Silence from Tisarwat. Betrayed alarm from Bo Nine, at silent attention in the corner of the decade room. “Lieutenant,” said Mercy of Kalr into Tisarwat’s ear. “Your decade is waiting for you to speak up for them.”
Tisarwat looked up, looked at me, for just a moment, with serious lilac eyes. She knew what I was doing, knew there was only one move she could make. Resented it, resented me. Her muted anger swelled by just the smallest amount but couldn’t sustain itself, died back to its previous level almost instantly. And not just anger—for a moment I’d seen yearning, a momentary hopeless wishing. She looked away, at Ekalu. “Begging your pardon, lieutenant, with all due respect, I’m afraid you’re mistaken.” Remembering, halfway through the sentence, that she shouldn’t be speaking like Seivarden. Like Anaander Mianaai. Blurring that accent just a bit. “Bo may be junior, but my Bos are clearly better than any other decade on this ship.”
Ekalu blinked. For an instant her face went ancillary-blank with surprise at Tisarwat’s accent, her diction, her obvious self-possession, not much like a seventeen-year-old at all, and then she remembered herself. Searched for a response. She couldn’t point out that nonetheless Bo was junior—that would leave her vulnerable to Seivarden’s claim for Amaat. She looked at me.
I had put a neutral, interested expression on my face and kept it there. “Well,” I said, pleasantly, “we should settle this. Objectively. Firearms and armor proficiency, perhaps.” Ekalu finally realized I’d planned the whole thing. But was still puzzled, specifics not quite making sense to her. I made a show of moving my gloved fingers, sending a request to Kalr Five. Said aloud to the two lieutenants, “What are your numbers?”
They blinked as Ship placed the information in their visions. “All up to standard, sir,” said Ekalu.
“Standard?” I asked, voice incredulous. “Surely this crew is better than standard.” Lieutenant Tisarwat looked down at her plate again, behind the drugs resentment, approval, anger, that yearning I’d seen before. All muted. “I’ll give you a week. At the end of it, let’s see which decade has the highest scores, Etrepa or Bo. Including your own, Lieutenants. Issue armor. You have my permission to wear it for practice, whenever you think best.” My own armor was implanted, a personal force shield I could raise in a very small fraction of a second. These lieutenants, their decades, wore their units strapped around their chests, when issued. Had never, any of them, seen combat, could raise theirs within the required one second, but I wanted better, especially knowing what might be coming, that from now on nothing would be the way it had been.
Kalr Five entered the decade room, a dark-blue bottle in each hand, and one tucked into her elbow. Face impassive, but inwardly disapproving, as she set them on the table. “Arrack,” I said. “The good stuff. For whoever wins.”
“The whole decade, sir?” asked Lieutenant Ekalu, slightly hesitant. Astonished.
“However you’d like to divide it up,” I said, knowing that of course Etrepa Eight and Bo Nine had messaged their decade-mates by now, and the soldiers of both Etrepa and Bo had already calculated their equal share of the prize. Possibly allowing a slightly larger one for their officers.
Later, in Seivarden’s quarters, Ekalu turned over, said to a sleepy Seivarden, “All respect, S… no offense. I don’t mean to offend. But I’ve… everyone’s been wondering if you’re kneeling to Sir.”
“Why do you do that?” Seivarden asked, blurrily, and then as she pulled back from the edge of sleep, “Say Sir like that, instead of Fleet Captain.” Came a bit more awake. “No, I know why, now I think about it. Sorry. Why am I offended?” Ekalu, at an astonished, embarrassed loss, didn’t answer. “I would if she wanted me to. She doesn’t want me to.”
“Is Sir… is the fleet captain an ascetic?”
Seivarden gave a small, ironic laugh. “I don’t think so. She’s not very forthcoming, our fleet captain. Never has been. But I’ll tell you.” She took a breath, let it out. Took another while Ekalu waited for her to speak. “You can trust her to the end of the universe. She’ll never let you down.”
“That would be impressive.” Ekalu, clearly skeptical. Disbelieving. Then, reconsidering something. “She was Special Missions, before?”
“I can’t say.” Seivarden put her bare hand on Ekalu’s stomach. “When do you have to be back working?”
Ekalu suppressed a tiny shiver, born of a complicated tangle of emotions, mostly pleasant. Most non-Radchaai didn’t quite understand the emotional charge bare hands carried, for a Radchaai. “About twenty minutes.”
“Mmmm,” said Seivarden, considering that. “That’s plenty of time.”
I left them to themselves. Bo and their lieutenant slept. In the corridors, Etrepas mopped and scrubbed, intermittently flashing silver as their armor flowed around them and back down again.
Even later, Tisarwat and I had tea in the decade room. Sedatives lessened further still, emotions rawer, closer to the surface, she said, when we were alone for a moment, “I know what you’re doing.” With a strange little skip of anger and wanting. “What you’re trying to do.” That was the want, I thought. To really be part of the crew, to secure Bo’s admiration and loyalty. Possibly even mine. Things the hapless former Tisarwat would have wanted. That I was offering her now.
But offering on my terms, not hers. “Lieutenant Tisarwat,” I said, after a calm drink of my tea, “is that an appropriate way to address me?”
“No, sir,” Tisarwat said. Defeated. And not. Even medicated she was a mass of contradictions, every emotion accompanied by something paradoxical. Tisarwat had never wanted to be Anaander Mianaai. Hadn’t been for very long, just a few days. And whoever she was now, however disastrous it was to Anaander Mianaai’s plans, she felt so much better.
I’d done that. She hated me for it. And didn’t. “Have supper with me, Lieutenant,” I said, as though the previous exchange hadn’t happened. As though I couldn’t see what she was feeling. “You and Ekalu both. You can boast about the progress your decades are making, and Kalr will make that pastry you like so much, with the sugar icing.” In my quarters, Ship spoke the request into Kalr Five’s ear as she looked over the walls, to be sure everything had been properly installed. Five rolled her eyes and sighed as though she was exasperated, muttered something about adolescent appetites, but secretly, where she thought only Ship could see, she was pleased.
The competition was tight. Both Etrepa and Bo had spent all their free time in the firing range, and their duty time raising and lowering their armor while they worked. Their numbers had improved markedly all around, nearly everyone had gone up a difficulty level in the firearms training routines and those who hadn’t soon would. And every Etrepa and every Bo could deploy their armor in less than half a second. Nowhere near what ancillaries could do, or what I wanted, but still a distinct improvement.
All of Bo had understood more or less immediately what the actual purpose of the contest was, and undertaken their practice with serious-minded determination. Etrepa as well—Etrepa, who approved my goal (as they understood it) but had not on that account held back their effort. But the prize went to Bo. I handed the three bottles of (very fine, and very strong) arrack to a virtually sedative-free Lieutenant Tisarwat, in the soldiers’ mess, with all of Bo standing straight and ancillary-expressionless behind her. I congratulated them on their victory and left them to the serious drinking that I knew would begin the instant I was in the corridor.