Ancillary Justice (44 page)

“
Mercy of Kalr
doesn’t need a captain,” I said, after four seconds of silence. “Maybe it doesn’t want one.”

“You can’t refuse your assignment.”

“I can if I have enough money to support myself.”

Seivarden frowned, took a breath as though she wanted to argue, but didn’t. After another moment of silence, she said, “You could go into the temple and ask for a cast.”

I wondered if the image of foreign piety I’d constructed had convinced her I had some sort of faith, or if she was merely too Radchaai not to think the toss of a handful of omens
would answer any pressing question, persuade me toward the right action. I made a small, doubtful gesture. “I really don’t feel the need. You can, if you want. Or toss right now.” If she had something with a front and a back, she could make a throw. “If it comes up heads you stop bothering me about it and get me some tea.”

She made a quick, amused
ha
. And then said, “Oh,” and reached into her jacket. “Skaaiat gave me this to give you.” Skaaiat. Not
that Awer
.

Seivarden opened her hand, showed me a gold disk two centimeters in diameter. A tiny, leafy border stamped around its edge, slightly off center, surrounding a name.
AWN ELMING
.

“I don’t think you want to throw it, though,” Seivarden said. And, when I didn’t answer, “She said you really should have it.”

While I was still trying to find something to say, and a voice to say it with, a Security officer approached, cautious. Said, voice deferential, “Excuse me, citizen. Station would like to speak with you. There’s a console right over there.” She gestured aside.

“Don’t you have implants?” Seivarden asked.

“I concealed them. Disabled some. Station probably can’t see them.” And I didn’t know where my handheld was. Probably somewhere in my luggage.

I had to get up and walk to the console, and stand while I spoke. “You wanted to speak to me, Station, here I am.” The week of rest Anaander Mianaai had spoken of became more and more inviting.

“Citizen Breq Mianaai,” said Station in its flat, untroubled voice.

Mianaai.
My hand still curled around Lieutenant Awn’s memorial pin, I looked at Seivarden coming behind me with
my luggage. “There was no point in making you any more upset than you already were,” she said, as though I’d spoken.

The Lord of the Radch had said
independent
, and I was unsurprised to discover she hadn’t meant it. But the move she’d chosen to undercut it did surprise me.

“Citizen Breq Mianaai,” Station said again, from the console, voice as smooth and serene as ever, but I thought the repetition was slightly malicious. My suspicion was confirmed when Station continued. “I would like you to leave here.”

“Would you.” No answer more cogent than that came to my mind. “Why?”

A half second of delay, and then the answer. “Look around you.” I didn’t have the energy to actually do that, so I took the imperative as rhetorical. “Medical is overwhelmed with injured and dying citizens. Many of my facilities are damaged. My residents are anxious and afraid.
I
am anxious and afraid. I don’t even mention the confusion surrounding the palace proper. And
you
are the cause of all this.”

“I’m not.” I reminded myself that, childish and petty as it seemed now, Station wasn’t very different from what I had been, and in some ways the job it did was far more complicated and urgent than mine, caring as it did for hundreds of thousands, even millions of citizens. “And my leaving won’t change any of that.”

“I don’t care,” said Station, calm. The petulance I detected was certainly my imagination. “I advise you to leave now, while it’s possible. It may become difficult at some point in the near future.”

Station couldn’t order me to leave. Strictly speaking it shouldn’t have spoken to me the way it had, not if I was, in fact, a citizen. “It can’t
make
you leave,” Seivarden said, echoing part of my thoughts.

“But it can express its disapproval.” Quietly. Subtly. “We do it all the time. Mostly nobody notices, except they visit another ship or station and suddenly find things inexplicably more comfortable.”

A second of silence from Seivarden, and then, “Oh.” From the sound, she was remembering her days on
Justice of Toren
, and the move to
Sword of Nathtas
.

I leaned forward, my forehead against the wall adjoining the console. “Are you finished, Station?”

“
Mercy of Kalr
would like to speak with you.”

Five seconds of silence. I sighed, knowing I couldn’t win this game, shouldn’t even try to play it. “I will speak to
Mercy of Kalr
now, Station.”

“
Justice of Toren
,” said
Mercy of Kalr
from the console.

The name caught me by surprise, started exhausted tears. I blinked them away. “I’m only One Esk,” I said. And swallowed. “Nineteen.”

“Captain Vel is under arrest,” said
Mercy of Kalr
. “I don’t know if she’s going to be reeducated or executed. And my lieutenants as well.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It isn’t your fault. They made their own choices.”

“So who’s in command?” I asked. Beside me Seivarden stood silent, one hand on my arm. I wanted to lie down and sleep, just that, nothing else.

“One Amaat One.” The senior soldier in
Mercy of Kalr
’s highest ranking unit, that would be. Unit leader. Ancillary units hadn’t needed leaders.

“She can be captain, then.”

“No,” said
Mercy of Kalr
. “She’ll make a good lieutenant but she’s not ready to be captain. She’s doing her best but she’s overwhelmed.”

“
Mercy of Kalr
,” I said. “If
I
can be a captain, why can’t you be your own?”

“That would be ridiculous,” answered
Mercy of Kalr
. Its voice was calm as ever but I thought it was exasperated. “My crew needs a captain. But then, I’m just a Mercy, aren’t I. I’m sure the Lord of the Radch would give you a Sword if you asked. Not that a Sword captain would be any happier to be sent to a Mercy, but I suppose it’s better than no captain at all.”

“No, Ship, it’s not…”

Seivarden interrupted, voice severe. “Cut it out, Ship.”

“
You’re
not one of my officers,” said
Mercy of Kalr
from the console, and now the impassivity of its voice audibly broke, if only slightly.

“Not
yet
,” Seivarden replied.

I began to suspect a setup, but Seivarden wouldn’t have made me stand like this in the middle of the concourse. Not right now. “Ship, I can’t be what you’ve lost. You can’t ever have that back, I’m sorry.” And I couldn’t have back what I’d lost, either. “I can’t stand here anymore.”

“Ship,” said Seivarden, stern. “Your captain is still recovering from her injuries and Station has her standing here in the middle of the concourse.”

“I’ve sent a shuttle,” said
Mercy of Kalr
after a pause that was, I supposed, meant to express what it thought of Station. “You’ll be more comfortable aboard, Captain.”

“I’m not…” I began, but
Mercy of Kalr
had already signed off.

“Breq,” said Seivarden, pulling me away from the wall I was leaning on. “Let’s go.”

“Where?”

“You know you’ll be more comfortable aboard. More comfortable than here.”

I didn’t answer, just let Seivarden pull me along.

“All that money won’t mean much if more gates go and ships are stranded and supplies are cut off.” We were headed, I saw, toward a bank of lifts. “It’s all falling apart. This isn’t going to just be happening here, it’s going to fall apart all over Radch space, isn’t it?” It was, but I didn’t have the energy to contemplate it. “Maybe you think you can stand aside and watch everything happen. But I don’t really think you can.”

No. If I could, I wouldn’t have been here. Seivarden wouldn’t have been here, I’d have left her in the snow on Nilt, or never have gone to Nilt to begin with.

The lift doors closed us in, briskly. A little more briskly than usual, though perhaps it was just my imagination that Station was expressing its eagerness to see me gone. But the lift didn’t move. “Docks, Station,” I said. Defeated. There was, in truth, nowhere else for me to go. It was what I was made to do, what I was. And even if the tyrant’s protestations were insincere, which they ultimately had to be, no matter her intentions at this moment, still she was right. My actions would make some sort of difference, even if small. Some sort of difference, maybe, to Lieutenant Awn’s sister. And I had already failed Lieutenant Awn once. Badly. I wouldn’t a second time.

“Skaaiat will give you tea,” Seivarden said, voice unsurprised, as the lift moved.

I wondered when I’d eaten last. “I think I’m hungry.”

“That’s a good sign,” said Seivarden, and grasped my arm more securely as the lift stopped, and the doors opened on the god-filled lobby of the docks.

Choose my aim, take one step and then the next. It had never been anything else.

It’s a commonplace to say that writing is a solitary art, and it’s true that the actual act of putting words down is something a writer has to do herself. Still, so much happens before those words are put down, and then after, when you’re trying to put your work into the best form you can possibly manage.

I would not be the writer I am without the benefit of the Clarion West workshop and my classmates there. And I’ve benefited from the generous and perceptive assistance of many friends: Charlie Allery, S. Hutson Blount, Carolyn Ives Gilman, Anna Schwind, Kurt Schwind, Mike Swirsky, Rachel Swirsky, Dave Thompson, and Sarah Vickers all gave me a great deal of help and encouragement, and this book would have been the lesser without them. (Any missteps, however, are entirely my own.)

I would also like to thank Pudd’nhead Books in St. Louis, the Webster University Library, St. Louis County Library, and the Municipal Library Consortium of St. Louis County.
Libraries are a tremendous and valuable resource, and I’m not sure it’s possible to have too many of them.

Thanks also to my awesome editors, Tom Bouman and Jenni Hill, whose thoughtful comments helped make this book what it is. (Missteps, again, all mine.) And thanks to my fabulous agent, Seth Fishman.

Last—but not least, not at all—I could not have even begun to write this book without the love and support of my husband Dave and my children Aidan and Gawain.

MissionPhoto.org

A
NN
L
ECKIE
has worked as a waitress, a receptionist, a rodman on a land-surveying crew, a lunch lady, and a recording engineer. The author of many published short stories, she lives in St. Louis, Missouri, with her husband, children, and cats.

Honored Breq, or One Esk, or
Justice of Toren
,
is a unique character in that she has a human body, but artificial intelligence. What led you to this choice, and what were some of the challenges and opportunities it presented?

Breq on her own wasn’t nearly as challenging as
Justice of Toren
, or even just One Esk. Depicting what that must be like—to have not only a huge ship for a body, but also hundreds, sometimes thousands, of human bodies all seeing and hearing and doing things at once—the thought of that kept me from even starting for a long time. How do you show a reader that experience? I could try to depict the flood of sensation and action, but then the focus would be so diffuse that it would be difficult to see where the main thread was. On the other hand, I could narrow things down to only one segment of One Esk, shortchanging one of the things that really intrigued me about the character, and also making it seem as though it was more separate from the ship than it was.

But a character like
Justice of Toren
also sees a great deal, and so it can act as an essentially omniscient narrator—it knows its own officers intimately and can see their emotions. It can witness things happening in several places at once. So I could write in straight first person, while also taking advantage of that ability to see so much at one time
whenever I needed that. It was a nifty short-circuit around one of the more obvious limits of a first-person narrator.