On Athoek, in the mountains, Captain Hetnys stopped pacing, took her own lunch to the table. Sirix, on the bench out on the terrace, seemed not even to notice. One of the servants walked by her, paused, said something quick and quiet that I couldn’t quite catch, or perhaps she’d spoken in Liost. Sirix looked up at her, serious, and said quite clearly in Radchaai, “I’m just an adviser, Citizen.” Not even a trace of rancor. Odd, after her unhappiness that morning, that indignant sense of injustice.

Above, in the tea shop on Athoek Station, someone said, “Now that Captain Hetnys and that really quite frightening fleet captain are downwell, it’s up to Tisarwat to protect us from the Presger!”

“Not a chance,” replied Tisarwat. “If the Presger decide to attack us there’s nothing we can do. But I think it’s going to be a long time before the Presger ever get to us.” Word of the split in the Lord of the Radch had not yet gotten out, and problems with the gates were still officially “unanticipated difficulties.” Somewhat predictably, those who didn’t merely accept that found the idea of alien interference to be a more plausible explanation. “We’ll be fine.”

“But cut off like this,” someone began.

Citizen Piat said, “We’re fine. Even if we were to be cut off from the planet”—and someone muttered a gods forbid—“we’d be fine here. We can feed ourselves, anyway.”

“Or if not,” said someone else, “we can grow skel in the lake in the Gardens.”

Someone else laughed. “It would take that horticulturist down a peg or two! You should see to it, Piat.”

Tisarwat had learned a thing or two from her Bos. She kept her face—and her voice—impressively bland. “What horticulturist is this?”

“What’s her name, Basnaaid?” said the person who had laughed. “She’s a nobody, really. But, you know, an Awer from Omaugh Palace came and offered her clientage and she refused—she’s got no family, really, and she isn’t much to look at, but still, she was too good for Awer!”

Piat was sitting on one side of Tisarwat, and on the other was someone Ship told me was Skaaiat Awer’s cousin—though not, herself, an Awer. Tisarwat had invited her; she wasn’t usually a part of this group. “Skaaiat didn’t take offense,” the cousin said now. And smiled, almost taking the edge off her tone.

“Well, no, of course she didn’t. But it can’t possibly be proper to refuse such an offer. It just tells you what sort of person the horticulturist is.”

“Indeed it does,” agreed Skaaiat’s cousin.

“She’s good at what she does,” said Piat, in a sudden rush, as though she’d spent the last few moments nerving herself to say it. “She should be proud.”