Ancillary Mercy

by Ann Leckie

  “Leave everyone?” I asked. “Our neighbors in the Undergarden? The fieldworkers downwell? Your friends?” Tisarwat had made a fair few friends, some of them just for political reasons, but not all. “Citizen Piat? Even petulant Station?”

  She drew in a shaking breath and then cried, “How can this be happening? How can there be any benefit at all? She tells herself that, you know, that all of it is ultimately for the benefit of humanity, that everyone has their place, their part of the plan, and sometimes some individuals just have to suffer for that greater benefit. But it’s easy to tell yourself that, isn’t it, when you’re never the one on the receiving end. Why does it have to be us?”

  I didn’t reply. The question was an old one, and she knew its various conventional answers as well as I did.

  “No,” she said, after thirty-two seconds of tense and miserable silence. “No, we can’t leave, can we.”

  “No. We can’t.”

  “As much as you’ve been through,” she said, “far more than I have. And I’m the one who wants to run away.”

  “I thought about it,” I admitted.

  “Did you?” She seemed unsure of how to feel about that, an odd mix of relief and disappointment.

  “Yes.” And with Basnaaid and Uran aboard I might have done it. “So,” I said. “Work out exactly what you need to make this relay project happen.”

  “Already have, sir.” Self-loathing. Pride. Fear. Worry. “I don’t need much of anything, I can do it right from here. If I can do it. I need Ship’s help, though. If I still had… I mean, Ship can help me.”

  If she’d still had the implants that I’d removed, that had made her into part of Anaander Mianaai, she meant. “Good. Then I want you, Ekalu, and Amaat One to meet me here in fifteen minutes, and you can lay out your plan for them. And then”—this more for Ship’s, and Medic’s, benefit than Tisarwat’s—“I’m going back to my own quarters.” Whether on crutches, or crawling, or carried by Kalrs was immaterial.

  Sphene was in my quarters, standing by the counter, staring at fragments of that beautiful gold-and-glass tea set spread out on the counter’s surface. I had managed to use the crutches this time, managed the trip at least partly under my own power, though I wouldn’t have made it without Five and Twelve. Sphene looked up as we came in. Nodded to Five, and said, “Cousin,” to me.

  “Cousin,” I replied, and with Five’s support managed to get to a bench. “How does it look?” I asked, as Five placed cushions around me. “The tea set, I mean. Before you come out with something sarcastic.”

  “Now you’ve spoiled my fun, Cousin,” said Sphene, mildly, still staring at the fragments of colored glass on the counter. “I am not at all convinced this will actually go back together in any sort of meaningful way.” It shifted slightly as Five came over to the counter, to allow Five access to the tea-making things.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. Leaned back onto the cushions Five had placed.

  “Well,” replied Sphene, still not looking at me, “it’s just a tea set. And I did sell it away, and I knew Captain Hetnys was a fool. She wouldn’t have done business with me otherwise.” It and Five looked oddly companionable, side by side in front of the counter. It swept the pieces back into the box, which it then closed and placed on the counter. Took two rose glass bowls of tea from Five, and came over to sit beside me on the bench. “You need to be more careful, Cousin. You’re running out of pieces of yourself to lose.”

  “And you said I’d spoiled your fun.” I took one of the bowls of tea. Drank from it.

  “I’m really not having much fun,” Sphene said, equably enough, but of course it was an ancillary. “I don’t like being cut off from myself like this.” Information could only travel through the regular intersystem gates because they were held constantly open. We were isolated in our own tiny bubble of real space, and it couldn’t contact the rest of itself, the ship that was hiding in the Ghost System. “But unpleasant as it is, I know the rest of me is out there, somewhere.”

  “Yes,” I agreed, and took another drink of tea. “How’s your game with the translator going?” Sphene and Translator Zeiat had spent the last two days in the decade room, playing a game of counters. Or at least it had begun as a standard game of counters. By now it also involved fish-shaped cakes, the fragments of two empty eggshells, and a day-old bowl of tea, which they every now and then dropped a glass counter into. They appeared to be making it up as they went.

  “The game is going pretty well,” Sphene replied, and drank some of its own tea. “She’s two eggs ahead of me, but I’ve got way more hearts.” Another sip of tea. “In the game, I mean. Outside the game I still have more. Probably. I’m not sure I’d like to speculate about the translator’s insides, now I think of it. Or what might be in her luggage.”

  “I wouldn’t, either.” Five finished what she was doing at the counter and left the room. I could have reached to find out what errand she was on, but didn’t. “How much information comes through the Ghost Gate?”

  “A fair amount,” replied Sphene. “I get the official broadcasts, of course. Announcements. The censored news, and all the popular public entertainments. My favorites are the historicals about wandering, grief-mad ships.” Sarcasm, surely, though no trace of it reached Sphene’s voice.

  “You won’t want to miss the latest one, then,” I said. “It’s about a grief-mad ship who abducts an unremarkable miner pilot because it thinks she’s its long-dead captain. Adventures and hilarious yet heart-tugging misunderstandings ensue.”

  “I only wish I had missed that one,” replied Sphene, evenly.

  “It had some good songs.”

  “You would say that,” Sphene said. “Did you ever hear a song you didn’t like?”

  “Yes, actually.”

  “In the name of all that’s holy,” Sphene replied, “don’t sing it. I have enough misfortune in my life.”

  We sat silent for a few seconds. Then I said, “So, those people you bought from Captain Hetnys. And the ones you bought from the slavers, before the annexation of Athoek. Are they all hooked up?”

  Sphene drank the last of its tea. “I know where you’re headed, Cousin.” I didn’t reply, and it continued, “And I know where you’re coming from. And maybe you and your ship here get along all right the way you are, but I have no desire to join either of you. I bought those bodies because I needed them.”

  “For what, exactly? What is it you’ve been doing for three thousand years that you need ancillaries for?”

  “Surviving,” replied Sphene. It set its teabowl on the bench beside it. “And it’s ironic that you’re the one kicking up a fuss about it. Before the war I got mostly condemned criminals. You’re the one whose entire existence was based on the Usurper collecting huge numbers of random people. How many ancillaries did you have, during your life as a ship? And how many of them were innocent people? And now you want me to give up my few, is that it?” I didn’t reply. “I don’t even have a crew anymore. I couldn’t even have pretend ancillaries like Mercy of Kalr does.”

  “I’m not kicking up a fuss,” I said. “I’m asking. And those are citizens you have in your holds.”

  “They are not. Citizens live inside the Radch. What’s outside the Radch is impure, and mostly barely human. You can call yourselves Radchaai as much as you want, you can wear gloves like somehow not touching impure things is going to make a difference, but it doesn’t change anything. You’re not citizens, you’re impure by definition, and there isn’t an entrance official who’d let you within ten thousand kilometers of the Radch, no matter how many times you wash, no matter how long you fast.”

  “Well, of course not,” I replied reasonably. “I’m an ancillary.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “We’ll be exiting gate-space soon, into your home system.” The Ghost System had been close enough to home for Sphene, for the last few thousand years. “I’m hoping you’ll be willing to give us any information you have about what’s b
een happening at Athoek. We can send you back to yourself, too, if you want to go.”

  Silence. I knew Sphene was breathing, I could see it, just barely, but otherwise it was utterly motionless. Then it said, “I wasn’t supposed to come back.”

  “I’d assumed that was the case.” Five came back in, and over to where we sat. Adjusted my cushions, took our teabowls. “I want to find out if I managed to damage any of Anaander’s ships. And if I did, I want to try to do more damage. I need to know what’s going on at Athoek so I can plan.”

  “Oh, Cousin,” replied Sphene. “We sit here arguing, we can hardly agree on anything, and then you go straight to my heart like that. We must be family.”

  We exited to the Ghost System, the not-even-black of gate-space giving way to sunlight (the Ghost System’s single star was a bit smaller and dimmer and younger than Athoek’s), ice, and rocks, and the single gate’s warning beacon. I was sitting in my bed, in my quarters. I could have taken my seat in Command, but it was Ekalu’s watch and moreover Medic had been truly distressed by my leaving Medical. If I could mollify her even slightly by staying in my quarters instead of attempting to haul myself to Command, then I would.

  Until Tisarwat did what she had planned to do, nothing would come through the relay at that beaconed gate but official, public-approved transmissions. Still, even that might be useful. I reached.

  I had assumed that I would have to sort through a good deal of inconsequential chatter to find what I wanted. But in fact, the official news channels were me, nonstop. I was a mutinous traitor, not a citizen at all, not even human. I was Justice of Toren, damaged, insane. Cunning, beguiling—I had deceived the highest levels of system and station administration. Who knew what I had done to the rest of myself? Who knew how I had suborned Mercy of Kalr? But those questions were mere idle speculation. I and Mercy of Kalr were extraordinarily dangerous and any sighting of either of us, no matter how doubtful or indefinite, was to be reported immediately. Anyone concealing or harboring me declared herself to be an enemy of the Radch. Of humanity itself.

  “Look at you, Cousin,” said Sphene, at length, in its own guest quarters. “It’s been like this for two days now and I am so envious I almost can’t stand it. It really isn’t fair. I’ve been an enemy of the Usurper for three thousand years, you’re a mere upstart, but here you’ve got three entire news channels absolutely devoted to you. Oh, and the music and entertainment ones stop every five minutes to remind us all to tune into the Justice of Toren show. I can only conclude that your little stunt caused some actual damage, and I take back what I said about it being stupid.”

  I only half heard it. I was sorting through the announcements for any other information—Head of Security Lusulun had resigned and been replaced by her second-in-command. Eminence Ifian had always been suspicious of me, had tried to hold Athoek to sane, Radchaai values, though she would not name the officials she suspected of having been most taken in by me. The official position appeared to be that anyone who had befriended me had been duped or manipulated. Unofficially, of course, the implication was that my erstwhile allies were in danger, at the very least, of losing their positions or influence. There was no mention of Basnaaid or Uran.

  I didn’t expect any explicit mention of my attack on Anaander’s ships, let alone mention of any damage I might have done. But perhaps there would be some hint, some implication. Then again, perhaps Sphene was right—the very existence and vehemence of this stream of official announcements likely said something about the threat I posed.

  Lieutenant Ekalu, in Command, hadn’t yet given the all clear for the crew to unstrap or unstow. She watched the view Ship gave her, of this system. “Sphene,” said Mercy of Kalr into the apparent emptiness, “where are you?”

  “Around,” replied the Sphene ancillary, from guest quarters. “Keep the ancillary for now.” And then, “It’s nicer here anyway.”

  Lieutenant Ekalu said, from Command, “In the Ghost System. Lieutenant Tisarwat, you’re up.”

  “My thanks, Lieutenant,” Tisarwat said, from her quarters.

  The door to my own quarters opened, and Seivarden came in. In uniform. “Shouldn’t you still be in Medical?” I asked.

  “I’m released from Medical,” she said, smugly. Sat down next to me, where I sat on my bed. Looked around the small room, and at the door, and when she was certain Five was nowhere near, pulled her booted feet up so she could sit cross-legged. “As of three minutes ago. And I’m off meds. I told Medic I didn’t need them anymore.”

  “You realize”—I still kept a bit of attention for Tisarwat, herself cross-legged on her own bed, eyes closed, accessing the relay through Ship—“that it’s the meds that make you feel like you don’t need meds anymore.” Bo Nine came into Tisarwat’s quarters, quietly humming. Oh, tree, eat the fish.

  Beside me, on my bed, Seivarden scooted closer. Tugged briefly on my jacket collar, as though it might have been just the slightest bit out of place. Leaned against me. “You and Medic. I already know that. I’ve done this before, remember?”

  “And you were so very successful at it.” I felt my own shoulder warm against Seivarden’s. The decades—the soldiers among them who were not in Command, anyway—were just beginning to hear and see those official news items. Their anger and resentment washed over me, tinged with shame—after all, they were Radchaai. Were being accused of treason by Radchaai authorities.

  Oblivious, Seivarden gave an amused hah. “I didn’t do too badly this time. I went much longer, for one thing. And I still haven’t taken any kef. Well, all right, I wanted to. But I didn’t.” I refrained from pointing out that no matter how much she had wanted to, she couldn’t have. “I’ve talked to Medic about this.” She slid down a bit, laid her head on my shoulder. “I don’t want to trade one addiction for another one. And I was doing pretty well.” Despite her blithe tone, she was apprehensive about my reaction.

  “Ship,” I said, “I understand what you’re doing. But I’m afraid Lieutenant Seivarden wants things from me that I can’t give her.”

  Seivarden sighed. Lifted her head just slightly off my shoulder to look up at me. “The lieutenant and I have talked about that.” Speaking for Ship. “You’re right, she does want things you can’t give her. But the truth is, anyone in any sort of relationship with you is going to have to adjust some of their expectations.” Seivarden gave a little hah at the end of that sentence. Put her head back down on my shoulder. “Ship and I have talked about this.”

  “While you were strung out on meds and everything seemed fine?”

  “Mostly before,” she replied, surprisingly unperturbed. “Look, I’m not going to get those things no matter what. But maybe I can have just a little, this way.” An embarrassed hesitation, and then, “Maybe, between you and Ship, there’s a little bit left over for me. Ship likes me well enough, right? It said so. And mostly what you’re talking about is sex. It’s not like I can’t get that other places, on my own.”

  Ekalu, in Command. Watchful. Just as angry and shame-filled about those official news announcements as the rest of the crew. Not thinking about Seivarden at the moment, I was fairly sure.

  Seivarden sighed. “Then again, I haven’t done very well with that, have I.” Apparently thinking of Ekalu, herself. “I don’t know what I did wrong. I still don’t understand why she was so upset.”

  “She told you why she was upset,” I pointed out. “You still don’t understand?”

  Seivarden sat up straight. Stood up. Walked to the other end of the room and back. “No.” Stood staring at me. Agitated, just mildly, but she had not been even that for days.

  “Seivarden.” I wanted her to sit back down, to lean her shoulder against mine again. “Do you know what happens when people tell me I don’t really seem like an ancillary to them?”

  She blinked. Breath slightly faster. “You get angry.” And then, with a little heh, “Well, angrier.”

  “You’ve never said it to me, though I’m sure you’ve though
t it.” She opened her mouth to protest. “No, listen. You didn’t know I was an ancillary when I found you on Nilt. You assumed I was human. It might, in fact, be entirely reasonable for you to say I don’t seem like an ancillary to you, or that you don’t see me as an ancillary. And you might even think of it as a compliment. But you have never said it to me. And I imagine you never will.”

  “Well, no,” replied Seivarden. Puzzled and hurt. Looking down at me where I sat on the bed. “I know it would make you angry.”

  “Do you understand why?”

  She gestured irrelevance. “No. No, honestly, Breq, I don’t.”

  “So why then,” I asked, only mildly surprised she hadn’t worked this out on her own, “don’t you extend the same courtesy to Ekalu?”

  “Well, but it wasn’t reasonable.”

  “I, on the other hand,” I pointed out, my tone even but edged, “am always entirely reasonable in your experience.”

  Seivarden laughed. “Well, but you’re…” She stopped. Froze. I saw the realization strike, the sudden spike of it.

  “This isn’t new,” I said. I didn’t think she heard me, though. Blood was rushing to her face, she wanted to flee, but of course there was nowhere she could go and be away from herself. “You have always expected anyone beneath you to be careful of your emotional needs. You are even now hoping I will say something to make you feel better. You were quite angry with Ekalu when she herself failed to do that.” No reply. Just shallow, careful breathing, as though she were afraid a deep breath might hurt. “You really have gotten better, but you can still be an enormously self-involved jerk.”

  “I’ll be all right,” she said, as though it followed logically from what I had just said. “I need to go to the gym.”

  “All right,” I said, and without another word she turned and left.

  11

  An hour later I returned from a Medic-approved trip down the corridor and back, and found Seivarden, hair still damp from the bath, rooting through the cupboard where the tea things were stowed. Kalr Five, who had followed me, saw Seivarden, felt a surge of pure outraged resentment. Then reconsidered. “Lieutenant,” Five said, watching me settle myself onto the bed, “they’re all the way in the back.”