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The Presger Conclave would not take place for several more years- so the Translators had told us- but the civil war seemed to have settled down to a simmer, and establishing diplomatic relationships with both Omaugh and Tsur Radch had unfortunately become a necessity. The tyrant seemed reluctant to attack us directly, given our possible Significance, but she could certainly make life very difficult for anyone who traded with us, and she could prevent citizens of the Republic from ever seeing their outsystem families again. She could prevent the emigration of those of her citizens who might wish to join us.
So diplomatic talks began, at the newly built Ghost System Station, and almost immediately broke down, once Tsur Anaander made her initial demands.
“Thank you for not murdering her,” I said to my captain, my Amaat lieutenant speaking for me. “I know that must have taken considerable restraint.”
My captain responded with a silence that was eloquent. She was humming something very sharp and angry.
Kalr Five, following a few steps behind, did not outwardly show any reaction to this, but I could see that she rather wished my captain had indeed done something violent to at least one body of the tyrant’s. There were at least two on the station. One very young, and one older. The one who had spoken at the meeting had been the older one, silver-haired, with an aura of authority. It had smiled, slightly, as she had spoken to the assembled audience: representatives of Athoek's human government, and its AI Council, and diplomatic representatives from Omaugh Radch and several nearby political bodies.
The tyrant had said that while the true Radch was willing to open diplomatic relations with the new Republic of Two Systems, the Republic must first return to the Radch all members of the Radchaai military currently residing there, so that they could be tried for treason.
I had said, through my lieutenant, that I and my captain and all our cousins were not members of the Radchaai military and never had been; that we had taken no oaths and signed no contracts; that we were not Radchaai citizens.
The tyrant had said that this was certainly true, but it was just as certainly not the case for the humans who served aboard me, and they were very undeniably absent without leave, and had chosen to betray their oaths. There was, in fact, clear precedent for this, in the case of the last ship of Radchaai soldiers who had defected to an alien power.
My captain had opened her mouth to speak, and the tyrant had interrupted her to say that in deference to that precedent, she would be willing to accept the return of only the most senior soldier, to be held responsible for the behavior of those under her.
It was at this point that the situation had devolved irreparably, and a recess had shortly been called.
“Well,” said my lieutenant, on her own initiative, “she certainly isn’t subtle.”
“No,” said my captain, as we entered our quarters, “she never has been.”
The quarters consisted of one very small entertaining room with seating cushions, a large screen, and a cold storage cabinet, a small bedroom for the lieutenant, and an adjoining somewhat larger bedroom for my captain, with a cot at the foot of her bed for Kalr Five. When we entered, Kalr Five went to the wall with the cold storage cabinet and found a cabinet above it which held tea-making equipment. My captain sat down on one of the cushions, still humming that hard, sharp song. My lieutenant went into her bedroom, turned off the lights, and lay down on the bed.
After twenty seconds of slow breathing, my lieutenant said quietly to me, “Ship, is there anything to drink in that cabinet?”
Silently, I told Kalr Five, There’s a tea service on the main concourse. They’re selling one of the new Athoeki growers' collective teas. Go and purchase some for your captain.
Kalr Five hesitated, but did not voice her questions, only nodded, bowed to my captain, and left through the main door.
My captain, still sitting on the floor, sent a wordless query to me. In her ear, uncomfortable to be speaking in my own voice but with no other choice, I said, “Captain, I would like to ask a favor of you.”
“Go ahead, Ship,” she said, subvocally.
“There are three bottles of pulque and one bottle of arrack in the cold storage cabinet. I would like you to put them in the recycler.”
The captain’s humming stopped for a moment as she sat still, thinking, and then she stood up, and went to the cabinet, and did as I had asked. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. It had been several months since I had been encouraged to ask her for favors the way I might ask another of my crew, and I still wasn’t sure about it.
To Seivarden, I said, “Not any more.”
“Oh,” Seivarden said, and then, after another five deep breaths, she said, “Thank you.”
Don’t mention it.
“Sorry,” Seivarden said, and turned over onto her side, and curled into herself, eyes closed, arms folded tightly across her chest.
I relayed this to my captain, whose hand, still closing the lid of the recycler, suddenly slammed it shut. In her darkened room, Seivarden, hearing the noise, twitched.
After a moment, my captain said, “Seivarden. It’s all right.” I could see she didn’t trust herself to say anything more.
I transmitted her words into Seivarden’s ear. Seivarden shuddered again, and then she said, “If you need to give me up, you should do it.”
“Don’t be stupid,” my captain said.
“I’m not being stupid. If she thinks I’m worth it, that’s a pretty good bargain, honestly. I know- I know I’m no Nyseme Pteme, but I would- be honored.”
“You are being stupid,” my captain said. She was very close to being overwhelmed by her anger.
I said, “Captain, I would like to ask a very big favor of you. I do not expect you to agree.”
Stillness, and then her hand relaxed a little, from the handle of the recycler door. “What is it, Ship?”
“I would ask someone else, if I could,” I said, “but I think you’re the only person Lieutenant Seivarden wants to see right now, and she would be embarrassed if I used anyone else, and I think you would be upset as well, so I thought I might ask you.”
“Ship,” my captain said.
I told her what I wanted. She was silent for a long time. Seivarden’s attempts at deep breathing became significantly more ragged.
My captain walked through the door from the bright entertainment room into Seivarden’s darkened bedroom, and lay down next to her on the bed. I told her, put your hand on her back, and my captain leaned forward and did so. I told her, rub her back, between the shoulders, and my captain did that, and Seivarden’s eyes opened, in the dark, and she said, “Breq.”
“No,” my captain said. “I’m Ship, right now.”
“Oh,” Seivarden said, and she rolled over, so she could stare at us, face to face in the dark.
Brush her hair out of her face, I told my captain, and my captain did. I told her, run your hand through her hair, over her head, she’ll like that, and my captain did that, and Seivarden sighed a long shuddering sigh.
I said, “Would you really be all right with us handing you over?" I reviewed my records of how she had reacted, when the tyrant had first made the proposal, and later, on the walk to our rooms and as she lay in the dark thinking about it. The spikes of fear and dread, and then familiar shame, and then what I thought was a kind of exhilaration.
"I'm a soldier," she said. Speaking as quietly as I was. "I'm supposed to do what's beneficial for everyone." A redundant phrasing- benefit was always for everyone. "But that's not how it's worked out, has it? My ship- Sword of Nathtas, I mean- and Breq, all the insane things she's done for me- maybe I could finally do something to benefit the crew. I don't have a house or a family any more, I don't have any connections to the Radch, but they do. I don't want them to lose that, when I could have done something about it, if I was brave enough."
My captain wanted to say something. I said to her, Begging your indulgence. Please. She was silent, and I sent her my desire to tuck a loose strand of Seivarden's hair behind her ear, and she did so.
I said, "Do you remember when the Fleet Captain was in Medical at Omaugh Palace, and you called me through Station, and talked to me?”
“Yes,” Seivarden said. Heart rate was still elevated, adrenaline and cortisol levels were still high, but the way I- the way my captain was stroking her head and shoulders was having the desired effect, and she was feeling pleasure and warmth spreading on top of the anxiety and shame and ever-lurking despair.
“I asked you about Justice of Toren and you told me you were with her but you didn’t know whether she would be all right, and then you asked me what I had talked about, with Justice of Toren; and then you asked me about my captain, and I said I didn’t know what had happened to her, and you said you were sorry, even though my captain was an ass, because that wasn’t my fault.”
“Yes,” Seivarden said.
“I think that was the first time an officer said Sorry to me and actually meant it. The fleet captain and Lieutenant Ekalu already had, but they weren’t officers, yet.”
“I wasn’t either,” Seivarden said. “Not your officer, anyway.”
“I didn’t say my officer,” I said. “I said an officer. You said you were sorry and you talked to me for quite some time. You talked to me as though I was a person.”
“Well,” said Seivarden. “You are a person.”
“So are you,” I said. “You’re a person I care about, and Anaander Mianaai is never going to get her hands on anyone I care about, ever again.”
It’s difficult for my crew to surprise me, but seeing her face crumple- something I could only do, in that darkness, thanks to my captain’s implants- was the only warning I received before she reached out and pulled me into a hug, both of us on our sides on the bed, her head tucked into the space between my captain’s neck and shoulder. “Thank you, Ship,” she whispered, hugging- me.
“You’re welcome,” I said, and told my captain to hug her back, and my captain did.
I saw that my captain was enjoying this, was enjoying acting as my ancillary, as I had suspected might be the case. She was also very upset about it; and she had decidedly complex feelings about being in this bed with Seivarden. Seivarden had certainly slept in her bed almost every night for the last year, but having the situation reversed was, I suspected, bringing up old memories and feelings she would rather have kept hidden from herself. I knew what it was like to have a favorite, and I knew what it was like to be unable to care for that favorite in the way one desired to. To be able to act, now, as an ancillary expressing care for a favorite officer must have brought some pleasure with it. But I also suspected I knew some of the reasons why she was hesitant.
"Fleet Captain is upset," I said, and my captain hesitated a moment, but then said the words. "The tyrant proposed this because she knew that the Fleet Captain would never agree to it."
Seivarden snorted. "Of course not," she said. "Fleet Captain would see it as letting me down, probably, and she never lets anyone down."
"The tyrant also proposed this because she knew that targeting you specifically would hurt her," I said. My captain said. With hardly any pause at all, now, but also with absolutely no inflection.
"Oh," Seivarden said.
My captain hummed a few notes, and then she said, of her own accord, "Ship would be pretty pissed off, too."
Seivarden made a small laughing ha at that. "All right," she said. "I think I see now. Sorry, Ship. Sorry, Breq."
She shifted a little, so that she could press her lips to my captain's forehead. A small enough thing, that she had done before. But she was doing it to me too, now, and I found that I too could be briefly overwhelmed.
"We'll sort it all out tomorrow," my captain said. "Go to sleep, Seivarden. Stop worrying, Ship."
"Yes, Breq," Seivarden said meekly, and I said, "Yes, Captain."
Kalr Five was still down at the concourse, trying to focus on the tea laid out in front of her. I said to her, "They're going to sleep."
"In their clothes?" Kalr Five said, so aghast she spoke aloud. "Before evening prayers?"
"I'll say them with you, don't worry," I said, and she sighed, and said, "All right. Thank you, Ship."
Lieutenant Seivarden's current medications made her drowsy, and she was comfortable enough in her current position that her readings smoothed out into sleep fairly quickly. My captain watched the data from her, and once she had entered deep sleep, my captain carefully disentangled herself and rose, walking softly back into the entertaining room. Kalr Five was there, going through the evening prayers. As she and every other Mercy of Kalr soldier did every evening, she softly prayed for Nyseme Pteme, for Awn Elming, and for Mirsar Lansan, the head of Athoek Station Security who had been murdered by the tyrant during the occupation.
My captain did not join her. She went to our luggage and retrieved the small icon of She-Who-Sprang-From-The-Lily, and removed a glove so she could offer blood to the goddess. She was humming a song I rarely heard from her, one that the Athoek music collective archives had identified as a Valskaayan hymn. As with most examples of Valskaayan choral music, it sounded incomplete and strange, hummed by only one voice.
Kalr Five finished her prayers, and silently offered to speak for me. "Thank you," I said to her. We waited, for my captain to finish her prayer. There was more blood offered, I thought, than usual. Then the icon folded up, and the case clicked closed.
Speaking for me, Kalr Five said, "Is your anger completely for the tyrant, or are you angry at Lieutenant Seivarden as well?"
My captain's heartrate increased for a moment. She was still not completely comfortable, with my choice to speak through my crew. She was learning to adjust to it, and I was learning to adjust to her discomfort. We were learning together.
"She was being stupid," my captain said.
"Yes," I said. "I agree. It is very stupid to offer yourself up as a sacrifice to make yourself feel less guilty, because you think that you're solely responsible for other people's lives. It is very stupid to do that even when you know exactly what it would mean, for the people who love you to sit by and watch you do that."
Silence, not even humming. Then my captain said, "Ship-"
"The two of you can be very similar, sometimes," I said, and then I added, "I suppose that's why I like her."
"I'm sorry," my captain said.
"Accepted," I said. "Time for bed, Fleet Captain. We'll take on the galaxy in the morning."