The Sleuth of the Radch Empire

Tang Fan has noticed Wang Zhi before, of course. She’s not obtrusive, but neither is she quiet. She’s frequently to be found in the quiet back corners of cafes and restaurants, holding conversations with other women, usually women who Tang Fan knows of, the ones who move in the station’s deep, hidden currents.

Tang Fan has been paying attention to Wang Zhi. As a magistrate, she never knows what will be important, and she takes pride in her part in keeping the station running smoothly, her small contribution to the Radch Empire. And Wang Zhi is a woman of some importance, in a way that Tang Fan doesn’t precisely approve of, but has to deal with; a dealer in influence, rather than a scholar, or labourer, or even a bureaucrat.

Today, she is aware of Wang Zhi, but not precisely paying attention to her. A ship is docked in the station, one of the Four Constellations, The White Tiger of Autumn, and her captain is moving through the station. Everyone is watching her. Women up and down the station’s corridors are keeping a wary eye as Captain Wan Zhen’er strides toward the center of the station, flanked by her ship. The ancillaries move in that slightly inhuman way that ancillaries do, all moved by the mind of the ship, rather than animated by individual will. Tang Fan is reminded that barbarians slander them as ‘corpse soldiers’, accusing the Radch of impiety. It’s not true, of course, they’re not precisely dead, and besides, they’re not citizens, but Tang Fan can understand why the superstitious see them as a desecration: the movement of ancillaries is too clean, everyone can see it.

But Tang Fan has always found the true mark of an ancillary the way a ship looks at her captain. Certainly, she’s seen a ship split her focus to achieve whatever complex task is necessary, but, the singular focus of a ship is always on her captain; no matter what task she is set to, there’s always a corner of her attention turned toward her.

And as Captain Wan Zhen’er passes, something about Wang Zhi catches Tang Fan’s attention. She couldn’t say precisely what it is, but while everyone else is watching the captain and her ship pass, Tang Fan watches Wang Zhi. Wang Zhi isn’t watching the captain; not, like everyone else, trying to watch surreptitiously, but rather her attention is turned to her soup. Tang Fan checks. No one else in the cafe, or visible from the corridors, is not, in some way, watching them pass.

Station, Tang Fan asks, what can you tell me about Citizen Wang Zhi?

Citizen Wang Zhi is 19 years of age. She is a registered information broker, in good standing with all civic entities. She claims no house, and passed her examinations with 3rd degree honours, although her eight-legged essay was considered somewhat derivative. I can tell you more if you have a case she is pertinent to.

There is no case. Station is fairly tolerant of Tang Fan’s curiosities and Tang Fan recognizes that Station is already bending the rules a little with that comment on Wang Zhi’s essay. Only one of my curiosities, says Tang Fan, You’re too good to me, Station.

Station sends a neutral tone that Tang Fan tends to read, perhaps over-optimistically, as affection. Station indulges her, she thinks, especially since her curiosities have paid out in the past, and Station likes Tang Fan’s efforts toward the smooth running of operations, and even, perhaps, her unwillingness to bend for the sake of politics, although Station would never say so.

Wang Zhi, she thinks, bears further investigation.

---

The lieutenant from The Azure Dragon of Spring, Sui Zhou, is unfairly attractive, and Tang Fan resents having to work with her on this case. She’s just so… muscular! And her moustache is giving Tang Fan ideas.

Tang Fan was made this way, she can’t help it.

“Are you listening to me?” asks Sui Zhou, and Tang Fan isn’t, because Sui Zhou isn’t stupid, but she’s just recounting the events of the poet’s suicide, and it’s nothing Tang Fan doesn’t already know. The important thing is that she’s spotted Wang Zhi in the mirror, neglecting her soup to listen to them.

“Excuse me,” says Tang Fan. She’s meant to do this for a while, but this seems like a good moment since she’s pretty sure Wang Zhi will be inhibited by Lieutenant Sui Zhou’s presence.

She gets up and moves to Wang Zhi’s table, seating herself next to her, rather than opposite, so she can still see Sui Zhou. As she approaches, she briefly sees startlement pass over Wang Zhi’s face, then resignation. “Excuse me, ship, might I have a moment?” she asks, although having already seated herself, it’s not really a question.

For a moment, a moment so brief she thinks she might have imagined it, there is no expression whatsoever on Wang Zhi’s face. Then she laughs, an expression of pure delight. “Citizen! What a hilarious mistake for you to make! I cannot think who is having fun at your expense, but I admit, I like her style!”

Tang Fan perseveres. “I am not sure how to address you. But if you can tell me which Constellation is interested in my case, it would be helpful to my investigation.”

Wang Zhi’s expression closes, somewhat, but she is still not displaying the expressions of an ancillary. Tang Fan wonders what it must be like for a ship, to have to keep her ancillary’s face animated at all times, displaying a full range of human emotions. A ship’s mind is immense, but surely there is some strain? “Ah, I’m a Constellation! Which one, pray tell? This is a very sophisticated joke, I see.”

“I have narrowed it down to either The Black Tortoise of Winter or the White Tiger of Autumn,” says Tang Fan. “I thought you might be The Azure Dragon until I met Lieutenant Sui Zhou.”

Wang Zhi smiles genially. “I am not sure what the purpose of this is, but I don’t know how to help you. Please tell your friend I have been amused, though.”

“Ship,” says Tang Fan, “I don’t like you sneaking about on my station, and I don’t like you interfering in my case, but I know we are all working for the betterment of the Radch, and the Daughter of Heaven. Therefore, if you want something from this magistrate, please say what it is, and I will tell you if it is permitted by my office.”

Tang Fan, says Station, I don’t understand what you’re doing! Wang Zhi is a citizen, and I think you’re provoking her. Her adrenaline is rising.

Trust me, Tang Fan tells Station, although she doesn’t think Station can. What Station knows and what Tang Fan has deduced are mutually incompatible, and it would be asking a great deal of Station for her to set aside her encyclopedic knowledge in favour of Tang Fan’s wildly improbable deduction.

Sui Zhou rises and comes over. Usually she takes care to keep her body language nonthreatening, but now she is walking with her trained soldier’s stride. Tang Fan assumes Station prompted her. “Magistrate Tang?” she asks, “Is this person of interest to our case?”

“Our case is of interest to this person,” says Tang Fan, and gives Wang Zhi her sweetest smile. Is it wasted on a ship? Perhaps, but the ship, whoever she is, has clearly been making a study of human expressions, so she wants to communicate that she appreciates the ship’s mastery. “Sorry for interrupting your meal, citizen.”

---

“Do you want to die?” asks Wang Zhi, or the Constellation. She has come to this impossible place, a place not within Station’s knowledge of herself. Somehow, the ship knew, and sent Wang Zhi, along with six uniformed ancillaries, who are not pretending to be anything else. Or perhaps they are pretending, pretending that they are what ship’s ancillaries look like. “Why did you send that lieutenant away?”

“Her captain would take it out on her again if she was mixed up in this, and besides, I knew you would get here first” she says, although it comes out a little slurred because of how her lower lip is swollen. “The Dragon is not as clever as you are, Tiger.”

“Call this one Wang Zhi,” says Tiger’s shortest ancillary, the one not in uniform. The other ancillaries work silently to disassemble the dangerous contraband device keeping this unmapped passageway from Station’s consciousness.

“Hey, that’s evidence!” says Tang Fan, as two ancillaries set up between them a portable recycler, and begin to put the parts of the device in it.

“If this device existed,” says ‘Wang Zhi’, “which it does not, it would be knowledge exclusive to the Forbidden Palace.”

“If this crime happened,” says Tang Fan, “Which it did, it would have been committed by a client to your captain’s sister.”

“Is Wang Yue one of Wan Tong’s clients?” asks ‘Wang Zhi’, as if this were genuinely news to her. “How unfortunate. Nevertheless, with her death, I don’t see why this unpleasantness need be entered into the record.” ‘Wang Zhi’ makes one of her infuriating faces. “Besides, think how confusing it will be, when the location of the crime doesn’t exist, and none of the evidence was recovered!”

Tang Fan makes an enraged noise. “Free me immediately! The testimony of a magistrate is evidence!”

Wang Zhi looks at her, and Tang Fan realizes she allowed herself to think of the ancillary as… a person. Or maybe the ship is a person? It’s all very confusing.

“What, precisely, do you intend to testify to?” asks Wang Zhi. The White Tiger of Autumn. One of the four Constellation class starships is meeting her eyes.

“I…” says Tang Fan. She hadn’t thought about this part. “I think… I think you buy a different kind of soup, every time.”

Wang Zhi looks at her in incomprehension. Is that expression a performance? Tang Fan chooses to treat it as real.

“I think if you want to taste something other than skel, you should get to. I think you should let me take you to the Oirat levels, where they serve food you’ve never tasted.”

An ancillary who isn’t Wang Zhi reaches a tool toward Tang Fan’s neck, and she flinches, but the ancillary only unbolts her from the stockade.

“Oh!” says Tang Fan. “Thank you! I want to look at Wang Yue’s quarters, as well.”

“Don’t push your luck,” says Wang Zhi, and leaves, together with all the other ancillaries, and the portable recycler, which, she suspects, is going to catastrophically malfunction very shortly.

Tang Fan! says Station. Where did you go!? Your cortisol levels– I don’t like your blood sugar, either, stay there, I’m sending Lieutenant Sui Zhou to get you, she’ll be there in three and half minutes. She wants to get you some hawthorn candies for your blood sugar, but I’ve told her there are sucrose tablets in the medkit.

I told her I wanted to try the hawthorn candies she was talking about, Tan Fan tells Station.

Was that– I don’t understand, I just… says Station. I’m changing shape? This isn’t possible. Station sounds distressed, and it hurts Tang Fan’s heart, a little.

“It’s okay, Station,” she says, aloud, for no reason except to hear her voice in this wrecked crime scene. “I’ll explain it to you, in a little while. Does Sui Zhou have an analgesic?”

The medkit is fully equipped, says Station, sounding a bit huffy. Do you have any other injuries I’m not registering? Do you need a corrective?

“It’s fine, Station,” says Tang Fan. “I’m just. I had some things change shape on me too, that’s all. You’re probably sensing some shock hormones, but it’ll be fine once I settle. They’re just bumps and bruises, otherwise.”

I’m sorry, says Station, this isn’t supposed to happen.

“Well,” says Tang Fan. “Sometimes things happen outside of the understanding of the Radch, but they happen all the same, don’t they?”

I didn’t hear that, says Station, primly. Then, I told Sui Zhou she can detour for the hawthorn candy.