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She wanted to protest. Wanted to pound a fist on the table and shout at me. Almost did it, but instead she took a breath, and then another one. “Sir,” she said. Stood up, overturning the chair behind her, and left the decade room. Bo Nine righted the chair, and followed.

“What an excitable person that Lieutenant Tisarwat is,” said Translator Zeiat. “An
idea
. Just imagine!”

12

“So, this idea of yours?” I asked, when Tisarwat came to my quarters.

“Well, it’s not…” Standing in front of me where I sat, she shifted uncomfortably, just slightly. “It’s kind of desperate.” I didn’t say anything. “
Sword of Gurat
isn’t one of the ships she gave me accesses to, but there’s… there’s a kind of underlying logic to the accesses. The split has meant that the underlying logic for each part of her isn’t identical, which is part of why I couldn’t find all of what she might have done to Athoek Station, or
Sword of Atagaris
.”

“Or
Mercy of Kalr
.”

“Or
Mercy of Kalr
. Yes, sir.” Unhappy at that. “But the other part of her, the part that’s at Omaugh, I’m… very familiar with that. If I could get aboard
Sword of Gurat
, if I had time to talk to it, I might actually be able to figure out how to access it.” I looked at her. She seemed entirely serious. “I told you it was desperate.”

“You did,” I agreed.

“So here’s my idea. We put two teams on the station. One
of them—mine—goes to the docks to try to get aboard
Sword of Gurat
. And the other finds Anaander and kills her.”

“Just like that?”

“Well, that’s just an overview. I did leave out some details. And of course, I haven’t really taken
Sword of Atagaris
into account at all.” She winced, then, just a bit. “A lot of the details seemed really clear to me when I first thought of it. In retrospect, they were actually pretty incoherent. But I still think the basic outline is sound, sir.” She hesitated, watching for my reaction.

“Right,” I said. “Choose two of your Bos to go with you. They’ll spend the next three days in the gym and the firing range, or whatever other training or briefing you feel they need, and they’re relieved of all other duties. Ship.”

“Fleet Captain,”
Mercy of Kalr
said in my ear.

“Have Etrepa One take over watch from Lieutenant Ekalu, and ask Ekalu and Seivarden to join us here. And ask Five to come make us tea for the meeting. And Ship.”

“Sir.”

“Do you want Lieutenant Tisarwat to do for you what she did for Station and
Sword of Atagaris
?”

Silence. Though I suspected I already knew the answer. And then, “Actually, Fleet Captain, I do.”

I looked at Tisarwat. “Make room for it in your schedule, Lieutenant. And you might as well tell me your incoherent details, in case there’s anything there worth salvaging.”

Next morning at breakfast, I left
Sphene
and Medic to entertain Translator Zeiat, and invited Ekalu to eat with me. “Is everything all right?” I asked, when Five had laid out fruit and fish on the Bractware, and poured tea in the rose glass bowls, and then left the room at Ship’s suggestion.

“I don’t know what you mean, sir.” Picked up her bowl
of tea. Much less uncomfortable holding it than she’d been weeks ago. Much less uncomfortable around me.

Still. “I don’t mean anything in particular, Lieutenant.”

“It’s a little odd, sir, begging your indulgence.” She put the tea down, untasted. “You already know how I’m getting along, don’t you?”

“To a point,” I admitted. Took a bite of fish, so that Ekalu could begin eating if she wanted. “I can look in on you if I want, and I can see how you feel sometimes. But I’m…” I put my utensil down. “I’m trying not to do that too much. Particularly if I think it makes you uncomfortable. And”—I gestured the space between us—“I’d like you to be able to talk to me if you need to. If you want to.”

Mortification. Fear. “Have I done something wrong, sir?”

“No. Far from it.” I made myself take another bite of fish. “I just wanted to have breakfast with you and maybe ask your opinion about some things, but right now, asking you how things are going, I’m just making conversation.” Took a drink of my tea. “I’m not always very good at idle conversation. Sorry.”

Ekalu dared a tiny little smile, felt the beginning of relief, though she didn’t trust that feeling entirely. Didn’t relax.

“So,” I continued, “I’ll just go right to the business then, shall I? I wanted your opinion of Amaat One. It must be strange,” I added, seeing her suppress a flinch at that, “hearing a name you went by for so long, that you don’t go by anymore.”

Ekalu gestured insignificance. “I didn’t come onto this ship Amaat One. My number changed, as people retired, or left, or…” Whatever she’d meant to put behind that
or
didn’t come. She gestured it away. “But you’re right, sir, it is strange.” She took a bit of fruit, then. Chewed and swallowed. “I suppose you know what that’s like.”

“I do,” I agreed. Waited a moment to see if she had anything
else to say, but she apparently didn’t. “I’m not asking for anything bad. Amaat One stood watch and ran her decade while Seivarden was ill. I think she did an excellent job, and I’d like her to begin officer training. We have the materials aboard, because you’ve been using them. Actually, I think the training ought to be available to anyone on the ship who wants it. But I very specifically am considering the possibility of a field promotion for Amaat One. You know her very well, I think.”

“Sir, I…” She was deeply uncomfortable, insulted even. She wanted to get up from the table, leave the room. Didn’t know how to answer me.

“I realize I’m very possibly putting you in a difficult position, if you should object to her being promoted, and if she should find out—because there are very few secrets on this ship—that you had perhaps prevented it. But I beg you to consider the situation we’re in. Consider what happened when I and Lieutenant Tisarwat were away and Lieutenant Seivarden was ill. You and the decade leaders handled things admirably, but you would all have been more comfortable if you’d had more experience. I see no reason not to give all of the decade leaders the training required for when it happens again, and I foresee them eventually deserving promotion. I foresee the ship needing them in those places.”

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.