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“And be like
Sphene
?” said Five. “No captain, hiding from everyone? No, thank you, Fleet Captain. Besides.” Five actually frowned. Took a breath. “I can’t believe I’m actually saying this, but Lieutenant Seivarden is right. And
you’re
right—ships don’t love other ships. I’ve been thinking about it since I met you. You don’t know this, because you were unconscious at the time, but back at Omaugh Palace, weeks ago, the Lord of the Radch tried to assign me a new captain and I told her I didn’t want anyone but you. Which was foolish, because of course she could always force me to accept her choice. There was no point in my protesting, nothing I could say or do would make any difference. But I did it anyway, and she sent me you. And I kept on thinking about it. And maybe it isn’t that ships don’t love other ships. Maybe it’s that ships love people who could be captains. It’s just, no ships have ever been able to be captains before.” Five wiped more tears off my face. “I do like Lieutenant Ekalu. I like her a great deal. And I like Lieutenant Seivarden well enough, but mostly because she loves you.”

Seivarden was relaxed and motionless beside me, breathing even, eyes still closed. She didn’t respond to that at all. “Seivarden doesn’t love me,” I said. “She’s grateful that I saved her life, and I’m pretty much the only connection she has with everything she’s lost.”

“That’s not true,” said Seivarden, still placid. “Well, all right, it’s sort of true.”

“It works both ways,” observed Five. Or Ship, I wasn’t sure. “And you’re not used to being loved. You’re used to people being attached to you. Or being fond of you. Or depending on you. Not loving you, not really. So I think it doesn’t occur to you that it’s something that might actually happen.”

“Oh,” I said. Seivarden warm and close beside me, though the hard edge of the corrective on my arm was poking into her bare shoulder. Not painfully, certainly not uncomfortably enough to disturb her med-stabilized mood, but I shifted
slightly, at first not realizing what I’d just done, that I had known what Seivarden was feeling and moved on account of that. Five frowned at me—an actual reflection of her mood, she was worried, exasperated, embarrassed. Tired—she hadn’t slept much in the last day or so. Ship was feeding me data again, and I’d missed it so much. Out in the corridor Medic was on her way here with meds for me, determined and apprehensive. Kalr Twelve, stepping into a doorway to make way for Medic, was suggesting to Kalr Seven that they find four or five more of their decade-mates to stand outside my room and sing something. The thought of singing by herself was far too mortifying.

“Sir,” said Five. Really Five, not anyone else, I thought. “Why are you still crying?”

Helpless to stop myself, I made a small, hiccupping sob. “My leg.” Five was genuinely puzzled. “Why did it have to be the good one? And not the one that hurts me all the time?”

Before Five could say anything Medic came in, said to me, as though neither Five nor Seivarden was there, “This is to help you relax, Fleet Captain.” Five stepped aside for her as she fixed a tab she held to the back of my neck. “You need as much rest
and quiet
”—that with the briefest glance at Seivarden, then, though Seivarden wasn’t listening, wasn’t likely to do anything particularly noisy anytime soon—“as you can get before you decide to get up and charge off into things. Which I know you’ll do long before you actually should.” She took the cloth Five still held. Wiped my eyes with it, handed it back to Five. “Get some sleep!” she ordered, and left the room.

“I don’t want to go to sleep,” I said to Five. “I want tea.”

“Yes, sir,” said Five, actually, visibly relieved.

“Definitely a ship thing,” said Seivarden.

I fell asleep before tea could arrive. Woke hours later to find Seivarden asleep beside me, turned on her side, one arm thrown across my body, her head on my shoulder. Breathing evenly, not long from waking, herself. And Kalr Five coming in the doorway with tea. In the green handled bowl again.

This time I managed to reach for it. “Thank you, Five,” I said. Took a sip. I felt calm and light—Medic’s doing, I was sure.

“Sir,” said Five, “Translator Zeiat is asking to see you. Medic would prefer you rest a while longer.” So would Five, it appeared, but she didn’t say so.

“There’s not much point in refusing the translator anything,” I pointed out. “You remember Dlique.” And how Translator Zeiat’s tiny ship had just appeared near
Mercy of Kalr
, hours before we gated.

“Yes, sir,” agreed Five.

I looked down at myself—mostly naked, except for an impressive assortment of correctives, the blanket, and gloves. Seivarden still draped half over me. “I’d like to have breakfast, first, though, will that be all right with the translator?”

“It will have to be, sir,” said Five.

In the event, Translator Zeiat consented to wait until I’d eaten, and Seivarden was off to her own bed. And Five had cleaned me up and made me more presentable. “Fleet Captain,” the Presger translator said, coming into the room, Five standing stiff and disapproving at the doorway. “I’m Presger Translator Zeiat.” She bowed. And then sighed. “I was just getting used to the last fleet captain. I suppose I’ll get used to you.” She frowned. “Eventually.”

“I’m still Fleet Captain Breq, Translator,” I said.

Her frown cleared. “I suppose that’s easier to remember. But it’s a little odd, isn’t it? You’re pretty obviously not the same person. Fleet Captain Breq—the previous one, I mean—had two legs. Are you absolutely
certain
you’re Fleet Captain Breq?”

“Quite certain, Translator.”

“All right, then. If you’re sure.” She paused, waiting, perhaps, for me to confess I wasn’t. I said nothing. “So, Fleet Captain. I think it’s probably best to be very frank about this, and I hope you’ll forgive my bluntness. I have, of course, been aware that you are in possession of a weapon designed and manufactured by the Presger. This appears to have been some sort of secret? I’m not certain, actually.”

“Translator,” I interrupted, before she could continue, “I’m curious. You’ve said several times that you don’t understand about different sorts of humans, but the Presger sold those guns to the Garseddai, specifically for them to use against the Radchaai.”

“You must be more careful how you say things, Fleet Captain,” Translator Zeiat admonished. “You can muddle things up so badly. The last fleet captain was prone to it, too. It’s true that
they
don’t understand. At all. Some translators, though, we do. Sort of. I admit our understanding was shakier then than it is now, though, you’d have a point there. But let me see if I can find a way to explain. Imagine… yes, imagine a very small child appears to have her heart set on doing something dangerous. Setting the city she lives in on fire, say. You can be constantly on guard, constantly keeping her out of trouble. Or you can persuade her to put her hand into a very
small
fire. She might lose a finger or two, or even an arm, and of course it would be quite painful, but that would be the point, wouldn’t it? She’d never do it again. In fact, you’d think she’d
be likely to never even go near any fires, ever, not after that. It seemed like the perfect solution, and it did seem to work quite well, at least at first. But it turns out not to have been a permanent fix. We didn’t understand Humans very well at the time. We understand more now, or at least we think we do. Just between you and me”—she looked to one side and then the other, as though wary of being overheard—“Humans are very strange. Sometimes I despair of our managing the situation at all.”

“What situation would that be, Translator?”

Her eyes widened, surprise or even shock. “Oh, Fleet Captain, you
are
a great deal like your predecessor! I really thought you were following things. But it’s not your fault, is it. No, it isn’t really anyone’s
fault
, it’s just how things are. Consider, Fleet Captain, we have a vested interest in keeping the peace. If there’s no treaty there’s no reason for translators, is there? And while it’s unsettling to consider it too directly, we’re actually fairly closely related to Humans. No,
we
don’t want even the breath of the thought of the possibility that the treaty might be compromised. Now, your
having
that gun is one thing. But yesterday someone
used
that gun. To fire on Human ships. Which of course is
exactly
what it was meant for, but it was made
before
the treaty, do you see? And of course, we made that treaty with Humans, but to be completely honest with you, I’m beginning to have some trouble sorting out who’s Human and who isn’t. And on top of that it’s become clear to me that Anaander Mianaai may not actually have been acting for all Humans when she made that agreement. Which is going to be impossible to explain to
them
, as I’ve already said, and of course we none of us care much what you do among yourselves, but using Presger-made weapons to do it, and so soon after that business with
the Rrrrrr? It doesn’t look good. I know that was twenty-five years ago, but you must understand that might as well be five minutes to
them
. And just as there wasn’t… enthusiasm in all quarters regarding the treaty, there is… some ambivalence over the existence and sale of those guns.”

“I don’t understand, Translator,” I confessed.

She sighed heavily. “I didn’t think you would. Still, I had to try. Are you absolutely sure you don’t have any oysters here?”

“I told you before you came aboard that we didn’t, Translator.”

“Did you?” She seemed genuinely puzzled. “I thought it was that soldier of yours who told me.”

“Translator, how did you know I had the gun?”

She blinked in evident surprise. “It was obvious. The previous Fleet Captain Breq had it under her jacket when I met her. I could… no, not hear it exactly. Smell it? No, that’s not right, either. I don’t… I don’t think it’s a mode of perception you’re capable of, actually. Now I think of it.”

“And if I may ask, Translator, why 1.11 meters?”

She frowned, obviously puzzled. “Fleet Captain?”

“The guns. The bullets will go through anything for 1.11 meters and then they stop. Why 1.11 meters? It doesn’t seem like a terribly useful distance.”

“Well, no,” replied Translator Zeiat, still frowning. “It wasn’t
meant
to be a useful distance. In fact, the distance wasn’t meant at all. You know, Fleet Captain, you’re doing that thing again, where you say something in a way that sends you off in entirely the wrong direction. No, the bullets aren’t designed to go through anything for 1.11 meters. They’re designed to destroy Radchaai ships. That was what the purchasers required of them. The 1.11 meters is a kind of… accidental side effect sort of thing. And useful in its own
way of course. But when you fire at a Radchaai ship you get something very different, I assure you. As we assured the Garseddai, honestly, but they didn’t quite entirely believe us. They’d have done a good deal more damage if they had. Although I doubt things would ultimately have turned out much differently.”

Hope flared, that I had not allowed myself before now. If those three ships I’d fired at had not changed course, perhaps there was only one left. One, plus
Sword of Atagaris
. And
Mercy of Ilves
, at the outstations, but the fact that
Mercy of Ilves
hadn’t even attempted to involve itself in my battle with
Sword of Atagaris
suggested it and its captain wanted no trouble and might contrive to find reasons to stay near the outstations for quite some time, if they could manage it. And if the gun was truly that specifically effective, I might put it to better, more efficient use. “Would it be possible for me to buy more bullets from you?”

Translator Zeiat’s frown only deepened. “From me? I don’t have any, Fleet Captain. From
them
, though? That’s its own problem. You see, the treaty specified—very much at Anaander Mianaai’s insistence—that no such weapons would ever again be provided to Humans.”

“So the Geck or the Rrrrrr could buy them?”

“I suppose they could. Though I can’t imagine why they would
want
a weapon made to destroy Radchaai ships. Unless the treaty broke down, and then, of course, Humans would have problems a good deal more urgent than a few ship-destroying guns, I can assure you.”

Well. I still had several magazines left. I was still alive. There was, impossibly, a chance. Slim, but even so a good deal less slim than I’d thought just minutes ago. “What if Athoek wanted to buy medical correctives from you?”

“We could probably come to some sort of an agreement about correctives,” Translator Zeiat replied. “The sooner the better, I imagine. You do seem to be using them at an alarming rate.”

“Absolutely not,” said Medic four hours later, when I asked her for crutches. More accurately, I had asked Five for them, and Medic had arrived at my bedside minutes later. “You’ve still got correctives working on your upper body, and your right leg, come to that. You can move your arms, so you may think, Fleet Captain, that you could safely get up, but you’d be mistaken.”

“I’m not mistaken.”

“Everything’s going fine,” Medic continued, as though I hadn’t spoken. “We’re safe in gate-space and Lieutenant Ekalu has everything under control. If you insist on meetings, you can have them here. Tomorrow—maybe—you can try a few steps and see how it goes.”

“Give me the crutches.”

“No.” At some thought, adrenaline surged and her heart rate increased. “You can shoot me for it if you want, I won’t do it.”

Real fear, that was. But she knew, I was sure, that I wouldn’t shoot her for such a thing. And doctors had more leeway than other officers, at least in medical matters. Still. “I’ll crawl, then.”

“You won’t,” said Medic. Voice calm, but her heart was still beating fast, and she was beginning to be angry on top of the fear.

“Watch me.”

“I don’t know why you even bother with a doctor,” she said, and walked out, still angry.

Two minutes later Five came into the room with crutches. I sat all the way up, carefully swiveled so my one leg hung off the side of the bed, and got the crutches under my arms. Slid so that my bare foot was on the floor. Put weight on my leg and nearly collapsed, only the crutches and Kalr Five’s quick support holding me upright. “Sir,” Five whispered, “let me help you back into bed. I’ll get you into your uniform if you like and you can have the lieutenants meet you here.”