“It would not be what it is without the people who work here,” I answered. She acknowledged that with a small, ironic gesture. “I think,” I said, “that you were too young to have been one of the leaders of those strikes on the tea plantations, twenty years ago.” The word for “strike” existed in Radchaai, but it was very old, and obscure. I used a Liost term I’d learned from Station last night. The Samirend that had been brought to Athoek had spoken Liost, sometimes still did. This person was Samirend, I’d learned enough from Station to know that. And learned enough from Citizen Fosyf to know that Samirend overseers had been involved in those strikes. “You’d have been, maybe, sixteen? Seventeen? If you’d been important, you’d be dead now, or in some other system entirely, where you didn’t have the sort of social network that would let you cause trouble.” Her expression became fixed, and she breathed, very carefully, through her mouth. “They were lenient on account of your youth and your marginal position, but they made sure to make some sort of an example of you.” Unjust, as I’d guessed yesterday.

She didn’t answer at first. Her distress was too strong, but it told me I’d been right. Her reeducation would have made the contemplation of certain actions strongly, viscerally unpleasant for her, and I’d reminded her directly of exactly the events that had brought her through Security. And of course any Radchaai found the bare mention of reeducation deeply distasteful. “If the fleet captain’s remarks are complete,” she said finally, tense but just a bit fainter than her usual tone, “I have work to do.”

“Of course. I apologize.” She blinked, surprised, I thought. “You’re trimming dead leaves from the lilies?”

“And dead flowers.” She bent, reached under the water, pulled up a slimy, withered stem.

“How deep is the lake?” She looked at me, looked down at the water she was standing in. Up again at me. “Yes,” I agreed, “I can see how deep it is here. Is it all the same?”

“About two meters at its deepest.” Her voice had steadied, she had recovered her earlier composure, it seemed.

“Are there partitions under the water?”

“There are not.” As though to confirm her words, a purple and green fish swam into the lily-free space where she was standing, a broad, bright-scaled thing that must have been nearly three quarters of a meter long. It hung under the water, seeming to look up at us, gaping. “I don’t have anything,” she said to the fish, and held her sodden-gloved hands out. “Go wait by the bridge, someone will come. They always do.” The fish only gaped and gaped again. “Look, here they come now.”