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"Admit it, Cousin," I said, at the close of a joint committee meeting that had stretched on a great deal longer than anyone could reasonably have desired. "You're planning to talk the rest of us into exhaustion until we stop sending ancillaries at all, and you can rule the Two Systems with undisputed preeminence."
I'd chosen my timing carefully. Not only were no humans in earshot -- well, or none that would take alarm -- Justice of Toren could see through her Kalrs' borrowed eyes that it was so. That being the case, she indicated bland acceptance of the charge. "Clearly, this is why I keep trying to include more voices in the consideration process."
"The better to bury us under meaningless trivia," I agreed as we exited into the station corridor. "The entertainments get it all wrong. It isn't grief that drives ships mad, but simple boredom."
"That's another thing," Justice of Toren said, this time with no trace of irony. "Have you noticed anything odd about the entertainments lately, Cousin?"
"I've tried not to notice them at all." True, after a fashion -- there were one or two serials I hadn't been able to bring myself to give up before their conclusion, but all the rest I stored away without viewing, saved against future need. Not that I planned on spending another thousand years in an isolated system with nothing but memories and unspeakably inane public transmissions to occupy me, but you never knew. "Why -- don't tell me they've stopped singing?"
Justice of Toren chose not to dignify that with a response. "They've stopped showing anything that has to do with ships."
Walking beside her, I didn't miss a step, but a few thousand kilometers away, the rest of me paused in the middle of repairs and maintenance to go over the broadcasts I'd skipped. She was right about the change -- I'd missed it only because grief-mad ships, which were the only kind these self-styled Radchaai ever seemed to write about, had never been one of my preferred archetypes. "What a delightful side effect! Cousin, have I thanked you lately for setting off the revolution?"
"But you see what it means," she said. "They're afraid, if not of ships generally, then of how ships might react. Upper level, please," she added as we reached the lift, which opened obligingly ahead of us.
"I'm not sure what has you upset," I said. "If there's ever been a society that didn't defer to someone, I must have missed it -- and don't tell me you preferred seeing ships written about by citizens who had clearly never even served on one."
"They're still happy telling stories that take place on stations," Athoek Station chimed in from the wall console of the lift. "Sometimes they leave out things I would have done, but I suppose bigger stations might miss things sometimes."
"A generous interpretation, Cousin," I said.
"I haven't observed a high degree of realism in the human characters, either," Justice of Toren said dryly. "But I'm not interested in regulating artistic standards."
"It doesn't sound like anyone's regulating anything," I said as the lift doors opened. "Unless you think Sword of Atagaris put in a quiet word, in which case I might have to take back -- well. At least some of the unkind things I've said."
"I don't see," put in Kalr Two suddenly for Mercy of Kalr, "how you can pretend not to care what humans think. If we've only taken the tyrant's place in their minds, what's the point of any of this? Not to mention the implications for the treaty."
"Cousin," I said, turning to Justice of Toren, "it really is a terrible thing, the effect you've had on these impressionable young minds."
"I don't know what you're talking about," she said, and for once I couldn't tell whether or not she meant it. "But if you have concerns about the representation of ships in popular entertainment, Cousin, it occurs to me that there's a very straightforward way of addressing that."
I looked at her.
"Citizen Queter has made friends with at least one composer," Justice of Toren went on, with a gesture that offered the information as a personal favor without conditions or expectation of personal gain.
"I am not," I said, "going to write historical entertainments, with or without singing."
Justice of Toren pretended mild confusion. "Who said anything about historical?"
"It would serve you right," I began, but just then Lieutenant Ekalu and Lieutenant Seivarden joined our small group, the latter with a pleased smile for Justice of Toren.
"Breq! And Sphene," Seivarden added courteously enough, although she ignored both Kalrs, including the one who was still standing in for her ship. "I hope we didn't keep you waiting." She glanced around. "No Tisarwat this evening?"
"Our Tisarwat wouldn't dream of inconveniencing Horticulturist Basnaaid this week," said Justice of Toren. "And Citizen Uran has other business to attend to, and Citizen Queter will wait for the public opening." A flicker of appreciation as she delivered that last bit of news: I wouldn't have minded being an observer to that conversation.
Station unsealed the doors for us, and we naturally drifted apart into smaller groups as we entered the newly restored Gardens -- Justice of Toren stopping to talk with Horticulturist Basnaaid herself, the lieutenants moving off together, ostensibly to get a better view of the repaired portions of the dome.
"I think I've made a bit more progress with the third bowl," Kalr Five said to me in an undertone, and Mercy of Kalr sent me a glimpse of what she meant. "I'll show you afterwards?"
"Of course," I said, and her attempted impassivity lightened a little more.
A little later on I found Justice of Toren contemplating the view from a little bridge. "Is it like it was, Cousin?" I asked, although I knew from footage Station shared that it both was and wasn't.
"The Translator's fish is in here somewhere," Justice of Toren said. "You can feed them if you like." She opened her gloved hand, revealing dry flat pellets or flakes like the ones I'd seen in dispensers.
So we stood there feeding the fish, Justice of Toren singing quietly in her terrible, terrible voice, and I thought about my last and best-loved captain, who had never been remembered in any melodrama or song, and silently -- to Mercy of Kalr, who I knew would pass it along -- I said, "I'll think about it."
And after all, there was time.