Ancillary Mercy

by Ann Leckie

  Silence, from Ekalu. She took another drink of tea. Thinking. Unhappy and afraid. “Sir,” she said at length, “begging your patient indulgence. But what’s the point? I mean, I understand why we’re going back to Athoek. That makes sense to me. But farther ahead than that. At first this all just seemed unreal, and it still does in a way. But the Lord of the Radch is coming apart. And if she comes apart, so does the Radch. I mean, maybe she’ll hold herself together, maybe she’ll put these pieces back together again. But, begging your forgiveness, sir, for my speaking very frankly, but you don’t actually want that, do you.”

  “I don’t,” I admitted.

  “And so what’s the point, sir? What’s the point of talking about training and promotions as though it’s all going to just go on like it always has?”

  “What’s the point of anything?”

  “Sir?” She blinked, confused. Taken aback.

  “In a thousand years, Lieutenant, nothing you care about will matter. Not even to you—you’ll be dead. So will I, and no one alive will care. Maybe—just maybe—someone will remember our names. More likely those names will be engraved on some dusty memorial pin at the bottom of an old box no one ever opens.” Or Ekalu’s would. There was no reason anyone would make any memorials to me, after my death. “And that thousand years will come, and another and another, to the end of the universe. Think of all the griefs and tragedies, and yes, the triumphs, buried in the past, millions of years of it. Everything for the people who lived them. Nothing now.”

  Ekalu swallowed. “I’ll have to remember, sir, if I’m ever feeling down, that you know how to cheer me right up.”

  I smiled. “The point is, there is no point. Choose your own.”

  “We don’t usually get to choose our own, do we?” she asked. “You do, I suppose, but you’re a special case. And everyone on this ship, we’re just going along with yours.” She looked down at her plate, considered, briefly, picking up a utensil, but I saw that she couldn’t actually eat just now.

  I said, “It doesn’t have to be a big point. As you say, often it can’t be. Sometimes it’s nothing more than I have to find a way to put one foot in front of the other, or I’ll die here. If we lose this throw, if we lose our lives in the near future, then yes, training and promotions will have been pointless. But who knows? Perhaps the omens will favor us. And if, ultimately, I have what I want, Athoek will need protection. I will need good officers.”

  “And what are the chances of the omens favoring us, sir, if I may ask? Lieutenant Tisarwat’s plan—what I know of it, sir, is…” She waved away whatever word she had been going to use to describe it. “There’s no margin for error or accident. There are so many ways things could go horribly wrong.”

  “When you’re doing something like this,” I said, “the odds are irrelevant. You don’t need to know the odds. You need to know how to do the thing you’re trying to do. And then you need to do it. What comes next”—I gestured, the tossing of a handful of omens—“isn’t something you have any control over.”

  “It will be as Amaat wills,” Ekalu said. A pious platitude. “Sometimes that’s a comfort, to think that God’s intention directs everything.” She sighed. “And sometimes it’s not.”

  “Very true,” I agreed. “In the meantime, let’s enjoy our breakfast.” I took up a piece of fish. “It’s very good. And let’s talk about Amaat One, and whoever else in the decades you think might be officer material.”

  Off to Medical, after breakfast, to Medic’s tiny office cubicle. I lowered myself into a chair, leaned my crutches against the wall. “You said something about a prosthetic.”

  “It’s not ready yet,” she said. Flat. Frowning. Defying me to question her assertion.

  “It should be ready by now,” I said.

  “It’s a complicated mechanism. It needs to be able to compensate for new growth as…”

  “You want to be sure I don’t leave Seivarden and her Amaats here and go to the station myself.” We were in gate-space, still days away from Athoek.

  Medic scoffed. “Like that would stop you. Sir.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “The prosthetic is a temporary fix. It’s not designed to take hard use and it’s certainly not suitable for combat.” I didn’t reply, just sat watching her frown at me. “Lieutenant Seivarden shouldn’t be going, either. She’s much better than she was, but I can’t guarantee how well she’ll handle that kind of stress. And Tisarwat…” But she of anyone on the ship could guess why there was no choice about Tisarwat going.

  “Lieutenant Seivarden is the only person on this ship besides me with actual combat experience,” I pointed out. “And besides Sphene, I suppose. But I’m not sure we can trust Sphene.”

  Medic gave a sardonic laugh. “No.” And then, struck by a thought, “Sir, I think you should consider some field promotions. Amaat One, certainly, and Bo One.”

  “I’ve just been talking to Ekalu about that. I’d have talked to Seivarden already, but I’m sure she’s asleep by now.” I reached. Found Seivarden in the first stages of what promised to be a very sound sleep. In my bed. Five, far from being resentful at losing her working space, sat at the table in the empty soldiers’ mess, humming happily as she mended a torn shirtsleeve, a green-glazed bowl of tea near at hand. “Seivarden seems to be doing all right.”

  “So far,” Medic agreed. “Though gods help us if she can’t find a gym or make some tea next time she’s upset. I’ve tried to talk her into taking up meditation, but really it’s not something she’s temperamentally suited to.”

  “She actually attempted it last night,” I said. It had been morning on Seivarden’s schedule.

  “Did she? Well.” Surprised, half-pleased, but not showing it on her face. Medic rarely did. “We’ll see, I suppose. Now, let’s have a look at how your leg is doing. And why, Fleet Captain, didn’t you tell me sooner that your right leg was hurting you?”

  “It’s been that way more than a year. I’m mostly used to it. And actually I didn’t think you could do anything about it.”

  Medic folded her arms. Leaned back in her chair. Still frowning at me. “It’s possible that I can’t. Certainly it’s not practical to try much of anything right now. But you ought to have told me.”

  I put a penitent expression on my face. “Yes, Medic.” She relaxed, just slightly. “Now about that prosthetic. Don’t tell me it isn’t ready yet, because I know that it is. Or it can be, in a matter of hours. And I am very tired of the crutches. I know it’s not suitable for hard use, and even if it were I wouldn’t have enough time to get used to it, not for fighting. Not even if you’d given it to me as soon as you possibly could. Seivarden is going to the station, not me.”

  Medic sighed. “You might actually adapt more quickly, because you’re…” She hesitated. “Because you’re an ancillary.”

  “I probably will,” I agreed. “But not quickly enough.” And I didn’t want to jeopardize the mission, no matter how much I wanted to personally rid the system of Anaander Mianaai.

  “Right,” said Medic. Still frowning, as she nearly always did, but inwardly relieved. And gratified. “Let’s go next door, then, and have a look at how that leg is coming along. And then, since I know you were up all night, and since we’re safe in gate-space and you’ve already been around the ship making sure everything is going as it should, you can go back to your quarters and get some sleep. By the time you wake up, the prosthetic should be ready.”

  I thought of lying down beside Seivarden. It would not be the first time we’d shared close quarters, but that had been before Mercy of Kalr. Before I could come even the slightest bit close to what I’d lost, that sense of so much of myself around me. And Medic was right, I had been up all night. I really was very tired. “If that will make you happy, Medic,” I said.

  Seivarden didn’t register my presence at all, she was so deeply asleep. But her nearness and warmth, her slow, even breathing, along with the data Ship fed me from Seivard
en’s sleeping Amaats, was so very comfortable. Ship showed me Tisarwat in the decade room, and Bo decade coming into the soldiers’ mess. Laughing to see Kalr Five there. “Sir needed a bit of privacy with our Amaat lieutenant, did she?” Bo Ten asked. “About time!” Five just smiled, and kept on with her mending. Ekalu coming into the decade room for what would be her supper, her Etrepas finishing up the last tasks of the day before they could get into the soldiers’ mess for their own meal. Kalr One on watch, in Command. Technically against regulations, but this was the not-even-nothing of gate-space, where nothing even remotely interesting would happen, and the more experience the decade leaders could get, the better. Medic telling Kalr Twelve she’d have lunch later, she was busy just now, didn’t want to find out what would happen if the prosthetic wasn’t ready when I woke, as she’d promised. Twelve didn’t smile, though she wanted to.

  Everything was as it should be. I slept, and woke hours later to Bo on watch, Tisarwat and two of her decade drilling in the gym, Ekalu and her Etrepas settling into their beds. Amaat still asleep and dreaming. Seivarden still beside me, still asleep. Five standing silent by my bed, with a rose glass bowl of tea for me. She must have made it in the decade room and carried it down the corridor. Ship said, in my ear, “Medic is available at your convenience, Fleet Captain.”

  Two hours later I was walking on my new, temporary leg—not much more than a gray plastic jointed rod, flattened at the foot end. Its response was just a hair more sluggish than I liked, and my first few steps on it had been unsteady and swaying. “No running,” Medic had said, but at the moment, even if the leg had been built for heavy-duty use, I probably wouldn’t have been able to run. “I have to check it every day, because if there’s irritation or injury at the interface you won’t feel it.” Because of the corrective that was growing the leg back. “It may seem trivial, but believe me, it’s far better to catch that sort of thing early.” And I had said, “Yes, Medic.” And gone to walk up and down corridors, Twelve trailing me, the prosthetic stiff and clunking with each step, until I could do so without tripping and falling.

  I found Sphene by itself in the decade room, sitting at the table on one side of its game with Translator Zeiat. “Hello, Cousin,” it said as I came unsteadily in the door. “Having trouble getting used to the new leg?”

  “It’s more of a challenge than I expected,” I admitted. Officers of mine had lost limbs in the past, but they’d invariably been sent away to recover. And of course, if an ancillary lost a limb it was far easier just to dispose of it and thaw out a new one. Twelve pulled out a chair for me, and I lowered myself into it. Very carefully. “I just need practice, that’s all.”

  “Of course.” I couldn’t tell if it was being sarcastic or not. “I’m just waiting for Translator Zeiat.”

  “You don’t need to explain why you’re in the decade room, Cousin. You’re a guest here.” Twelve brought me a bowl of tea, and one of the cakes from the pile on the counter.

  Brought over the same for Sphene. Who looked at the tea, and the cake, and said, “You don’t need to do this, you know. You could feed me water and skel and put me in a storage compartment.”

  “Why would I do that, Cousin?” I took a bite of cake. It had chopped dates in it, and cinnamon. The recipe was a particular favorite of Ekalu’s. “Tell me, does it bother you to be referred to as it?”

  “Why would it?”

  I gestured ambivalence. “It troubles some of my crew to hear you referred to as it, when you’re treated like a person. And I call you Cousin and they wouldn’t dream of ever using it for me. Though technically that would be correct.”

  “And does it bother you to be called she?” asked Sphene.

  “No,” I admitted. “I suppose I’ve gotten used to being called by whatever pronoun seems appropriate to the speaker. I have to admit, I’d take offense if one of my crew called me it. But mostly because I know they’d think of it as an insult.”

  Sphene picked up its cake. Took a bite. Chewed. Swallowed. Took a drink of tea. Said, “I’ve actually never thought about it until now, Cousin. But do you know what really does grate?” I gestured to her to continue, my mouth full of tea and cake. Sphene continued, “Hearing you call yourselves Radchaai. Calling this”—it gestured around—“the Radch.”

  I swallowed. “I suppose I can’t blame you,” I said. “Will you tell me where you are, Cousin?”

  “Right across the table from you, Cousin.” Impassive as always, but I thought I saw a trace of amusement.

  “I couldn’t help but notice that when we were in the Ghost System, and Mercy of Kalr asked where you were, it was you who answered us, from inside the ship. You didn’t talk to Mercy of Kalr directly.” And as a result we couldn’t know how far away Sphene had been, or even guess at its location.

  Sphene smiled. “Will you do me a favor, Cousin? Will you let me go back to the station with Lieutenant Seivarden?”

  “Why?”

  “I won’t get in the way, I promise. It’s just that I want to be able to put my hands around the Usurper’s throat and strangle her myself.” The war Sphene had fled, three thousand years ago, had been an argument not just over Anaander’s policy of expanding Radchaai influence outward, but also over her legitimacy as an authority of any sort. Or so I understood—it had all happened a thousand years before I was born. “Or if that’s inconveniently time-consuming, I’ll happily shoot her in the head. As long as she knows who it is who’s doing it. I realize that it’s a futile wish, and won’t do the least bit of good, considering what she is. But I want to do it so badly. I’ve been dreaming of it for three thousand years.” I didn’t answer. “Ah, you don’t trust me. Well, I suppose I wouldn’t, either, in your place.”

  Translator Zeiat came into the decade room then. “Sphene! I’ve been thinking and thinking, let me show you! Hello, Fleet Captain! You’ll like this, too.” She took the tray of cakes off the counter, set it in the middle of the table. “These are cakes.”

  “They are,” Sphene agreed. The translator looked to me for confirmation, and I gestured agreement.

  “All of them! All cakes!” Completely delighted at the thought. She swept the cakes off the tray and onto the table, and made two piles of them. “Now these,” she said, indicating the slightly larger stack of cinnamon date cakes, “have fruit in them. And these”—she indicated the others—“do not. Do you see? They were the same before, but now they’re different. And look. You might think to yourself—I know I thought it to myself—that they’re different because of the fruit. Or the not-fruit, you know, as the case may be. But watch this!” She took the stacks apart, set the cakes in haphazard ranks. “Now I make a line. I just imagine one!” She leaned over, put her arm in the middle of the rows of cakes, and swept some of them to one side. “Now these,” she pointed to one side, “are different from these.” She pointed to the others. “But some of them have fruit and some don’t. They were different before, but now they’re the same. And the other side of the line, likewise. And now.” She reached over and took a counter from the game board.

  “No cheating, Translator,” said Sphene. Calm and pleasant.

  “I’ll put it back,” Translator Zeiat protested, and then set the counter down among the cakes. “They were different—you accept, don’t you, that they were different before?—but now they’re the same.”

  “I suspect the counter doesn’t taste as good as the cakes,” said Sphene.

  “That would be a matter of opinion,” Translator Zeiat said, just the smallest bit primly. “Besides, it is a cake now.” She frowned. “Or are the cakes counters now?”

  “I don’t think so, Translator,” I said. “Not either way.” Carefully I stood up from my chair.

  “Ah, Fleet Captain, that’s because you can’t see my imaginary line. But it’s real.” She tapped her forehead. “It exists.” She took one of the date cakes, and set it on the game board where the counter had been. “See, I told you I’d put it back.”

  “I th
ink it’s my turn,” said Sphene, and picked up the cake and took a bite out of it. “You’re right, Translator, this tastes just as good as the other cakes.”

  “Sir,” whispered Kalr Twelve, close behind me as I cautiously walked out into the corridor. She had listened to the entire conversation with a growing sense of offended horror. “I need to say, sir, none of us would ever call you it.”

  The next day Seivarden found Ekalu alone in the decade room. “Your pardon, Ekalu,” she said, bowing. “I don’t mean to take up your break time, but Ship said you might have a moment.”

  Ekalu didn’t get up. “Yes?” Not the least bit surprised. Ship had, of course, warned her Seivarden was coming. Had made sure the time was convenient for Ekalu.

  “I want to say,” said Seivarden, still standing, nervous and awkward, just inside the doorway. “I mean. A while ago I apologized for behaving very badly to you.” Took an embarrassed breath. “I didn’t understand what I’d done, I just wanted you to stop being angry at me. I just said what Ship told me I should say. I was angry at you, for being angry at me, but Ship talked me out of being any more stupid than I already had been. But I’ve been thinking about it.”

  Ekalu, sitting at the table, went completely still, her face ancillary-blank.

  Seivarden knew what that likely meant, but didn’t wait for Ekalu to say anything. “I’ve been thinking about it, and I still don’t understand exactly why what I said hurt you so much. But I don’t need to. It hurt you, and when you told me it hurt you I should have apologized and stopped saying whatever it was. And maybe spent some time trying to understand. Instead of insisting that you manage your feelings to suit me. And I want to say I’m sorry. And I actually mean it this time.”