“Entirely, my lord,” I answered. The junior priests still huddled, the head priest standing apart from them, looking at Lieutenant Awn and the Lord of the Radch where they conferred, an expression on her face that I couldn’t read.
“So,” said Anaander Mianaai. “What’s your assessment of this situation?”
Lieutenant Awn blinked in astonishment. “I… it looks very much to me as though Jen Shinnan is involved with the weapons. How would she have known of their existence otherwise?”
“And this murdered young person?”
“If she is murdered, no one from the lower city did it. But can they have killed her themselves to have an excuse to…” Lieutenant Awn stopped, appalled.
“An excuse to come down to the lower city and murder innocent citizens in their beds. And then use the existence of the weapons caches to support their assertion that they were only acting in self-defense and you had refused to do your duty and protect them.” She cast a glance at the Tanmind, ringed by my still-armed and -silver-armored segments. “Well. We can concern ourselves with details later. Right now we need to deal with these people.”
“My lord,” acknowledged Lieutenant Awn, with a slight bow.
“Shoot them.”
To noncitizens, who only ever see Radchaai in melodramatic entertainments, who know nothing of the Radch besides ancillaries and annexations and what they think of as brainwashing, such an order might be appalling, but hardly surprising. But the idea of shooting citizens was, in fact, extremely shocking and upsetting. What, after all, was the point of civilization if not the well-being of citizens? And these people were citizens now.
Lieutenant Awn froze, for two seconds. “M… my lord?”
Anaander Mianaai’s voice, which had been dispassionate, perhaps slightly stern, turned chill and severe. “Are you refusing an order, Lieutenant?”
“No, my lord, only… they’re citizens. And we’re in a temple. And we have them under control, and I’ve sent Justice of Toren One Esk to the next division to ask for reinforcements. Justice of Ente Seven Issa should be here in an hour, perhaps two, and we can arrest the Tanmind and assign them to reeducation very easily, since you’re here.”
“Are you,” asked Anaander Mianaai, slowly and clearly, “refusing an order?”
Jen Shinnan’s amusement, her willingness—even eagerness—to speak to the Lord of the Radch, it fell into a pattern for my listening segment. Someone very high up had made those guns available, had known how to cut off communications. No one was higher up than Anaander Mianaai. But it made no sense. Jen Shinnan’s motivation was obvious, but how could the Lord of the Radch possibly profit by it?
Lieutenant Awn was likely having the same thoughts. I could read her distress in the tension of her jaw, the stiff set of her shoulders. Still, it seemed unreal, because the external signs were all I could see. “I won’t refuse an order, my lord,” she said after five seconds. “May I protest it?”
“I believe you already have,” said Anaander Mianaai, coldly. “Now shoot them.”
Lieutenant Awn turned. I thought she was the slightest bit shaky as she walked toward the surrounded Tanmind.
“Justice of Toren,” Mianaai said, and the segment of me that had been about to follow Lieutenant Awn stopped. “When was the last time I visited you?”
I remembered the last time the Lord of the Radch had boarded Justice of Toren very clearly. It had been an unusual visit—unannounced, four older bodies with no entourage. She had mostly stayed in her quarters talking to me—Justice of Toren –me, not One Esk–me, but she had asked One Esk to sing for her. I had obliged with a Valskaayan piece. It had been ninety-four years, two months, two weeks, and six days before, shortly after the annexation of Valskaay. I opened my mouth to say so, but instead heard myself say, “Two hundred three years, four months, one week, and one day ago, my lord.”
“Hmm,” said Anaander Mianaai, but she said nothing else.
Lieutenant Awn approached me, where I ringed the Tanmind. She stood there, behind a segment, for three and a half seconds, saying nothing.
Her distress must have been obvious to more than just me. Jen Shinnan, seeing her stand there silent and unhappy, smiled. Almost triumphantly. “Well?”
“One Esk,” Lieutenant Awn said, clearly dreading the finish of her sentence. Jen Shinnan’s smile grew slightly larger. Expecting Lieutenant Awn to send the Tanmind home, no doubt. Expecting, in the fullness of time, Lieutenant Awn’s dismissal and the decline of the lower city’s influence. “I didn’t want this,” Lieutenant Awn said to her, quietly, “but I have a direct order.” She raised her voice. “One Esk. Shoot them.”
Jen Shinnan’s smile disappeared, replaced by horror, and, I thought, betrayal, and she looked, plainly, directly, toward Anaander Mianaai. Who stood impassive. The other Tanmind clamored, crying out in fear and protest.