“It’s all right,” called an unfamiliar voice from behind her, in the next room. “I’m all grown up, I’m not going to eat anyone!” The accent was an odd one, half well-educated Radchaai and half something else I couldn’t place, nothing like the accents I’d heard here so far.

“Sir,” Kalr Five said again. “Translator Dlique.” She stumbled slightly over the oddness of the name.

“Translator?” No one had mentioned that anyone from the Translators Office was in the system, and there was no reason why anyone should be. I queried Ship and saw its memory of Kalr Five opening the door to a person in the loose, bright shirt and trousers people in the Undergarden wore—gloved, though, plain, stiff gray. No jewelry. No mention of a house name or of the division of the Translators Office she worked for, no hint of family affiliation or rank. I blinked the vision away. Rose. “Send her in.”

Five stood aside, and Translator Dlique entered, smiling broadly. “Fleet Captain! How glad I am to see you. The governor’s residence is terribly boring. I’d much rather have stayed on my ship, but they said there was a hull breach and if I stayed I wouldn’t be able to breathe. I don’t know, it doesn’t seem like much, does it? Breathing?” She took a deep breath, gestured irritated indecision. “Air! It’s just stupid, really. I’d as soon do without, but they insisted.”

“Translator.” I didn’t bow, as she had not. And a horrible suspicion occurred. “It would appear you have the advantage of me.”

She drew her shoulders up, her eyes widening in astonishment. “Me! The advantage! You’re the one with all the soldiers.”

The suspicion was growing into a certainty. This person certainly wasn’t Radchaai. Translator for one of the aliens the Radch dealt with, then. But not for the Geck or the Rrrrrr—I’d met translators for the Geck before, and I knew something about the humans who translated for the Rrrrrr, and this person didn’t seem to be either sort. And that odd accent. “I mean,” I said, “that you appear to know who I am, but I don’t know who you are.”

She outright laughed. “Well, of course I know who you are. Everyone is talking about you. Well, not to me. I’m not supposed to know you’re here. I’m not supposed to leave the governor’s residence, either. But I don’t like being bored.”