“Possibly not, Divine,” I said. I was at that moment doing what I could to encourage Lieutenant Awn to sleep, something she badly needed to do but was finding difficult.
“It’s probably better if she doesn’t,” the head priest said, bitterly. She looked at me then. “It’s unreasonable of me. I know it is. What else could she have done? It’s easy for me to say—and I say it—that she could have chosen otherwise.”
“She could have, Divine,” I acknowledged.
“What is it you Radchaai say?” I wasn’t Radchaai, but I didn’t correct her, and she continued. “Justice, propriety, and benefit, isn’t it? Let every act be just, and proper, and beneficial.”
“Yes, Divine.”
“Was that just?” Her voice trembled, for just an instant, and I could hear she was on the edge of tears. “Was it proper?”
“I don’t know, Divine.”
“More to the point, who benefited?”
“No one, Divine, so far as I can see.”
“No one? Really? Come, One Esk, don’t play the fool with me.” That look of betrayal on Jen Shinnan’s face, plainly directed at Anaander Mianaai, had been obvious to everyone there.
Still, I couldn’t see what the Lord of the Radch had stood to gain from those deaths. “They would have killed you, Divine,” I said. “You, and anyone else they found undefended. Lieutenant Awn did what she could to prevent bloodshed last night. It wasn’t her fault she failed.”
“It was.” Her back was still to me. “God forgive her for it. God forbid that I may ever be faced with such a choice.” She made an invocatory gesture. “And you? What would you have done, if the lieutenant had refused, and the Lord of the Radch ordered you to shoot her? Could you have? I thought that armor of yours was impenetrable.”
“The Lord of the Radch can force our armor down.” But the code Anaander Mianaai would have had to transmit to force down Lieutenant Awn’s armor—or mine, or any other Radchaai soldier’s—would have to have been delivered over communications that had been blocked at the time. Still. “Speculating about such things does no good, Divine,” I said. “It didn’t happen.”
The head priest turned, and looked intently at me. “You didn’t answer the question.”
It wasn’t an easy question for me to answer. I had been in pieces, and at the time only one segment had even known that such a thing was possible, that for an instant Lieutenant Awn’s life had hung, uncertain, on the outcome of that moment. I wasn’t entirely sure that segment wouldn’t have turned its gun on Anaander Mianaai instead.
It probably wouldn’t have. “Divine, I am not a person.” If I had shot the Lord of the Radch nothing would have changed, I was sure, except that not only would Lieutenant Awn still be dead, I would be destroyed, Two Esk would take my place, or a new One Esk would be built with segments from Justice of Toren’s holds. The ship’s AI might find itself in some difficulty, though more likely my action would be blamed on my being cut off. “People often think they would have made the noblest choice, but when they find themselves actually in such a situation, they discover matters aren’t quite so simple.”
“As I said—God forbid. I will comfort myself with the delusion that you would have shot the Mianaai bastard first.”
“Divine!” I cautioned. She could say nothing in my hearing that might not eventually reach the ears of the Lord of the Radch.
“Let her hear. Tell her yourself! She instigated what happened last night. Whether the target was us, or the Tanmind, or Lieutenant Awn, I don’t know. I have my suspicions which. I’m not a fool.”
“Divine,” I said. “Whoever instigated last night’s events, I don’t think things happened the way they wished. I think they wanted open warfare between the upper and lower cities, though I don’t understand why. And I think that was prevented when Denz Ay told Lieutenant Awn about the guns.”
“I think as you do,” said the head priest. “And I think Jen Shinnan knew more, and that was why she died.”
“I’m sorry your temple was desecrated, Divine,” I said. I wasn’t particularly sorry Jen Shinnan was dead, but I didn’t say so.
The Divine turned away from me again. “I’m sure you have a lot to do, getting ready to leave. Lieutenant Awn needn’t trouble herself calling on me. You can give her my farewells yourself.” She walked away from me, not waiting for any acknowledgment.