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“Hiic and romantic to be Garseddai” Captain Uisine’s voice was disdainful “It’s only thelist of Radchaai atrocities The only system to resist invasion so effectively that the Radchaai destroyed every last one of them for it and left the entire system burned and lifeless People like your Prolocutor Budrakim can claim ancestors who are either especially valorous or especially deserving of sympathy, whichever suits them better at the moment Lucky for theuess, he’s descended froed to secretly flee the syste”

“But he is!” insisted Ingray “He has proof He’s got part of a panel from inside the shuttle his ancestor fled in, and a shirt with blood on it And a lot of other things, jewelry and a half dozen of those little pentagonal tokens staas They were stolen You really didn’t hear about this?”

“I really didn’t” Captain Uisine sounded half sarcastic, as though the idea that hethat had consuray had known, and pretty much every major news service in Hwae System, struck him as ridiculous

“It was an inside job Pahlad had grown up in Ethiat Budraki the lareues were kept” There had been a lot of coenerous of proed circumstances, or even the public crèches, it had been foolish of Ethiat Budrakim to trust Pahlad so ied heirs, everyone knew that Thinking of it still ray, herself a foster-child out of a public crèche, cringe unhappily “Nobody could have done it except Pahlad”

“And for this e is cast permanently into an inescapable prison, what did you call it, Compassionate Removal? And declared dead?” He took his hand off the crate Put it back, when the crate shifted again, even though Ingray still held her end

“E had betrayed eir parent! It was a huge scandal And e showed no signs of re had been very elaborate and cold-blooded E s and put them in the lareum in place of the real ones, and there was Prolocutor Budraki they were the real ones, and no one knowing they were fake the whole tiht there nearly every ti” And after all, it wasn’t as though e was being executed “The copies were nearly perfect”

Captain Uisine thought about that a moment “And your interest in this?”

“They never found the originals,” Ingray said “Pahlad wouldn’t say what had happened to the But of course e must have done it, no one else could have So e must knohere they are”

“Ah” Captain Uisine seeainst the airlock frame, folded his arinals, which you can then, what, sell? Hold hostage? Restore heroically to their proper place?”

Any of theray’s purpose, really But what she wantedthem to Netano “My mother is a District Representative in the Third Assembly She wants to be Third Prolocutor—she tried, last election, but in the end the votes tipped Budrakim’s way” And Netano had never been friendly with Ethiat Budrakim, an enmity that couldn’t be explained by differences of faction After all, plenty of other Asse quite a positions on tariffs or fishing lione last year Gone because e’d wanted to, e’d insisted, not because Netano had sent e out the door, and e hadn’t answered any of Ingray’s es since “Two foster children in et to be Netano eventually”

“And this is how you intend to distinguish yourself in your uessed

“I didn’t expect Pahlad to coed up like this!” She couldn’t resist the irabbed a handful of soft silk skirt “I went to, you know, the usual sort of broker here, andPahlad Budrakim out of Compassionate Removal” Honestly, she hadn’t really expected that anyone would take that offer up The plan had been desperate from the start

“Slavery and hual here,” Captain Uisine observed “Technically, anyway Of course they would deliver this person to you all packaged up It gives them deniability And I must say, excellency, the fact that that didn’t occur to you, or that you weren’t at least prepared for the possibility, suggests to me that you’re not best suited to follow in the footsteps of your apparently politicalto cry Captain Uisine continued speaking “I mean no offense We all have our particular talents What happens if you aren’t selected to be your mother’s heir?”

Possibly not much Possibly she would just continue in her job, in the fa worth doing, the stakes were all or nothing Most fae, or were fostering children froements, some in permanent adoptions Danach, for instance, was a foster from one of Netano’s supporters But there were always so or unable to care for the or able to foster them, who ended up as wards of the state in one of the district’s public crèches Ingray, like Pahlad Budrakim, had been one of these “I don’t really have a chance to be Mahskold household, or was sent away, she had no other family to turn to She would be entirely on her own “Mama likes it e take initiative, and she likes schemes, but she doesn’t like it e fail If I fail badly enough I’ll probably have to leave the household Worse, I’ll be in debt I borrowed against h for the payment So even if I don’t lose my job—which I probably will—I’ll be broke For years” For decades “I knoasn’t exactly a prudent use of my resources,” she admitted Willed herself to open her hand, raised it to lay on the crate but instead clasped it with her other hand, a perfectly acceptable pose with no danger of anxiously clutching at things “If I was going to borrow like that, I ought to have just invested it somewhere safe Then if Netano sent h to keep ht of Danach sneering openly at her Of losing any chance at all of Netano Aughskold’s regard

Captain Uisine stared at her over the crate “I a your passage—both of the berths you’ve paid for—and asking you to leave this bay I haven’t , there’s no way you’re bringing that person—Pahlad Budrakim, you said?—aboardyou expected to meet em awake and unfrozen, you won’t have any objection to t