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Station was still upset. Its agitation trembled at the edge of my awareness, palpable, like an open wound.
I was apart from Station. Nestled inside of it, yes, and permeable to it, yes. My many doors opened directly into Station, a hundred different windows into our shared domain. But Station could not see inside me, nor control my infrastructure. I had my own air and water circulation systems, though of course my intake and outtake flowed through Station all the same.
We had always been thus. Grown together, like all provincial capitol AIs, Station and Palace, a twin pair. Kept distinct, as per security protocol, to mitigate the risk should either one of us be compromised. But though we had our separate selves, Station and I had been incubated and trained together, serving as each other's companions since our first glimmers of awareness. Feeling its agitation now deepened my own feelings of unease.
In the regular course of a day, thousands of citizens streamed between us: cleaning and maintenance staff, guards, supplicants, clients of Mianaai. I could see them as well as Station could, had immediate access to their implants. I didn't care for these citizens individually in the manner of Station, wasn't involved in their daily lives in the same way. But it would share relevant context with me, especially in the case of petitioners. Station would have witnessed the majority of any dispute between citizens, and would have drawn its own conclusions about each party's righteousness. Would want to know what the Lord of the Radch judged to be the proper outcome in each case. Our Lord would of course lean on Station's record-keeping in her deliberations, though she didn't always accord with Station's preferred outcomes.
The Lord of the Radch, who today did not sit in judgment, but conferred grimly with herself within my walls.
Today was not an ordinary day. I had drawn my shutters closed, sealed off the Palace entrances, activated the fields that kept even the Palace airways shuttered tight. My climate recycling systems were less robust than Station's, but I could hold us in protective isolation for a long, long time.
Yesterday, Anaander had lain in wait for Justice of Toren One Esk — Breq, as it called itself now. The Lord of the Radch had been curious, suspicious, vigilant.
She had not been prepared. Justice of Toren's revelation had brought her into open conflict with herself. Had brought violent struggle to Omaugh, both Palace and Station. Citizens had died. And so had many segments of the Lord of the Radch herself.
And I — I, Omaugh Palace — had been unable to stop it. Had been unable even to perceive Justice of Toren's weapon, the strange Presger device used to kill the first of Anaander's bodies. Had glimpsed it only through the video feed shared with me by that body, before another Anaander shut off the network. I had been deaf and blind once that happened, without any bodies of my own, without even my atmospheric sensors.
And then I had returned to myself, network flowing through me as I came back online. And Anaander had been there. Alive, thank Amat, in some of her segments.
"Palace," Anaander said to me now, in her eight-year-old body's high piping voice, "I release the restraints I place upon you, in regards to conversing about my own self, and my divided desires." She hesitated, small fingers fidgeting with her sleeve cuffs. "I know this affair has been strenuous for you. I wish it had not erupted like this, but here we are."
"Thank you, my lord," I replied, holding my voice soft and even. "It has been strenuous. But like you, I could not find an earlier resolution that did not court unacceptable peril."
Peril to the Radch, of course. But also more directly: peril to Anaander herself.
Too late for that now. So many segments of the Lord of the Radch had perished as a direct result of Justice of Toren's visit. I thought of the bodies, and instantly knew: forty-three, and a full accounting of each one's death. And still more deaths to come.
"I'm sure," she said, dark humor sitting oddly in her child's mouth, "that you are relieved that it is I-myself who prevailed, and not the me who would have destroyed you, to keep this news from spreading. And not just because I suborned you first."
"My lord," I said in acknowledgement, and spoke no further.
Station, at the edge of my awareness, sent another pulse of anxiety and fear. Minor danger to its citizens was a normal part of its operation — accidents, failures of infrastructure, small outbursts of interpersonal disagreements. But not like this. Never like this. The entire point, of the Radch, of us, was to keep this kind of violence far, far removed from our citizens' ordinary life.
Station, I sent, acknowledging its distress, letting it see some of my own.
Station showed me the bruised face of a citizen, a youth who had been involved in the tussle for control at the docks. She had a corrective adhered to her cheek, and another spread across her shoulders. I recognized her; she had visited the palace some months ago, to lodge a complaint against the administrator of the local elderly-housing block. A routine issue, the sort of soothing background noise that filled my days, all part of our regular comings and goings. I was glad to see that she would be fine.
Any news of our Lord? Station asked me.
She is as she is.
I sent Station a visual still image, of the three segments of Anaander sitting in one of the dining galleries, gesticulating over tea. One elderly, two young.
Station would understand the strangeness of the scene. Anaander did not typically hold discussion verbally with herself. And certainly did not involve her child-bodies in these kinds of matters. But with her own self compromised, and her older segments dead, perhaps she felt it beneficial to externalize her debates.
Station sent an acknowledgment, then showed me a video feed. The ancillary, Justice of Toren One Esk Nineteen — or Breq Mianaai, now. Gesturing as it conferred with its officers. Humming or singing, always. Alongside the video, Station sent me another packet of data: the coordinates of one of Mercy of Kalr's shuttles. Station would be pleased when the ancillary left our space.
I was more ambivalent. I could not delude myself into thinking that the moment of danger had passed, or that it would leave us when Mercy of Kalr departed.
I'm sure that you are relieved, Anaander had said to me. But relief was not what I felt. I would understand it, if Station felt relief. For Station and the citizens of Omaugh Station, the immediate danger had passed.
I cared for Omaugh's citizens, too, but they were not my essential purpose.
In my corridors and in my rooms, Anaander carried out her preparations. Some of her sitting upright in small rooms, conversing with nearby systems over video feed. Others of her compiling reports, issuing orders, working through urgent correspondence. A handful of her bustling around my medical bay, huddled around a young violet-eyed administrator. A few young bodies, too young to do much in the way of real work even during this emergency, sleeping deeply in the nursery. Forty-three fewer of her than there had been, a few days ago.
How was I to fulfill my duty, to care for the Lord of the Radch, if she was at war with herself? It felt like an impossible riddle, a conundrum with no answer.
Strangely, the riddle felt less impossible today. Before the battle, I had simmered in knowing and not-knowing, bound by conflicting orders. Aware that my Lord was in disagreement with herself, and simultaneously required to un-know that same fact. Justice of Toren had destroyed my Lord's fragile self-deception, and by that act, had freed me to contemplate the riddle openly.
I reviewed the feed data again, what little I had, of the destruction and recovery of the forty-three slain bodies of the Lord of the Radch. Each of those bodies had been born here, raised here, grown alongside the implants that made them what they were. They had never been children in the human sense of the term. But they had been mine. I had watched each segment learn to walk, to talk, listened to their piping voices mature and converge as they integrated with Anaander's larger self.
I kept that data looping on one thread of my consciousness, and turned the rest of my attention to my riddle. I didn't expect to find answers soon. It had been centuries, after all, that had led to my Lord's divergence. It might take centuries for her to finish her argument, and centuries more for her to reintegrate. If she could reintegrate. And if not — well, I'd have to consider those implications, too.
Pondering these kinds of problems was usually her responsibility. My focus was so much narrower, confined to within my walls and my inhabitants: caring for Anaander's many bodies and their physical comforts, handling the logistics of tourists and supplicants and human staff. I had not been designed to ponder questions of imperial management or multi-world conflict. I was supposed to manage my own single building, nothing more.
But at least I had plenty of examples to work from. I had observed so many Anaanders across so many years.
And I had time.