Work Text:
I had been looking forward to a break from the administrative tasks that had been piling up on Athoek Station when there was a knock on my door. I was very tempted to ignore it. One of the things I had learned over the past several months was that interruptions to administrative tasks were quite likely to breed additional administrative tasks in their own right.
While I was not, in any official sense, the ruler of the Republic of Two Systems, many people, especially non-Radchaai visitors, tended to address me as though I was. People who had known me since I was just Breq found the whole situation amusing. It was more exasperating than anything else, but given that I was in large part responsible for creating the situation, I had to acknowledge that I might as well do my part for the newly founded nation.
The number of possible people who might be on the other side of that door was very small. Station would have informed me if there was anything amiss; Station was also, of course, capable of exercising a great deal of discretion. The fact that it hadn't warned me about the individual who wanted to talk to me suggested a great deal about Station's frame of mind.
So I straightened in my seat and said, "Who is it?"
"Fleet Captain," said a voice well familiar, "might we speak?" It was Seivarden.
"Come on in," I said.
Seivarden let herself in. She glanced around at the empty tea bowl on my desk, sitting in its saucer. "Oh," she said, "you should have asked someone to bring you more tea."
I gestured indifference. "I'm capable of making my own tea," I said. "You're not here because of my tea-drinking habits."
Seivarden cast her eyes down for a moment. "No," she said. "I just wanted to give you warning that Sphene has been talking to a foreigner."
I raised an eyebrow. "That's well within its rights," I said mildly. Gem of Sphene and I still had our disagreements, but it was a full citizen of the Republic just as I was.
Seivarden gestured frustration. "I'm not being very clear, but the conversation I witnessed was very odd. The foreigner called herself Jedao, and she claimed to be dead."
"Where is she from?" I said, only peripherally interested at this point.
"Some place called the 'hexarchate.'"
I shrugged. "I've never heard of it," I said, "but it's a large galaxy. As long as they're not Presger in disguise, I wouldn't be too concerned." I could see it now: a new Translator who was neither Zeiat nor Dlique. At least life was never boring around Translators.
"That wasn't the most alarming part," Seivarden said. "I mean, I might have misunderstood the part about being 'dead.' It could have been some sort of spiritual metaphor. Foreign religions have never made much sense to me."
Seivarden's high-bred background was showing, something that still happened from time to time, but I held my peace. It wasn't as though we often discussed non-Radchaai religion anyway.
"Sphene said something about ancillaries to the foreigner named Jedao. I couldn't hear the rest of the conversation--"
"Did Sphene realize you were eavesdropping?"
Seivarden looked furtive. "Begging your pardon, but I don't see how it couldn't have known. It was in one of the common areas."
"Well," I said, "thank you for the advance warning, but if Sphene has designs in this particular area, it knows perfectly well it needs to bring them up to the proper authorities." Nevertheless, I could see why Seivarden was concerned, and more importantly, why she had thought I would be concerned.
"If that's all--" Seivarden started toward the door, then hesitated and turned. "Breq--you're all right?" When I regarded her calmly, she burst out, "I know this is personal for you--"
"Cousin Sphene and I have our differences," I said, "but I'm sure they can be sorted out."
"Of course," Seivarden said, in a voice that suggested that she didn't believe it at all. She didn't press the point, however, and she let herself out.
I did, in fact, have my reservations. Once Seivarden was gone, I said aloud, "Station, do you know anything about this foreigner of Sphene's?"
"What's more interesting than what I know is what I don't know," Station replied. "When she arrived, the foreigner registered under the name Cheris Ajewen Jedao, but she has been introducing herself as Jedao. She wears gloves, which I thought was a concession to Radchaai custom at first. The gloves have no fingers, though, so either she's very confused about the dictates of propriety or it's a completely different custom entirely. Who knows?"
"Very interesting indeed," I agreed.
"There's something else you ought to know," Station said. "This Jedao appears to be half-dead, or possibly half-alive. I can see why she'd be of interest to Sphene, given Sphene's predilections."
"Do you think the situation warrants caution?"
There was a very slight pause. "I do," Station said, and I could tell that it was pleased that I had asked its opinion. After all, who better than Station to handle this kind of risk assessment? Especially since the Station Administrator had other matters on her mind.
"Well," I said. "If that's the case, I'll eventually have a chat with Cousin Sphene and sort this out."
Cheris had never seen so much tea in her life.
It wasn't that she objected to tea, precisely. They had served it from time to time during high table. But she didn't love it the way the Radchaai did. And she hadn't yet gotten used to the local drink--what did they call it, arrack. What she really wanted, with an intense and not entirely rational longing, was whiskey. She'd never been particularly interested in the stuff before she'd ended up with fragments of Jedao in her head.
The woman across from her smiled a quick impersonal smile. Sphene, or more accurately, the revived representative of Sphene, what the locals called an ancillary. Cheris did not entirely understand the technology involved; her particular expertise was in rather abstract mathematics and not in biology. Kujen, she reflected, would have found the technology most interesting. It was as well that he was, as far as she knew, quite distant from the Republic of Two Systems or, for that matter, the Radch.
Nevertheless, Cheris had come here for a particular purpose, and she was determined to see it through. "The tea is very good," she said, which was true enough.
"One develops a certain expertise in brewing it for one's crew," Sphene said with just a touch of irony. "Are the relationships between ships and crew so very different where you come from?"
"Quite different," Cheris said. "Our ships aren't people."
Sphene did not smile, although it gestured a certain sardonic amusement. "Neither are Radchaai ships, strictly speaking."
"You understand," Cheris said, "as a foreigner, I don't really have the context to evaluate that." Her drawl thickened. She had given up trying to control it. It seemed to accompany Jedao's instincts, and to be frank, Jedao's instincts had gotten her this far. He'd had more experience of the galaxy than she had, including knowledge of faraway nations that she had never imagined when she had been a mere Kel infantry captain.
"Still," Sphene said, "because Cousin Breq is going to be tiresome on this point, I must do my due diligence in informing you about the procedure. It is very definitely irreversible. The joining between ship and ancillary is quite profound. Radchaai may go on all they like about Houses and clients, but as far as I am concerned, no ship of sound mind would settle for a client when it could have a proper crew of ancillaries."
"I take it this is a matter of some controversy."
Sphene gestured ambivalence. "Cousin Breq thinks of herself as a proper Radchaai, and I shouldn't wonder that the trauma of separation from her ship undid her mind a little. Things were different in my day."
"Is she listening to you?" Cheris said with interest, because Sphene's undertone suggested to her--Jedao's instincts again--that the remarks were meant for another audience entirely.
"I would be if I were her."
"Still," Cheris said, "if this procedure requires legal approval, we might as well set the process in motion sooner rather than later."
"I," Sphene said, "will be glad of the precedent. Even if there are, as you say, certain substitutes."
Cheris, imitating the body language of Radchaai she had seen during her few days on Athoek Station, gestured acceptance.
Seivarden had been right after all, I realized. What Sphene wanted was going to require, at a minimum, a lot of meetings. I was very strongly under the impression that Station and Sphene were locked in a struggle over the matter, but when I inquired about the matter, Station was just slightly short with me, and I decided that I would leave matters to its discretion.
Still, Seivarden was especially solicitous of me while I monitored the situation to the extent that I could do so without aggravating Sphene. I did not require someone to help me dress or to make my tea, but she seemed to find slipping into the old role comforting, so I allowed it.
At last Station informed me of the call that I had been waiting for. "Sphene wants to talk," it said.
Seivarden, who was fussing with the tea service, made a sour face.
"It's all right," I said to her. "I'll go to Sphene," I told Station. "Please let it know. Will the foreigner be there as well?"
"Naturally," Station said. And then, after a moment: "She doesn't have any obvious weapons. Some rather primitive technology embedded in her body, yes. But nothing that's going to explode."
"Good to know," I said.
Sphene and the foreigner awaited me at a restaurant. The foreigner's choice, I assumed. I couldn't imagine Sphene caring about such nuances, not for a meeting between a ship and a former ship.
The restaurant served thick stews to be eaten with flatbread, according to the server, fare that tasted oddly spiced to me. The influx of curious foreigners had done interesting things to our local food options. In particular, it wasn't a food that a Radchaai would ever have come up with, given how poorly scooping up stew with flatbread interacted with everyone wearing gloves. Most of the people in the restaurant were using the provided utensils instead, so I followed suit. At least the tea was ordinary Radchaai tea, if not as high quality as what I drank on a daily basis.
I took the opportunity to study the foreigner. A bob of pitch-black hair framed an oval face with yellowish skin, and her eyes were dark and alert. She wasn't large, but the compactness of her frame and the quiet sense of menace that exuded from her told me that she was a soldier of some sort. I wasn't afraid of her, although she should probably have been afraid of me, and of Sphene's ancillary too. But she showed no sign of intimidation.
Station had been right about those peculiar fingerless gloves. Indeed, I'd noticed some of the Radchaai looking at them askance. Jedao didn't appear to notice their discomfort.
"Cousin," I said to Sphene, "do introduce me to your guest."
"This is Jedao," Sphene said with great satisfaction, "who is dead according to the customs of her people. Jedao, this is Breq." I was grateful that she didn't call me Breq Mianaai. Those days were over. "Breq, I have a volunteer to become an ancillary."
"Really," I said. I looked at Jedao, whose calm expression told me little about what she might be thinking. "Begging your pardon, Jedao"--I pronounced her name carefully--"how much do you understand of what that entails?"
"As I understand it," Jedao said in a rather exotic accent, a sort of drawl, "it involves having your body being modified to be used as a puppet by a Radchaai ship. Do I have it right?"
"That's more or less correct," I said. "But the procedure works on the dead. And, if you'll excuse me, you don't look entirely dead, or entirely alive, for that matter."
"I'm four hundred years old," Jedao said, entirely too cavalierly. "After all that time it would be surprising if I were completely alive. Call it a peculiarity of my homeland."
"She's lying about something," Station said in my ear. "That body isn't four hundred years old. But there's an oddness to it, even if it's not strictly a question of age. Foreign technology, who knows?"
I had a terrible thought. It wasn't a Presger body, was it? Translator Jedao? But Jedao didn't have the elliptical way of speaking that I associated with Translators, and in my experience Translators were good at telling us what they were.
"She wants it," Sphene said, a trifle impatiently. "I don't see any reason why I should deprive myself of a replacement ancillary because you're squeamish, Cousin."
I ignored Sphene for the moment. "Jedao," I said, again careful with the name. "Is there something dissatisfying about--" I gestured apology, began again. "What I mean to say is, I would like to better understand what lies behind your decision."
"It's very simple," Jedao said. "My homeland, the hexarchate, is suffering from an affliction called calendrical rot."
"Never heard of it," Station said in my ear, "but I'll see if I can find anything out."
Jedao was still speaking. "One of the side-effects is that our starships have begun malfunctioning. We're looking for an alternative technology, one less sensitive to the malaise. Sphene has offered to visit my nation and give technical assistance."
"Partial truth," Station said. "She's holding something back."
I looked at Sphene. "I didn't realize you were planning on leaving us."
"What are ships for if not traveling?" Sphene said.
"Sphene is hiding something too," Station said, dryly, "but that goes without saying."
"So," I said to Jedao, "you are using your life as a bargaining chip."
"It won't be the first time," she said. "Our technology is different, but I have been subject to a similar arrangement in the past. I don't expect it to discommode me."
Sphene neatly dissected the flatbread with fork and knife and took a bite. After it had swallowed, it said, "What I would like to know, Cousin, is how many hoops you will require me to jump through before I can have my ancillary."
"It's not a matter of hoops," I said, although Sphene was unlikely to believe me. "I just don't want our guest to be locked into an agreement that she comes to regret. For which regret isn't even possible."
"I'm used to gambits," Jedao said, eyes crinkling with some secret amusement.
I was considerably startled when Station spoke loudly enough to be heard by everyone at the table: "General Jedao Shuos," it said. "I thought I'd seen that name referenced somewhere. Given your notoriety in your homeland, I am surprised you didn't travel under an alias."
I felt torn. On the one hand, it was an intrusion. On the other hand, I had been encouraging Station to exercise its judgment. Why do that if I was then going to turn around and ignore its warnings? I had to trust that Station had interrupted because it saw a genuine need, or a genuine threat.
"I see you've heard of me," Jedao said, still perfectly relaxed. "It's Shuos Jedao where I come from--we put the...House name first. I take it you are one of the citizens who is an artificial intelligence?"
What a peculiar way of putting things, but I supposed that nothing else could be expected from a foreigner.
Station said, "If you insist, yes." To me, privately, it said, "Jedao's nation has a history of aggressive expansionism. The one time they made contact with the Radch during its earlier history, they were checked by what is suspected to have been an early instance of Presger intervention."
"I'm not interested in ancient foreign history," Sphene said. "Cousin, you made me a promise."
"So I did," I said, and sensed Station's palpable dismay. "But surely you can't judge me for having security concerns."
"Time to lay all the cards on the table," Jedao said. "I am in need of certain upgrades to my fleet, for reasons of internal politics."
I wasn't interested in euphemisms. "You mean civil war."
"Yes," she said softly. "Civil war. If you had seen the things I'd seen, you'd be for it too."
"Do tell," I said, and sipped my tea.
"Where I come from," Jedao said, "we have remembrances. Holidays, festivals, except that they involve torture. The torture is rigorously enforced because it is believed that our gods will abandon us otherwise, including the technologies that we depend on."
I gestured skepticism. Amaat's will was one thing, but torture-dependent technology? The notion was so outlandish that only a foreigner could have come up with it. Of course, I was under no illusions that Radchaai culture looked any more sensible to her.
"It's true," Sphene said abruptly. "Before your time, Breq, but I remember the old tales, during the youth of the Radch."
"And you're determined to involve yourself in this interventionism?" I said to it.
"Who better?" Sphene said. "Jedao's generalship may or may not be worth anything, but I have served with the best of the Radch's captains. Or do you doubt that I would make a worthy ally?"
"No doubt," I said, "but surely you are aware of diplomatic implications." I leaned only slightly on the word "diplomatic."
"I am sure you and the elected government are competent to handle any complications," Sphene shot back.
"The reason you want to leave," I said, "is that you think you have a source of ancillaries elsewhere. Isn't that right, Cousin?"
"No," Sphene insisted. "Jedao has told me of a people called the Kel who serve almost the way ancillaries do, except without actually being ancillaries. With Jedao's aid I will secure some as crew, and in exchange I will serve as his flagship."
"How do the Kel feel about this?" I asked.
"The Kel will have a choice," Jedao said, her eyes narrowing. "You have my assurance."
"Truth," Station said to me, sounding surprised.
"Cousin," Sphene said to me, with a weariness I was not used to associating with her, "it's easier for you. You are surrounded by people who know you and your ways. But I spent a long time in the darkness"--Jedao stirred at that, I wasn't sure why--"and each time I lose an ancillary it's like another hole in me. This may not be the compromise you want, but you can't deny me forever."
Sphene lifted a hand then, and Jedao took it in hers, pressing Sphene's fingers in a gesture that bothered me with its intimation of comradeship. It was not something I had ever expected from Sphene. I wondered then what they had in common, what stories they had shared that they would never share with me. But perhaps Sphene was right and it was not my place to question her, at least in this small thing.
"There will be a lot of paperwork," I said. "And we will have to make sure that our people are secure from whatever threats lie far away."
"I am not your enemy," Sphene said with soft patience. "I will work with you as necessary."
The talk drifted into a discussion of logistical niceties after that, but for a long time after that, long after Sphene had left us for its own destiny, I would remember Sphene and Jedao smiling at each other, that unspoken vow.