“One Amaat One.” The senior soldier in Mercy of Kalr’s highest ranking unit, that would be. Unit leader. Ancillary units hadn’t needed leaders.
“She can be captain, then.”
“No,” said Mercy of Kalr. “She’ll make a good lieutenant but she’s not ready to be captain. She’s doing her best but she’s overwhelmed.”
“Mercy of Kalr,” I said. “If I can be a captain, why can’t you be your own?”
“That would be ridiculous,” answered Mercy of Kalr. Its voice was calm as ever but I thought it was exasperated. “My crew needs a captain. But then, I’m just a Mercy, aren’t I. I’m sure the Lord of the Radch would give you a Sword if you asked. Not that a Sword captain would be any happier to be sent to a Mercy, but I suppose it’s better than no captain at all.”
“No, Ship, it’s not…”
Seivarden interrupted, voice severe. “Cut it out, Ship.”
“You’re not one of my officers,” said Mercy of Kalr from the console, and now the impassivity of its voice audibly broke, if only slightly.
“Not yet,” Seivarden replied.
I began to suspect a setup, but Seivarden wouldn’t have made me stand like this in the middle of the concourse. Not right now. “Ship, I can’t be what you’ve lost. You can’t ever have that back, I’m sorry.” And I couldn’t have back what I’d lost, either. “I can’t stand here anymore.”
“Ship,” said Seivarden, stern. “Your captain is still recovering from her injuries and Station has her standing here in the middle of the concourse.”
“I’ve sent a shuttle,” said Mercy of Kalr after a pause that was, I supposed, meant to express what it thought of Station. “You’ll be more comfortable aboard, Captain.”
“I’m not…” I began, but Mercy of Kalr had already signed off.
“Breq,” said Seivarden, pulling me away from the wall I was leaning on. “Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“You know you’ll be more comfortable aboard. More comfortable than here.”
I didn’t answer, just let Seivarden pull me along.
“All that money won’t mean much if more gates go and ships are stranded and supplies are cut off.” We were headed, I saw, toward a bank of lifts. “It’s all falling apart. This isn’t going to just be happening here, it’s going to fall apart all over Radch space, isn’t it?” It was, but I didn’t have the energy to contemplate it. “Maybe you think you can stand aside and watch everything happen. But I don’t really think you can.”
No. If I could, I wouldn’t have been here. Seivarden wouldn’t have been here, I’d have left her in the snow on Nilt, or never have gone to Nilt to begin with.
The lift doors closed us in, briskly. A little more briskly than usual, though perhaps it was just my imagination that Station was expressing its eagerness to see me gone. But the lift didn’t move. “Docks, Station,” I said. Defeated. There was, in truth, nowhere else for me to go. It was what I was made to do, what I was. And even if the tyrant’s protestations were insincere, which they ultimately had to be, no matter her intentions at this moment, still she was right. My actions would make some sort of difference, even if small. Some sort of difference, maybe, to Lieutenant Awn’s sister. And I had already failed Lieutenant Awn once. Badly. I wouldn’t a second time.
“Skaaiat will give you tea,” Seivarden said, voice unsurprised, as the lift moved.
I wondered when I’d eaten last. “I think I’m hungry.”
“That’s a good sign,” said Seivarden, and grasped my arm more securely as the lift stopped, and the doors opened on the god-filled lobby of the docks.
Choose my aim, take one step and then the next. It had never been anything else.
Acknowledgments
It’s a commonplace to say that writing is a solitary art, and it’s true that the actual act of putting words down is something a writer has to do herself. Still, so much happens before those words are put down, and then after, when you’re trying to put your work into the best form you can possibly manage.
I would not be the writer I am without the benefit of the Clarion West workshop and my classmates there. And I’ve benefited from the generous and perceptive assistance of many friends: Charlie Allery, S. Hutson Blount, Carolyn Ives Gilman, Anna Schwind, Kurt Schwind, Mike Swirsky, Rachel Swirsky, Dave Thompson, and Sarah Vickers all gave me a great deal of help and encouragement, and this book would have been the lesser without them. (Any missteps, however, are entirely my own.)
I would also like to thank Pudd’nhead Books in St. Louis, the Webster University Library, St. Louis County Library, and the Municipal Library Consortium of St. Louis County. Libraries are a tremendous and valuable resource, and I’m not sure it’s possible to have too many of them.