“How different your childhood would have been, had your grandmother never left Ghaon!” Kels said, thinking as much of himself as of Awt.
“True, but then I wouldn’t have been Awt Emnys.”
By the second month of the voyage, the library of recorded entertainments that seems so large and varied at the start of the voyage becomes monotonous and dull. Fellow passengers who had seemed either exotically foreign or companionably familiar lose all their charms and become objects of irritation. The small spaces become ever-narrowing traps.
Ever since he had known them, Ninan and Tris, Inarakhat Kels’ fellow Watch officers, had been more or less pleasant company, despite a certain distrust on their part; even ruined, his agnate was far superior to theirs. Near the end of the second month, their dismissive observations about the passengers became a burden to Kels, particularly their assessment of Awt Emnys. It was no different from jibes directed at previous Gerentate travelers looking for Ghaonish ancestors, and those had amused Kels in the past. But now he realized that his disdain had a different source and direction than theirs.
In the third month it seems as though there has never been any world but the ship, and the endless progress through the blackness. Life before the voyage is a distant memory, unreal and strangely textured. The idea of disembarking at some final destination seems untenable. During this month the wreck of the last ship to defy the ban on communications takes on an interest out of proportion to its significance.
“Just as you promised,” Awt said to Kels as he watched the dead ship drift. Quietly, because the others — the fierce Faunt, the tourist from Semblance, even Chis Sulca, who had seen it before, were silent. “I wonder why they did it.”
“They were fools,” said Chis.
“They were driven mad by isolation,” said the tourist from Semblance, by his tone of voice meaning a joke, but it lacked conviction.
In the fourth month desperate boredom sets in. The beige, undecorated walls, the black view out the ports, the nourishing but unvaried diet, become an undifferentiated background, and sensory deprivation forces the mind to produce all sorts of fantasies in an attempt to ward off starvation.
“Have you read Thersay?” asked Kels. He and Awt were alone in the lounge.
“The Consolation of Insanity?” Awt smiled. “No, I never have. And I’ve probably never met anyone who has, either, highly regarded as it is.”
“I’ve tried,” confessed Kels.
Awt smiled. “That bored?”
“You laugh,” Kels said. “She began the work here, on this very ship, at that table, there, at just about this point in the voyage. What a strange and sprawling thing it is! She must have been half mad.”
“It wouldn’t surprise me in the least,” Awt said.
The fifth month is much the same as the fourth, time having contracted into a single eternal moment.
In the sixth month, the mind awakes slowly to the realization that there will indeed be an end to the endless voyage. When the Watch announces that only one day remains before the ship will exit the Crawl and increase speed, feverish excitement runs through the passengers. The day ahead, and the few days after that it will take to reach the station orbiting Ghaon, seem unbearably long. In vain do passengers remind themselves that the time will surely pass without their watching. Everyone, whether openly or surreptitiously, will mark each interminable second and anxiously await the thunk and jar of docking.
It was during the last day inside the Crawl that disaster struck.
Kels had endured his shift, and a silent, tense supper with Ninan and Tris. He’d retired early, but after several hours of uncomfortable tossing he rose and dressed and went to the lounge. It was empty; he was vaguely surprised and disappointed that Awt Emnys wasn’t there, though he’d known that the passengers were likely asleep at that hour.
Once Awt disembarked Kels might never see him again. It had been true of every passenger over the years, but it had never mattered to him before. This, then, was why he couldn’t sleep. There were things he wanted to say, that he didn’t know if he should say, or even if he possibly could.
He traced the path he would have on his rounds, but met no one, not even his counterpart on third watch. The passengers’ cabins were shut, the ship felt deserted and lonely. He wished someone would come out and nod, or give some perfunctory greeting, just to break the unsettling feeling that he was invisible, a disembodied ghost alone on an abandoned and drifting ship.
It was because of this feeling that he did something he almost never did — he approached the two Watch officers standing outside the door behind which the pilot guided the ship.
He raised a hand in greeting, expected the same gesture in return, and questions about why he roamed the corridors at this hour. A perfunctory sentence or two about not being able to sleep was on his tongue, ready for the question, but the two officers stood masked and unmoving at the end of the narrow corridor.
He stopped, bewildered. “The days are longer near the end, are they not?” he essayed.
No answer. The feeling of invisibility increased, and for a moment Kels wasn’t so much alarmed at the thought that something might be wrong with the guards as he was despairing of his own substantial existence. But common sense exerted itself. He put a hand on one silent watchman’s shoulder. “Honored!” Nothing. He pushed gently, and the man turned slowly to the side, as though he were in some sort of suggestible trance.
Kels drew his gun, and pushed past the two unresponding men to open the door to the pilots’ station.
The pilot was in his seat, back to the door, and before him were the ship’s controls. A dark-haired figure in kilt and embroidered blouse bent over him, a small recorder in his hand. They were both close enough that Kels might have reached out to touch either man. Kels was on the verge of firing when Awt Emnys straightened and looked at him with Ghem Echend’s eyes.
The moment of hesitation was enough. Awt grabbed the gun, pulling it upwards and away, twisting Kels’ arm around painfully until he was forced to let go his weapon. Awt pointed the gun at Kels, and pushed him against the bulkhead.
“Why?” Kels gasped, his arm still hurting from Awt’s grip.
“It’s my job,” Awt said. “Did you think warehouse inventory suited me?”
“Have you no regard for your own people?” asked Kels. “Or is the Gerentate truly our enemy?”
Awt smiled, a little sadly. “The Gerentate is not your enemy. The Radch, on the other hand… ” He shrugged.
“Radchaai,” Kels whispered in horror. “We are destroyed.”
“On the contrary. To destroy any part of the world would be to destroy its value. No one who submits will be harmed. Those who don’t submit… ” He shrugged, gun still aimed at Kels. “They choose their own fate. But if you mean some indefinable quality of being Ghaonish, or that splendid pride and isolation… I would have thought that you of all people would have understood that it wasn’t worth preserving.” He cocked an eyebrow, sardonic. “It wasn’t only you the Ghem agnate treated badly. I know more of my grandmother than I said.”
Kels was dizzy, and breathing was difficult, as though the air had turned to water and he was drowning. Awt had understood, had already known the things that Kels had so wanted to say to him.
“I owe Ghaon nothing,” Awt continued. “Nor the Gerentate. And the Radchaai pay me well for my services.” He let go of Kels, who didn’t move, still frozen with the revelation, and the threat of the gun. “Don’t accuse yourself. Nothing would be gained if you had killed me. Do you think this is the first successful attempt? None of you will remember anything, just like every other time an agent has made this run.” Awt put a hand on Kels’ shoulder, gave a consoling squeeze. “I won’t kill you unless you make me. And I would regret that very much.” Then he turned away, gun still in hand, and resumed his quiet questioning of the pilot.