And of course her brother Danach was there to see her discomfiture, half lying in a broad armchair. Danach had always been the best-looking of Netano’s children, tall and wide-bodied, his face broad-featured; his hair, which easily grew long, was thick and dark and tightly curled. He always carried himself with a sort of insolent ease that his good looks somehow made charming to everyone but Ingray.
“Ingray!” exclaimed Netano. “Where have you been all these weeks? Your nuncle has been asking after you.”
“Just traveling, Mama.” Danach gave a short laugh but didn’t say anything more. Ingray hoped her anxiety over Garal standing behind her would only show as embarrassment at being seen like this, dripping wet in front of guests in the formal reception room.
“On a wander, eh?” asked the Omkem woman. “I remember my own wander! What an adventure that was. I was much younger then, of course, and thought nothing of sleeping in whatever corner I could find, or taking any sort of horrible odd job for a week or two to earn my fare on some tiny cargo ship. These days I fear it wouldn’t be half so charming.” She smiled. “But I’m so glad I did, even if it took me a month or more to recover afterward. But so much worth it, yes! I went all the way to Nilt, you know. I was determined to see the famous bridges! They are even more astonishing in person than in recordings. I’ll never forget it, as long as I live. That was the one place I brought something back from—you know, my dear, how lightly one travels on a wander! But the nomads there, who follow the bov herds, they make the most beautiful patterned rugs and blankets, all hand-spun and hand-woven, in the most delicate colors. I couldn’t resist buying one, even though it meant working an extra week to get passage away.”
Her companion, at her feet, seemed to look vaguely off into the middle distance. As the woman spoke, his gaze changed focus to somewhere immediately in front of himself, and he blinked but said nothing. He must have been some relation to the woman—some of the Omkem had some strange ideas about families, and couldn’t speak the names of certain relatives, or even address them directly. The Omkem Federacy was a multisystem power—or they had been until recently—and sometimes seemed a bit condescending about what they considered Hwae’s lack of culture and polish, along with the Assemblies’ mere one planet and a few stations. But the family of Omkem tourists, none of whom could speak to each other, was a venerable and still-reliable way to get laughs out of a Hwaean audience.
“But think how fortunate you are, my dear,” continued the woman, apparently ignoring her companion entirely, “you don’t have to travel far to see such wonders! People come from all over space to see what’s dull everyday to you.”
“Yes, excellency,” Ingray agreed, though in her experience it was mostly the Omkem who were so fascinated by the glass. “Though I wouldn’t say dull. Have you come to see our ruin glass then?”
“More than see,” said Netano. “They’re applying for permission to dig up the glass in the Eswae Parkland.”
“All of it?” For a moment Ingray was at a loss. She knew that visitors from the Omkem Federacy would often pay good money for large pieces of ruin glass, and would spend as much or more shipping it back home. But there were other places to find glass that weren’t in a district nature preserve. There was little difference between the chunks of glass there and the ones anywhere else. “All at once?”
“Not all at once, of course,” said the Omkem woman with a condescending smile. “We’re really looking for information, not just glass. It’s a very specific thing we hope to find, and we think we know where to find it, but we will have to do quite a lot of digging.”
“I’m so very interested to hear about it,” said Ingray, suppressing a shiver. “And so very glad to have met you. Mama, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to make the staff very unhappy, dripping on the floor like this.” She heard Danach laugh again, briefly, but didn’t turn her head to look at him. Decided, all things considered, that she might play up her sorry state, just a bit. “It was a long, wet walk from the transport hub.”
“Are you just come down the elevator from the station, then?” asked the Omkem man. “Did you see the Geck?”
“I was halfway down before I heard the news they were in the system,” Ingray lied. “But I don’t imagine there’ll be much to see. I don’t think they like leaving their ship any more than they like leaving their homeworld.”
“What times we live in!” exclaimed the man. “Who would have thought we would ever see any of this, eh? The Radch in chaos, yet another treaty conclave—and such a conclave! I remember the uproar when the Rrrrrr were first discovered, what was it, thirty, thirty-five years ago now. Or is it closer to forty? But this, well, this is something else, isn’t it.” As he spoke the Omkem woman stared off in the other direction, as though he were not there and she did not hear him. Her lips slightly pursed, as though if she did hear, she disapproved and wished he had kept silent.
“The Geck went through Tyr Siilas back then, too,” said Netano. “But they didn’t come here. I can’t even imagine why they would come here, but they must have some reason.” She turned to Ingray. “Ingray, dear, go get dried off.” Her gaze flicked over Ingray’s shoulder, and then back. “Our guests are staying with us for the next few days, and there are no empty rooms. Your … friend will have to stay with you.”
No hint of disapproval in her mother’s voice, but Ingray had navigated Netano’s moods before and knew it was there. Even not slouched and staring down, Garal wasn’t terribly prepossessing. But that suited Ingray just now; it meant, she was fairly sure, that Netano had not noted eir similarity to Pahlad, or thought much more about em than that e was bedraggled and badly dressed. Ingray said, soberly, “Yes, Mama.” She gave a brief nod toward Netano and her guests—none at all for Danach—and turned and left the room, Garal (she trusted) trailing behind her.