“As a visiting noncitizen your legal rights are restricted.” It was clearly a rote speech. “You must deposit at minimum the equivalent of—” Fingers twitched as she checked the exchange rate. “Five hundred shen per week of your visit, per person. If your lodging, food, and any extra purchases, fines, or damages exceed the amount on deposit and you cannot pay the balance, you will be legally obligated to take an assignment until your debt is paid. As a noncitizen your right to appeal any judgment or assignment is limited. Do you still wish to enter Radch space?”
“I do,” I said, and laid two million-shen chits on the slim desk between us.
Her disdain vanished. She sat slightly straighter and offered me tea, gesturing slightly, fingers twitching again as she communicated with someone else—her servant, it turned out, who, with a slightly harried air, brought tea in an elaborately enameled flask, and bowls to match.
While the servant poured, I brought out my forged Gerentate credentials and placed those on the desk as well.
“You must also provide identification for your servant, honored,” said the consular agent, now all politeness.
“My servant is a Radchaai citizen,” I answered, smiling slightly. Meaning to take the edge off what was going to be an awkward moment. “But she’s lost her identification and her travel permits.”
The consular agent froze, attempting to process that.
“The honored Breq,” said Seivarden, standing behind me, in antique, effortlessly elegant Radchaai, “has been generous enough to employ me and pay my passage home.”
This didn’t resolve the consular agent’s astonished paralysis quite as effectively as Seivarden perhaps had wished. That accent didn’t belong on anyone’s servant, let alone a noncitizen’s. And she hadn’t offered Seivarden a seat, or tea, thinking her too insignificant for such courtesies.
“Surely you can take genetic information,” I suggested.
“Yes, of course,” answered the consular agent, with a sunny smile. “Though your visa application will almost certainly come through before Citizen…”
“Seivarden,” I supplied.
“… before Citizen Seivarden’s travel permits are reissued. Depending on where she departed from and where her records are.”
“Of course,” I answered, and sipped my tea. “That’s only to be expected.”
As we left, Seivarden said to me, in an undertone, “What a snob. Was that real tea?”
“It was.” I waited for her to complain about not having had any, but she said nothing more. “It was very good. What are you going to do if an arrest order comes through instead of travel permits?”
She made a gesture of denial. “Why should they? I’m already asking to come back, they can arrest me when I get there. And I’ll appeal. Do you think the consul has that tea shipped from home, or might someone here sell it?”
“Find out, if you like,” I said. “I’m going back to the room to meditate.”
The consular agent’s servant outright gave Seivarden half a kilo of tea, likely grateful for the opportunity to make up for her employer’s unintentional slight earlier. And when my visa came through, so did travel permits for Seivarden, and no arrest order, or any additional comment or information at all.
That worried me, if only slightly. But likely Seivarden was right—why do anything else? When she stepped off the ship there would be time and opportunity enough to address her legal troubles.
Still. It was possible Radch authorities had realized I wasn’t actually a citizen of the Gerentate. It was unlikely—the Gerentate was a long, long way from where I was going, and besides, despite fairly friendly—or at least, not openly antagonistic—relations between the Gerentate and the Radch, as a matter of policy the Gerentate didn’t supply any information at all about its residents—not to the Radch. If the Radch asked—and they wouldn’t—the Gerentate would neither confirm nor deny that I was one of its citizens. Had I been departing from the Gerentate for Radchaai space I would have been warned repeatedly that I traveled at my own risk and would receive no assistance if I found myself in difficulties. But the Radchaai officials who dealt with foreign travelers knew this already, and would be prepared to take my identification more or less at face value.
Anaander Mianaai’s thirteen palaces were the capitals of their provinces. Metropolis-size stations, each one half ordinary large Radchaai station—with accompanying station AI—and half palace proper. Each palace proper was the residence of Anaander Mianaai, and the seat of provincial administration. Omaugh Palace wouldn’t be any sort of quiet backwater. A dozen gates led to its system, and hundreds of ships came and went each day. Seivarden would be one of thousands of citizens seeking audience, or making an appeal in some legal case. A noticeable one, certainly—none of those other citizens were returned from a thousand years in suspension.