“I don’t.”
“You don’t make anything easy, do you?” Strigan’s voice was half-angry. Exasperated.
“It depends.”
She shook her head slightly, as though she hadn’t heard quite clearly. “I’ve seen worse. But he needs medical attention.”
“You don’t intend to give it,” I said. Not asking.
“I’m still figuring you out,” Strigan said, as though her statement was related to mine, though I was sure it wasn’t. “As a matter of fact, I’m considering giving him something more to keep him calm.” I didn’t answer. “You disapprove.” It wasn’t a question. “I don’t feel sorry for him.”
“You keep saying that.”
“He lost his ship.” Very likely her interest in her Garseddai artifacts had led her to learn what she could about the events that had led to the destruction of Garsedd. “Bad enough,” Strigan continued, “but Radchaai ships aren’t just ships, are they? And his crew. It was a thousand years ago for us, but for him—one moment everything is the way it should be, next moment everything’s gone.” With one hand she made a frustrated, ambivalent gesture. “He needs medical attention.”
“If he hadn’t fled the Radch, he’d have received it.”
Strigan cocked one gray eyebrow, sat on a bench. “Translate for me. My Radchaai isn’t good enough.”
One moment an ancillary had shoved Seivarden into a suspension pod, next she’d found herself freezing and choking as the pod’s fluids exited through her mouth and nose, drained away, and she found herself in the sick bay of a patrol ship. When Seivarden described it, I could see her agitation, her anger, barely masked. “Some dingy little Mercy, with a shabby, provincial captain.”
“Your face is almost perfectly impassive,” Strigan said to me. Not in Radchaai, so Seivarden didn’t understand. “But I can see your temperature and heart rate.” And probably a few other things, with the medical implants she likely had.
“The ship was human-crewed,” I said to Seivarden.
That distressed her further—whether it was anger, or embarrassment, or something else, I couldn’t tell. “I didn’t realize. Not right away. The captain took me aside and explained.”
I translated this for Strigan, and she looked at Seivarden in disbelief, and then at me with speculation. “Is that an easy mistake to make?”
“No,” I answered, shortly.
“That was when she finally had to tell me how long it had been,” Seivarden said, unaware of anything but her own story.
“And what had happened after,” suggested Strigan.
I translated, but Seivarden ignored it, and continued as though neither of us had spoken. “Eventually we put in to this tiny border station. You know the sort of thing, a station administrator who’s either in disgrace or a jumped-up nobody, an officious inspector supervisor playing tyrant on the docks, and half a dozen Security whose biggest challenge is chasing chickens out of the tea shop.
“I’d thought the Mercy captain had a terrible accent, but I couldn’t understand anyone on the station at all. The station AI had to translate for me, but my implants didn’t work. Too antiquated. So I could only talk to it using wall consoles.” Which would have made it extremely difficult to hold any sort of conversation. “And even when Station explained, the things people were saying didn’t make sense.
“They assigned me an apartment, a room with a cot, hardly large enough to stand up in. Yes, they knew who I said I was, but they had no record of my financial data, and it would be weeks before it could possibly arrive. Maybe longer. Meantime I got the food and shelter any Radchaai was guaranteed. Unless, of course, I wanted to retake the aptitudes so I could get a new assignment. Because they didn’t have my aptitudes data and even if they did it was certainly out of date. Out of date,” she repeated, her voice bitter.
“Did you see a doctor?” Strigan asked. Watching Seivarden’s face, I guessed what had finally sent her from Radchaai space. She must have seen a doctor, who had opted to wait and watch. Physical injuries weren’t an issue, the medic of whatever Mercy had picked her up would have taken care of those, but psychological or emotional ones—they might resolve on their own, and if they didn’t, the doctor would need that aptitudes data to work effectively.
“They said I could send a message to my house lord asking for assistance. But they didn’t know who that was.” Obviously Seivarden had no intention of talking about the station doctor.
“House lord?” asked Strigan.
“Head of her extended family,” I explained. “It sounds very elevated in translation, but it isn’t, unless your house is very wealthy or prestigious.”
“And hers?”
“Was both.”