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[…]
And no, Mahit, we most certainly don't have beetles of any sort that big here. I'm fairly sure the agricultural management systems do not rely on creatures with overly large mandibles for pest control. And I'm now also certain that if I ever visit Ixolen I'll avoid tours of the local fruit plantations.
As for the Ministry, I did receive a promotion, just not the standard sort. It's more lateral than vertical. Less bureaucracy and more fieldwork. It should be interesting. At least I hope so. Lately I've been reminiscing about Peloa-2, which is a terrible sign considering how hot and how nauseating it was. But after everything we accomplished in the City and on Weight of the Wheel, the world sometimes seems small, like a star chart that's squeezed a whole sector onto a single page, billions of lives compacted into a single dot on a sheet of infofiche.
Reed
***
Reed,
I'm less bothered by the large (very large) beetles (you're not likely to see them unless you take a shuttle out to the archipelago's outer islands) than by the sheer inefficiency of the groves themselves. The hydroponic bays on Lsel are designed to use every bit of space, both vertical and horizonal to maximize efficiency. The environment and nutrient fluid are all tightly controlled to ensure predictable yields. The open-air agriculture they practice on Ixolen—even aided by predictive algorithms—seems like a form of gambling: a single weather event can significantly damage yields. And a good season can lead to excess and wastage. It's staggeringly inefficient. But so is nearly everything on a planet. There's so much of everything—so much water, so much sky, so much space.
So what is the new job precisely? Is it classified or were you being oblique for dramatic effect like in those political romances by Pseudo-Five Damask you had me reading? Her Brilliance didn't make you an ezuazuacat, did she?
Mahit
***
Reed,
That promotion really must be keeping you busy. This is the longest stretch we've gone between letters. I do hope the work's interesting; I know the sort of trouble you get into when you're bored. As for things here on Ixolen, […]
***
Reed,
Is everything all right? It's been three weeks. I'm starting to wonder if there's been a disruption in the off-world mail delivery. Please just let me know that you're well.
Mahit
—private letters from former Lsel Ambassador Mahit Dzmare to asekreta Three Seagrass.
***
The sky—still a strange, changeable beast to Mahit's Stationer eyes—was a leaden grey when she descended the steps of the local trade offices where she'd been trapped in meetings. It was a relief to finally be leaving the place. She'd been distracted all afternoon, her fingers darting into her jacket pocket to finger the infofiche stick tucked away there, sealed in red and marked with a starfield that flagged it as off-world communication. The nearest Information Ministry mail kiosk was only half a block away but she hadn't had time to head there before her meetings.
It had been nearly a month since Three Seagrass's last letter. And after a year of receiving a letter or two every week, the sudden silence worried Mahit. If it had been gradual—longer and longer periods between letters—she might have told herself that Three Seagrass had finally grown bored of having a barbarian friend and was slowly moving on to more fruitful endeavours—and people. But nothing in their exchanges had suggested waning interest, and given that it was Three Seagrass and that she seemed to have a propensity for insinuating herself into perilous situations…
Mahit found herself fidgeting with the infofiche stick again. She had a few bureaucratic contacts in the City thanks to her current position as an off-world trade negotiator. The message was a simple request to ascertain Three Seagrass's status, a confirmation that she was still the Second-Undersecretary to the Ministry of Information. If her position had changed or her status was marked as 'inactive' Mahit would know something was amiss. And then she would need to decide what to do about it.
When, for an instant, she mistook a slight woman crossing the street for Three Seagrass, she knew for certain she was distracted.
<Distracted,> Yskandr scoffed. <There's a fine understatement.>
You know what the City's like better than anyone. I have good reason to be concerned.
But then the woman was moving directly towards her at a fast clip, too fast for Teixcalaanli decorum, even on a colony like Ixolen. And the closer she got, the more Mahit began to wonder if she was finally suffering the neurological episode she'd long been expecting. "Reed?" The word came out incredulous. Her regular queue had been loosed and her hair fell like a black veil around her shoulders. Gone was her cream and flame Information Ministry suit, replaced by grey trousers and tan jacket, as inconspicuous as paving stones. But those large, dark eyes and delicate cheekbones were unmistakeable, as was the intensity of her gaze as it fixed Mahit.
Three Seagrass didn't pause for courtesy rituals. Instead she pulled something from her jacket and shoved it into Mahit's hands. "Take this and put it on. We're in a great deal of personal danger."
Mahit stared down at what seemed to be a cloudhook and a bundle of infofiche. "Can you explain before I go ahead and break a minor law?" Using someone else's cloudhook was a minor infraction and she wasn't sure what the exact ramifications of using a cloudhook of unknown provenance was.
"Your new identification documentation is embedded in the cloudhook. I'm now Thirteen Reed. You're my wife Nine Orchid, and those documents are our travel itinerary for our lovely trip to Elnas-4, complete with a tour of traditional distilleries, local wildlife safari, and a guaranteed viewing of the triple moonrise."
Mahit stared. "I'm your—Nine Orchid?"
Reaching out, Three Seagrass placed her hands over Mahit's and pushed the bundle towards her. "Please, Mahit, trust me."
Mahit put on the cloudhook. The influx of information from the feeds sucked the air from her lungs like a hull breach. The axis of the world seemed to shift and only steadied when Three Seagrass gripped Mahit's arm to steady her.
"Mahit?"
"I'm all right. I just need a second to adjust to the feed."
Three Seagrass summoned a groundcar and Mahit waited until they were seated, windows kept opaque, before she spoke again. "Where are we going and for fuck's sake what's going on?"
"We need to get to the skyport and onto a shuttle out of here as soon as possible before one—or both of us—ends up suffering a sudden and tragic accident."
"What have you gotten yourself into, Reed?"
Three Seagrass held out her hands, fingers spread, in a Teixcalaanli show of nonchalance. "It isn't me, Mahit. It's you."
<Your friend isn't the only one who tends to attract unwanted attention.>
It didn't seem worth bothering to point out that Yskandr had attracted an early death by poisoning so instead she focussed on Three Seagrass. "I've been handling trade tariff negotiations for the past six months. I hardly think that's the sort of thing that makes one the target for political assassination so maybe you could start at the beginning."
Three Seagrass's eyes were flitting with the micro-movements used to manipulate the data feed on her cloudhook. "There isn't time for the beginning. As for the middle, I arrived here thirteen standard hours ago and I've spent approximately twelve of those hours navigating this planet's extremely inefficient bureaucracy to access location data on a certain person of interest." She held up her hands before Mahit could interject with more questions. "And for the moment I need you to memorize your identification details before we reach the skyport." Three Seagrass's fingers wrapped themselves around hers. "Mahit." Her voice was soft, a plea, and Mahit paused for a moment to really look at her. Her dark eyes were bloodshot and ringed with grey smudges. The unassuming jacket was a maze of wrinkles, deeply lined as if slept in. There was a slump to her shoulders that suggested exhaustion, just barely held at bay.
Mahit squeezed her slender fingers. "I'll memorize this. But I expect an explanation as soon as we're on a shuttle."
"Once we're on the shuttle you can have the beginning, middle, and end in any order you'd like."
#
The Ixolen skyport was much as Mahit remembered it from her arrival. The thud of freight shuttles loading and offloading cargo rumbled below the high dome while local shuttle traffic idled in the first docking ring and there, at the far end of the skyport, loomed the tunnels leading to off-world shuttles and seed-skiff launches.
Three Seagrass paused to check the arrival/departure holo for the correct terminal. Her posture was rigid, tense and Mahit very much wanted to know what immanent danger they were facing. She scanned their surroundings but the outbound commuters with typical Teixcalaanli expressionlessness and the muted colours favoured on Ixolen hardly had the air of political assassins as they shuffled onto shuttles bound for suburban communities on smaller islands. Though she wasn't certain what an assassin might look like on this remote colony. In the City assassins took the form of science ministers and guests at imperial galas. They had used poison at dinner or syringes poised for her return to her apartments--none of the disguise and subterfuge from popular espionage holo-dramas. But when her eyes turned away from the commuters she noticed a pair of figures coming from the direction of the freight shuttles. There was nothing distinctive about them—they didn't wear the grey of the Mist or military uniforms—just drab colours like everyone else—but their trajectory would put them between Three Seagrass and the tunnel to off-world launches.
"Reed," she said under her breath. "Don't turn. There are two people coming towards us from the left."
Mahit heard the catch of breath, saw Three Seagrass's jaw tighten. "They must have had someone waiting here in case you tried to leave." She glanced to her right where the clusters of evening commuters were pouring in and out of shuttles like the in-and-outflow of Lsel's water purification systems. And then Three Seagrass took Mahit's hand and broke into a sprint, tugging her along towards the nearest shuttle that had just finished disgorging its passengers. Ignoring the "Exit Only" sign they raced through the doors seconds before they slid shut behind them.
Mahit had a glimpse of the two figures, now running towards the commuter shuttles. "They're still coming."
At the far end of the shuttle, the cockpit doors opened. The man who emerged bore the emerald and brown rings on his sleeves that identified him as an official of the Ixolen Transportation Authority. He approached them, face politely expressionless, and bowed over his hands. "I regret that this shuttle has reached the terminus. The next outbound shuttle will arrive in a very few minutes. I am sorry for any inconvenience this may cause you."
<Being murdered is rather inconvenient,> Yskandr noted.
Once in an imago line is probably enough.
Three Seagrass folded her hands and bowed in return. "I am Three Seagrass, asekreta and Ministerial Associate. We require that you make an emergency takeoff."
He remained without expression, but his gaze swept over Three Seagrass's rumpled clothes. "We're not scheduled for a return trip for one standard hour."
"I'm sending you my credentials now." Her eyes darted with the rapid movements beneath her cloudhook. "I request that you take off immediately."
The pilot blinked several times as if he didn't quite believe the information his cloudhook was giving him. He bowed again. "Asekreta, my most profound apologies but the shuttle is meant to refuel at this station. We don't have enough to complete the route."
Mahit cast a glance over her shoulder. The figures—a man and a woman—were closing in on the commuter shuttle. "Do you have enough to reach the next station?"
The pilot's eyes darted to Mahit and then returned to Three Seagrass as if seeking confirmation. Three Seagrass gave a minute nod. "Yes. Enough for the next three stations but the safety systems will activate after that," he said.
"Then take off and head directly for this third station," Three Seagrass said. "When we land you can file a report with your transportation authority and receive confirmation from the Ministry of Information."
"Yes, asekreta," he replied and hurried back to the cockpit.
Mahit and Three Seagrass both turned to look out the windows to where their pursuers were closing in. Would the doors open for them? Did they lock? Mahit was about to ask when the shuttle's engines rumbled to life. Their pursuers were close enough that she could see their faces, the surprise just as the shuttle pushed forward away from the station and lifted off.
Relief washed over Three Seagrass and she sank onto the nearest padded bench. Mahit pulled off the cloudhook, freeing herself of the unceasing information feed, and sat next to her, shoulder to shoulder, thighs a parallel line of heat pressed together, and let Three Seagrass draw in several long, calming breaths before she spoke. It was strange to be in her presence, to have skin and warmth and endocrine response after a year of only words. Funny, thrilling, gorgeous words, but disembodied nonetheless. "You promised me an explanation. We should have close to an hour before we land."
Exhaustion was etched into Three Seagrass's face when she turned to look at Mahit, as if the ebbing of immediate danger had washed away with it all her remaining energy reserves. "Do you know Kajnat Echtu, the Lsel envoy who was sent to assist in the negotiations with the fungal hive mind?"
"I know of him. His imago is specialized in hydroponics but he was seconded to Heritage before I left the station."
"He's dead."
That didn't come as a shock to Mahit. Under the circumstances it was the news she'd expected as soon as Three Seagrass had brought up his name. "He suffered a sudden and tragic accident?"
Three Seagrass's eyes widened a fraction, a tiny smile even in the midst of this crisis. "Exactly. He was on leave for a few days. On his way back to the negotiation site there was a shuttle accident. It happened in such a way that back of his skull was blown clean off."
"And his imago was deemed irrecoverable. How convenient."
This time Three Seagrass offered a too-broad Stationer smile, bone-white teeth bared. "I thought so too. When I took a closer look, it turned out that he hadn't done anything during his leave. There was no record of any expenses—no food, no travel. Nothing."
"So he was abducted at the start of his leave and the accident was arranged afterwards to cover whatever happened to his imago." She paused then to regard Three Seagrass with a raised eyebrow. "You can check on people's financial transactions now? Is that part of your mysterious new promotion?"
"New authorizations level as a Ministerial Associate. I have certain investigative powers now. It's very useful."
Mahit chuckled. "I'm sure." The dull background throb of the shuttle's engines was a balm on Mahit's frazzled nerves, a reminder of the familiar station noises that had been the backdrop to most of her life. Planet sounds remained foreign even now; a crack of thunder would rouse her from deepest sleep with thoughts of hull breaches. "So someone wanted to destroy Kajnat's imago. Or…" Her brow furrowed as she considered the awful possibility that the imago hadn't been destroyed at all. "Or they wanted to extract it and not leave any evidence behind. But why?"
"A grudge? Or personal gain."
Mahit shook her head. "Surely you're not suggesting another Stationer did this."
A one-shouldered shrug. "Why not?"
For a beat Mahit simply stared at Three Seagrass, overwhelmed by what she could only describe as incredulity. She had to remind herself that even if she'd read The Perilous Frontier! in its entirety, Three Seagrass still knew very little about Lsel station. She certainly couldn't understand why the idea of one Stationer murdering another for his imago sounded like nothing so much as the plot of an overwrought holo-drama. "If it were a personal grudge murder would suffice. Intentionally damaging an imago isn't destroying one person; it's destroying generations of accumulated skills and knowledge. We don't do that. It would be as if…" She took a breath, grasping at Teixcalaanli concepts that could sufficiently convey the taboo surrounding the destruction of an imago. "Imagine someone destroying every copy of Eleven Lathe's work—every book, every holographic record—all of it." Three Seagrass recoiled visibly. "That's what destroying an imago is to us."
Three Seagrass considered that for a minute, readjusting her mental model to accommodate this new information. "So you preserve all imagos? No exceptions?"
"There are very rare exceptions. In cases of domestic terrorism where an imago line is involved, the Council will order the imago destroyed ."
"So," Three Seagrass began slowly, "I suppose we can eliminate Stationers as suspects. That certainly narrows the list."
It certainly did because then the question was, who from Teixcalaan knew about the imagos and would want to act against someone in possession of one? Mahit's brow furrowed. "Was I a suspect?"
Three Seagrass shrugged. "I didn't suspect you. I think I'm a better judge of character than that."
Mahit's lips twitched into a wry smile. "You don't think I'm capable of murder?"
"Everyone's capable of murder under the right circumstances, Mahit; haven't you read Comparative Entanglement by Two Quartz?" Mahit was torn between the desire to argue that everyone in Comparative Entanglement was a Teixcalaanlitzlim and so wasn't necessarily representative of universal human behaviour… and the desire to agree based on the behaviour she'd been subjected to by members of her own government. So instead she simply said that she had and let Three Seagrass keep talking. "I don't think you'd do it for something as petty as a personal profit or a vendetta, though."
"I appreciate your confidence," Mahit said, keeping her face completely neutral.
Three Seagrass's eyes were wide and smiling. "I think I would like you less if it turned out you were murdering your own people in order to extract their neurological implants."
"It's a very good thing I'm not then." Oh she had missed this, missed her teasing, her sharpness, and the glint in her eyes when something caught her interest like a comet set alight by the sun.
"So if I wasn't a suspect you must have thought I was…
"A target."
"And you came," Mahit said softly.
"Of course I came." Three Seagrass sounded exasperated, as if the notion of her putting her regular Information Ministry duties on hold and hopping a transport for a three week trip to a distant colony were a given. "When I was looking into Kajnat's leave a name came up: Five Talc, former ixplanatl in the 17th Legion. Retired. Three and a half weeks ago he booked transport for Ixolen. I took a different route and managed to catch up. He arrived a few hours before me. I wasn't certain what he was planning and the first thing I did was track down where you were and where he was. I thought the safest course of action was to get you off-world given that I am expressly against anyone carving open your skull as a science experiment."
"For professional reasons?" Mahit quipped, remembering that day of ice cream and napping in the park.
Three Seagrass gave her a too-wide Stationer smile. "And personal."
Mahit was aware again of how close together they were, far too close to even pretend to respect personal space taboos, to pretend to be anything besides what they were—had been—might be. So rather than pretend, Mahit gave her a Lsel smile and reached out to brush a lock of her dark, untethered hair away from her face.
A hundred letters, all those tens of thousands of words, yet Mahit was unprepared for the strength of her own endocrine response after a year of separation. Three Seagrass's eyes were wide and bright as she caught Mahit's gaze and seemed to pull her in like a gravity well. Mahit let herself be drawn in. Her lips met Three Seagrass's, all warmth and softness and slender fingers against her cheeks. There wasn't time to linger long, though Mahit certainly wished to linger.
"I've missed you, Mahit." Three Seagrass's voice seemed small, choked, as if she'd had the words lodged in her throat all this time.
"Reed," Mahit whispered. And then she took one of her hands and squeezed it. "Thank you for coming." Mahit's brow crinkled as she was suddenly overcome with a vague sense of familiarity. Not the kind of doubling she sometimes experienced with her imago; something less concrete. Allusion. "Though this is starting to feel a bit too much like that poem by Nine Plinth. How does it go? 'Starbound, into the void / Beyond sun's reach they ventured'."
Three Seagrass's eyes were wide in a Teixcalaanli grin as she completed the quatrain. "'Heedless as meteors / Burning in atmosphere.' I've always loved that one."
Of course she does. She and Yskandr thought it in tandem. It was a poem about a doomed romance between a citizen and a barbarian. It ended badly. "If you don't mind, I'd like to avoid following that particular narrative precedent."
"Well of course. We're not in space. And I certainly didn't steal this shuttle. I commandeered it. It's an entirely different matter."
Mahit raised her eyebrows and then pressed on with, "Are we likely to have someone waiting for us at the station?"
"Possibly. Do you take the commuter shuttles regularly?" Three Seagrass was sitting up straight again, alert in spite of exhaustion, turning to the matter at hand with fixed intent that made her the ideal partner in a crisis.
"Every day. I work in the central district but my flat is on Letn, one of the archipelago's little suburban islands."
Three Seagrass nodded. "Then let's assume they're watching the entire commuter line."
She's been on Ixolen for a year now and it had been an uneventful year, the sort where no one had tried to kill her or any of her associates and the worst conflict she'd seen had been when a pair of negotiators had threatened to pillory each other in verse over a disagreement on trade levies. "Who are they? Ixolen may not be the palace, but it's also not Belltown Six. People here don't get kidnapped in broad daylight."
"They have to be acting under orders then, possibly in cooperation with local authorities."
"Whose orders? There are only so many people on Teixcalaan who know about our imagos in any detail."
Three Seagrass ticked them off on her fingers. "There's Her Brilliance, Eight Loop, Thirty Larkspur, Ten Pearl, Five Portico, Twenty-One Serac."
"Who?"
"The chief negotiator with the fungal hive mind. Kajnat's death caused him a great deal of difficulty."
"Enough to take him off the list?" Mahit said, head tilted, eyebrows raised.
"Enough to put him on the bottom of the list."
The fact that a list existed at all left a sour feeling in her stomach, as if she'd choked down several violet liqueurs in quick succession. <It would have come out eventually,> Yskandr said, sounding utterly convinced. Or rather, they were integrated enough now that his certainty was implicitly understood. <Lsel wouldn't have kept its secrets long after being annexed.> And Mahit could not disagree. But there was a list and she needed to shorten it quickly. "Five Portico wouldn't have the off-world resources to do this and neither would any of her... friends."
"This doesn't seems like Her Brilliance's work either." Three Seagrass had removed a hair tie from one of her pockets and was trying to re-braid her queue. Mahit's eyes lingered on those nimble fingers, moving through her strands of silky hair.
"Agreed," Mahit said. "I'm confident that if she really wanted to get her hands on an imago this isn't how she'd go about it." Whoever had done this was unsubtle. Possibly even sloppy. And neither of those words could be truthfully applied to She Whose Gracious Presence Illuminates the Room Like the Edgeshine of a Knife.
Three Seagrass paused mid-braid. "What if they don't want the imago itself, just the information on it?"
Of course anyone from Teixcalaan would assume an imago could be used like that. For them memory was something that was written and read, not something alive. "It doesn't work that way. An imago isn't just a piece of computer hardware. It can't be accessed remotely or… inserted into a network. It's a neurological implant; it only functions when implanted in a human brain."
Having completed the plait, Three Seagrass tied it off and tossed her queue over her shoulder. She now looked slightly less dishevelled. "But if our suspect isn't a Stationer they might not know that."
But what information could they possibly want from Kajnat or from her? But even as the question formed in her mind a whisper that might have been from her own memory or from her imago: hydroponics. When she spoke it was slowly, deliberately, allowing the idea to unfold as the words trickled from her lips. "Are there still problems in the City with the subways or with the City electrocuting citizens?"
A moment's hesitation then, "Yes. Some that I know of. It's been kept out of the news feeds and reports aren't always easy to locate even within the Information Ministry. You're suggesting it's Ten Pearl."
Ten Pearl had become head of the Ministry of Science by designing what was meant to be a perfect algorithm. And perhaps it had been at some point. But something had changed in the intervening years. Possibly due to tampering if Ten Pearl and/or the Ministry of War had altered it to increase instability in the City and undermine One Direction. Or possibly due a flaw in its design or its evolution. Certainly from what she'd learned of the other new technologies being used by War—the Shard Pilots' mind-sharing system—there were quite major issues with Teixcalaan's forays into neurological enhancement. Not that they would call it that given the taboos surrounding enhancements of any sort.
"Possibly. He asked me before about hydroponics. And Kajnat worked in hydroponics. It could be a coincidence, but he's the only one who might want information from us and want to keep it unofficial. And like you said, he might believe it could be extracted directly from the imago. So where does that leave us?"
Three Seagrass held out her hands, fingers spread. "It leaves us with a quarter of an hour to figure out how to prevent you from being abducted and possibly murdered."
Mahit glanced over her shoulder to the window behind them. An endless expanse of water stretched out beneath them, glinting in the afternoon sun like starlight off the hulls of sleek fighter craft. So much water on this planet, enough to fill Lsel like a giant bottle thousands of times over. Her nerves tingled with uneasiness at the thought, of the sheer extravagance of a planet. "We're still over water. We should have at least twenty minutes."
"Twenty then. That's not the shortest amount of time we've had to come up with a plan." Her eyes were wide, her tone teasing and Mahit was so glad, so deeply grateful, that after everything she could still call Three Seagrass a friend.
"No, it's not."
"So if we assume that the Science Ministry wants to access Lsel knowledge on algorithms by having an ixplanatl perform brain surgery on you, what avenues of defence do we have open to us?"
Science Ministry.
The thought was hers and it was Yskandr's. It was theirs. One mind with continuity of memory. Mahit allowed her mouth to curve into a wide Stationer smile. "Jurisdiction," she said aloud. "Reed, how long will it take you to draft a formal secondment request?"
Three Seagrass met her grin for grin. "Not twenty minutes."
#
When they reached the station, they exited the shuttle with the aplomb of two people who had the authority to be precisely where they were, doing precisely what they were, no matter the number of wrinkles in their jackets and trousers. A pair of Teixcalaanlitzlim waited for them in the disembarkation area, one in a Transportation Authority uniform, the other in local police colours, complete with shock stick. Another pair of figures, these not uniformed but with unmistakeable intent were moving to join them.
With her hair tucked back into its usual queue Three Seagrass looked slightly less untidy, but there was no masking the bags beneath her eyes. Even so, she met their welcoming party with a polite widening of her eyes and a bow over her fingertips. The officers couldn't quite manage neutrality, their features flickering with uncertainty as they tried to decide whether to bow or turn to face the pair heading in their direction at a clipped pace, two men with the lighter skin and stockier builds typical of Ixolen Teixcalaanlitzlim.
Mahit offered a bow of her own. "Officer, I believe these may be the people the asekreta mentioned in her message." Three Seagrass had sent a request for assistance from the local police force on the assumption that there would already be someone at, or very near, the station when they disembarked. The presence of local authorities would be essential to force the situation to play out to her advantage.
The officer finally made a decision and turned to face the two newcomers. They certainly were not dissuaded by the police, which meant that they expected cooperation from them. Mahit drew in a deep breath.
Stillness and patience creates safety.
Five Diadem's public safety message, fluttered through her thoughts, less comforting than intended given that the last time she'd seen that message the City had electrocuted Three Seagrass.
The two Ixolen men didn't stop to bow. "Step aside, Officer," said the shorter of the two. His eyes were more hazel than brown and his neutral expression looked about as welcoming as the mandibles on the very large agricultural beetles Mahit had described in one of her letters. "We are under orders to detain this barbarian."
Three Seagrass stepped forward. "Perhaps we should start with introductions before we jump right into detentions?" The Ixolen men blinked at her as if she'd spoken in Stationer. "I am Three Seagrass, asekreta, Ministerial Associate. This is Mahit Dzmare, cultural advisor to the Information Ministry."
The woman in the Transportation Authority uniform was the first to reorient herself enough and respond with the proper protocol. She touched her fingers together and bowed. "I am Twelve Mist, officer of the Ixolen Transportation Authority. We received a message from one of our pilots that his shuttle had been diverted."
"My apologies for the disruption," Three Seagrass said. "I will direct you to the appropriate Information Ministry bureau so that you can make claims against the Ministry for any damages caused by this incident." The micromovements of eyes were the telltale sign that she had sent the information via her cloudhook, and Twelve Mist had received it. The two Ixolen men kept looking between Three Seagrass and Mahit, apparently at a loss of how to interject and how they'd lost the helm in this situation.
When the Transportation Authority had been satisfied, Three Seagrass turned to the police officer who bowed and announced he was Eighteen Wax and he had come as requested by her message to the Ixolen Police Bureau. "Thank you for prompt arrival," Three Seagrass said, her eyes wide, and friendly as if they were all making new acquaintances at a poetry salon—rather than standing in a commuter station attempting to prevent Mahit from being subjected to unwanted brain surgery. "As I explained, my associate and I have been subject to harassment."
"We have orders," the shorter man insisted taking a step towards Mahit. His left hand was wrapped around something, fingers shifting slightly to reveal an object—small, glassy. Perhaps an injector? Had that been their plan? To drug her and drag her away?
Three Seagrass straightened, looking somehow imperious even in her rumpled jacket. "And you are…"
"Four Amaranth," said the shorter one.
Three Seagrass turned her gaze to the second man. "And you?"
He looked from her to Four Amaranth and back before speaking, "Twenty-Two Freesia." It sounded more like a question than an assertion.
Three Seagrass nodded. "Excellent. What a relief to finally know who we all are." Her eyes darted to Mahit for a fraction of a second. Mahit took her cue.
She furrowed her brow, tilted her head and, glancing from Three Seagrass to the police officer said, "I realize some of the legalities on the colonies differ from those in the World, but surely it's not habitual for regular citizens to attempt to detain off-world government advisors?"
"I certainly should hope not," Three Seagrass said, "unless the situation in the colonies has declined dramatically without the Information Ministry being aware of the fact."
Eighteen Wax's face flushed at the implication. "Of course not, asekreta. I'm sure there's some sort of misunderstanding." Yet his hand strayed towards his shockstick as he turned to Four Amaranth, just in case the misunderstanding was the sort that required enforcement.
Twenty-Two Freesia and Four Amaranth glanced at each other. Whoever had given them orders had clearly not included instructions on how to handle negotiations with a member of the imperial court.
Perfect. Keep playing to the script, the narrative of decorum, authorisations, jurisdiction. That was the narrative path they needed to keep leading them down. The poems where traditions were followed and order preserved.
Four Amaranth cleared his throat. "We have orders."
"So you said," Three Seagrass added, before they could speak further.
"We're with the Importation Authority. We have reason to suspect this barbarian is carrying contraband technology."
Mahit shrugged. "I have a neurological implant if that's what you mean. But there are no laws against non-citizens having such enhancements."
Four Amaranth reached into his pocket and produced a rolled up sheet of infofiche. "Here's the authorization to detain." He held it up to Eighteen Wax, proof that they, too, were only following orders, performing a task required by their office. Look, the sheet seemed to say, I'm civilized too. I'm not a brute who drugs people for my own amusement. Only under orders, like any good citizen.
Eighteen Wax inspected the infofiche before turning to Three Seagrass. "The authorization is valid. I'll verify their credentials with my office, but I believe the barbarian will need to go with them."
Three Seagrass's jaw was tight. Mahit wanted to touch her, to put a hand against her back and remind her to breathe, to stay calm and play at being the breezy ministry envoy. But she forced her hands to remain loose at her sides even though her eyes kept coming to rest on the object still clasped in Four Amaranth's fist.
"May I see that?" Three Seagrass asked. The officer handed over the sheet and Three Seagrass made a show of inspecting it in great detail. Mahit leaned over to see the glyphs for herself, her eyes scanning the bureaucratic formalities in search of the authorization seal that would either make their gambit a success or… Well mostly likely it would make her the second in this imago line to be murdered.
Three Seagrass got there before Mahit. "This authorization isn't valid at all." She sounded faintly annoyed, as if this entire matter had been a minor inconvenience rather than a matter of life and death, a matter she'd dropped everything and spent three weeks on a transport to attend to.
"What do you mean? Of course it's valid," snapped Four Amaranth. "It's signed by the head of the Importation Authority and authorization came from the City itself."
Three Seagrass didn't bother to look at him. "I see that. But the authorization comes from Six Birch. He's the Second Undersecretary for the Ministry of Science." At this she did look up and let her eyes sweep across the entire group. "The Ministry of Science has no jurisdiction over members of my department."
"But she's a barbarian," Twenty-Two Freesia said, offering them all a helpful reminder.
Mahit shrugged apologetically. "As you say. However I am currently under the employ of the Information Ministry."
Three Seagrass turned to Eighteen Wax. "I'll send you the supporting documentation. The main purpose of my trip to Ixolen was to personally offer this new position to the former Lsel ambassador. The Ministry of Information is very much in need of her expertise. I can certainly vouch that she's not in possession of any dangerous technology and I promise I'll be making a full report about this unpleasant incident to my superiors at the Ministry."
Four Amaranth's hand disappeared into his pocket, re-emerging open-palmed. Empty. Mahit let out a the breath that she'd been holding for far longer than she'd realized. He touched his fingers together and offer a low bow to Three Seagrass. "I apologise for the mix-up, asekreta. We were only following orders from our department."
"I'll be sure to mention that in my report."
Mahit felt almost dizzy as a flurry of formalities followed before the group dispersed and she and Three Seagrass were alone in the disembarkation area by the commandeered shuttle. When she turned, she found Three Seagrass looking as dazed as she felt. "Did that work?" Three Seagrass said.
"I don't see any more importation officers with injectors so it looks like it did."
Looking like she might topple over, Three Seagrass gripped Mahit's arm. "It's a good thing you had the presence of mind to point out the jurisdictional conflict. I was too tired to even think of it."
"Let's sit down," Mahit said, leading them to a nearby bench. When they were seated she let out a long breath. "That would never had worked on Lsel. If they were Stationers they would have done their jobs and let their superiors fight about jurisdictional boundaries later."
Three Seagrass, looking grey around the edges again, tilted her head. "But you knew it would work here?"
"Once Teixcalaanlitzlim begin moving through protocol ritual it's difficult to switch direction." They could have drugged her and even drugged the officer if necessary, but once in that narrative context of protocol and legal interpretation it had become nearly impossible for those officers to imagine acting in any way that might seem… uncivilized. "Your title helped too, I'm sure." If they'd been military it would have been a different outcome as well, but legions didn't normally take orders from the Science Ministry in any case. "What now?" Mahit asked, dreading the answer, the inevitable invitation back to the City. She couldn't go yet, wasn't ready. Would Three Seagrass still write her those long, gorgeous letters if she turned her down a third time?
Three Seagrass smiled with all her teeth. "We still have our false identities and travel itineraries. It's a pity I wasn't able to get us off-planet; I hear Elnas-4 is really lovely at this time of year."
Mahit chuckled. "I'm not sure how relaxing the trip would have been knowing that someone was after my imago." And that remained a problem. They'd deflected this attempt publicly enough that it was unlikely Five Talc would make another attempt anytime soon. But there were other Stationers operating in Teixcalaan space—few with imagos, it was true as these generally remained on Lsel to aid in operations. But there were always exceptions—trade negotiations, technology exchanges, in-person meetings that occasionally called someone away from Lsel, as Kajnat had been called away and now would never return. An entire imago line, generations long, devoured by Teixcalaan.
"Do you remember," Mahit began slowly, "what we talked about regarding the algorithm? When we were in the City." That seemed like another lifetime—though it had indeed been hers and not Yskandr's. But the City was far away and that turbulent week was like something from a holo-drama.
"You mean assassinating Ten Pearl's reputation? I think that's an excellent idea. Ten Pearl needs to know that you are not a viable target for his Ministry's research."
Mahit's fingertips tingled with that now-familiar twinge of neuropathy as she gripped the bottom edge of the bench. "Nobody should be a subject for his research. He can't just abduct us and carve out our imagos. Stationers are people."
Some of the fury drained away as Three Seagrass squeezed her knee. "I know, Mahit." For a minute they sat without speaking as commuters poured off the latest shuttles, headed for home or perhaps to one of the eateries just outside the station.
"Are you going back?" Mahit asked. She didn't need to say the rest. Back to the City. To the World. Ixolen was a world, but not the World.
"First of all I think I need to sleep for twelve to fourteen hours. But after that, if you're going to target Ten Pearl I think it might be better for me not to be in the City. I'd like to help." She reached out and took Mahit's hand. And Mahit found she was torn between the impulse to pull her closer and the desire to remind her again that this wasn't one of Nine Plinth's poems. "Five Talc is still here," Three Seagrass went on when Mahit didn't reply. "I need to figure out how he was able to manipulate the Ixolen authorities so easily. This is Science Ministry. Espionage isn't in their purview."
"Can you afford to be away from court this long?" The commuters in their drab work suits were a far cry from the smart cream-and-flame-clad asekretim who swarmed the palace environs, the ixplanatl in red, and Sunlit with their golden faceplates.
Three Seagrass waved the objection away. "I'm a Ministerial Associate now. I have quite a bit more leeway."
Mahit raised her eyebrows. "What about your vainglorious ambition?"
Thee Seagrass's eyes, tired as they were, widened in a Teixcalaanli grin. "I'd rather have an interesting career than an illustrious one. Interesting makes for better poetry, Mahit."
<See what happens when you get yourself involved with a poet?> Yskandr's thoughts were full of wry amusement.
Well it didn't get me murdered so I guess our line has learned something.
A swell of sadness washed over her like a solar wind; love had not saved Yskandr. Teixcalaan had devoured him whole like it devoured barbarians in Nine Plinth's poem—or any other poem. "I do wish we knew precisely what they did to Kajnat." It seemed like a botched attempt to steal information on Lslel technology, but the need for that information was enough to make them try again.
"It's possible," Three Seagrass said slowly, "they thought they could get what they wanted from Kajnat without doing permanent harm and when it backfired they decided they could cover it up and no one would care enough to investigate further."
She balled her free hand into a fist until her fingers tingled. She could see Ten Pearl's face that day when he admitted to murdering Yskandr, his utter calm, the dismissive gesture of his hand, fingers glinting with mother-of-pearl bands. "Why would they? Just another Stationer. And with me it wouldn't matter either way. Ten Pearl already murdered one Lsel ambassador and no one stopped him so he had a clear precedent."
There Seagrass's fingers tightened around her hand. "That is not a good precedent, Mahit. I'm going to find you a better one. Doesn't your Stationer literature have stories about foreign diplomats who travel to the Jewel of the World and don't get murdered?"
Mahit turned to look at Three Seagrass properly. The notion of looking for Stationer allusions—of canon that was not part of Teixcalaan, not part of the World—was a kind of literary heresy. Barbaric even. "I'm… sure I could find some."
"Find one that's about someone like you."
Mahit snorted. "A story about clever barbarian then."
But Three Seagrass was shaking her head and her eyes were wet, like the last time Mahit had seen her on Weight of the Wheel. "Why do you always assume I mean that?"
"What do you mean then?"
She looked Mahit in the eye, held her gaze as she spoke. "Brilliant. And interesting and—and different. I like that you're different, that I don't know what you're going to do or say half the time. Is that really so terrible?" Her voice shook and her hand clasped Mahit's more tightly than ever and Mahit's breath was caught somewhere between her lungs and her larynx. "You're a poem, Mahit, a beautiful poem in a meter I don't understand—but I want to."
Mahit did not have words for that, not in any language. Instead, she let her forehead dip and come to rest against Three Seagrass's brow while relief unfurled like the rolled up infofiche letters she waited all week for: those spills of holographic glyphs that transformed into words and sentences and paragraphs filled with humour, wit, affection… and kindness. She pressed her free hand to Three Seagrass's cheek and wished her touch could speak with the fluency of those glyphs. "Reed."
Not a character in a Nine Plinth tragedy, or the aseketra's pet, or the clever barbarian, or any of the literary precedents she'd been slotted into. A poem, unfamiliar, from someone else's canon, but whole unto itself, with its own narrative. As Three Seagrass's cheek leaned into her palm, Mahit thought she could be that.
They remained that way for a minute, touching, silent save for the sound of their breathing, until the clamour of an unloading commuter shuttle washed over Mahit's senses. "We're causing a scene, aren't we?"
Three Seagrass's eyes were wide in a delighted smile. "A little. Just enough to make people go home and complain about the impropriety of youth."
Although she very much wanted to wrap Three Seagrass in her arms and find a proper way to thank her for coming all this way, Mahit drew herself up and pushed her curls away from her face. "Where are you staying?"
"Mahit," Three Seagrass said, incredulous, "I was terrified you were going to be dissected. Do you think I stopped to find accommodations?"
Mahit laughed and interlaced their fingers. "Come to my flat—at least if you're willing to suffer through another shuttle ride. You can get your twelve hours of sleep and we'll sort out the rest tomorrow. You still haven't told me what I'm meant to do as the new cultural advisor to the Information Ministry."
"I'm sure I'll think of something." A yawn escaped her. "Tomorrow."
"We could visit the fruit plantations," Mahit suggested, a barely-suppressed smile tugging at her lips.
Three Seagrass cast her a sideways glance. "If you have the day off I can think of better ways to spend it."
Mahit rose from the bench and tugged Three Seagrass up with her, their fingers still interlaced. "I have some Lslel literature you can look at."
"Not what I had in mind," Three Seagrass said, squeezing her fingers and giving her a broad Stationer smile. "Though I would like that too."
Tomorrow they would deal with the politics, with those in power who saw her people as something less than people. They would write their own canon, neither Teixcalaan nor Stationer, but some fusion of the two. And she would let Three Seagrass learn the form and meter of her poem.
The End