Lieutenant Skaaiat arrived for supper, with a bottle of arrack and two Seven Issas. “Your relief won’t even reach Kould Ves until midday,” she said, breaking the seal on the bottle. Meanwhile the Seven Issas stood stiff and uncomfortable on the ground floor. They had arrived just before I’d restored communications. They’d seen the dead in the temple of Ikkt, had guessed without being told what had happened. And they had only been out of the holds for the last two years. They hadn’t seen the annexation itself.
All of Ors, upper and lower, was similarly quiet, similarly tense. When people left their houses they avoided looking at me or speaking to me. Mostly they only went out to visit the temple, where the priests led prayers for the dead. A few Tanmind even came down from the upper city, and stood quietly at the edges of the small crowd. I kept myself in the shadows, not wanting to distract or distress any further.
“Tell me you didn’t almost refuse,” said Lieutenant Skaaiat, in the house on the upper floor, with Lieutenant Awn, behind screens. They sat on fungal-smelling cushions, facing each other. “I know you, Awn, I swear when I heard what Seven Issa saw when they got to the temple I was afraid I’d hear next that you were dead. Tell me you didn’t.”
“I didn’t,” said Lieutenant Awn, miserable and guilty. Her voice bitter. “You can see I didn’t.”
“I can’t see that. Not at all.” Lieutenant Skaaiat poured a hefty slug of liquor into the cup I held out, and I handed it to Lieutenant Awn. “Neither can One Esk, or it wouldn’t be so silent this evening.” She looked at the nearest segment. “Did the Lord of the Radch forbid you to sing?”
“No, Lieutenant.” I hadn’t wanted to disturb Anaander Mianaai, when she was here, or interrupt what sleep Lieutenant Awn could get. And anyway, I hadn’t much felt like it.
Lieutenant Skaaiat made a frustrated sound and turned back to Lieutenant Awn. “If you’d refused, nothing would have changed, except you’d be dead too. You did what you had to do, and the idiots… Hyr’s cock, those idiots. They should have known better.”
Lieutenant Awn stared at the cup in her hand, not moving.
“I know you, Awn. If you’re going to do something that crazy, save it for when it’ll make a difference.”
“Like Mercy of Sarrse One Amaat One?” She was talking about events at Ime, about the soldier who had refused her order, led that mutiny five years before.
“She made a difference, at least. Listen, Awn, you and I both know something was going on. You and I both know that what happened last night doesn’t make sense unless…” She stopped.
Lieutenant Awn set her cup of arrack down, hard. Liquor sloshed over the lip of the cup. “Unless what? How does it make sense?”
“Here.” Lieutenant Skaaiat picked up the cup and pressed it into Lieutenant Awn’s hand. “Drink this. And I’ll explain. At least as much as makes sense to me.
“You know how annexations work. I mean, yes, they work by sheer, undeniable force, but after. After the executions and the transportations and once all the last bits of idiots who think they can fight back are cleaned up. Once all that’s done, we fit whoever’s left into Radchaai society—they form up into houses, and take clientage, and in a generation or two they’re as Radchaai as anybody. And mostly that happens because we go to the top of the local hierarchy—there pretty much always is one—and offer them all sorts of benefits in exchange for behaving like citizens, offer them clientage contracts, which allows them to offer contracts to whoever is below them, and before you know it the whole local setup is tied into Radchaai society, with minimal disruption.”
Lieutenant Awn made an impatient gesture. She already knew this. “What does that have to do with—”
“You fucked that up.”
“I…”
“What you did worked. And the local Tanmind were going to have to swallow that. Fair enough. If I’d done what you did—gone straight to the Orsian priest, set up house in the lower city instead of using the police station and jail already built in the upper city, set about making alliances with lower city authorities and ignoring—”
“I didn’t ignore anyone!” Lieutenant Awn protested.
Lieutenant Skaaiat waved her protest away. “And ignoring what anyone else would have seen as the natural local hierarchy. Your house can’t afford to offer clientage to anyone here. Yet. Neither you nor I can make any contracts with anyone. For now. We had to exempt ourselves from our houses’ contracts and take clientage directly from Anaander Mianaai, while we serve. But we still have those family connections, and those families can use connections we make now, even if we can’t. And we can certainly use them when we retire. Getting your feet on the ground during an annexation is the one sure way to increase your house’s financial and social standing.
“Which is fine until the wrong person does it. We tell ourselves that everything is the way Amaat wants it to be, that everything that is, is because of God. So if we’re wealthy and respected, that’s how things should be. The aptitudes prove that it’s all just, that everyone gets what they deserve, and when the right people test into the right careers, that just goes to show how right it all is.”