Free 0316246689 (S) by Ann Leckie

a new question. Likely she had been holding it back all this time.
    “Because they must have gated inside human territory, toget to the Ghost System, you mean? I doubt it. They cited the treaty on arrival, you may recall.” This tiny ship didn’t look like it had the capability to make its own intersystem gates, but the Presger had surprised us before.
    The hatch clicked, and thunked, and swung open. Governor Giarod stiffened, trying, I supposed, to stand straighter than she already was. The person who came stooping through the open hatchway looked entirely human. Though of course that didn’t mean she necessarily was. She was quite tall—there must have barely been room for her to stretch out in her tiny ship. To look at her, she might have been an ordinary Radchaai. Dark hair, long, tied simply behind her head. Brown skin, dark eyes, all quite unremarkable. She wore the white of the Translators Office—white coat and gloves, white trousers, white boots. Spotless. Crisp and unwrinkled, though in such a small space there could barely have been room for a change of clothes, let alone to dress so carefully. But not a single pin, or any other kind of jewelry, to break that shining white.
    She blinked twice, as though adjusting to the light, and looked at me and at Governor Giarod, and frowned just slightly. Governor Giarod bowed, and said, “Translator. Welcome to Athoek Station. I’m System Governor Giarod, and this”—she gestured toward me—“is Fleet Captain Breq.”
    The translator’s barely perceptible frown cleared, and she bowed. “Governor. Fleet Captain. Honored and pleased to make your acquaintance. I am Presger Translator Dlique.”
    The governor was very good at looking as though she were quite calm. She drew breath to speak, but said nothing. Thinking, no doubt, of Translator Dlique herself, whose corpse was even now in suspension in Medical. Whose death we were going to have to explain.
    That explanation was apparently going to be even more difficult than we had thought. But perhaps I could make at least that part of it a bit easier. When I had first met Translator Dlique, and asked her who she was, she had said, I said just now I was Dlique but I might not be, I might be Zeiat . “Begging your very great pardon, Translator,” I said, before Governor Giarod could make a second attempt at speech, “but I believe that you’re actually Presger Translator Zeiat.”
    The translator frowned, in earnest this time. “No. No, I don’t think so. They told me I was Dlique. And they don’t make mistakes, you know. When you think they have, it’s just you looking at it wrong. That’s what they say, anyway.” She sighed. “They say all sorts of things. But you say I’m Zeiat, not Dlique. You wouldn’t say that unless you had a reason to.” She seemed just slightly doubtful of this.
    “I’m quite certain of it,” I replied.
    “Well,” she said, her frown intensifying for just a moment, and then clearing. “Well, if you’re certain . Are you certain?”
    “Quite certain, Translator.”
    “Let’s start again, then.” She shrugged her shoulders, as though adjusting the set of her spotless, perfect coat, and then bowed again. “Governor, Fleet Captain. Honored to make your acquaintance. I am Presger Translator Zeiat. And this is very awkward, but now I really do need to ask you what’s happened to Translator Dlique.”
    I looked at Governor Giarod. She had frozen, for a moment not even breathing. Then she squared her broad shoulders and said, smoothly, as though she had not been on the edge of panic just the moment before, “Translator, we’re so very sorry. We do owe you an explanation, and a very profound apology.”
    “She went and got herself killed, didn’t she,” said TranslatorZeiat. “Let me guess, she got bored and went somewhere you’d told her not to go.”
    “More or less, Translator,” I acknowledged.
    Translator Zeiat gave an exasperated sigh. “That would be just like