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Seivarden didn’t register my presence at all, she was so deeply asleep. But her nearness and warmth, her slow, even breathing, along with the data Ship fed me from Seivarden’s sleeping Amaats, was so very comfortable. Ship showed me Tisarwat in the decade room, and Bo decade coming into the soldiers’ mess. Laughing to see Kalr Five there. “Sir needed a bit of privacy with our Amaat lieutenant, did she?” Bo Ten asked. “About time!” Five just smiled, and kept on with her mending. Ekalu coming into the decade room for what would be her supper, her Etrepas finishing up the last tasks of the day before they could get into the soldiers’ mess for their own meal. Kalr One on watch, in Command. Technically against regulations, but this was the not-even-nothing of gate-space, where nothing even remotely interesting would happen, and the more experience the decade leaders could get, the better. Medic telling Kalr Twelve she’d have lunch later, she was busy just now, didn’t want to find out what would happen if the prosthetic wasn’t ready when I woke, as she’d promised. Twelve didn’t smile, though she wanted to.

Everything was as it should be. I slept, and woke hours later to Bo on watch, Tisarwat and two of her decade drilling in the gym, Ekalu and her Etrepas settling into their beds. Amaat still asleep and dreaming. Seivarden still beside me, still asleep. Five standing silent by my bed, with a rose glass bowl of tea for me. She must have made it in the decade room and carried it down the corridor. Ship said, in my ear, “Medic is available at your convenience, Fleet Captain.”

Two hours later I was walking on my new, temporary leg—not much more than a gray plastic jointed rod, flattened at the foot end. Its response was just a hair more sluggish than I liked, and my first few steps on it had been unsteady and swaying. “No running,” Medic had said, but at the moment, even if the leg had been built for heavy-duty use, I probably wouldn’t have been able to run. “I have to check it every day, because if there’s irritation or injury at the interface you won’t feel it.” Because of the corrective that was growing the leg back. “It may seem trivial, but believe me, it’s far better to catch that sort of thing early.” And I had said, “Yes, Medic.” And gone to walk up and down corridors, Twelve trailing me, the prosthetic stiff and clunking with each step, until I could do so without tripping and falling.

I found
Sphene
by itself in the decade room, sitting at the table on one side of its game with Translator Zeiat. “Hello, Cousin,” it said as I came unsteadily in the door. “Having trouble getting used to the new leg?”

“It’s more of a challenge than I expected,” I admitted. Officers of mine had lost limbs in the past, but they’d invariably been sent away to recover. And of course, if an ancillary lost a limb it was far easier just to dispose of it and thaw out a new one. Twelve pulled out a chair for me, and I lowered myself into it. Very carefully. “I just need practice, that’s all.”

“Of course.” I couldn’t tell if it was being sarcastic or not. “I’m just waiting for Translator Zeiat.”

“You don’t need to explain why you’re in the decade room, Cousin. You’re a guest here.” Twelve brought me a bowl of tea, and one of the cakes from the pile on the counter.

Brought over the same for
Sphene
. Who looked at the tea, and the cake, and said, “You don’t need to do this, you know.
You could feed me water and skel and put me in a storage compartment.”

“Why would I do that, Cousin?” I took a bite of cake. It had chopped dates in it, and cinnamon. The recipe was a particular favorite of Ekalu’s. “Tell me, does it bother you to be referred to as
it
?”

“Why would it?”

I gestured ambivalence. “It troubles some of my crew to hear you referred to as
it
, when you’re treated like a person. And I call you
Cousin
and they wouldn’t dream of ever using
it
for me. Though technically that would be correct.”

“And does it bother you to be called
she
?” asked
Sphene
.

“No,” I admitted. “I suppose I’ve gotten used to being called by whatever pronoun seems appropriate to the speaker. I have to admit, I’d take offense if one of my crew called me
it
. But mostly because I know they’d think of it as an insult.”

Sphene
picked up its cake. Took a bite. Chewed. Swallowed. Took a drink of tea. Said, “I’ve actually never thought about it until now, Cousin. But do you know what really does grate?” I gestured to her to continue, my mouth full of tea and cake. Sphene continued, “Hearing you call yourselves Radchaai. Calling this”—it gestured around—“the Radch.”

I swallowed. “I suppose I can’t blame you,” I said. “Will you tell me where you are, Cousin?”

“Right across the table from you, Cousin.” Impassive as always, but I thought I saw a trace of amusement.

“I couldn’t help but notice that when we were in the Ghost System, and
Mercy of Kalr
asked where you were, it was you who answered us, from inside the ship. You didn’t talk to
Mercy of Kalr
directly.” And as a result we couldn’t know how far away
Sphene
had been, or even guess at its location.

Sphene
smiled. “Will you do me a favor, Cousin? Will you let me go back to the station with Lieutenant Seivarden?”

“Why?”

“I won’t get in the way, I promise. It’s just that I want to be able to put my hands around the Usurper’s throat and strangle her myself.” The war
Sphene
had fled, three thousand years ago, had been an argument not just over Anaander’s policy of expanding Radchaai influence outward, but also over her legitimacy as an authority of any sort. Or so I understood—it had all happened a thousand years before I was born. “Or if that’s inconveniently time-consuming, I’ll happily shoot her in the head. As long as she knows who it is who’s doing it. I realize that it’s a futile wish, and won’t do the least bit of good, considering what she is. But I want to do it so badly. I’ve been dreaming of it for three thousand years.” I didn’t answer. “Ah, you don’t trust me. Well, I suppose I wouldn’t, either, in your place.”

Translator Zeiat came into the decade room then. “
Sphene
! I’ve been thinking and thinking, let me show you! Hello, Fleet Captain! You’ll like this, too.” She took the tray of cakes off the counter, set it in the middle of the table. “These are cakes.”

“They are,”
Sphene
agreed. The translator looked to me for confirmation, and I gestured agreement.

“All of them! All cakes!” Completely delighted at the thought. She swept the cakes off the tray and onto the table, and made two piles of them. “Now these,” she said, indicating the slightly larger stack of cinnamon date cakes, “have fruit in them. And these”—she indicated the others—“do not. Do you see? They were the same before, but now they’re different. And look. You might think to yourself—I know I thought it to myself—that they’re different because of the fruit. Or the not-fruit, you know, as the case may be. But
watch this!” She took the stacks apart, set the cakes in haphazard ranks. “Now I make a line. I just imagine one!” She leaned over, put her arm in the middle of the rows of cakes, and swept some of them to one side. “Now these,” she pointed to one side, “are different from these.” She pointed to the others. “But some of them have fruit and some don’t. They were
different
before, but now they’re
the same
. And the other side of the line, likewise. And
now
.” She reached over and took a counter from the game board.

“No cheating, Translator,” said
Sphene
. Calm and pleasant.

“I’ll put it back,” Translator Zeiat protested, and then set the counter down among the cakes. “They were different—you accept, don’t you, that they were different before?—but now they’re the same.”

“I suspect the counter doesn’t taste as good as the cakes,” said
Sphene
.

“That would be a matter of opinion,” Translator Zeiat said, just the smallest bit primly. “Besides, it
is
a cake now.” She frowned. “Or are the cakes counters now?”

“I don’t think so, Translator,” I said. “Not either way.” Carefully I stood up from my chair.

“Ah, Fleet Captain, that’s because you can’t see my imaginary line. But it’s real.” She tapped her forehead. “It exists.” She took one of the date cakes, and set it on the game board where the counter had been. “See, I told you I’d put it back.”

“I think it’s my turn,” said
Sphene
, and picked up the cake and took a bite out of it. “You’re right, Translator, this tastes just as good as the other cakes.”

“Sir,” whispered Kalr Twelve, close behind me as I cautiously walked out into the corridor. She had listened to the entire conversation with a growing sense of offended horror. “I need to say, sir, none of us would
ever
call you
it
.”

The next day Seivarden found Ekalu alone in the decade room. “Your pardon, Ekalu,” she said, bowing. “I don’t mean to take up your break time, but Ship said you might have a moment.”

Ekalu didn’t get up. “Yes?” Not the least bit surprised. Ship had, of course, warned her Seivarden was coming. Had made sure the time was convenient for Ekalu.

“I want to say,” said Seivarden, still standing, nervous and awkward, just inside the doorway. “I mean. A while ago I apologized for behaving very badly to you.” Took an embarrassed breath. “I didn’t understand what I’d done, I just wanted you to stop being angry at me. I just said what Ship told me I should say. I was angry at you, for being angry at me, but Ship talked me out of being any more stupid than I already had been. But I’ve been thinking about it.”

Ekalu, sitting at the table, went completely still, her face ancillary-blank.

Seivarden knew what that likely meant, but didn’t wait for Ekalu to say anything. “I’ve been thinking about it, and I still don’t understand exactly why what I said hurt you so much. But I don’t need to. It hurt you, and when you told me it hurt you I should have apologized and stopped saying whatever it was. And maybe spent some time trying to understand. Instead of insisting that you manage your feelings to suit me. And I want to say I’m sorry. And I actually mean it this time.”

Seivarden couldn’t see Ekalu’s reaction to this, since Ekalu still sat absolutely motionless. But Ship could see. I could see.

Seivarden said, into Ekalu’s silence, “Also I want to say that I miss you. And what we had. But that’s my own stupid fault.”

Silence, for five seconds, though I thought that at any moment Ekalu might speak, or stand. Or weep. “Also,” said Seivarden, then, “I want to say that you’re an excellent officer.
You were thrown into the position with no warning and hardly any official training, and I only wish I’d been as steady and as strong my first weeks as a lieutenant.”

“Well, you were only seventeen at the time,” said Ekalu.

“Lieutenant,” Ship admonished Ekalu, in her ear. “Take the compliment.”

Aloud, Ekalu said, “But thank you.”

“It’s an honor to serve with you,” Seivarden said. “Thank you for taking the time to listen to me.” And she bowed, and left.

Ekalu crossed her arms on the table, put her head down on them. “Oh, Ship,” she said, voice despairing. “Did you tell her to say any of that?”

“I helped a bit with the wording,” Ship replied. “But it wasn’t my idea. She means it.”

“It was the fleet captain’s idea, then.”

“Not actually.”

“She’s so beautiful,” said Ekalu. “And so good in bed. But she’s such a…” Stopped, hearing Etrepa Six’s step in the corridor.

Etrepa Six looked in the door of the decade room, saw her lieutenant with her head down on the table. Put that together with Seivarden’s retreating back, away down the corridor. Came into the decade room and began to make tea.

Not lifting her head, Ekalu said, silently, “If I called her back, would she come?”

“Oh, yes,” said Ship. “But if I were you, I’d let her stew for a while.”

13

Tisarwat came to see me just hours before we exited gate-space, into Athoek system. “Sir,” she said, standing just inside the door to my quarters. “I’m on my way to the airlock.”

“Yes.” I stood. A bit steadier on the prosthetic leg than the day before. “Will you have tea?” Five was off on an errand, but there was tea already made, in the flask on the counter.

“No, sir. I’m not sure there’s time. I just wanted…” I waited. Finally she said, “I don’t know what I wanted. No. Wait. I do. If I don’t come back, will you… that other Tisarwat’s family. You won’t tell them what happened to her, will you?”

The chances of my ever having the chance to say anything at all to Tisarwat’s family was so small as to be almost entirely nonexistent. “Of course not.”

She took a long, relieved breath. “Because they don’t deserve that. I know it sounds stupid. I don’t even know them. Except I know so much about them. I just…”

“It’s not stupid. It’s entirely understandable.”

“Is it?” Her arms at her sides, she closed her gloved hands
into fists. Unclosed them. “And if I do come back. If I come back, sir, will you authorize Medic to change my eyes back to a more reasonable color?”

Those foolish lilac eyes, that the previous Tisarwat had bought for herself. “If you like.”

“It’s such a stupid color. And every time I see myself it reminds me of her.” Of that old Tisarwat, I supposed. “They don’t belong to me.”

“They do,” I said. “You were born with them that color.” Her mouth trembled, and tears filled her eyes. I said, “But whatever other color you choose will be yours, too.” That didn’t help her hold back her tears. “One way or another,” I said, “it’ll be all right. Are your meds current?”

“Yes.”

“Your Bos know what they need to do. You know what you need to do. There’s nothing for it now but to do it.”

“I forget you can see all that.” See all her feelings, her reactions, as Ship could. As Ship could show me. “I keep forgetting you can see right inside me, and then when I remember I just…” She trailed off.