“If I go into full, traditional mourning,” Governor Giarod pointed out, when that was finished, and Captain Hetnys and I were dressed in clean clothes, “I won’t be able to go into my office for two weeks. The same goes for the rest of Administration. I agree, though, Fleet Captain, someone should.” As the rite had gone on, she had lost the harried expression she’d arrived with, and now seemed quite calm.

“Yes,” I agreed, “you’ll all have to be lesser cousins. Captain Hetnys and I will act as immediate family.” Captain Hetnys looked none too pleased about that but was not in any position to protest. I dispatched Kalr Five to bring a razor so that Captain Hetnys and I could shave our heads for the funeral, and also to see a jeweler about memorial tokens.

“Now,” I said to Governor Giarod, when Five was away and I’d sent Captain Hetnys to my quarters to prepare for the fast, “I need to know about Translator Dlique.”

“Fleet Captain, I hardly think this is the best place…”

“I can’t go to your office as I am.” Not so obviously just after a death that put me in full mourning, when I should be fasting at home. The impropriety would be obvious, and this funeral had to be absolutely, utterly proper. “And there’s no one near.” The tea seller was inside her shop, out of view. The priests had fled as soon as they thought they could. The Sword of Atagaris ancillaries had left the Undergarden at my order. My two Mercy of Kalrs, standing nearby, didn’t count. “And keeping things secret hasn’t been a very good choice so far.”

Governor Giarod gestured rueful resignation. “She arrived with the first wave of rerouted ships.” The ships that neighboring systems had sent here either in the hope that they could find a different route to their original destinations, now the gates they needed to traverse were down, or because their own facilities were overwhelmed. “Just her, in a tiny little one-person courier barely the size of a shuttle. I’m not sure how it could even carry as much air as she needed for the trip she said she was making. And the timing was just…” She gestured her frustration. “I couldn’t send to the palace for advice. I cast omens. Privately. The results were disturbing.”

“Of course.” No Radchaai was immune to the suspicion of coincidence. Nothing happened by pure accident, no matter how small. Every event, therefore, was potentially a sign of God’s intentions. Unusual coincidences could only be a particularly pointed divine message. “I understand your apprehension. I even, to a certain extent, understand your wanting to confine the translator and conceal her presence from most station residents. None of that troubles me. What does trouble me is your failure to mention this alarming and potentially dangerous situation to me.”