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The Presger didn’t care if a species was sentient or not, conscious or not, intelligent or not. The word they used—or the concept, at any rate, as I understood they didn’t speak in words—was usually translated as significance. And only the Presger were significant. All other beings were their rightful prey, property, or playthings. Mostly they just didn’t care about humans, but some of them liked to stop ships and pull them—and their contents—apart.
“I’d prefer the Radch not make binding promises on behalf of all humanity,” Strigan answered. “Not dictate policy for every single human government and t...
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“The Presger don’t recognize such divisions. It w...
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“It was the Radch extending control yet another way, one cheaper and easier t...
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“It might surprise you to learn that some high-ranking Radchaai dislike the tr...
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“And you?” She stood beside the chair, her cup and bowl in her hands. “You’re certainly Radchaai. Your accent, when you speak Radchaai”—we were speaking her own native language—“sounds like you’re from the Gerentate. But you have almost no accent right now. You might just be very good with languages—inhumanly good, I might even say—” She paused. “The gender thing is a giveaway, though. Only a Radchaai would misgender people the way you do.”
I’d guessed wrong. “I can’t see under your clothes. And even if I could, that’s not always a reliable indicator.”
When most people spoke of the Radch they meant all of Radchaai territory, but in truth the Radch was a single location, a Dyson sphere, enclosed, self-contained.
“Which is why you so vehemently protested the execution of the people who endangered the citizens in Ors.” Anaander Mianaai’s tone was dry, and sardonic.
“They were my responsibility, lord. And as I said at the time, they were under control, we could have held them until reinforcements arrived, very easily. You are the ultimate authority, and of course your orders must be obeyed, but I didn’t understand why those people had to die. I still don’t understand why they had to die right then.” A half-second pause. “I don’t need to understand why. I’m here to follow your orders. But I…” She paused again. Swallowed. “My lord, if you suspect anything of me, any wrongdoing or disloyalty, I beg you, have me interrogated when we reach Valskaay.”
The autocrat's playbook never changes, does it?
“I have never met anyone from the Gerentate before,” said Station. I had, of course, been depending on that. “I suppose your misapprehension is understandable. Foreigners often don’t understand what the Radchaai are really like.”
“Do you realize what you’ve just said? Literally that the uncivilized don’t understand civilization? Do you realize that quite a lot of people outside Radch space consider themselves to be civilized?” The sentence was nearly impossible in Radchaai, a self-contradiction.
People like Captain Vel love pointing out the atrocities that human troops have committed, that ancillaries never would. As though making those ancillaries was not an atrocity in itself.
Captain Vel’s sort certainly doesn’t approve of all the talking with aliens we’ve been doing. The Radch has always stood for civilization, and civilization has always meant pure, uncorrupted humanity. Actually dealing with nonhumans instead of just killing them can’t be good for us.”
The noblest, most well-intentioned people in the world can’t make annexations a good thing.
Arguing that ancillaries are efficient and convenient is not, to me, a point in favor of using ancillaries. It doesn’t make it better, it only makes it look a little cleaner.”
And that only if you ignored what ancillaries wer...
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None of this distracted Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat. “And just who, Captain, is the enemy?”
“You!” Captain Vel answered, vehement and bitter. “And everyone like you who aids and encourages what’s happened to us in the last five hundred years. Five hundred years of alien infiltration and corruption.” The word she used was a close cousin of the one the Lord of the Radch had used to describe my pollution of temple offerings. Captain Vel turned to me again. “You’re confused, but you were made by Anaander Mianaai to serve Anaander Mianaai. Not her enemies.”
“There is no way to serve Anaander Mianaai without serving her enemy,” I said. “Senior Security, Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat has seen to the docks. You secure any airlocks you can reach. We need to be certain no one leaves this st...
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