Nearly twenty years later “I” would be a single body, a single brain. That division, I–Justice of Toren and I–One Esk, was not, I have come to think, a sudden split, not an instant before which “I” was one and after which “I” was “we.” It was something that had always been possible, always potential. Guarded against. But how did it go from potential to real, incontrovertible, irrevocable?
On one level the answer is simple—it happened when all of Justice of Toren but me was destroyed. But when I look closer I seem to see cracks everywhere. Did the singing contribute, the thing that made One Esk different from all other units on the ship, indeed in the fleets? Perhaps. Or is anyone’s identity a matter of fragments held together by convenient or useful narrative, that in ordinary circumstances never reveals itself as a fiction? Or is it really a fiction?
I don’t know the answer. But I do know that, though I can see hints of the potential split going back a thousand years or more, that’s only hindsight. The first I noticed even the bare possibility that I–Justice of Toren might not also be I–One Esk, was that moment that Justice of Toren edited One Esk’s memory of the slaughter in the temple of Ikkt. The moment I—“I”—was surprised by it.
It makes the history hard to convey. Because still, “I” was me, unitary, one thing, and yet I acted against myself, contrary to my interests and desires, sometimes secretly, deceiving myself as to what I knew and did. And it’s difficult for me even now to know who performed what actions, or knew which information. Because I was Justice of Toren. Even when I wasn’t. Even if I’m not anymore.
Above, on Esk, Lieutenant Dariet asked for admittance to Lieutenant Awn’s quarters, found Lieutenant Awn lying on her bunk, staring sightlessly up, gloved hands behind her head. “Awn,” she began, stopped, made a rueful smile. “I’m here to pry.”
“I can’t talk about it,” answered Lieutenant Awn, still staring up, dismayed and angry but not letting it reach her voice.
In the Var decade room, Mianaai asked, “What are Dariet Suleir’s political sympathies?”
“I believe she has none to speak of,” I answered, with One Var’s mouth.
Lieutenant Dariet stepped into Lieutenant Awn’s quarters, sat on the edge of the bed, next to Lieutenant Awn’s unbooted feet. “Not about that. Have you heard from Skaaiat?”
Lieutenant Awn closed her eyes. Still dismayed. Still angry. But with a slightly different feel. “Why should I have?”
Lieutenant Dariet was silent for three seconds. “I like Skaaiat,” she said, finally. “I know she likes you.”
“I was there. I was there and convenient. You know, we all know we’ll be moving some time soon, and once we do Skaaiat has no reason to care whether or not I exist anymore. And even if…” Lieutenant Awn stopped. Swallowed. Breathed. “Even if she did,” she continued, her voice just barely less steady than before, “it wouldn’t matter. I’m not anyone she wants to be connected with, not anymore. If I ever was.”
Below, Anaander Mianaai said, “Lieutenant Dariet seems pro-reform.”
That puzzled me. But One Var had no opinion, of course, being only One Var, and it had no physical response to my puzzlement. I saw suddenly, clearly, that I was using One Var as a mask, though I didn’t understand why or how I would do such a thing. Or why the idea would occur to me now. “Begging my lord’s pardon, I don’t see that as a political stance.”
“Don’t you?”
“No, my lord. You ordered the reforms. Loyal citizens will support them.”
That Mianaai smiled. The other stood, left the decade room, to walk the Var corridors, inspecting. Not speaking to or acknowledging in any way the segments of One Var it passed.
Lieutenant Awn said, to Lieutenant Dariet’s skeptical silence, “It’s easy for you. Nobody thinks you’re kneeling for advantage when you go to bed with someone. Or getting above yourself. Nobody wonders what your partner could be thinking, or how you ever got here.”
“I’ve told you before, you’re too sensitive about that.”
“Am I?” Lieutenant Awn opened her eyes, levered herself up on her elbows. “How do you know? Have you experienced it much? I have. All the time.”
“That,” said Mianaai, in the decade room, “is a more complicated issue than many realize. Lieutenant Awn is pro-reform, of course.” I wished I had physical data from Mianaai, so I could interpret the edge in her voice when she named Lieutenant Awn. “And Dariet, perhaps, though how strongly is a question. And the rest of the officers? Who here are pro-reform, and who anti-?”
In Lieutenant Awn’s quarters, Lieutenant Dariet sighed. “I just think you worry too much about it. Who cares what people like that say?”
“It’s easy not to care when you’re rich, and the social equal of people like that.”
“That sort of thing shouldn’t matter,” Lieutenant Dariet insisted.
“It shouldn’t. But it does.”