I peeled off my gloves. Blood had soaked through them, my hands were sticky with it. I stepped quickly over to Captain Hetnys faster than she could back away and grabbed her uniform jacket with my bloody hands. Dragged her stumbling over to where Translator Dlique lay, the two medics scrambling out of our way, and before Captain Hetnys could regain her balance or resist, I threw her down onto the corpse. I turned to Kalr Eight. “Fetch a priest,” I said to her. “Whoever you find who’s qualified to do purifications and funerals. If she says she won’t come to the Undergarden, inform her that she may come willingly or not, but she will come regardless.”

“Sir,” Eight acknowledged, and departed.

Captain Hetnys had meanwhile managed to get to her feet, with the assistance of one of her ancillaries.

“How did this happen, Captain? I said not to use violence against citizens unless it was absolutely necessary.” Translator Dlique wasn’t a citizen, but Sword of Atagaris couldn’t have known it was the translator they were shooting at.

“Sir,” said Captain Hetnys. Voice shaking either with rage at what I’d just done, or distress generally. “Sword of Atagaris queried Station, and it said it had no knowledge of this person and there was no tracker. She was not, therefore, a citizen.”

“So that made it fine to shoot her, did it?” I asked. But of course, I myself had followed exactly that logic on a nearly uncountable number of occasions. It was such compelling logic, to someone like Sword of Atagaris—to someone like me—that it had never occurred to me that Sword of Atagaris would even think of firing guns here, on a station full of citizens, a station that had been part of the Radch for centuries.

It should have occurred to me. I was responsible for everything that happened under my command.

“Fleet Captain,” replied Captain Hetnys, indignant and not trying as hard as she might have to hide it. “Unauthorized persons pose a danger to—”

“This,” I said, each word deliberate, emphatic, “is Presger Translator Dlique.”

“Fleet Captain,” said Station, in my ear. I had left the connection to Station open, so it had heard what I had said. “With all respect, you are mistaken. Translator Dlique is still in her rooms in the governor’s residence.”