“Or ‘tactful,’” Tseya said, her smile sudden and merry. “I can tell you don’t approve of the decor, so why don’t we get you settled in? One of the servitors can take your duffel bag.”
Brezan would have preferred to hold on to it, but he had no polite way to demur. He handed the bag over. The servitor said, “It is our honor to serve.” He almost jumped, having forgotten that Andan servitors sometimes spoke.
The silkmoth’s hallways weren’t straight, or even curved in a sensible way. Rather, they meandered. Brezan was convinced that Tseya was taking the scenic route. It stood to reason that even a moth this small could have variable layout if it had a state-of-the-art power core, but why would you make the interior less efficient on purpose?
“We’ll be consolidating the gardens for the trip to conserve power,” Tseya said, confirming his suspicion. “Not one for flowers and calligraphy scrolls, are you?” She had paused next to a scroll that was artfully draped over a tree’s low-hanging branch. Brezan was afraid it would blow away, even though there was no wind.
If this had been a glancing encounter at some official function, he could have entertained her by trying to lie his way out of this, but as it stood... “It’s good calligraphy,” Brezan said. “If you expect me to be able to identify the style, though, you’re looking at the wrong Kel.”
“At least you know there are different styles,” Tseya said, smiling. “I daresay a lot of my people can’t tell a dagger from a toothpick.”
“No, that’s us,” Brezan said, deadpan. “I’m fairly sure I’ve never heard of toothpicks.”
“I think we’re going to get along, General.”
They rounded a bend that featured, among other things, a clear, bright pond with the biggest carp Brezan had ever seen. He hoped like fuck that the carp were an illusion because what did they eat? What if they got hungry? Could they leap out of the pond and attack passers-by?
A tiny, tidy arch bridge with the factions’ emblems carved into the rails spanned the pond. Tseya stepped onto the bridge without any sign that the scene bothered her. After a moment, Brezan followed, giving the carp a last nervous look.
Tseya had noticed, not that he had made any effort to hide his reaction. “You think this is extravagant, don’t you? Personally, I find the meditations for the remembrances much more pleasant when I can do them in beautiful surroundings.” Moth personnel were exempt from observing the remembrances while in transit, but some people insisted anyway.
Brezan considered this. “I suppose I could get the grid to image me something pretty,” he said, “but I can’t see why I would want to. It would be too distracting.”
“And blank walls aren’t distracting?”
Had they just passed a waterbird with wise eyes? “I’m used to them,” Brezan said. He’d been raised on a station that didn’t believe in pretending to be a miniature planet. It had had parks, but none as lavish as this garden.
“Suit yourself.”
Thankfully, they soon arrived at his assigned quarters. Small potted trees stood to either side of the door. Brezan had expected to be deposited in some small, soothing, out-of-the-way room. He hadn’t reckoned on Andan notions of ‘small’ or ‘out-of-the-way.’
The room was a suite like the one General Khiruev had had on the Hierarchy of Feasts, and which that prick Jedao would have kicked her out of. Brezan hoped this suite wasn’t bigger, but it sure as hell looked like it. For guests of state, he assumed. Thoughtfully, Tseya had decorated the receiving room with an ink painting of an ashhawk clutching arrows in its talons. General Andan Zhe Navo, who had served with such distinction among the Kel, was supposed to have been an archer as well as everything else. Not a subtle reminder, but it didn’t bother him.
The servitor discreetly set his duffel bag down, then withdrew. Tseya paid it no heed. “I’ll give you an hour to settle in,” Tseya said, as if the walk had been strenuous. “Join me for lunch when you’re ready. One of the servitors will be on call in case. Failing that, you can’t go wrong by following the yellow flowers.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said. He’d noticed the flowers and their different colors, but he hadn’t realized that they were functional as well as decorative. A neat alternative to hanging signs, unless you had one of those rare incurable allergies.
“Oh, and we have every sort of tea you might want to relax with. I mean it. The grid will tell you. Get me to talk you through the alcohol if that’s what you’re after, though. One of my cousins stocked the Orchid and their taste in wines is a little abstruse.”
“I’ll keep that in mind, too,” Brezan said, although his taste in alcohol ran to the stuff you drank primarily to get drunk, and which could hardly be described as ‘abstruse.’
Tseya regarded him questioningly, then murmured an excuse and left. When the door closed, Brezan slumped in relief for all of six seconds. Then he looked around at the wasteful expanse of the receiving room, at the beautifully executed painting. The brushstrokes were neither too loose nor too controlled, which he had found out during calligraphy lessons was harder than it looked. He had a quiet few moments of panic. Any second now a real general was going to show up and kick him out.
Shut up, Brezan told his brain. Kel Command was unpredictable, but they didn’t pull this kind of stunt for laughs. Besides, he couldn’t afford to lose his head. He had to help rescue General Khiruev and the swarm from Jedao.
He spent about twelve minutes unpacking and arranging his belongings. What was he supposed to fill all this space with? Some officers hauled lots of personal items around with them. General Khiruev’s collection of gewgaws. Commander Janaia’s octopus figurines. (She refused to explain why octopuses.) Major-analyst Shuos Igradna’s flutes, most of which weren’t in tune with each other, or possibly anything. For his part, Brezan had left most of his belongings with his parents. He wasn’t sure why he had wanted to split his life in two. The partition had seemed very important when he was young, and then he had never grown out of the habit.
Ruefully, Brezan looked at the one item he had put on the largest table in a vain attempt to make it look less empty. His twin sisters Miuzan and Ganazan had given it to him when he graduated Kel Academy: a miniature orrery. A beautiful piece of work, he had to admit—silver-gold circles and gleaming gears and spinning jeweled planets. When he watched it too long, he could almost hear it singing. All the moons exhibited a shadowfall of feathers, an endless ashen drift. The orrery didn’t correspond to any system any mothgrid he had accessed would admit to. The twins professed ignorance of the matter; he tended to believe them. In his gloomier moments, Brezan thought that the orrery represented some quiet procession of worlds and moons untouched by the hexarchate’s rot—except there was that endless shadowfall, the touch of ashhawk conquest.
He reached for the orrery, then decided to leave it alone. In the meantime, if he was going to rattle around here, he might as well distract himself by considering clothing options. He had taken a protocol class in academy like everyone else, but he’d forgotten most of it. The refresher had been more confusing than anything else.
Brezan sorted through his civilian clothes several times, then shook his head. Fuck it, he’d stick to the uniform. It was, if not necessarily the best option, at least not incorrect. So what if she thought it was boring? If she disdained his attire, he could console himself that he hadn’t designed the damn thing. On impulse, however, he put on two of his rings so that he didn’t feel so damn stiff.
He sat and kicked at the floor, wishing he didn’t feel so intimidated. Dealing with another Kel officer would have been one thing. There he knew what to do. But here? Tseya was running the operation, and she wouldn’t consider him reliable if he was scared off by a show of (say) fancy cutlery.