“Please stay for supper.” She was right, I needed to lie down, or perhaps I needed Twelve to bring me some cushions. “It’s a long ride back, and it’s much more comfortable to eat with gravity. I won’t impose my company on you, but I know Tisarwat would be glad to see you, and I’m sure the rest of my officers would like to meet you. More formally, I mean.” She didn’t answer right away. “Are you all right? You had just as difficult a time as the rest of us.”
“I’m fine.” And then, “Mostly. I think. To be honest, Fleet Captain, I feel like… like everything I thought I could depend on has disappeared, like none of it was ever true to begin with and I’ve only just realized it, and now, I don’t know. I mean, I thought I was safe, I thought I knew who everyone was. And I was wrong.”
“I know that feeling,” I said. I couldn’t go much longer without those cushions. And my leg had begun to ache, for no reason I could see. “Eventually, you start making sense out of things again.”
“I’d like to have supper with you and Tisarwat,” she said, as though it was an answer to what I’d just said. “And anyone else you’d invite.”
“I’m glad.” Without any order from me, Twelve left her place in the corner, went to open one of the storage benches lining the wall. Pulled out three cushions. “Tell me, Horticulturist, can you say, in verse, how God is like a duck?”
Basnaaid blinked, surprised. Laughed. What I had hoped for when I had changed the topic so abruptly. Twelve pushed a pillow behind my back, and two under the elbow of my immobilized left arm. I said, “Thank you, Twelve.”
“There once was a duck who was God,” said Basnaaid. “Who said, it’s exceedingly odd. I fly when I wish and I swim like a fish…” She frowned. “That’s as far as I can go. And it’s only doggerel, not even a proper mode or meter. I’m out of practice.”
“It’s farther than I’d have gotten.” I closed my eyes, for just a moment. Tisarwat lay on her bed in Medical, eyes closed while Ship played music in her ears. Bo Nine nearby, watching. Etrepas scrubbed their corridors, or stood watch with Ekalu. Amaats rested, or exercised, or bathed. Seivarden sat on her own bunk, melancholy for some reason, still thinking, perhaps, of missed opportunities in her past. Medic grumbled to Ship about my disregard for her advice, though there wasn’t any real anger in it. Kalr One, cooking for me while Five was still on the station, fretted to Three about the sudden change in supper plans, though the fretting turned very quickly to the certainty that between the two of them they could meet the challenge. In the bath, an Amaat began to sing. My mother said it all goes around, it all goes around, the ship goes around the station.
It wasn’t the same. It wasn’t what I wanted, not really, wasn’t what I knew I would always reach for. But it would have to be enough.
Acknowledgments
So many people have given me invaluable help, without which I could not have written this book. My instructors and classmates of the Clarion West class of 2005 continue to be a source of inspiration, assistance, and friendship that I could not do without. My work is also the better for the help of my editors, Will Hinton in the US and Jenni Hill in the UK.
I have said before, and will say again, that there is not enough thanks in the world for my fabulous agent, Seth Fishman.
Thanks are also due to many people who offered advice or information, and who were patient with my questions: S. Hutson Blount, Carolyn Ives Gilman, Sarah Goleman, Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon, Dr. Brin Schuler, Anna Schwind, Kurt Schwind, Mike Swirsky, and Rachel Swirsky. Their information and advice was invariably correct and wise—any missteps are entirely my own.
Thanks to the Missouri Botanical Garden, the St. Louis County Library, the Webster University Library, and the Municipal Library Consortium of St. Louis County. And to all the folks who make Interlibrary Loan a reality. Seriously. Interlibrary Loan is the most amazing thing.
Last, but of course not least, I could not have written this book without the love and support of my husband Dave and my children, Aidan and Gawain.
extras
meet the author
MissionPhoto.org
ANN LECKIE 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, and former secretary of the Science Fiction Writers of America, she lives in St. Louis, Missouri, with her husband, children, and cats.
introducing
If you enjoyed
ANCILLARY SWORD,
look out for
LEVIATHAN WAKES
The Expanse: Book One
by James S. A. Corey
Humanity has colonized the solar system—Mars, the Moon, the Asteroid Belt, and beyond—but the stars are still out of our reach.
Jim Holden is XO of an ice miner making runs from the rings of Saturn to the mining stations of the Belt. When he and his crew stumble upon a derelict ship, the
Scopuli,
they find themselves in possession of a secret they never wanted. A secret that someone is willing to kill for—and kill on a scale unfathomable to Jim and his crew. War is brewing in the system unless he can find out who left the ship and why.
Detective Miller is looking for a girl. One girl in a system of billions, but her parents have money, and money talks. When the trail leads him to the
Scopuli
and rebel sympathizer Holden, he realizes that this girl may be the key to everything.
Holden and Miller must thread the needle between the Earth government, the Outer Planet revolutionaries, and secretive corporations—and the odds are against them. But out in the Belt, the rules are different, and one small ship can change the fate of the universe.
Prologue: Julie
The Scopuli had been taken eight days ago, and Julie Mao was finally ready to be shot.
It had taken all eight days trapped in a storage locker for her to get to that point. For the first two she’d remained motionless, sure that the armored men who’d put her there had been serious. For the first hours, the ship she’d been taken aboard wasn’t under thrust, so she floated in the locker, using gentle touches to keep herself from bumping into the walls or the atmosphere suit she shared the space with. When the ship began to move, thrust giving her weight, she’d stood silently until her legs cramped, then sat down slowly into a fetal position. She’d peed in her jumpsuit, not caring about the warm itchy wetness, or the smell, worrying only that she might slip and fall in the wet spot it left on the floor. She couldn’t make noise. They’d shoot her.
On the third day, thirst had forced her into action. The noise of the ship was all around her. The faint subsonic rumble of the reactor and drive. The constant hiss and thud of hydraulics and steel bolts as the pressure doors between decks opened and closed. The clump of heavy boots walking on metal decking. She waited until all the noise she could hear sounded distant, then pulled the environment suit off its hooks and onto the locker floor. Listening for any approaching sound, she slowly disassembled the suit and took out the water supply. It was old and stale; the suit obviously hadn’t been used or serviced in ages. But she hadn’t had a sip in days, and the warm loamy water in the suit’s reservoir bag was the best thing she had ever tasted. She had to work hard not to gulp it down and make herself vomit.