Free 0316246689 (S) by Ann Leckie Page B

Translator.” On, it seemed, firmer ground for the moment. “Would you like to eat something now?”
    “Yes, please, Governor!”
    Even before the translator arrived, Governor Giarod had wanted to bring Translator Zeiat to the governor’s residence by a back route, through an access tunnel. Before the treaty the Presger had torn apart human ships and Stations—and their inhabitants—for no comprehensible reason. No attempt to fight them, to defend against them, had ever been successful. Until the advent of the Presger translators, no human had managed to communicate with them at all. Humans in close proximity to Presger simply died, often slowly and messily. The treaty had put an end to that, but people were afraid of the Presger, for very good reasons, and since I had insisted that we not conceal Translator Dlique’s death, people would have good reason to worry about the arrival of the Presger now.
    I had pointed out that keeping Translator Dlique’s presence a secret had not ended well. That it seemed likely no Presger translator could be successfully concealed or confined in anyevent, and that while most station residents were no doubt entirely understandably afraid of the Presger, and apprehensive of the translator’s arrival, she herself would likely look passably human and non-threatening, and the sight of her might actually be reassuring. Governor Giarod had finally agreed, and so we took the lift to the main concourse. It was midmorning on the station’s schedule, and plenty of citizens were out, walking, or standing in groups to talk. Just like every day, except for two things: the four rows of priests sitting in front of the entrance to the temple of Amaat—Eminence Ifian in the center of the very first row, sitting right on the dingy ground; and a long, snaking line of citizens that reached from Station Administration to nearly three-quarters of the way down the concourse.
    “Well,” I remarked, quietly, to Governor Giarod, who had stopped cold, three steps out of the lift, “you did tell Station that your assistant could handle anything that came up while you were busy with the translator.” Who had stopped when I and the governor had stopped, and was gazing curiously and openly around at the people, the windows on the second level, the huge reliefs of the four Emanations on the façade of the temple of Amaat.
    I could guess what Eminence Ifian was up to. A quick, silent query to Station confirmed it. The priests of Amaat were on strike. Ifian had announced that she would not make the day’s cast, because it had become clear that Station Administration didn’t care to listen to the messages Amaat provided. And incidentally, while the priests sat in front of the temple, no contracts of clientage could be made, no births or deaths registered, and no funerals held. I couldn’t help but admire the strategy—technically, most funeral obsequies that traditionally were attended to by a priest of Amaat could alsobe performed by any citizen; the filing of an actual clientage contract was arguably less important than the relationship itself and could easily enough be left for later; and one could argue that on a station with an AI, no births or deaths could possibly go unnoticed or unrecorded. But these were all things that meant a fair amount to most citizens. It wasn’t a terribly Radchaai form of citizen protest, but the eminence did have the example of the striking field workers downwell. Whom I had spoken in support of, and so I couldn’t openly oppose the priests’ work stoppage without exposing myself as a hypocrite.
    As for that long line of citizens outside Station Administration—there weren’t many forms of large-scale protest realistically available to most citizens, but one of them was standing in line when you didn’t actually need to. In theory, of course, no Radchaai on a station like Athoek ever needed to wait in much of a line for anything. One needed only put in a request and