“Something’s bothering you,” Seivarden observed, casually. I didn’t answer, and she said, “You always hum that tune when you’re preoccupied.”
My heart is a fish, hiding in the water-grass. I had been thinking of all the ways things could go wrong, starting now, starting the moment I stepped off the ship and confronted the dock inspectors. Or Station Security. Or worse. Thinking of how everything I had done would be for nothing if I was arrested before I could even leave the docks.
And I had been thinking about Lieutenant Awn. “I’m so transparent?” I made myself smile, as though I were mildly amused.
“Not transparent. Not exactly. Just…” She hesitated. Frowned slightly, as though she’d suddenly regretted speaking. “You have a few habits I’ve noticed, that’s all.” She sighed. “Are the dock inspectors having tea? Or just waiting till we’ve aged sufficiently?” We couldn’t leave the ship without the permission of the Inspector’s Office. The inspector would have received our credentials when the ship requested permission to dock, and had plenty of time to look over them and decide what to do when we arrived.
Still leaning against the bulkhead, Seivarden closed her eyes and began to hum. Wobbling, pitch sinking or rising by turns as she mis-sang intervals. But still recognizable. My heart is a fish. “Aatr’s tits,” she swore after a verse and a half, eyes still closed. “Now you’ve got me doing it.”
The door chime sounded. “Enter,” I said. Seivarden opened her eyes, sat straight. Suddenly tense. The boredom had been a pose, I suspected.
The door slid open to reveal a person in the dark-blue jacket, gloves, and trousers of a dock inspector. She was slight, and young, maybe twenty-three or -four. She looked familiar, though I couldn’t think who it was she reminded me of. The sparser-than-usual scatter of jewelry and memorial pins might tell me, if I stared closely enough to read names. Which would be rude. Across from me, Seivarden tucked her bare hands behind her back.
“Honored Breq,” the inspector adjunct said, with a slight bow. She seemed unfazed by my own bare hands. Used to dealing with foreigners, I supposed. “Citizen Seivarden. Would you please accompany me to the inspector supervisor’s office?”
And there should have been no need for us to visit the inspector supervisor herself. This adjunct could pass us onto the station on her own authority. Or order our arrest.
We followed her past the lock into the loading bay, past another lock into a corridor busy with people—dock inspectors in dark blue, Station Security in light brown, here and there the darker brown of soldiers, and spots of brighter color—a scatter of non-uniformed citizens. This corridor opened into a wide room, a dozen gods along the walls to watch over travelers and traders, on one end the entrance to the station proper, and opposite, the doorway into the inspector’s office.
The adjunct escorted us through the outermost office, where nine blue-uniformed minor adjuncts dealt with complaining ship captains, and beyond them were offices for likely a dozen major adjuncts and their crews. Past those and into an inner office, with four chairs and a small table, and a door at the back, closed.
“I am sorry, cit… honored, and citizen,” said the adjunct who had led us here, fingers twitching as she communicated with someone—likely the station AI, or the inspector supervisor herself. “The inspector supervisor was available, but something’s come up. I’m sure it won’t be more than a few minutes. Please have a seat. Will you have tea?”
A reasonably long wait, then. And the courtesy of tea implied this wasn’t an arrest. That no one had discovered my credentials were forged. Everyone here—including Station—would assume I was what I said I was, a foreign traveler. And possibly I would have a chance to discover just who this young inspector adjunct reminded me of. Now she’d spoken at a bit more length, I noticed a slight accent. Where was she from? “Yes, thank you,” I said.
Seivarden didn’t respond to the offer of tea right away. Her arms were folded, her bare hands tucked under her elbows. She likely wanted the tea but was embarrassed about her ungloved hands, couldn’t hide them holding a bowl. Or so I thought until she said, “I can’t understand a word she’s saying.”
Seivarden’s accent and way of speaking would be familiar to most educated Radchaai, from old entertainments and the way Anaander Mianaai’s speech was widely emulated by prestigious—or hopefully prestigious—families. I hadn’t thought changes in pronunciation and vocabulary had been so extreme. But I’d lived through them, and Seivarden’s ear for language had never been the sharpest. “She’s offering tea.”