Ancillary Sword (6 page)

I could see her distress and indecision. Tisarwat was suffering, clearly, and if anything could make Medic truly angry it was suffering she couldn’t help. My order might be interpreted as backing her into a corner with the threat of execution, but it also gave her cover to do what needed doing, and she would see that soon enough.

“Medic,” croaked Tisarwat, still struggling against the restraints.

I laid one black-gloved hand across her throat. No pressure, just a reminder. “Medic,” I said. Calmly. “No matter who this is, no matter who she claims to be, this installation was illegal—and thoroughly unjust—from the start. And it’s failed. I’ve seen this before, I’ve been through it myself. It won’t get any better, and she’ll be extremely lucky if it doesn’t get worse. Meds might keep her going for a while, but they won’t fix the problem. There’s only one thing that
will
fix the problem.” Two things. But in some respects the two were the same, at least as far as this fragment of Anaander Mianaai was concerned.

Medic balanced on the knife-edge of two equally bad choices, only the smallest chance of helping her patient making a barely perceptible difference between one course and the other. I saw her tip. “I’ve never… Fleet Captain, I don’t
have any experience with this.” Trying very hard not to let her voice shake. She’d never dealt with ancillaries before, I was the first she’d ever had in her medical section. Ship had told her what to do, with me.

And I was hardly typical. “Not many do. Putting them in is routine, but I can’t think of anyone who’s had to take any
out
. Not anyone who cared about the condition of the body once they were done. But I’m sure you’ll manage. Ship knows what to do.” Ship was saying as much to Medic, at that moment. “And I’ll help.”

Medic looked at Tisarwat—no, Anaander Mianaai—tied down to the table, no longer struggling with the restraints, eyes closed. Looked, then, at me. “Sedation,” she began.

“Oh, no. She has to be awake for this. But don’t worry, I choked her pretty badly, a few minutes ago. She won’t be able to scream very much.”

By the time we finished and Tisarwat was unconscious, dosed as heavily as was safe with sedatives, Medic was shaking, not entirely from exhaustion. We’d both missed lunch and supper, and tired and increasingly anxious Bos were passing the entrance to Medical in ones and twos on increasingly flimsy pretexts. Ship refused to tell anyone what was happening.

“Will she come back?” asked Medic, standing, trembling, as I cleaned instruments and put them away. “Tisarwat, I mean, will she be Tisarwat again?”

“No.” I closed a box, put it in its drawer. “Tisarwat was dead from the moment they put those implants in.”
They
. Anaander Mianaai would have done that herself.

“She’s a
child
. Seventeen years old! How could anyone…” She trailed off. Shook her head once, still not quite believing even after hours of surgery, of seeing it with her own eyes.

“I was the same age when it happened to me,” I pointed out. Not
I
really, but this body, this last one left to me. “A little younger.” I didn’t point out that Medic hadn’t reacted this way to seeing me. That it made a difference when it was a citizen, instead of some uncivilized, conquered enemy.

She didn’t notice it herself, or else was too overwhelmed just now to react. “Who is she now, then?”

“Good question.” I put away the last of the instruments. “She’ll have to decide that.”

“What if you don’t like her decision?” Shrewd, Medic was. I’d rather have her on my side than otherwise.

“That,” I answered, making a small tossing gesture, as though casting the day’s omens, “will be as Amaat wills. Get some rest. Kalr will bring supper to your quarters. Things will seem better after you’ve eaten and slept.”

“Really?” she asked. Bitter and challenging.

“Well, not necessarily,” I admitted. “But it’s easier to deal with things when you’ve had some rest and some breakfast.”

In my quarters, Kalr Five, disquieted by the day’s events but of course expressionless, had my supper waiting for me—a bowl of skel and a flask of water, common soldier’s mess. I suspected Ship had suggested it to her but didn’t query to confirm that suspicion. I’d have been content eating skel all the time, but it would have distressed Five, and not only because it would have deprived her of the opportunity to filch tastes of non-skel delicacies, a cherished perquisite of serving the captain or the officers in the decade room.

While I ate, officerless Bo halfheartedly, nearly silently, scrubbed their allotment of corridors, still spotless as it had been this morning, but part of the day’s routine and not to be neglected. They were tired and worried. Judging from their sparse chatter, the consensus was that I’d abused Lieutenant Tisarwat so harshly she’d become sick. There were some grumbles of
no different from the last one
. Very carefully referentless.

Bo One, decade senior, checked their work, reported to Ship that it was complete. And then said, silently, fingers moving, “Ship.”

“Bo One,” said
Mercy of Kalr
. Who knew Bo One quite well, had heard all the grumbles. “You should take your questions to the fleet captain.”

When Bo One had gone to see Medic, less than five minutes after I’d left for my own quarters, Medic had told her the same thing. And this was the third time Ship had suggested it. Still, Bo One had hesitated. Even though by rights she was in command of Bo, with Lieutenant Tisarwat unconscious and my not having assigned anyone to replace her. Had therefore the right, the responsibility even, to approach me for information and instructions.

Ancillaries were part of their ship. There was, often, a vague, paradoxical sense that each decade had its own almost-identity, but that existed alongside the knowledge that every ancillary was just one part of the larger thing, just hands and feet—and a voice—for Ship. No ancillary ever had questions for the captain, or anything personal that needed discussion with an officer.

Mercy of Kalr
was crewed by humans. But its last captain had demanded that those humans behave as much like ancillaries as possible. Even when her own Kalrs had addressed her, they had done so in the way Ship might have. As though they had no personal concerns or desires. Long habit, I thought, made Bo One hesitate. She might have asked another lieutenant to speak to me for her, but Seivarden was on watch and Lieutenant Ekalu was asleep.

In my purple and green quarters, I ate the last leaf of skel. Said to Five, “Kalr, I’ll have tea. And I want the paint off these walls as soon as you can manage it. I want monitors.” The walls could be altered, made to display whatever one wished, including visuals of the space outside the ship. The materials to do it were on board. For whatever reason,
Captain Vel hadn’t wanted that. I didn’t actually need it, but I wanted the previous captain’s arrangements gone as completely as I could manage.

Expressionless, flat-voiced, Five said, “There may be some inconvenience to you, Fleet Captain.” And then a flare of apprehension as Ship spoke to her. Hesitation.
Go ahead
in her ear, from Ship. “Sir, Bo One wishes to speak to you.”

Good. Four more seconds and I’d have ordered her to report to me. I’d only been waiting to finish my supper. “I don’t care about the inconvenience. And I’ll see Bo One.”

Bo One entered outwardly confident, inwardly frightened. Bowed, stiffly, feeling awkward—ancillaries didn’t bow. “Bo,” I said, acknowledging her. Over in a corner, Kalr Five busied herself pointlessly with the tea flask, pretending there was anything at all to do before she could serve me the tea I’d asked for. Listening. Worried.

Bo One swallowed. Took a breath. “Begging the fleet captain’s indulgence,” she began, clearly a rehearsed speech. Slowly, carefully, broadening her vowels, incapable of entirely losing her own accent but trying hard. “There are concerns about the situation of Bo decade’s officer.” A moment of extra doubt there, I saw, knowing I’d been angry at Lieutenant Tisarwat’s even being aboard, Bo One feeling that she was in a precarious place just speaking to me this way, let alone bringing up the young lieutenant. That sentence had been very carefully composed, I thought, both to sound very formal and to avoid Lieutenant Tisarwat’s name. “Medic was consulted, and it was recommended the fleet captain be approached.”

“Bo,” I said. My voice calm, yes, my mood never reached my voice unless I intended it. But I was out of patience for this sort of thing. “Speak directly, when you speak to me.” Kalr Five still puttered with the tea things.

“Yes, sir,” said Bo One, still stiff. Mortified.

“I’m glad you came. I was on the point of calling for you. Lieutenant Tisarwat is ill. She was ill when she came aboard. Military Administration wanted an officer here and didn’t care that she wasn’t fit to ship out. They even tried to hide it from me.” A lie that wasn’t, entirely, a lie. And every soldier and officer on every ship complained about the unthinking, ignorant decisions of Administration, none of whom knew what it was like aboard ships. “I’ll have some things to say about that, when next I have the chance.” I could almost
see
it clicking together in Bo One’s mind.
Fleet captain’s angry at Administration, not our lieutenant
. “She’ll be returning to her quarters tomorrow, and she’ll need a day or two of rest, and light duty after that until Medic says otherwise. You’re decade senior, of course, so you’ll be responsible for your soldiers and hold her watches while she’s out, and make your reports to me. I need Bo decade to take very good care of Lieutenant Tisarwat. I already know you will, but now you have my explicit order. If you have any concerns at all about her health, or if her behavior is odd—if she seems confused about something she shouldn’t be, or just doesn’t seem right in any way at all—you’re to report it to Medic. Even if Lieutenant Tisarwat orders you not to. Am I understood?”

“Sir.
Yes
, sir.” Already feeling she was on firmer ground.

“Good. Dismissed.” Kalr Five picked up the flask to finally pour my tea, no doubt composing the narrative she’d give the other Kalrs.

Bo One bowed. And then, with some trepidation, said, “Beg the fleet captain’s indulgence, sir…” Stopped and swallowed, surprised at her own daring. At my expectant gesture. “We all of us, sir, Bo decade, we want to say, thank you for the tea, sir.”

I’d allotted five grams per person aboard, per week (soldiers—even officers—wrung as much tea as possible out of very small rations of leaves) so long as my supply lasted. It had been greeted with suspicion at first. Captain Vel had insisted they only drink water. Like ancillaries. Was I trying to soften them up for something? To show off how wealthy I was? Granting a privilege that I could then deny for some satisfaction of my own?

But if there was one thing any Radchaai considered essential for civilized life, it was tea. And I knew what it was like, to be on a ship full of ancillaries. I had no need to play at it. “You’re very welcome, Bo. Dismissed.”

She bowed again, and left. As the door closed behind her, Ship said, in her ear, “That went well.”

For the next two days, Lieutenant Tisarwat lay on her bed, in her tiny quarters. Ship showed her entertainments from its library, all lighthearted things with songs that were bright or sweet by turns, and happy endings. Tisarwat watched them, placid and noncommittal, would have watched tragedy after tragedy with the same evenness, dosed as she was to keep her mood stable and comfortable. Bo fussed over her, tucking blankets, bringing tea, Bo Nine even contriving some kind of sweet pastry for her, in the decade room’s tiny galley. Speculation about the nature of her illness—no longer blamed on me—was rife. In the end, they decided that Tisarwat had been badly interrogated before being assigned to
Mercy of Kalr
. Or less likely, but still possible, she’d been the victim of inept education—sometimes, when a citizen needed to learn a great deal of information, she could get that by going to Medical and learning under drugs. The same drugs that were used for interrogation, and aptitudes testing. Or
reeducation, a topic most polite Radchaai had difficulty mentioning at all. All four—interrogation, learning, aptitudes, or reeducation—had to be done by a specialist medic, someone who knew what she was doing. Though no one on
Mercy of Kalr
would ever say it aloud, hovering just under the surface of any conversation about her was the fact that at the moment Tisarwat looked very much like someone who had recently come out of reeducation. The fact that Medic and I had done whatever we had done without the assistance even of any Kalrs, and wouldn’t tell anyone what had happened, this also tended to reinforce the idea that reeducation was involved. But no one who had been reeducated would have ever been allowed to serve in the military, so that was impossible.

Whatever it was, it hadn’t been Tisarwat’s fault. Or mine. Everyone was relieved at that. Sitting in my quarters the next day, drinking tea—still from the rose glass, even I myself hadn’t yet rated the best dishes—Seivarden’s desire to ask me what had happened was palpable, but instead she said, “I was thinking about what you said the other day. About how I never saw you… I mean…” She trailed off, realizing, probably, that the sentence wasn’t going anywhere good. “Officers have their own quarters, so that’s easy, but I hadn’t even thought about if my Amaats… I mean, there’s nowhere private, is there, nowhere they could go if they wanted… I mean…”

Actually, there were quite a number of places, including several storage compartments, all of the shuttles (though lack of gravity did make some things awkward), and even, with enough desperation, under the table in the soldiers’ mess. But Seivarden had always had her own quarters and never had to avail herself of any of them. “I suppose it’s good you’re thinking about these things,” I said. “But leave your Amaats
what dignity they can afford.” I took another swallow of tea and added, “You seem to be thinking about sex a lot lately. I’m glad you haven’t just ordered one of your Amaats.” She wouldn’t have been the first officer on this ship to do that.

“The thought crossed my mind,” she said, face heating even further than it already had. “And then I thought about what you would probably say.”

“I don’t think Medic is your type.” Actually, I suspected Medic had no interest in sex to begin with. “Lieutenant Tisarwat is a bit young, and she’s not up for it right now. Have you considered approaching Ekalu?” Ekalu had thought of it, I was sure. But Seivarden’s aristocratic looks and antique accent intimidated her as much as they attracted her.

“I haven’t wanted to insult her.”

“Too much like a superior approaching an inferior?” Seivarden gestured assent. “Kind of insulting in and of itself, thinking of it like that, wouldn’t you say?”

She groaned, set her tea on the table. “I lose either way.”

I gestured uncertainty. “Or you win either way.”

She gave a small laugh. “I’m
really
glad Medic was able to help Tisarwat.”

In Lieutenant Tisarwat’s quarters, Bo Nine tucked in the blanket for the third time in the last hour. Adjusted pillows, checked the temperature of Lieutenant Tisarwat’s tea. Tisarwat submitted with drugged, dispassionate calm. “So am I,” I said.

Two days later—something less than a third of the way to Athoek—I invited Lieutenant Ekalu and Lieutenant Tisarwat to dine with me. Because of the way schedules worked on
Mercy of Kalr
, it was my own lunch, Ekalu’s supper, Tisarwat’s breakfast. And because my Kalrs were scraping paint
off the walls in my quarters, it was in the decade room. Almost like being with myself again, though
Mercy of Kalr
’s decade room was a good deal smaller than my own Esk decade room, when I had been
Justice of Toren
and had twenty lieutenants for each of my ten decades.

My eating in the decade room produced a sort of confusion of jurisdiction, with Kalr Five wanting very much to establish her own authority in what was normally the territory of the officers’ staffs. She’d agonized over whether to insist on using her second-best porcelain, which would show incontrovertibly that it was her meal and also show off the dishes she loved, or whether she should let Etrepa Eight and Bo Nine use the decade room’s own set, which would protect the precious porcelain from accidents but imply the meal was under Etrepa and Bo’s authority. Her pride won in the end, and we ate eggs and vegetables off the hand-painted dishes.

Ekalu, who had served nearly her whole career as a common soldier on this ship and likely knew Kalr Five’s peculiarities, said, “Begging the fleet captain’s indulgence, these plates are lovely.” Five didn’t smile, she rarely did in front of me, but I could see Ekalu had hit her target dead on.

“Five chose them,” I said. Approving of Ekalu’s gambit. “They’re Bractware. About twelve hundred years old.” For an instant Ekalu froze, utensil just above the plate, terrified of striking it too hard. “They’re not actually terribly valuable. There are places where nearly everyone has part of a set wrapped up in a box somewhere that they never take out. But they’re lovely, aren’t they, you can see why they were so popular.” If I hadn’t favorably impressed Kalr Five yet, I did so now. “And Lieutenant, if you start every single sentence with
begging the fleet captain’s indulgence
this is going to be a dreary meal. Just assume I’ve given my indulgence for polite conversation.”

“Sir,” acknowledged Ekalu, embarrassed. She applied herself to her eggs. Carefully, trying not to touch the plate with her utensil.

Tisarwat had said nothing yet beyond the occasionally required
yes, sir
and
no, sir
and
thank you, sir
. All the time those lilac eyes downcast, not looking at me, or Ekalu. Medic had tapered down her sedatives, but Tisarwat was still under their influence. Behind them, crowded back by the drugs, was anger and despair. Just noise, right now, but not what I wanted to predominate when she wasn’t taking medication anymore.

Time to do something about that. “Yesterday,” I said, after I’d swallowed a mouthful of eggs, “Lieutenant Seivarden was telling me that Amaat decade was obviously the best on the ship.” Seivarden had said no such thing, in fact. But the surge of offended pride from Etrepa Eight and Bo Nine, standing in a corner of the room waiting to be useful, was so distinct that for an instant I had trouble believing Ekalu and Tisarwat couldn’t also see it. Kalr Five’s reaction wasn’t nearly as strong—we’d just complimented her porcelain and besides, captain’s decade was in some ways above that sort of thing.