“I’m not sure what else I could have done, while he simultaneously confessed to Yskandr’s murder and informed me that absolutely no one cares about it,” Mahit said.
Three Seagrass wrapped the meat in a large purple-white flower petal. She’d ordered a stack of them, and was treating them like thin little breads—a conveyance for the flesh from the plate to her mouth. “Wept,” she said. “Swore revenge. Attempted immediate violence.”
“I’m not a hero in an epic, Three Seagrass.” Mahit resented how saying so made her feel ashamed, inadequate: she shouldn’t still want to want to be Teixcalaanli, emulating, a re-creation of literature. Not after this week.
The petal-wrap got smeared with a deep green sauce that seemed to be both condiment and structural glue, and then bitten into with gusto. Around her mouthful, Three Seagrass said, “I said you did well, all right? You did. I don’t know what you’re planning to do next, but you managed that meeting like someone born to the palace, or at the very least like a trained asekreta.”
Mahit felt color rise in her cheeks. “I do appreciate that.”
The pause between them—Three Seagrass smiling, eyes wide and warm and sympathetic, Mahit exquisitely aware of how her cheeks were red, red like flower petals or the meat Three Seagrass was eating—felt charged. Mahit swallowed. Found something to say.
“All aside from the murder confession,” she began, and was gratified when Three Seagrass sat up a little straighter, paid a little more attention—there’s work to be done here—“Ten Pearl’s overly interested in hydroponics. Ours are good, but they’re not the sort of thing that feeds a planet. I can’t think of why he’d want to talk to me about them, unless something has gone peculiarly off with the City’s food-growth algorithm…”
And found that what she’d found to say was interesting, now that she was saying it. “As off as the City’s security algorithm is.”
“You mean City-strikes. Like what happened to me in Plaza Central Nine. And … whatever is going on with the Sunlit. If something is going on with the Sunlit.”
Mahit nodded. “Ten Pearl became Minister because of his perfect algorithms. First the subway, when he integrated all the disparate lines into one algorithmic AI-controlled system, and then the City’s security apparatus. Yes?”
“Yes,” Three Seagrass said. “How did you learn that, anyway? It happened … oh, I wasn’t even out of the crèche yet.”
Mahit shrugged. “If I say imago-technology, but not functioning as I expected, will you be surprised?”
“Not anymore.” Another one of those strange, warm smiles.
Mahit couldn’t quite keep eye contact when she was doing that. “You said that there’d been eight City-strikes in the past year. When we were walking back, two nights ago. How many more is that than the year before?”
Three Seagrass tilted her head slightly to the side. “Seven more. Are you suggesting that the algorithm is faulty?”
“Or it’s being used faultily. An algorithm’s only as perfect as the person designing it.”
“Oh, that’s clever, Mahit,” Three Seagrass said, delighted. “If you want revenge on Science for a murder, murder Science’s reputation of impartiality.”
It was so utterly satisfying when Three Seagrass understood what she meant, without Mahit having to laboriously explain. “Ten Pearl’s reputation specifically,” she said, agreeing, “since it won him the Ministry, designing this algorithm, which is now hurting perfectly normal citizens of the Empire.”
“I like it,” Three Seagrass said. “We’ll need some data science people—an ixplanatl to make the statement look good—and someone to release the report widely—especially if it is connected to War, that’ll be an interesting needle to thread…”
“We’ll thread it. After I’m allowed back into my apartment. After this all is—quieter.”
Three Seagrass winced, and reached out to pat the back of Mahit’s hand. “What do you want to do right now? Still … what we talked about before? With the machine? I got a message from Twelve Azalea, while we were ordering, he’s come up with some medical person half a province away.”
That felt like the first good news Mahit had heard in a long time. Her skin went prickly, relief and excitement and a kind of intoxicating fear. “Yes,” she said. “I need to have access to that cipher even more now. I need to do something. Change something. Make the situation otherwise.”
Three Seagrass considered her, head tilted just slightly. Mahit wanted to look away. She had just suggested that she was preparing to intervene in the current political chaos. If there was a point where her liaison would balk, back away … but Three Seagrass merely nodded, and said, “I would be terrified.”
“Who says I’m not?”
“But you’ve done it before.”
“Under far more expert care than whoever Twelve Azalea has found for us.”
Three Seagrass looked like she wanted to bristle at that insult to Teixcalaanli medical technology, but she turned it into a shrug, instead. “He knows a lot of people. All kinds of people. I’m sure this person has at least some idea of what they’re doing.”
“If I die, or wake up scrambled,” Mahit said, “I want you to tell the next ambassador from Lsel—if there is a next ambassador—absolutely everything. As much as possible, all at once.”
“If you die, the Information Ministry is not going to let me near the next ambassador from Lsel, nor any other ambassadors.”
Mahit had to smile. “I’ll try not to.”
“Good,” said Three Seagrass. “Do you want one of these?”
“What?”
“A sandwich; you keep staring.”
Mahit’s mouth filled with saliva. “Was it an animal? Before it was food.”
“… yes?” Three Seagrass said. “This is a nice restaurant, Mahit.”
She was probably going to die of experimental brain surgery, all of her allies save two Information Ministry agents were either vanished or suspect, and Teixcalaan would most likely eat her home alive with bloody starship-teeth.
“Yes,” she said. “I want one.”
The meat, when she tasted it, bloomed on her tongue with juice.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Jewel of the World Central Traffic Control Supervisor Three Nasturtium to Imperial Flagship Twenty Sunsets Illuminated: PLEASE CONTACT CT APPROACH CONTROL AT ONCE YOU HAVE ENTERED CONTROLLED AIRSPACE WITHOUT CLEARANCE OR COMMUNICATION DECLARE INTENTIONS AND VECTORS FOR CTC TO ROUTE TRAFFIC AROUND YOU CONTACT CT APPROACH ON FREQUENCY ONE EIGHT ZERO POINT FIVE AGAIN IMPERIAL FLAGSHIP TWENTY SUNSETS ILLUMINATED YOU HAVE ENTERED CONTROLLED AIRSPACE WITHOUT CLEARANCE OR COMMUNICATION PLEASE ACKNOWLEDGE
>>QUERY/auth:ONCHU(PILOTS)/last access
>>Imago-machine 32675(Yskandr Aghavn) last accessed by Medical (Neurosurgery), 155.3.11-6D (Teix.Rec.)
>>QUERY/auth:ONCHU(PILOTS)/all access
>>field too large
>>QUERY/auth:ONCHU(PILOTS)//all access *.3.11
>>Imago-machine 32675(Yskandr Aghavn) accessed by Medical (Neurosurgery), 155.3.11-6D (Teix.Rec.); Medical (Maintenance), 152.3.11-6D; Aknel Amnardbat for Heritage, 152.3.11-6D; Medical (Maintenance), 150.3.11-6D; Medical (Maintenance) 50.3.11-6D […]