“Important to the Athoeki, or just the Xhai? And it is, somehow, connected to this story about the Athoeki who had penises pretending to cut them off?”

“A misunderstanding, Fleet Captain,” said Governor Giarod. “The Genitalia Festival is much older than the annexation. The Athoeki, particularly the Xhai, are a very spiritual people. So much is metaphor, an inadequately material way to speak of immaterial things. If you have any interest in the spiritual, Fleet Captain, I do encourage you to become an initiate.”

“I greatly fear,” Citizen Fosyf said before I could answer, “that the fleet captain’s interests are musical rather than spiritual. She’s only interested if there’s singing.” Quite rudely presumptuous. But true enough.

Under the table a tiny, bare hand clutched my trouser leg—whoever was there had lost patience with the governor’s absorption in the conversation and had decided to try her luck with me. She wasn’t much more than a year old, and was, as far as I could see, completely naked. I offered her a piece of dredgefruit—clearly a favorite—and she took it with one sticky hand, put it in her mouth, and chewed with frowning absorption, leaning against my leg. “Citizen Fosyf tells me the workers on her estate sing a great deal,” I remarked.

“Oh, yes!” agreed Station Administrator Celar. “In the past they were mostly Samirend transportees, but these days they’re all Valskaayans.”

That struck me as odd. “All your field workers are Valskaayan?” I slipped another piece of dredgefruit under the table. Kalr Five would have reason to complain about the sticky handprints on my trousers. But Radchaai generally indulged small children greatly, and there would be no real resentment.

“Samir was annexed some time ago, Fleet Captain,” said Fosyf. “All the Samirend are more or less entirely civilized now.”

“More or less,” muttered Captain Hetnys, beside me.

“I’m quite familiar with Valskaayan music,” I confessed, ignoring her. “Are these Delsig-speakers?”

Fosyf frowned. “Well, of course, Fleet Captain. They don’t speak much Radchaai, that’s for certain.”

Valskaay had an entire temperate, habitable planet, not to mention dozens of stations and moons. Delsig had been the language a Valskaayan would have needed to speak if she wanted to do much business beyond her own home, but it was by no means certain that any Valskaayan would speak it. “Have they retained their choral tradition?”

“Some, Fleet Captain,” Celar replied. “They also improvise a bass or a descant to songs they’ve learned since they arrived. Drones, parallels, you know the sort of thing, very primitive. But not terribly interesting.”

“Because it’s not authentic?” I guessed.

“Just so,” agreed Station Administrator Celar.

“I have, personally, very little concern for authenticity.”

“Wide-ranging taste, as you said,” Station Administrator Celar said, with a smile.