She blinked, twice, unable at first to find any reply. “What?”
The noise of the waterfall across the pond was paradoxically both distant and intrusive. Lieutenant Tisarwat and Citizen Sirix were frozen, I realized, staring at us, at Basnaaid and me. “I propose,” I repeated, “to make you my heir.”
“I already have parents,” Basnaaid said, after three seconds of disbelieving silence.
“They are excellent parents,” I acknowledged. “It’s not my intention to replace them. I couldn’t possibly.”
“Whatever is your intention, then?”
“To be certain,” I said, carefully, clearly, knowing I had failed in this, having come into this knowing I would fail, “for your sister’s sake, that you are safe and secure, and at all times have whatever you desire within your reach.”
“Whatever I desire,” said Basnaaid, as deliberately as I had just spoken, “is, right now, for you to go away and never speak to me again.”
I bowed low, an inferior to one of higher station. “As the citizen wishes.” I turned, and walked up to the path, away from the water, away from Sirix still knee-deep by the lilies, away from Basnaaid Elming standing, stiff and indignant, on the shore. Not even looking to see if Lieutenant Tisarwat followed.
I had known. I had known what Basnaaid Elming’s reaction would be to my offer. But I had thought I would only tender a polite invitation this morning and have the confrontation itself later. Wrong. And now, I knew, Captain Hetnys was waiting in my apartments in the Undergarden, sweating in the warm, still air and stiffly, angrily refusing the tea Kalr Five had just offered her. Going into that meeting in my present mood would be dangerous, but there was, it seemed, no good way to avoid it.
At the entrance to those rooms, Bo Nine standing at impassive attention just beyond the open door, Lieutenant Tisarwat—I had forgotten, between the waterside and here, that Lieutenant Tisarwat was with me—spoke. “Sir. Begging the fleet captain’s indulgence.”
I stopped, without looking behind me. Reached out to Mercy of Kalr, who showed me a perplexing mix of emotions. Lieutenant Tisarwat was miserable as she had been all morning, but that misery was mixed in with an odd yearning—for what? And a completely new sort of elation that I had never seen in her. “Sir, permission to go back to the Gardens.” She wanted to go back to the Gardens? Now?
I remembered that startling moment of pleasure when she’d seen the little fish in the pool, but, I realized, after that I’d paid her no attention whatever. I’d been too caught up in my encounter with Basnaaid. “Why?” I asked, blunt. Not, perhaps, the best way to respond, considering, but I was not at my best just this instant.
For a moment a sort of nervous fear kept her from speaking, and then she said, “Sir, maybe I can talk to her. She didn’t tell me to never speak to her again.” As she spoke, that strange, hopeful elation flared bright and sharp, and with it something I’d seen in countless young, emotionally vulnerable lieutenants.
Oh, no. “Lieutenant. You are not to go anywhere near the citizen Basnaaid Elming. I do not need you interfering in my affairs. Citizen Basnaaid certainly doesn’t need it.”
It was as though I had struck Tisarwat. She nearly physically recoiled, but stopped herself, held herself still. Speechless, for a moment, with hurt and anger. Then she said, bitter complaint, “You aren’t even going to give me a chance!”
“You aren’t even going to give me a chance, sir,” I corrected. Angry tears welled in her ridiculous lilac eyes. If she’d been any other seventeen-year-old lieutenant I’d have sent her on her way to be rejected by the object of her sudden infatuation, and then let her cry—oh, the volume of baby lieutenant tears my uniforms had absorbed, when I’d been a ship—and then poured her a drink or three. But Tisarwat wasn’t any other baby lieutenant. “Go to your quarters, Lieutenant, get a hold of yourself, and wash your face.” It was early yet for drinking, but she’d need time to get herself in hand. “After lunch you have leave to go out and get as drunk as you like. Better yet, get laid. There are plenty of more appropriate partners here.” Citizen Raughd might even be interested, but I didn’t say so. “You’ve been in Citizen Basnaaid’s presence a whole five minutes.” And saying that, it was even clearer how ridiculous this was. This wasn’t about Basnaaid, not really, but that only made me more determined to keep Tisarwat away from her.
“You don’t understand!” Tisarwat cried.
I turned to Bo Nine. “Bo. Take your officer to her quarters.”
“Sir,” said Bo, and I turned and went into what served as the anteroom for our small apartments.
When I was a ship, I had thousands of bodies. Except in extreme circumstances, if one of those bodies became tired or stressed I could give it a break and use another, the way you might switch hands. If one of them was injured badly enough, or ceased to function efficiently, my medics would remove it and replace it with another one. It was remarkably convenient.
When I had been a single ancillary, one human body among thousands, part of the ship Justice of Toren, I had never been alone. I had always been surrounded by myself, and the rest of myself had always known if any particular body needed something—rest, food, touch, reassurance. An ancillary body might feel momentarily overwhelmed, or irritable, or any emotion one might think of—it was only natural, bodies felt things. But it was so very small, when it was just one segment among the others, when, even in the grip of strong emotion or physical discomfort, that segment knew it was only one of many, knew the rest of itself was there to help.
Oh, how I missed the rest of myself. I couldn’t rest or comfort one body while sending another to do my work, not anymore. I slept alone, mostly only mildly envying the common soldiers on Mercy of Kalr their small bunks where they slept all together, pressed warm and close. They weren’t ancillaries, it wasn’t the same, wouldn’t be, even if I’d abandoned any pretense to dignity and climbed in with them. I knew that, knew it would be so wholly insufficient that there was no point in wishing for it. But now, this moment, I wanted it so badly that if I had been aboard Mercy of Kalr I’d have done it, curled up among the sleeping Etrepas Ship showed me, and gone to sleep myself, no matter how insufficient it would be. It would be something, at least.
A terrible, terrible thing, to deprive a ship of its ancillaries. To deprive an ancillary of its ship. Not, perhaps, as terrible as murdering human beings to make those ancillaries. But a terrible thing nonetheless.
I didn’t have the luxury to consider it. I didn’t have another, less angry body to send into the meeting with Captain Hetnys. Didn’t have an hour, or two, to exercise, or meditate, or drink tea until I was calmer. I only had myself. “It will be all right, Fleet Captain,” said Mercy of Kalr in my ear, and for a moment I was overwhelmed with the sensation of Ship. The sleeping Etrepas, Lieutenant Ekalu half awake, happy and for once utterly relaxed—Seivarden in the bath, singing to herself, my mother said it all goes around, her Amaats, Medic, and my Kalrs, all in one jumbled, inundating moment. Then it was gone—I couldn’t hold it, not with only one body, one brain.