“But they could still grow them here,” Tisarwat argued, “and still sell them themselves. So I don’t know what the problem is.” She gestured dismissal of her irritation. “Speaking of mushrooms. Shall I send Nine out for something to eat?”
On Mercy of Kalr, Seivarden sat in the decade room with Sword of Atagaris’s Amaat lieutenant. Sword of Atagaris’s lieutenant had brought a bottle of arrack. “Very kind,” Seivarden said, with barely detectable condescension. The other lieutenant did not seem to see it at all. “With your pardon, I won’t have any. I’ve taken a vow.” It was the sort of thing someone might do for penance, or just an occasional spiritual practice. She handed the bottle to Amaat Three, who took it and set it on the decade room counter, and then went to stand by the Sword of Atagaris ancillary that had accompanied its officer.
“Very admirable!” replied the Sword of Atagaris Amaat lieutenant. “And better you than me.” She picked up her bowl of tea. Three had begged Kalr Five for permission to use the best porcelain—still packed away in my own quarters on the ship, because Five hadn’t wanted anything to happen to it—and thus humiliate the Sword of Atagaris lieutenant with an obvious show of my status. Five had refused, and suggested instead that Amaat Three come around from the other direction and serve the lieutenants from my old, chipped enamel set. Three had been briefly tempted, remembering, as the entire crew did, Sword of Atagaris’s threat when we’d entered the system. But propriety had won out, and so the Sword of Atagaris lieutenant drank her tea unconscious of her narrow escape from insult. “Seivarden is a very old-fashioned name,” she said, with a joviality that struck me as false. “Your parents must have loved history.” One of Anaander Mianaai’s allies, before she had grown beyond the confines of the Radch itself, had been named Seivarden.
“It was a traditional name in my family,” Seivarden replied coolly. Indignant, but also enjoying the other lieutenant’s confusion—Seivarden had not yet offered a house name, and because that house was no longer in existence, because she had been separated from them by some thousand years, Seivarden wore none of the jewelry that would have indicated family associations. And even if Seivarden had still owned any, this lieutenant likely would have recognized very little of it, so much had changed in all that time.
The Sword of Atagaris lieutenant appeared not to notice the past tense in Seivarden’s sentence. “From Inai, you said. What province is that?”
“Outradch,” replied Seivarden with a pleasant smile. Outradch was the oldest of provinces, and the closest most Radchaai had ever been to the Radch itself. “You’re wondering about my family connections,” Seivarden continued, not out of any desire to help the visiting lieutenant through a potentially awkward social situation, but rather out of impatience. “I’m Seivarden Vendaai.”
The other lieutenant frowned, not placing the name for half a second. Then she realized. “You’re Captain Seivarden!”
“I am.”
The Sword of Atagaris lieutenant laughed. “Amaat’s grace, what a comedown! Bad enough to be frozen for a thousand years, but then to be busted back to lieutenant and sent to a Mercy! Guess you’ll have to work your way back up.” She took another drink of tea. “There’s been some speculation in our decade room. It’s unusual to find a fleet captain in command of a Mercy. We’ve been wondering if Fleet Captain Breq isn’t going to send Captain Hetnys here and take Sword of Atagaris for herself. It is the faster and the better armed of the two, after all.”
Seivarden blinked. Said, in a dangerously even tone, “Don’t underestimate Mercy of Kalr.”
“Oh, come now, Lieutenant, I didn’t mean any offense. Mercy of Kalr is a perfectly good ship, for a Mercy. But the fact of the matter is, if it came down to it, Sword of Atagaris could defeat Mercy of Kalr quite handily. You’ve commanded a Sword yourself, you know it’s true. And of course Sword of Atagaris still has its ancillaries. No human soldier is as fast or as strong as an ancillary.”
Amaat Three, standing by waiting in case she should be needed, showed of course no outward reaction, but for an instant I worried she might assault the Sword of Atagaris lieutenant. I wouldn’t have minded much (though of course Seivarden would have had to reprimand her), but Three was standing right next to the Sword of Atagaris ancillary, who would certainly not allow anyone to injure its lieutenant. And no amount of training or practice would make Amaat Three a match for an ancillary.
Seivarden, with just a bit more freedom to express her anger, set down her bowl of tea and sat up straighter and said, “Lieutenant, was that a threat?”
“Amaat’s grace, no, Lieutenant!” The Sword of Atagaris lieutenant seemed genuinely shocked that her words might have been taken that way. “I was just stating a fact. We’re all on the same side, here.”
“Are we?” Seivarden’s lip curled, aristocratic anger and contempt that I had not seen for more than a year. “This is why you attacked us when we came into the system, because we’re on the same side?”
“Amaat’s grace!” The other lieutenant tried to seem unfazed at Seivarden’s reaction. “That was a misunderstanding! I’m sure you can understand we’ve all been very tense since the gates went down. And as far as threatening you now, I intended no such thing, I assure you. I was merely pointing out an obvious fact. And it is unusual for a fleet captain to command a Mercy, though perhaps it wasn’t in your day. But it’s perfectly natural that we should wonder whether we’ll lose Captain Hetnys and end up serving under Fleet Captain Breq directly.”
Seivarden became, if anything, more contemptuous. “Fleet Captain Breq will do as she thinks best. But in the interest of preventing further misunderstanding”—she leaned on that word just a bit—“let me say clearly and unequivocally that the next time you threaten this ship you’d best be able to make good on it.”
The Sword of Atagaris lieutenant reiterated that she had never, ever meant to do such a thing, and Seivarden smiled and changed the subject.
On the station, Basnaaid was saying to Lieutenant Tisarwat, “I never met my sister. I was born after she left. I was born because she left. Because she was sending home money, and if she’d made officer, I might do something, too. Something better than steaming fish and chopping vegetables.” Lieutenant Awn’s parents had been cooks. “It was always Awn I was living up to. Always Awn I should be grateful to. Of course my parents never said so, but I always felt as though nothing was ever for me, for my own sake, it was always about her. Her messages were always so kind, and of course I looked up to her. She was a hero, the first of our house to really be someone…” She gave a rueful laugh. “Listen to me. As though my family were nobodies, all of them.” Lieutenant Tisarwat waited in un-seventeen-year-old-like silence, and Basnaaid continued, “It was worse after she died. I could never forget all the ways I didn’t measure up to her. Even her friends! Awer is so far above Elming they might as well not even be in the same universe. And now Mianaai.”
“And those friends,” put in Lieutenant Tisarwat, “were offering you things because of your sister, not because of anything you’d done to deserve it.” I wondered if Tisarwat had worked out why she was so infatuated with Basnaaid. Possibly not—at this moment she was clearly focused on listening to Basnaaid, on understanding her. Pleased to help. To be confided in.