One Mianaai frowned—not the one that had been speaking. “Skaaiat,” she said, with slight distaste. Seeming unaware of my sudden fear. “I’ve had my suspicions about Awer for some time.” Awer was Lieutenant Skaaiat’s house name, but what that had to do with events in the temple of Ikkt, I had no idea. “I never could find any proof.” This, also, was mysterious to me. “Play me the conversation.”
When Lieutenant Skaaiat said, If you’re going to do something that crazy, save it for when it’ll make a difference, one body leaned forward sharply and gave a breathy ha, an angry sound. Moments later, at the mention of Ime, eyebrows twitched. I feared momentarily that my dismay at the incautious, frankly dangerous tenor of that conversation would be detectable to the Lord of the Radch, but she made no mention of it. Had not seen it, perhaps, as she had not seen my profound disturbance at realizing she was no longer one person but two, in conflict with each other.
“Not proof. Not enough,” Mianaai said, oblivious. “But dangerous. Awer ought to tip my way.” Why she thought this, I didn’t immediately understand. Awer had come from the Radch itself, from the start had had wealth and influence enough to allow it to criticize, and criticize it did, though generally with shrewdness enough to keep itself out of real trouble.
I had known Awer House for a long time, had carried its young lieutenants, known them as captains of other ships. Granted, no Awer suited for military service exhibited her house’s tendencies to their utmost extent. An overly keen sense of injustice or a tendency to mysticism didn’t mesh well with annexations. Nor with wealth and rank—any Awer’s moral outrage inevitably smelled slightly of hypocrisy, considering the comforts and privileges such an ancient house enjoyed, and while some injustices were unignorably obvious to them, some others they never saw.
In any event, Lieutenant Skaaiat’s sardonic practicality wasn’t foreign to her house. It was only a milder, more livable version of Awer’s tendency to moral outrage.
Doubtless each Anaander thought her cause was the more just. (The more proper, the more beneficial. Certainly.) Assuming Awer’s penchant for just causes, the citizens of that house ought to support the proper side. Given they knew anything like sides were involved at all.
This assumed, of course, that any part at all of Anaander Mianaai thought any Awer was guided by a passion for justice and not by self-interest covered over with self-righteousness. And any given Awer could, at various times, be guided by either.
Still. It was possible some part of Anaander Mianaai thought that Awer (or any particular Awer) needed only to be convinced of the justice of her cause to champion it. And surely she knew that if Awer—any Awer—could not be convinced, it would be her implacable enemy.
“Suleir, now…” Anaander Mianaai turned to One Var, standing silent at the table. “Dariet Suleir seems to be an ally of Lieutenant Awn. Why?”
The question troubled me for reasons I couldn’t quite identify. “I can’t be entirely certain, my lord, but I believe Lieutenant Dariet considers Lieutenant Awn to be an able officer, and of course she defers to Lieutenant Awn as decade senior.” And, perhaps, was secure enough in her own standing not to resent Lieutenant Awn’s having authority over her. Unlike Lieutenant Issaaia. But I didn’t say that.
“Nothing to do with political sympathies, then?”
“I am at a loss to understand what you mean, my lord,” I said, quite sincerely but with growing alarm.
Another Mianaai body spoke up. “Are you playing stupid with me, Ship?”
“Begging my lord’s pardon,” I answered, still speaking through One Var, “if I knew what my lord was looking for I would be better able to supply relevant data.”
In answer, Mianaai said, “Justice of Toren, when did I last visit you?”
If those accesses and overrides had been valid, I would have been utterly unable to conceal anything from the Lord of the Radch. “Two hundred three years, four months, one week, and five days ago, my lord,” I lied, now sure of the significance of the question.
“Give me your memories of the incident in the temple,” Mianaai commanded, and I complied.
And lied again. Because while nearly every instant of each of those individual streams of memory and data was unaltered, that moment of horror and doubt when one segment feared it might have to shoot Lieutenant Awn was, impossibly, missing.
It seems very straightforward when I say “I.” At the time, “I” meant Justice of Toren, the whole ship and all its ancillaries. A unit might be very focused on what it was doing at that particular moment, but it was no more apart from “me” than my hand is while it’s engaged in a task that doesn’t require my full attention.