no few of those confiscated weapons—not I, One Esk, but I, Justice of Toren, whose thousands of ancillary troops had been on the planet during the annexation. If I could not consult an official inventory without alerting an authority to the fact that I had found this cache, I could consult my own memory to see if any of them had passed under my own eyes.
And they had.
I went in to where Lieutenant Awn was sleeping and put a hand on her bare shoulder. “Lieutenant,” I said, softly. In the boat I closed the crate with a soft snap and said, “Back to the city.”
Lieutenant Awn jerked awake. “I’m not asleep,” she said blearily. In the boat, Denz Ay and her daughter silently picked up their oars and started back.
“The weapons were confiscated,” I said to Lieutenant Awn, still quiet. Not wanting to wake Lieutenant Skaaiat, not wanting anyone else to hear what I was saying. “I recognized the serial numbers.”
Lieutenant Awn looked at me dazedly for a few moments, uncomprehending. Then I saw her understand. “But…” And then she woke fully, and turned to Lieutenant Skaaiat. “Skaaiat, wake up. I’ve got a problem.”
I brought the guns to the upper level of Lieutenant Awn’s house. Seven Issa didn’t even stir when I went past.
“You’re sure?” asked Lieutenant Skaaiat, kneeling by the open crate, naked but for gloves, a bowl of tea in one hand.