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***
A thousand thousand thousand footsteps
A thousand thousand lives
No one wants the sun to set, but
How else would it rise again
***
The temple was filled with song and furious whispers.
The song was meant to hide the whispering, of course, and Set Fers did her best, striving all the while to hear the argument over the sound of her own voice. She only glanced at the other Set Fers once, but the strain of her throat and jaw told her that her temple-sister was doing the same thing she was: singing lightly but as close to her microphone as possible, so that the hymn in the outer hall would ring as clear as if they were putting the appropriate amount of force and dedication into it.
She was terrified to eavesdrop like this because a priest was bound to notice, and that would be the end of her temple career, never mind that she was near the end of her probation. Ten years a child, ten years of service was the rule, and the years in which mistakes were tolerated were long behind her. One move, one sound out of place and that was it; and for the last nine years she never faltered once in the presence of a priest. (Neither Set Fers had, to be fair, but the other one had less to lose, much as Set Fers loved her.) She couldn’t afford to risk it all like this, but then she had no guarantee that the temple would still be there a week from now; not with those titanic ships hovering in orbit, and ready to strike.
“-- maybe if we’d just surrender they wouldn’t be there,” somebody hissed, and trapped her for a moment in sheer panic, certain she had sung her thoughts instead of the hymn to Fers. But she hadn’t, she hadn’t, and the fear had even helped her freeze into a better statue. She let her breath relax without letting her voice waver, and listened.
“None of you are listening,” said Er Fers, the older of the temple’s priests. She didn’t need to whisper, frail with age in voice and body. “You make it sound like there’s a choice between death and life, but there isn’t. It’s death or death, and it’s the kind we choose that will tell them who we are.”
“You can’t be serious,” said the same woman as before, voice now low with disbelief. Nobody that Set Fers knew, but the fact that she was here was proof enough of her importance. “With all respect, Er Fers, you speak as if it is you who does not listen. Have you not heard what happened in the outer system?”
“Death,” said the priest again, with the kind of authority that kept the other Er Fers quiet. If the younger priest had intervened in defense of her temple-sister’s standing, it would have done no good. “A mockery of death, an insult to god and body and soul. Please,” she said, “do tell us how those corpse soldiers are anything else, and I will step aside so you can be the voice of god. If She speaks through you perhaps She will sound pleased to be replaced by this Amaat of the Radch.”
That shut the woman up, if not for long. “Perhaps Amaat is Fersulig,” she said at last, and for a moment of dumb, shocked silence the Set Fers’ song rang clear before the whispers turned to shouts.
***
No one knows how long the night is
As thousands fall to sleep
No one knows who will awake, but
Fersulig has to eat
***
Set Fers sang at full volume since there was no point in trying to listen. She couldn’t tell what kind of noise was broadcast in the hall outside, but nothing she could do would filter out the anger and the accusations flung around the room. Maybe if she turned around and faced the wall, but if she did that she might as well jump down, walk home, and never show her face in here again.
From where she stood - where both Set Fers stood, still as statues in the corners of a raised wall - she could see, just like she was meant to, the angle of the hologram above the altar that showed the god in power, dispensing blessings for eight hundred years now, if not more. Where she stood the stone was worn, miniature cracks accumulating dirt that scrubbing only pressed down further (if it ever cleaned it off). There were no matching bald and darkened spots by the opposite wall, where the acolytes would be looking at the hologram from the angle that showed the god in waiting. Even full, the room was regularly denser on the side of Fers, with the music and the light and the thriving plants.
That, too, was an item of dissention.
“-- has a point,” someone else was saying. “I remember you, Er Fers, teaching us how the feast of Fersulig is symbolic, not the cause of change but merely a... poetic summary, no? Something to help us learn, and accept, the ways of history and justice. And believe me, we’ve long accepted the families in Fers’ favor.”
“Now, now, cousin,” said an older woman, the pleasantry turned cruel in her mouth. Set Fers knew her as the owner of the dayflower plantations that supplied the temple, and had seen her frequently enough even if they never spoke. The other Set Fers talked to her when need arose, being closer to her in familial standing. It was good temple practice to keep an acolyte around that the nobles would be comfortable with. And that Set Fers had a very old name, that this one never dared to call her by. There were no names at the temple, merely duties; and that was fine, and just, and the only chance the two of them had at being equal -- even if only on occasion, a stolen moment here or there in the niches of dayflower roots.
“If you were taught by our Er Fers,” said the woman, with a bow to the ancient priest, “you’d know how power works. It thrives on stability, not change. The day of sleep will not be here in at least two generations, if not the thousand thousand lives. The Radch will honor this. Why, I spoke with their ambassador -”
Somebody cursed. “And you come here!”
To their credit, neither Set Fers ceased the hymn with shock. The curse was of a minor god, a roadside weed at best, but this was the last place to say it and Set Fers didn’t want to let it linger in her mind. The Er Fers glared, and the younger looked up toward the door, saying nothing. The blasphemer left, but not before she tore, in her stride, a small rain of flowers from the branches by the door. It looked accidental but wasn’t, and she was sure to not come back.
“Not all she said was filth,” said Er Fers when the door clicked locked again. “Honored,” she told the planter, “you did tread foreign soil and seed into the house of god. Explain yourself.”
The woman set her jaw but complied. “It’s tea,” she said, regaining poise as noise was dying down. “They have it everywhere, it’s a symbol of their culture. They’re not as barbaric as some of us would have you think.”
The older Er Fers sighed. “They bring in dead who did not die, and a flower without god.”
“Ambassador,” someone muttered, encouraged. “It’s just a translator that they sent.”
The planter ignored her. “Hardly, Er Fers,” she said, in defense of her future wealth. “Why, Fers Herself could -”
Set Fers thanked the god in power for this newly fallen hush, as her voice was getting tired and she was starting to go easy on her throat and vocal cords not so she could eavesdrop, but so she could still speak when the service was over. Perhaps some tea would do her well; the planter’s fields were still too new but the thing had made its way over from already annexed planets, and people praised it well enough...
God, but she was blabbing to herself with fear, with the priest so quiet as she spoke.
“Fers Herself? Would you replace the dayflower with tea trees, since that’s the symbol of their culture? Wouldn’t that be a sight,” she said, encompassing both the planter and the noblewoman who’d equated Amaat with the god in waiting earlier, in the sweep of a thin but commanding arm. “You two honored temple-sisters, brewing tea and counting footsteps for infinity, since Amaat is but one.”
The hymn ended just as she left this riddle, or threat, for her illustrious congregation to process. Set Fers knew what they were thinking since she took her studies seriously, and knew she had to keep on top of gossip if she wanted to ascend to Er some day. Amaat was one, and the entire universe: no cycles, no disruptions, no godly sisters locked in a cruel but beneficial exchange of power. The Radchaai did acknowledge many other gods but their hierarchy was clear, and there was no room for two at the top. People would have to choose which sister Amaat would replace, and discard the other; and even those who insisted that gods were symbolic weren’t eager to put this to the test.
Set Fers shivered, feeling blasphemous and guilty even to pretend to weigh the wrath of Fers against that of Her sister. In truth, people only flocked to Fers because they were alive in Her age of ascendance, so clearly She must be the benevolent one. Fersulig had been in waiting for so long that all the temple had these days were songs, seeds, and half a hologram; but while none of these were pleasant or, in the case of dormant flowers, harmless, neither sister guaranteed a pleasant time for all. The one in power had certainly made Her favorites known.
The women who were currently in favor (and whose families had always been in favor, as far as memory went), and who sounded like they’d already negotiated their place under the Radch, they were silent too, working out what Er Fers had imparted. Amaat is but one: one god, one priest; not two. One power, not two -- and no matter what the Radchaai broadcasts said, or their propaganda in the form of overwrought war dramas that were piped throughout the system’s network, the most nonchalant announcement of invasion Set Fers could ever have imagined -- there was no question who that one would be.
Not the locals, to put it that way; and if the families in power were to be pushed down, where did that leave people like Set Fers?
Pushed out and discarded, that’s where; dead without dying, like the ones who guarded the translator and offended decent people by trying to strike up conversations. A mockery of death and life, walking and eating and dressing in anything but funerary clothes. Singing, too! Not that Set Fers heard it, personally, and the girl who told her might’ve meant it as a prank, but she could easily believe it because there was little about the enemy that wasn’t anathema to the way her people lived.
Or so she would have thought, before this translator came with her tea and her friendliness and her promises of putting an end to the cull -- as soon as this last one was over, of course.
In another life, another flip of the coin, Set Fers would have had no problem with it.
***
Who once was down is up now, children
Who once was up is down
No one wants to clean the mess, but
Bones make the finest soil
***
Set Fers stretched in the staff rooms behind the altar, where they cooked and ate and kept their clothes and cleaning things, besides all the gardening equipment. It’s behind god’s back was the attitude even with the priests, meaning the Set and the Er were allowed to unwind a little outside of temple hours. It wasn’t the same as being at home, but it was home in a way. Set Fers had spent the greater part of her life here, whether fussing in the outer hall as a child, learning the ways of the acolytes as she took up increasing duties, or taking her Set vows for a decade of probation. She knew the temple inside out but the ghostly presence of the Radch, with their dead walking the streets, woods, and gardens, and their living ships in orbit, showed her she’d taken more for granted than she ought to have.
“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised,” she told Set Fers when the other finished gathering up the fallen petals in the halls, and brought them back to be used as mulch. “That there’s a split in attitude, I mean. We should all be walking hand in hand, but… if we were all the same there’d be no need for changing seasons, or our fortunes with them. I guess, if there’s a split, that’s a sign a change is needed.” She talked in bursts, each thought a breath between bends and stretches and small jogs in place, to work life back into her limbs.
The other Set Fers laughed. “It won’t come,” she said, but joined her in the exercises. “Our new overlords are happy to leave things as they are. No feast for poor old Fersulig, not with Amaat and Anaander Mianaai in charge.”
Set Fers stared. “And the annexation?”
The other paused mid-stretch as well. “Well.” She hadn’t given it much thought, of course; preferred (and Set Fers couldn’t blame her) to think of the Radchaai arrival the way the dramas had it, distressing aspects brushed aside in favor of trivial but complicated plots involving everything from cross-cultural romance to subtle insults conveyed through the use of inferior tea sets. Everyone watched these, drawn in for whatever reason, and learned how things would go whether they wanted it or not.
“It’s not all clientage and pretty pins,” said Set Fers, louder than she wanted to. They’d made each other pretend versions of these things, fashioned out of flowers so they’d perish, but meaningful nonetheless. “They don’t bring armies with them, they make them on the spot!”
“I doubt it,” said the other. “That happened on the outer planets. We got the message, we’ll be fine.” She looked up then, the acolyte’s trained calm gone from her face. “Unless we’re not planning to surrender.”
“Don’t look at me,” said Set Fers. “Everything I heard, you heard.”
“Hearing is one thing, understanding is another,” her temple-sister berated her in the words of the Er. “You’re the one who wants to ascend to priesthood. What did that old crone mean with the ‘death or death’, and ‘showing the invaders what we’re made of’? Do you think she --?”
Set Fers hushed her. “If she had been divining, the place would stink, and that would be the least of our troubles.”
The other Set Fers frowned. “I guess.” She stared at Set Fers for a while, following her movements with small nods and sways. “Listen,” she said. “Even if they did abduct our people to be tethered to their ships, I’d make sure you and your family were safe.”
Set Fers stretched some more, silent and embarrassed to hear her fears exposed like that. She never said anything, never made this nightmare sound like anything other than a general concern, one a priest would maintain for her people. And priesthood was her ticket out, the drive of her ambition -- first to make a better future for her family, acting in the name of god if god wouldn’t act, and then just to keep them all alive. Because whatever the richer, the better connected Set Fers thought (if not smarter, or a decent singer), Anaander Mianaai wasn’t going to treat their planet any different than she had those before it. Even if it was different -- or had been, at least.
Could be made again.
“And just how will you make sure I’m spared,” she asked instead, unwilling to discuss her thoughts any further than she was already apparently broacasting them.
“Well,” the other Set Fers said, resuming her own stretches to hide her face, even if she risked no blush with dark skin in a gloomy room. “You can be my client.”
No song that Set Fers knew could fit the way she felt, or the countless things she could have said. There was that embarrassment again, pride offended by the levity of her temple-sister’s offer, however earnest it had been… but amidst all that, the future it contained blossomed in Set Fers’ mind clearer than it would have had she breathed needle-needle fumes. Not that she knew what that was like, but… there she went with babbling again.
She straightened, took a breath, then let it slowly out. “I’ll take my chances with the ships, thanks.”
She ducked and giggled, and wiggled her way out of staff rooms before the other could catch up and smack her with a rotten, trimmed-off root.
***
A thousand, thousand, thousand footseps
A thousand miles below
What grows cannot be stopped, but
It can be lulled to sleep
***
A corpse soldier was outside the temple as Set Fers made her way there at the crack of dawn. She slowed her pace, unsure of what to do.
“Hello,” said the soldier, rendering her further speechless. “I was curious about the place so I had to see it for myself. Don’t worry, I know I’m not allowed in. I brought money to make up for it.”
And so she had, having tied a heavy, hundred-worth coin to the garden fence in the appropriate way, encasing it in a transparent plastic case and picking out a colourful ribbon. People used to drill holes through the coins, and most of them were still in circulation; but the sight of gods defaced in the name of venerating them brought up memories of diviners, so the cases were brought in. Still, it was inappropriate for the soldier to use even that, and Set Fers told her so.
“Nothing of the dead goes in,” she said in a shaking voice, and untied the ribbon with shaking hands. It only took a moment but it felt much longer, with the superstitious and at the same time very reasonable fear the soldier planted in her. “If you know it, respect it.” The soldier could kill her on the spot; she knew, having paid attention to the background of uplifting dramas where the plucky local was obstructed in becoming Radch by a jealous noble, and had to make her way off-planet, toward a provincial palace where Anaander Mianaai would set things right.
“I’m more alive than you,” said the soldier with a shrug and a semblance of a smile. She wasn’t very good at it, and Set Fers couldn’t tell if she was trying to make a joke or a threat. “All right, look,” she tried again, and started to address Set Fers by her family name. Which she was free to do, outside the temple, but she stopped herself at once, evidently better at reading poses and expressions than she was at making them herself. “Let’s try this again,” she said at last, this time with a better smile and something of a bow. “Honored Set Fers. I am Justice of Toren, One Esk Twelve. I wish to walk around the temple.”
“Can the ship not look?” said Set Fers, recognizing the word justice and what it meant. The monstrous thing must’ve had the whole planet mapped, or at least this region, what with the guns it was surely keeping trained on it. Bodies for the feast didn’t harvest themselves.
“That’s what the ship would like to do, begging your permission.”
“... oh.”
Set Fers grimaced, working out a way to get the soldier off this hallowed ground before a priest came in. “I can tell you anything you want to know, but will you then please leave?” And what was the thing doing there at all? The envoy, ambassador, translator, whoever she was and whatever she was doing for the Radch, she had permission to descend to the temple and take a look around. Why send a blasphemous substitute -- unless she was fearing for her life? What if the other Set Fers had a point, and there was an insurrection in the works? A move, before the Radchaai could make theirs?
Was the soldier out on reconnaissance?
“That would be kind,” said the soldier. One Esk Twelve, which Set Fers was ready to denounce as evidence of the corpse’s inhumanity before she remembered her own temple name. All right, so they were both there in the capacity of their jobs. “That’s an unusual entrance, to begin,” said One Esk. She was looking at the center of the garden, where four large openings gaped surrounded by a dozen smaller ones of varying width. Only one of the larger shafts was wide enough for adults, and that was the one that had handles added to it. The shafts’ originally undulating sides were only negotiable by thin and limber children without fear. “Is there a purpose to it?”
“How would I know,” said Set Fers, feeling mocked. “Wasn’t us that built it.”
“I see. A previous civilization?”
“If you want to call it that.” Didn’t the soldier -- the ship -- the Radch know this already?
If they didn’t, they were learning it right now. One Esk slipped back to her inscrutable face, eyes fixed on the entrance but unseeing, as if she were really elsewhere. Which she was, if what Set Fers was learning about her in turn was right. The translator had at least a dozen of these units guarding her and carrying out her errands, or collecting information the way One Esk Twelve was now. Set Fers imagined One Esk One to Four never left the Radchaai’s side (they’d been here, besides, when she visited the temple first), Five and Six kept her house maintained the way the Set cleaned and cooked and sang for the Er, and Seven and the rest… who knew what they did. Or how many there even were.
“Honored Set Fers, was there an alien species present on this planet when the humans came?”
The soldier had never seen the hologram. Set Fers lifted the coin’s plastic case by its ribbon, and nodded at the currency as it slowly spun. The front had Fers coiled around a dayflower branch, and the back had the value obscuring the body of Fersulig, but not entirely so; some of Her spilt over the edges, and stopped just shy of Her sister’s plant. “Why do you think the gods look like this? They’re not ours.”
“I see,” said the soldier, still expressionless. “What happened to the alien?”
“Begging your pardon, One Esk Twelve, but you are not initiated to the mysteries, and I don’t see how you could be. I am not at liberty to say.”
There was definitely some impatience to the soldier’s otherwise blank face. Set Fers braced herself for another flat I see, in the absence of a bullet, but instead the thing had calculated another line of approach. Or attack, in its way. “So you must think me alive,” said One Esk. “If I were dead this prohibition wouldn’t matter.”
Where on earth was either priest? Set Fers was losing her footing for sure. The soldier scrutinized the garden from where she stood, colourful just like the ribbons but dominated by dayflower. As were the orchards beyond the temple grounds, and the woods in the distance. Fers was life, and provided people with material to build, to weave, to eat and even drink, if you brewed it right; tea was no real match. Most importantly, however, She let people breathe. It wouldn’t take the Radchaai long to work this out. Set Fers figured that they knew, and were merely testing her. And if Amaat was Fersulig, of course She’d test the fortitude of a future priest.
What was it that the characters in dramas always said? The omens have been cast. The Radchaai did this daily, but the coin had long been flipped for the people here, and their fortunes set.
“Thank you,” said One Esk when she realized nothing else would be forthcoming from the acolyte. “I may return, but I will stay outside the temple. I’d just like to hear you sing.”
Set Fers stared after her as she withdrew, then heard the younger priest approach. Another One Esk must have seen her first if they were scouting for information, and instructed Twelve to leg it. “Honored,” said Set Fers when they were making their way down, and out of any soldier’s hearing range. “One of the translator’s guard was here before you came.”
Er Fers swung loose and landed in soft darkness, outside the shafts of light that made an irregular rosetta on the floor. “What did she want?”
They left the outer hall and made their way inwards, only bothering to turn the light on when they reached the staff rooms; the rest they could navigate by heart. Reminded of the temple’s makers, Set Fers traced the stretch of power cables within reach and wondered how old they were, compared to the rooms. They were first installed about the time that handles were added to the entrance, and in all that time remained as sturdy. This was a relief to know.
“Asked questions about the temple,” said Set Fers. “Honored, is the needle-needle safe?”
“No, and you know it,” said Er Fers as she busied herself with the day’s first batch of dayflower draught. “Hold on. What?”
Set Fers bumped into a wall, taking a step back as the priest turned and advanced upon her. “Is it kept safe, Honored? I think… I think the soldier was looking for it.”
Er Fers scrutinized her for a while, draught forgotten. “Are you sure?”
The other Set Fers joined them and beelined for the stove. “What’s the trouble now, and will I have to pay for it?” she half-sang, only half joking, morning-cranky as she was.
“Nothing, and no,” said Er Fers. “Keep an eye on that,” she said with a wave in the stove’s direction, “and I’ll go check up on our stores.”
Set Fers sat in silence, listening to Set Fers stir the pot and hum to herself as she checked the temperature and the consistency of the brew. It wasn’t more than root soup but it had a taste that lingered and dissolved for hours afterwards, something she had yet to hear tea did.
“All right,” said her temple-sister. “Take mercy on me already. What’s going on?”
“There was a soldier waiting when I came in,” said Set Fers, not specifying what kind of soldier. “I had to talk to it.”
“Had to --? Oh! Oh no, are you all right?”
Set Fers sighed, rubbing at her eyes. “I don’t know. I was so upset, I... I don’t think I did so well. I think I --”
The other Set Fers crouched in front of her with a steaming bowl, then set it aside and embraced her. “Hush,” she said. “Never mind. I’ll make sure to walk with you next time, they can talk to me. Here,” she said, reaching for the bowl again. “Drink this and calm down. It’s fresh, I haven’t boiled everything good out of it just yet.”
Set Fers smiled despite herself, and took a sip of the drink. She shuddered and coughed, and they both burst out laughing. “Damn you, sister,” said Set Fers as she wiped the tears and the snot off her face. “Share this with me.”
The other Set Fers laughed, and took the bowl from her. It needed to be brewed more thoroughly than this, unlike the dainty fussiness of tea that, if the Radch were to be believed, got spoiled if it was left a second or two too late. The longer dayflower boiled the weaker it became but that was fine, since nobody wanted visitors to the temple to get distracted from their daily chores. Fresh and strong it made the world seem softer, slower, even if this came at the expense of motor skills and mind, which neither acolyte wanted to risk with Er Fers pottering nearby. The other Set Fers took the bowl away and upended it when Set Fers lost the feeling in her arms and swayed, and hissed something about the gods being inseparable; she didn’t quite remember.
“You know,” said Set Fers, recovering and staring at the grate under their feet, “I’ll be sad when this gives way to tea.”
“Have you not been following the news? The southern regions are pushing back. Tradition is tradition, and people like dayflower.”
Set Fers snorted. “Or their priests are brewing it as quickly as you’re supposed to do with tea.”
The priest returned amid their cackling, looking grim and yet relieved at the same time. “Everything’s in order,” she said without elaborating further. “You two ready?”
The Set jumped up and hauled the pot to the inner hall together with the extra bowls. There was always somebody whose own dish broke and who feigned forgetfulness to get a free replacement. The temple staff provided and said nothing, as was for the best; poverty was punishment enough.
The day passed uneventful, which was for the best as well. The acolytes spent it in daydream, humming to themselves when they weren’t singing or chatting with the visitors according to their status, and all the while the Radch translator stayed away.
***
No one knows how long the night is
If one lies low, below
It takes courage to step outside, but
She makes it worth the pain
***
As it turned out, however, the translator only kept away pro forma; her corpse guard haunted the temple grounds instead -- or at least the road outside, where the coins flashed in bright sunlight and jingled faintly in the breeze.
Set Fers would emerge into the garden and find Twelve, always wearing the same uniform and the same blank expression. Eight and Eleven were the next most frequent visitors, if such a word applied for someone who had never gone inside. Set Fers was almost used to them by now and, if she forgot herself, greeted them (and twice started a conversation). “What’s the point of learning hymns,” she’d asked the second time this happened, “if you’ll never serve in here?” One Esk hadn't given her an answer, but the talk then turned to Amaat and the likelihood of her ascent to power. And that was where they stuck.
“Say you couldn’t fit our gods in here,” said Set Fers as the soldier accompanied her back to town, one clear and fragrant evening. Inspecting sales, she’d said, taking stock of how things stood and where the traffic and the exports went. The translator was surprised, Set Fers learned, that there wasn’t that much commerce with the outer planets, and that the local flora stayed local despite its sturdiness and breadth of use. There were questions hidden in this observation but Set Fers pretended not to hear, and carried on with her pet topic. “Where would they go? You say you never killed a god --”
“We retain their names, sometimes the rites,” said One Esk. “No human alive remembers Toren, not even Anaander Mianaai. But I do.”
“And Esk?”
“EskVar,” One Esk corrected her. “Still venerated, though not in the place she came from. I’ll tell you the story if you want.”
Set Fers didn’t want to contemplate the sisters getting uprooted or transplanted to another world; not without the Radchaai knowing how they worked, at least, and she had no authority or willingness to tell them. She’d spilt enough the first time the soldier caught her unawares. Nor did she know what to make of the idea of the gods reduced to name alone. Too many ghosts would travel on those ships, more than a ship would realize, or be willing to take on. “I wouldn’t be naming anything Mercy of Fers,” she said, and shuddered. “Let alone Fersulig.”
One Esk stopped to buy something from a dirty looking child. “What about a Sword of Fersulig?”
That didn’t sound so bad. “Or a Justice,” said Set Fers. Now there’s a ship nobody would mess with. She could almost see herself serving on a troop carrier like that, human and alive and, who knows, maybe still a priest. Er Fersulig, now there was an idea. Nobody had ever been an Er Fersulig.
Not officially, anyway. The diviners tried it, but diviner was another word for terrorist and didn’t count. Priests maintained the temples, diviners aimed to blast them, claiming that was what the ones who built them would have done. Priests brewed draughts of pure dayflower, diviners spiked them with needle-needle and claimed they spoke to gods, and would make the planet theirs again.
When Er Fers taught this past the mysteries, she was sympathetic to a certain point. It was natural to feel remorse, she'd said, for eradicating an entire species. But there’d never been room for two at the top, no system that would sustain both humans and the ones who came before. Besides, she’d said, those were honored by the fact that their temples were retained, and their dead remained dead.
“People say that Amaat is Fersulig,” said Set Fers. “Because of the millions you killed in the outer system. But I went and watched the news and…” she drew a shaky breath, steeling herself for criticising the invader, “she discriminates too far for that. The feast should be a lottery, not a culling of the already low.”
“That so,” said One Esk. “I thought who once was down is up now, children, who once was up is down. That sounds like a revolution to me, rather than a lottery. Have you never had those here?”
Set Fers detested this, and what praise she would’ve given to the soldier’s voice died in her throat. Of course the soldier knew her history, or she wouldn’t be poking around like this. “Yeah, the diviners,” Set Fers volunteered, seeing if she could suss out anything in turn. “I guess you saw the ruined temples.”
“I did, I visited them all.”
One Esk paused then, intrigued by a drilled-out coin that had graced a temple at some point, that a stall vendor gave her as change for her excessive payment for a simple souvenir. Her whole presence here was a performance, forcing people into talking to her because they couldn’t afford to turn down a sale, and reminding them of the power of the Radch, being so negligent with money. “Honored,” she said, turning to Set Fers again, “have you ever visited an outer planet?”
Of course the acolyte hadn’t. Maybe in a year, when she was done with her probation; maybe more, however much it took to save up for a ticket. “Not yet,” she said.
“Then how do you know that the locals now in charge hadn’t been ascended?”
The nerve. “Because they speak like you in all those broadcasts,” said Set Fers. “Like they’re used to power. You can’t fake that.”
“Perhaps not,” One Esk agreed. “But it doesn’t take much getting used to.” She resumed her stroll but inspected the coin as she went, paying particular attention to its border where the sisters reached to meet. “Your diviners only ruined a small number of those temples,” she said. “Most of them were broken into before the humans settled here. Or broken out of, I couldn’t tell.”
“I don’t know that much,” said Set Fers, and earned herself another ‘perhaps not’.
***
Who once was down is up now, children
Who once was up is down
The hidden springs to life, but
It needs a helping hand
***
She sought out the younger priest the following morning, unsure of what the Esk was getting at. “I think she knows about Fersulig,” she whispered as she swept the inner hall. She had no microphone and the sound was not yet on, but she hadn’t had a chance to speak to the priest in the staff rooms, with the other two changing into temple clothes and sharing breakfast with them. “I don’t know why she wants to hear it from me. Has she asked you anything?”
“No, because she knows I won’t speak to her,” said Er Fers. “And neither should you.”
Easy for her to say. Like the other Set Fers she was rich, and likely had her place already set for when the Radch were done with their mockery of a feast. One Esk Twelve, now, she sounded like she was offering Set Fers a promotion in exchange for information, if she had the authority to do such things. But ships weren’t citizens, were they? The translator would've made this easier, clearer, but she was now inspecting tea plantations in the south.
The Set were doing breathing exercises before the hymns when clipped, agitated voices echoed through the tunnels leading back to the staff rooms. The Er Fers who was with them, inspecting the cleanliness of the altar and the quality of the draught, frowned and squinted, straining to make out the words. The Set, who were younger and experienced at listening in secret, recognized at once a broadcast from the southern capital. The old Er Fers must’ve turned it up, as it was her habit to check up on developments in numerous dramas while the rest prepared the temple in the morning. And it should have been a drama at this time, the one where a tea picker fell in love with a plantation owner who turned out to --
“That’s not news, that’s an imperial broadcast,” said the other Set Fers, and jumped down to crawl back to the staff rooms. Set Fers followed, as did the priest who couldn’t decide whether she wanted to berate them, or shut them up so she could hear.
Behind god’s back, all four watched in silence as the younger Er Fers hunted through the channels, scenes of carnage from a busy square replaced channel after channel by a heavily bejeweled officer with a grim face and voice. Her talk of annexation alternated, as Er Fers messed with the console, with reports of assault on the Radchaai envoy: the translator, who had gone to hear complaints from would-be tea farmers struggling in the southern regions against the ubiquity of dayflower. Those petitioners were also dead, and even the envoy's corpse guard -- immortal, one would think -- struggled to push back the crowd that was swarming them in suicidal waves. Or at least the people who could stand did so; the rest crawled around on all fours in broad daylight, vomiting and other foulness besides. But all footage of this eventually gave way to the planet’s gentle curve seen from a ship, the backdrop of the Radchaai officer’s broadcast.
Er Fers broke the silence. “They gave mixed drinks to everyone,” she said, face scrunched up in disgust. “They gave them out to everyone!”
“Are their temple staff diviners?” said the other Set Fers, earning herself a stern look from the younger priest, but no denial.
“No,” said the ancient priest. Her face and hands were almost pale, and even thinner than normal with strain. She breathed through her nose, mouth pressed closed in a grimace of contempt. “They’re amateurs.”
The other Er Fers flinched, then pulled herself together. “I knew it. You insane old bat, are you a part of this?” And, given no answer, her voice gone shrill: “I’ll lock us all in here for good, if I have to --!”
Set Fers didn’t wait for that. She threw herself into the tunnel leading to the inner hall, scrambled out and across the scrubbed, slippery floor to leap at the far wall, and hauled herself up to the outer hall and out, breaking for the town and the translator’s house there. Maybe nothing mattered now that the Radchaai was dead and Set Fers’ nightmare given the all clear, but, mysteries be damned, she would tell One Esk about the stores of needle-needle. Even if no deaths could be prevented, at least she took no part.
But the invaders knew already; of course they did. A group of soldiers ran toward her, in the direction of the temple. She feared she would get stopped -- or shot, or worse -- but they marched right past her, whether it was the urgency of their mission, her youth, or her temple clothes that spared her. But what if they didn’t know, and thought only that the Er would dole out hybrid drought? She turned to call after them and warn them, but they were already well away. She took a breath and ran on towards the main square, where the Radchaai made her house; if the Esk really did share thoughts throughout their ships, the ones at the temple would know what to look for as soon as she told the ones down here.
She stumbled into the house, since the door opened just as she was about to knock, or more accurately run straight at it. She knew the Esk at the door as Eight, but couldn’t see any others there. One was enough, though. “The feast,” she started with what breath she had, when another Radchaai moved into view. Nobody Set Fers had seen before, but she’d watched enough dramas to identify the clothes and even the placement of the pins as belonging to some sort of scientist.
“Please, come in,” said the Radchaai, and motioned her inside as Eight closed the door and went to stand beside it. The house was sparsely furnished but elegantly so, and there was a tea set ready in the inner room. It made the place unreal, like walking into a drama. But as soon as the Esk fussing around the table offered her a cup –- Nine? Ten? not one she knew that well -- Set Fers felt her throat close up.
“It’s just tea,” said the Radchaai. “Might be bland for your taste, I’ll give you that, but it keeps one sane and civilized.”
“I --”
“You’re Set Fers,” said the Radchaai. “Call me Medic. Same thing really, we’re both our jobs.”
A console in the corner of the outer room still looped that officer’s announcement, echoing in the largely empty space the way it echoed in the temple. Set Fers looked around the inner room, startled to find Eleven and Twelve motionless by the door. They must’ve moved like snakes. “The gods,” she said, trying to address the Medic for politeness, but really seeking eye contact with either of One Esk, to get their attention and her message across. She almost wished the annexation had begun earlier, so she could have a bracelet that relayed her distress directly to the ship.
“The gods, yes,” said the Medic. She had a pile of papers by her seat, weighed down by a very large and very old thousand-worth coin, drilled out but still encased in plastic with a decorative ribbon. “I’d like to take a look at that hologram of yours when the temple is secured.”
She passed Set Fers the coin case with both hands, mostly managing to hide disgust at the acolyte’s lack of gloves, then picked up her tea and sipped it with content. Whoever took the middle out of the coin took care to carve the sides, Set Fers noted. “Makes it much easier to see the alien is one and the same,” said the Medic. “Not one for each plant the way the new coins have it.”
“That’s because --”
“Yes, yes, the terrorists. We looked into this. So the alien reaches out to both plants, see, and the one obverse is the one that’s everywhere, while the one on the reverse side is always somehow hidden. Isn’t that peculiar?”
Not if you know the mysteries, Set Fers thought. But before she could say anything, One Esk Eleven moved to speak. “Begging your indulgence, Medic. If I may?”
If the Medic signalled assent, Set Fers couldn’t see it, but it must have been given since Eleven carried on. “Where I’m from -- where this segment is from –- there used to be a fungus the local children called bubble, because of the way it stretched and inflated like a soap bubble before it burst and released spores everywhere. If it came in contact with –-“
The house shook. The street and the square both shook, if the shouts outside were any indication. And then the voices were inside, or at least the other Set Fers was, skin beading and clothes wet from all the running. Set Fers looked no better but she’d had time to compose herself; her temple-sister seemed entirely unconcerned with her appearance. “I’m so glad they didn’t get you,” she said through huffs and wheezes. “Now nobody --”
“What just happened?” Set Fers demanded, getting up. The Medic and the Esk were in a conference of their own, eyes distant and hands busy gesturing. “Are the priests all right?”
“Gods only know,” said her temple-sister. “It’s all up to them now.”
“... Er Fers?”
“Oh, the old bat tried, but the other Er Fers stopped her even before the soldiers came.” She choked, trying to cough and laugh at once. “It was brutal.”
“But --”
“I set Her free,” the other Set Fers said. “It was time for a change anyway, the omens were all there.” She looked at the Medic, cocked her head. “Am I right, Radchaai? Did your little tea leaves tell you that, or whatever it is you do? Or you’re not much of a fortune teller?”
The Medic wasn’t listening. “— down, now,” she was yelling instead at no one in particular. “They didn’t trip the ecosystem, they’d disrupted it already. Yes, like I told you.”
Set Fers stared at her temple-sister. “But why?”
“They won’t get you this way, or any of us. You were right, they wouldn’t care for any of us. They wouldn’t go inside the temple, they only let corpse soldiers down. Inside the temple! If they couldn’t respect that much…” She shivered, but then composed herself and addressed the Medic. “The only footsteps you’ll be counting are your own. Or not even that, if you don’t start running now.”
At which point Set Fers swung the coin, and knocked her out.
***
A thousand, thousand, thousand footsteps
A thousand fallen leaves
All gets pressed into the dust, but
It will grow back again
***
“Take her with you,” said Set Fers as the noise of the shuttle filled the house. “You’re a doctor, you have to help her.”
The Medic snorted. “Nothing I can do if you’ve been poisoning yourselves.”
“She hasn’t! You saw the news, you saw what needle-needle does.”
The Medic shot a look at Eleven, who was busy packing the tea set. “So that’s what it’s called, for what that’s worth. Let’s go before it blooms to nerve gas.”
Set Fers lifted the coin case, slippery with blood, and aimed it at the tea set, likely the only thing on the planet the Radchaai cared about. “Show some mercy, damn you,” she cried. “Or is that just a name for your ships?” She looked at Twelve and nodded at her fallen temple-sister. “You lost at least one of your— your segments at the temple. Can’t you take her for that?”
Twelve returned her a dispassionate look. “Mercy for a terrorist? If anything, you’d do better with us; you at least can sing.”
“Punishment, then,” said Set Fers.
Both One Esk looked at the Medic, who was quite ready to leave. “Really, Ship?” said Medic. “I know you’re shaky when you lose ancillaries, but...”
“The child is right about the punishment,” said Twelve, who’d spent enough time around the acolyte to know how people felt about this particular kind of fate. “It would be just.”
The Medic sighed. “And proper, and beneficial. For whom, exactly, Ship?” But then she sighed “fine” and demanded a strange package from the shuttle pilot. It made the other Set Fers shimmer silver all over, which Set Fers wasn’t sure if it was some sort of medical restraint, a mask, or the sister-gods' mad dance caught up with her and she could no longer trust her senses. But when Set Fers looked outside, beyond the shuttle and the house, she saw a landscape she’d only ever seen in dreams.
Dayflower blossomed iridescent, branches vivid with small fires where the sisters met, and needle-needle exploded further upon fertile ground. It was beautiful, it was how the world was meant to be. Its true, forgotten air rose above the trees, carrying the petals no one would sweep up again for centuries to come, if ever. People worshipped all around, not in those half-hearted human ways inside the temples where Fersulig was contained, but truly and fully so outside, abandoning their footsteps as they crawled and slithered, seeking out a place to burrow. Like the ones who’d come before.
Her family was safe there; safe forever.
Alone in the house Set Fers breathed, swayed, and started to sing.
***
A thousand, thousand, thousand footsteps
A thousand, thousand lives
We shouldn’t ask for more, but
Can't blame us if we do
***
“Not bad,” said one of the captain’s Amaats as One Esk's tale faded away. "Even suits your voice."
With a bow to the ancillary in recognition of her contribution to the festival – such as it was, being held aboard the ship instead of the fields of the Amaat’s home planet and farm -- she lifted her keg of beer and finished it louder than was proper. Another Amaat began to follow suit, but found herself less thirsty than she thought. She put her keg down and shrugged away the friendly jibes at her fortitude and reason.
The ship didn’t have to indulge its troops' homesickness, but she was curious about them in the way she didn’t have to be with her ancillaries. The Amaat’s harvest festival was easy enough to approximate, and anything the ship wasn’t able to provide – which was, frankly, most of the festive trappings, starting with a fire – alcohol was sure to compensate for. The ship even took care to send one of its own along.
“It’s not that original, though,” said an Issa when One Esk excused herself, and was almost out of earshot. “I heard one where the girl was called Pandora...”
One Esk left them to it. She could have given them the name and set the story straight, but there was not much purpose to it. Besides, this was the only kind of permanent death she could guarantee the acolyte (or terrorist, or idle rich, or a smitten friend) and, with her grudges long dissolved in the vastness of ship life, she was glad to do so.
***