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taken into account! But, Fleet Captain, that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about. And of course I don’t want to keep you standing here on the concourse. Perhaps we could have tea?”
    “I’m afraid, Eminence,” I replied, smooth and bland, “that I’m terribly busy. I’m on my way to meet with Governor Giarod, and then I very much need to see about my own soldiers, who have been sleeping at the end of a station corridor for the past few nights.” Station Administration was surely awash in complaints just now, and no one was going to look out for the interests of my own small household if I didn’t.
    “Yes, yes, Fleet Captain, that was one of the things I wanted to discuss with you! You know, the Undergarden used to be quite a fashionable neighborhood. Not, perhaps, as fashionable as the apartments overlooking the concourse.” She gestured around, upward, at the windows lining the second story of this, the center of station life and its largest open space besides the Gardens. “Perhaps if the Undergarden had been equally fashionable, it would have been repaired long ago! But things are as they are.” She made a pious gesture, submission to the will of God. “ Lovely apartments, I’ve heard. I can only imagine what shape they’re in now, after so many years of Ychana squatting there. But I do hope the original assignments will be taken into account, now there’s a refit underway.”
    I wondered how many of those families were even still here. “I am unable to assist you, Eminence. I have no authority over housing assignments. You would do better to speak to Station Administrator Celar.”
    “I spoke to the station administrator, Fleet Captain, andshe told me that you had insisted on current arrangements. I’m sure leaving everyone where they are seems practical to you, but really, there are special circumstances here. And this morning’s cast was quite concerning .”
    It was possible the head priest was championing this cause entirely out of concern for families who hoped to return to the Undergarden. But she was also a friend of Captain Hetnys’s—Captain Hetnys, who had been working for the part of the Lord of the Radch who had killed Lieutenant Awn Elming. The part of the Lord of the Radch who had destroyed the troop carrier Justice of Toren —that is to say, the part of the Lord of the Radch who had destroyed me. And the timing of this, just when it had become clear that I was not a supporter of that side of Anaander Mianaai, was suspicious. That, and the bringing to bear of the daily omen casting. I had met quite a few priests in my long life, and found that they were, by and large, like anyone else—some generous, some grasping; some kind, some cruel; some humble, some self-aggrandizing. Most were all of those things, in various proportions, at various times. Like anyone else, as I said. But I had learned to be wary whenever a priest suggested that her personal aims were, in fact, God’s will.
    “How comforting,” I replied, my voice and my expression steadily serious, “to think that in these difficult times God is still concerned with the details of housing assignments. I myself have no time to discuss them just now.” I bowed, as perfectly respectful as the head priest had been, and walked away from her, across the concourse toward the governor’s residence.
    “It’s interesting, isn’t it,” said Station in my ear, “that the gods are only now interested in refitting the Undergarden.”
    “ Very interesting,” I replied, silently. “Thank you, Station.”
    “An ancillary!” Disbelief was obvious in Governor Giarod’s face, her voice. “Where’s the ship?”
    “On the other side of the Ghost Gate.” A gate that led to a dead-end system, where the Athoeki had intended to expand, before the annexation, but it had never happened. There were vague rumors that the system was haunted. Captain Hetnys and Sword of Atagaris had shown an unaccountable interest in that gate.