Lsel itself would be more than an incidental prize, Mahit thought, as clinically as she could manage: one of the oldest continuously inhabited artificial worldlets, replete with the best pilots, a precisely calibrated resource extraction system for mining molybdenum and iron from stellar debris—and a perfect location in a gravity well that controlled most of local space, including the only two jumpgates in the area.
We entrust the outrushing tide to the swift-reaching hands of One Lightning, and name him the yaotlek-nema, the leader of our legions in this endeavor, the Emperor finished, to no one’s surprise at all.
“Well,” said Three Seagrass. “That’s … certainly that.”
“Yes,” said Mahit. “It seems to be.” She sounded so calm, even to herself.
“Not,” Nineteen Adze said, “my first choice of targets. But he doesn’t always listen to me.” She sighed, squared her shoulders—how could she continue to look so human, so much like she was just like anyone else!—and pushed herself away from the table. “But I think you’ll find that your value as an ambassador has only increased with this news, Mahit. Don’t imagine for a moment that I’d toss you out to the wolves.”
Still a hostage, then. Still useful to Nineteen Adze as an ally, or as something to be controlled. “I appreciate your continued hospitality,” said Mahit.
“Of course you do.” Nineteen Adze could sound apologetic if she wanted, like turning on a floodlight of warmth with a switch—and then off again, brisk and bright. “There will be more meetings than anyone can possibly enjoy today. Running a war takes committees. Do feel free to use the office if you’d like. Seven Scale will be here if you need anything, and to take care of the breakfast dishes.”
She swept out of the room and Mahit sat in horrified, dumb silence in her wake, as if she’d stolen her tongue by leaving.
“Most interesting job I’m ever going to have,” Three Seagrass said, like it was a gesture of solidarity—it was a gesture of solidarity; she’d patted the back of Mahit’s hand, she was trying.
“Ah, so you’re not going to ask to be reassigned,” Mahit said.
“As if I would. At absolute worst, you’re going to be the ambassador who manages your people’s integration into Teixcalaan. We’ll have a very long career together, Mahit,” said Three Seagrass.
Mahit could see the way her career on Teixcalaan might curve, now: could see herself becoming like Ambassador Gorlaeth of Dava, trying to find commonality with the other newly conquered. She must have looked stricken, because Three Seagrass said, “Look. We know a lot more now than we did yesterday, and that’s not nothing.”
Mahit admitted that they did. “I wonder if this is what Thirty Larkspur was trying to warn me about,” she said. “The deal is off.”
“You mean that your predecessor had somehow made an arrangement to keep Lsel Station out of the path of annexation,” said Three Seagrass.
Mahit nodded. “And whatever he agreed to was an agreement between him and … His Majesty, I suspect. And now that he’s dead, the deal is off.”
“If I was a suspicious person…” Three Seagrass began.
“You are a suspicious person, you work for the Information Ministry,” Mahit said.
Three Seagrass composed herself into a picture of innocence, which didn’t have any reassuring effects at all. “If I was a suspicious person,” she said again, “I would suspect that it is extremely convenient for whoever wanted the fleet to head toward Parzrawantlak that he is dead.”
“And if I was a suspicious person,” Mahit said, “I would agree with you. Three Seagrass, can you get me a private audience with His Majesty?”
Three Seagrass pressed her lips together, considering. “Under normal circumstances,” she said, “I’d tell you that I could, but there’d be a three-month waiting period and I couldn’t guarantee you’d be alone. But under the circumstances, I believe I might just be able to do better than that. You have very good, very official reasons to want to speak directly to His Illuminate Majesty.”
“I do,” Mahit said. “Arrange it. We have this delightfully equipped office, we might as well use it.”
“It’s all being recorded,” Three Seagrass said, slightly apologetic. “I’d guarantee Nineteen Adze keeps track of every gesture and every glyph.”
“I know,” Mahit said. “But I don’t see us having many other options, do you?”
“As long as you know—”
“Arrange it,” Mahit said, more firmly, and Three Seagrass nodded, got up, and went to open one of the infograph screens. Mahit instantly felt better. She knew it was a false feeling—the sensation of being in control of the headlong, desperate rush was illusory, even if you took the initial leap under your own power—but she could use whatever comfort she could find.
Every moment she wasn’t doing something else, she imagined the vector of ships.
What could she do?
It was a logic problem, or something out of classical physics: given these constraints, what action was possible? Given: that she was trapped in the heart of Palace-North, with only electronic access to her own files and messages, and no access at all to the pile of physical mail which was certainly growing in size and urgency in her own office. Given: that every action she took on an electronic system while here in Nineteen Adze’s apartment would be monitored, which further constrained her ability to communicate unguardedly. Given: that Lsel Station would not know yet that the might of Teixcalaan was about to rush over them like the casually outflung loop of a solar flare, and had nothing like sufficient military capacity to meaningfully resist a full Teixcalaanli expedition. Given: that her predecessor had been murdered, perhaps to allow this conquest to proceed in this direction. Given: that her imago’s presence as conscious memory was malfunctioning, leaving her with only the ghosts of neurochemical feelings that didn’t belong to her, and flashes of memory so vivid they were like living another life. Given: that her imago’s malfunction might have been sabotage, and—think about it, Mahit, let yourself really think about it—that sabotage might have taken place long before she ever arrived on the Jewel of the World—might, in fact, have originated with her own people, for reasons she didn’t understand.
Also given: that if Mahit didn’t do something she was going to shatter out of her skin with nerves. By the rosy quartz windows, Three Seagrass was enveloped in a little shell of infographs, murmuring subvocalizations to her cloudhook as if she were talking to an imago herself. Mahit stood up.
Better to take action than to be paralyzed by the thousands of shifting possibilities. Human beings walked and breathed and stepped out of cycling airlock doors to patch thinning places on a station’s skin, all without thinking about how their limbs moved, where gravity had caught them, whether the internal bellows of lung and diaphragm had inflated enough or too little. She just needed to—not think. Or, to think, but to keep acting while she thought. Like speaking to Thirty Larkspur at the banquet: there was no time for paralysis. At the very least, she needed to make contact with Lsel and give them some idea of what she was dealing with.