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No just act could be improper, no proper act unjust. Justice and propriety, so intertwined, themselves led to benefit. The question of just who or what benefited was a topic for late-night discussions over half-empty bottles of arrack,
Mercy of Kalr didn’t ask me why I was angry. Didn’t ask me what was wrong. That in and of itself suggested my suspicions were correct. I wished, for the first time in my two-thousand-year life, that I was given to swearing.
How much can a person change and still be the same? And how could she predict how much she might change over thousands of years, and what might break as a result? It’s much easier to use something else. Duty, say. Loyalty to an idea.”
“Ancillaries are human bodies, but they’re also part of the ship. What the ancillaries feel, the ship feels. Because they’re the same. Well, different bodies are different. Things taste different or feel different, they don’t always want the same things, but all together, on the average, yes, it’s a thing I attended to, for the bodies that needed it. I don’t like being uncomfortable, no one does. I did what I could to make my ancillaries comfortable.”
“Oh, no. She has to be awake for this. But don’t worry, I choked her pretty badly, a few minutes ago. She won’t be able to scream very much.”
“I was the same age when it happened to me,” I pointed out. Not I really, but this body, this last one left to me. “A little younger.” I didn’t point out that Medic hadn’t reacted this way to seeing me. That it made a difference when it was a citizen, instead of some uncivilized, conquered enemy.
“Who is she now, then?” “Good question.” I put away the last of the instruments. “She’ll have to decide that.” “What if you don’t like her decision?” Shrewd, Medic was. I’d rather have her on my side than otherwise. “That,” I answered, making a small tossing gesture, as though casting the day’s omens, “will be as Amaat wills. Get some rest. Kalr will bring supper to your quarters. Things will seem better after you’ve eaten and slept.” “Really?” she asked. Bitter and challenging. “Well, not necessarily,” I admitted. “But it’s easier to deal with things when you’ve had some rest and some
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Water will wear away stone, but it won’t cook supper. Everything has its own strengths. Said with enough irony, it could also imply that since the gods surely had a purpose for everyone the person in question must be good for something, but the speaker couldn’t fathom what it might be.
A handful of citizens walking through on their way to or from someplace suddenly found that their paths took them well away from where we were standing, just by chance discovered that they had no desire to look directly at us.
I looked pointedly toward the people sitting at tables, beyond that doorway, all of them carefully not noticing us.
“Life is unpredictable,” I said, “and we are not always the people we think we are. If we’re unlucky, that’s when we discover it. When something like that happens, you have two choices.” Or, more than two, but distilled, they came down to two. “You can admit the error and resolve never to repeat it, or you can refuse to admit error and throw every effort behind insisting you were right to do what you did, and would gladly do it again.”
I came to see her strangely serene manner as both a sign of just how much she expected to get whatever she wanted, and also an instrument by which she managed to do that, plain persistent saying what she wanted to be true in the expectation that it would eventually become so. It’s a method I’d found worked best for those who are already positioned to mostly get what they want. Obviously Fosyf had found it worked for her.
I had heard it said many times myself. Strange, how equally important, just different always seemed to translate into some “equally important” roles being more worthy of respect and reward than others.
“I find forgiveness overrated. There are times and places when it’s appropriate. But not when the demand that you forgive is used to keep you in your place.
Memory is an event horizon What’s caught in it is gone but it’s always there.
“Just how good a citizen does one have to be,” I asked, “in order to have water and air, and medical help?
“When they behave properly, you will say there is no problem. When they complain loudly, you will say they cause their own problems with their impropriety. And when they are driven to extremes, you say you will not reward such actions. What will it take for you to listen?”
“Why, Fleet Captain, do you think I would be one of those people?” “Everyone is potentially one of those people, Governor,” I replied. “It’s best to learn that before you do something you’ll have trouble living with.” Best to learn it, really, before anyone—perhaps dozens of anyones—died to teach it to you.
I was going to die here. Mercy of Kalr, and Seivarden and Ekalu and Medic and all the crew, were gone. I was sure of it. Ship would never leave me unanswered, not by its own choice. And just as I had that thought, the starless, not-even-nothing black of a gate opened just outside the dome, and Mercy of Kalr appeared, far, far too close to be even remotely a good idea, and I heard Seivarden’s voice in my ear telling me she looked forward to being reprimanded as soon as I was safe.
Medic wanted me where she could frown at me and tell me not to get up without her permission, and I was happy enough to indulge her, at least for a day. So Seivarden reported to me where I lay on a bed in Medical. Holding a bowl of tea. “It’s like old times,” said Seivarden, smiling.
Medic came frowning into the room. “I have you here so you can rest, Fleet Captain, not take endless meetings.” “What meetings?” I affected an innocent expression. “The lieutenant and I are both patients here, and both resting, as you see.” Medic hmphed. “And you can’t blame me for being impatient with it,” I continued. “I just rested for two weeks, downwell. There’s a lot to catch up on.” “You call that rest, do you?” asked Medic. “Up until the bomb went off, yes.”
