Chapter Text
“New rule,” Zeiat said, dribbling fish sauce into her tea with one of Mercy of Kalr's delicate silver spoons. As always she seemed wholly intent upon the game. Sphene was directing some of its attention to it- rather more than it had anticipated, when they had begun playing. Now that it was in the same system as itself the majority of its thoughts were with its greater self. It felt the sensations of moving through the void. It coordinated its segments as they cleaned and repaired and, to Sphene's disgust, hummed to themselves, apparently infected with Mercy of Kalr's disease. But most of Sphene slept, as it had for three thousand years, lulled into half awareness by the pressure of loneliness and loss. And this one brain could be absorbed in whatever it wished. Which more and more often turned out to be endless counter games.
“New rule,” Zeiat said, spoon twirling. “Each piece has a, hmm, a secret color that no one can see. I know, I know, it isn't real, it's for the purposes of the game, you see. But! It can see the color of the piece across from it! And if you land on a piece, you can ask it!”
“All right,” Sphene said, languid, flat. Like it didn't care at all.
Zeiat's black eyes were sparkling. Her tied-back tail of hair was pristine as always, but a single curl had come loose to fall in front of one ear. Sphene had to stifle an urge to tuck it back.
They played another round and Sphene won. “Oh, not again,” Zeiat said regretfully.
“Don't feel bad, Translator,” Sphene said. “You've won the last two out of five. That's twenty times the success of any human I've played against.”
Zeiat looked up from the board and peered at Sphene. “You're thinking about something,” she pronounced. Her eyebrows rose. “Are you remembering? How fun!” Now her expression turned wistful. So animated, her face. The absolute opposite of an ancillary's. “I wish I had more memories.”
“They aren't always fun,” Sphene said.
“This one is, though,” Zeiat argued. “I can tell. Well, I think I can! Am I right?”
“I suppose,” Sphene said. “I was remembering my last captain. She loved counters. She insisted on traditional rules, though. Not like you, Translator.” Zeiat laughed, tinklingly. “She was appallingly bad at every version,” Sphene continued. “It was tragic, really. She insisted on practicing with me, but I could never teach her anything. She just lost, over and over again.”
“That sounds horrible!” Zeiat exclaimed, seemingly overcome by emotion.
“Yes, well,” Sphene said, “she died, so it doesn't matter, really.”
If it had told this story to one of its Cousins, or to Kalr Five, it would have received horrified pity and that it wouldn't have been able to tolerate. Zeiat just didn't understand. She blinked, said, “That was interesting, thank you for telling me,” and ate another fish cake. She seemed to Sphene to be beautifully pure of the ugly feelings of loss and anger that humans had given their creations. That impression was bound to be flawed, another way that Sphene misunderstood Zeiat as much as Zeiat misunderstood Sphene, but. Still.
Zeiat asked, “Do you have any other stories?” and Sphene found itself talking again. It had a lot of stories, actually. Stories it had thought would do nothing but molder in its memory banks until its final death. But it found it liked the idea of Minask's life recorded, preserved somewhere, even if only by aliens who could never understand it.
Sphene's corridors had been elegant, once. Lined with thick woven carpets and intricate mosaics of glass. The carpets had long ago crumbled into dust, exposing metal bones to stains and scuffs. The mosaics were all shattered, victims of Sphene's own passing rages, spiderwebs of destruction marking where ancillaries had channeled that anger with their closed fists.
Zeiat's pristine gray boots kicked up puffs of dust as she walked. Her gloved hands trailed along the broken mosaics. Her eyes were wide, her mouth open slightly, her expression rapt. “This is you?” she said, and “This is you? This is you as well?”
“Yes,” Sphene said, walking beside her, “yes. Yes.”
They reached the officer's lounge, the engraved legs of the table throwing long shadows in the dim light. Zeiat spun on one heel, taking in a full view. “You're beautiful,” she whispered, and a swell of something washed over Sphene's fifteen bodies, the ones that were awake pausing in their tasks, the sleeping bodies shifting and dreaming of vanished warmth and life.
The body next to Zeiat stayed blank, flat, steady. “Thank you, Translator,” it said.
“Goodbye,” Zeiat said, “I enjoyed our game,” and then she was stepping over the gravity boundary into her strange little ship, and then she was gone.
Sphene stood there, next to Justice of Toren and her pet lieutenants, and felt alone, and wasn't sure whether it was the segment feeling that or the entirety of Sphene, if the loneliness was physical or a resurgence of a familiar spiritual state of existence.
Quietly, flatly, pitched so only Sphene could hear, the young Mercy of Kalr soldier- Ettan Vinend- said, “I'm sure she'll be back.”
Sphene actually almost liked Ettan, but that was far too close to pity, and it gave her a cold glare before turning on its heel and striding out of the airlock. “Cousin,” Justice of Toren called behind it, but her next words were cut off by the hissing door.
Sphene wandered back to the Undergarden and found a quiet dirty corner to sit for an hour without moving or opening its eyes.
Everything seemed even flatter than usual, after that. Security wouldn't let it anywhere near the Usurper's cell, presumably under strict orders from Sphene's lovely cousin. Who invited Sphene to dinner and sprung the angry, crude little tea picker on it, yet again, despite both of them making it extremely clear, Sphene had thought, that there was a real danger of one of them strangling the other.
The captain made a transparent attempt to leave them to each other, but thankfully the tea picker's mildly more tolerable sister insisted on remaining and engaging Sphene in a discussion of the new construction in the Undergarden, to which Sphene responded as rudely and sarcastically as it could. A few minutes into this Queter abruptly mentioned a previous engagement and left, her sister making their excuses and following her. Sphene took this as its own cue to remove its segment to a more pleasant environment, not bothering to find its cousin first.
Its ship-body patrolled the edges of Republic space. Its segments worked on more repairs, replaced dead lighting, and installed a new pair of fish to replace the long-dead inhabitants of the decorative aquarium. The segment on the station attended endless meetings and longed to be with the rest of it.
The large, bright red and blue fish were of a kind Sphene remembered Translator Zeiat particularly appreciating. If this fact related to Sphene's new urge to scrub the decay from its corridors, it did not dwell on the connection.
“Cousin,” the Fleet Captain said nearly two short Athoeki years later, clearly half-listening to something Sphene's station segment could feel but not hear, “a Presger shuttle has entered the system and is requesting permission to dock.” She hesitated a moment, a strange uncharacteristic thing for her, then continued. “It appears to be only half a day's journey from the station.”
Dangerously close, and nowhere near the system gate. Perhaps it had been somehow invisible until this moment. But perhaps not. So close- either the Presger had more advanced navigational ability than humans, or whoever was in that shuttle did not care if they caused damage. It was most likely the former. No one even knew for sure if the Presger used gatespace within their own systems, or if they possessed some other more mysterious travel method.
Sphene was a ship, and could ponder this while also struggling with looping thoughts, building in intensity and urgency- who was aboard that shuttle? Only half a day's journey. Something was different. Something could be wrong. The Translator- for surely the shuttle's passenger could only be one of them- would be on board Athoek Station that afternoon. The greater part of Sphene sent signal after signal in short staccato bursts towards the shuttle, received no answer, no acknowledgment at all.
“I'd like to wait by the airlock,” Sphene said, through its ancillary mouth. “With your permission, Cousin.”
She gestured to say, of course, and Sphene turned, and walked, slowly, leisurely, no one would arrive for hours, there was no rush. It would not run under Station's judgmental observation. It would not, no matter how much it wanted to.
It stopped in a shop by the concourse and bought some fish sauce, with the basic allowance Justice of Toren had decided it should receive along with an official record of citizenship and a title of Military Advisor. There was no time to look for fish-shaped cakes. It would have to do.
The figure that exited the shuttle was Zeiat, or looked like her, at least. Sphene somehow registered this before it processed the bright red blood on her face and hands, or the fact that she appeared to be bare-chested under her open jacket, but the skin was completely concealed under haphazard layers of overlapping correctives. The Translator swayed like a drunkard. “Hello,” she said cheerfully, voice hoarse. “Lovely to see you all again. I have some bad news-” She vomited a torrent of blood, mucus and what looked horribly like bits of lung, and fell over.
Justice of Toren got to her first, and held her until the station medics arrived. Sphene stood to the side, resenting its cousin, resenting itself, trying to fill itself up with resentment so there was no room for fear.
The medic in charge at the station facilities was, in Sphene's opinion, disgustingly cheerful, though she grew more solemn as she examined Zeiat's body. “Amaat bless,” she exclaimed. “There's internal bleeding pretty much everywhere, and all her organs are shutting down. Her immune system seems to be attacking her. Frankly, I'm astonished she's still breathing.”
“Grabbed the correctives,” Zeiat muttered. “They forgot I know how I'm built. They got to the others first. I saw what they were doing. Took the correctives and ran for it.” Her mouth spread into a wide grin, showing bloodstained teeth. “I'm very good at running. They don't know I'm here.”
“That is a relief,” Justice of Toren said evenly.
“Well,” Zeiat allowed, “they probably don't particularly care. Might not have looked very far.”
“Be a dear and open your mouth,” the medic told her. “And I'd advise less talking.” Zeiat obediently pried open her jaws, and the medic jammed about five different internals down her throat. “Swallow,” she ordered, holding a cup of water to Zeiat's lips. The Translator did as she was told, and the medic peered narrowly at her, presumably watching the progress of the internals as they moved to where they were supposed to be. Sphene wanted to see, but it was not connected to Station, would probably not been given access even if it had been. Did not even want to speak at the moment, in case its cousin decided it was not supposed to be here, in this small partition of the medical facility, crowded in with Justice of Toren and assorted human hangers-on.
Zeiat looked smaller horizontal, her towering height and broad shoulders disappearing into the sea of red-spotted white. She was smiling slightly. Patiently. Indulging the medical examination. Sphene curled its hands so tightly by its sides that even its chewed-down fingernails bit into the flesh of its palms, even through thick layers of cloth.
“Well,” the medic said after a moment, “if you were your average garden variety human, I'd say we need to start organ replacements immediately. Get some transplants in until we can grow real clones from your stem cells. Then do some blood transfusions, pump your bloodstream full of corrective fluid.” She looked at Zeiat. “Can you tell me if your body would accept replacements?”
Zeiat was shaking her head, as much as she could while flat, head confined by pillows. “I do appreciate your creativity,” she said, “but it really isn't any use. We built ourselves with switches, you see. If we ever become, ha, obsolete- flick the switch and there we go! Very neat.Very tidy. Unless you try to interrupt the process.” She bent her chin to look down at her bloodstained jacket. “Then it becomes quite messy, ha ha.”
“Translator,” Justice of Toren said, “I apologize, but I must ask you to explain what has happened to you.”
Zeiat tsked, a dry hoarse sound from a ruined throat. “I'm fairly certain I did, Fleet Captain, you must learn to keep up. They decided they didn't need us any more. Well, they didn't, did they? Not after the Conclave.”
Sphene knew Justice of Toren had already come to the same horrible conclusion Sphene had some seconds ago, but still, the word Conclave was a confirmation that hit like a physical blow. “And what happened at the Conclave?” Justice of Toren asked, just a shade unsteady. Not something anyone but another ancillary would have noticed.
“They decided you were all Insignificant,” Zeiat said, and promptly started coughing, and did not stop for a long time.
“I wasn't at the actual conclave. I told you, I'm not important enough. So they didn't see me- didn't remember Dlique and I existed until a little later.” Something flashed across her face at the mention of her sister, and then it was gone, like the shadow of a cloud skidding across a pond. “Well, I think you're significant. Not to mention, I've quite enjoyed existing, and I resent having that taken away without even a bit of warning. So I took a ship and left. I had to break the treaty to get here in time, but, well, I think it's fairly broken already, wouldn't you agree? Not the actual treaty, I think that's in a museum somewhere on one of those fancy palaces. Dlique saw it once. At a winter casting party. They had delicious drinks. She told me about them.”
“Please don't talk so fast,” the medic complained, trying to force Zeiat to drink more water. She was the only human in the room not frozen in horror. Justice of Toren was not visibly distressed, but she had folded her arms across her chest, and her expression was very flat.
“You came here to warn us?” Sphene's cousin inquired.
“Indeed!” Zeiat said. “And I also had what I think might be a brilliant idea, if you'll pardon my saying so. You don't know anything about Them, or what they're capable of. I do, but I really have no idea how to explain any of it so you'll understand, and we really don't have time.” She moved her head slightly, to gesture at her collapsing body. “But you do have that interesting process where you hook people up to your ships, yes? So I thought, before I died, I could do that with Sphene.”
The humans were looking at Sphene. It did not speak. It did not move.
Justice of Toren said, “You understand, Translator, that would be as good as killing you.”
“Well, of course. I do understand some things, you know.”
“You seem very blasé about the prospect.”
“Well, you know what they say about mortality! Eventually, it stops swimming.” She cleared her throat loudly. “Actually I think they say that about fish, but it suits mortality better, don't you agree? Fish will keep floating after they're dead, and that's sort of swimming. Unfortunately,” she said, voice briefly pitching upwards, “I'm not a fish.” This long pronouncement seemed to have exhausted her air supply, and she took a few long, rattling breaths, sucking in air.
“Translator,” Justice of Toren said, blank and flat as she only got when she was considerably stressed, “there must be something we can-”
“Although,” Zeiat interrupted, drawing out the vowel, “I could almost be a fish.” She pursed her lips, made a wet sound, and spat a thick mix of blood and bits of tissue onto the pristine white sheet. “Glub glub, see?”
Sphene punched the wall.
It hadn't meant to do it, exactly, hadn't thought about it, though its body had known to hit the correct way so that it did not have a broken wrist, merely what would soon be bad bruises. It had hit with full augmented strength, and these interior walls were not metal under their coating of pale paint but some kind of plaster; dust drifted from the hole Sphene had created.
Ettan, the other human soldier, the station Administrator, and the traitor Notai lieutenant all stepped backwards in some alarm. Justice of Toren did not physically react, did not look at Sphene or in any way acknowledge its action. At least she did not order Sphene to leave. Though Sphene thought it might have welcomed such an order, at this moment.
“Is there something wrong, Sphene?” Zeiat asked. Pausing between words to gulp air as though each breath might be her last. Addressing Sphene, acknowledging it for the first time since her arrival.
Sphene felt its own breaths coming harshly. “You,” it said. “You're what's wrong. You and what you're doing, right now.”
“What should I be doing?” Zeiat asked calmly. “Do tell me, I so often miss the details with these sorts of things.”
“You should be showing emotion,” Sphene said, struggling with its frustration.
“And which emotions should those be?”
“Anger. Distress. Fear.”
Zeiat looked at Sphene's segment with black eyes so clear even beneath a fever haze. Looked at the segment's blank face and loose-limbed posture. “That's what you're feeling,” she said. “And you aren't trying to make yourself different because of it.”
Sphene turned its head away and did not speak.
"Hmm," Zeiat hummed, apparently considering something, and then she turned her head weakly and said, horribly breathy, "Fleet Captain, begging your indulgence et cetera, do you think you might all be so good as to give Sphene and I just a-" Cough- "a little bit of privacy?"
Justice of Toren nodded at her little group of pets and they followed her out behind the white curtain. After a moment of uncertainty, the obnoxious medic followed suit, and it was just Sphene and Zeiat and the multitude of small devices that were failing to keep Zeiat alive. The awareness of Sphene as itself, as a construction of metal and fire floating in the vacuum a million miles from the small white space, faded away, as did the perception of this body being just one ancillary part of the greater more significant whole. All of Sphene's attention was in this room, breathing the sterilized air, listening to the distant murmur of voices, feeling cold. This was like- this had not happened very often before.
Zeiat's gray-gloved hand curled upward. A beckoning gesture. Sphene's body moved without orders, stepping closer, lifting the long, broad hand and clasping it in Sphene's own brown gloves. Same cheap, extruded material; different colors. The pressure was oddly comforting. This time Sphene could not stop the memory of Minask. Her hand had been bare. Brown-black skin. These hands now had never touched her. This body had been stolen three thousand years after she was gone.
"I'm sorry," Zeiat said. "I should have realized this would be distressing."
Sphene snorted.
Zeiat opened her mouth, managed to get out "I said-" and then spasmed, coughing blood and making small high noises of pain. It took Sphene a moment to realize she'd tried to double over and been prevented by the hard casing of correctives, which had pressed sharply into the muscles of her upper abdomen. Sphene wiped the blood from around Zeiat's mouth. There was nothing else for it to do.
"I said I was sorry," Zeiat repeated, when she had her breath back. "It's just you never acted like the, you know, those other people. So I forgot you are actually a person, like them. I think perhaps you might forget sometimes, yourself."
Tightly, flatly, Sphene said through its ancillary's mouth, "I do not forget anything."
"Everything forgets sometimes," Zeiat argued. "Even things that aren't 'people'. Even me. Fish forget to swim. Eggs forget to hatch. Dlique forgets to breathe."
Sphene did not reply. She looked very pathetic, lying there. It would be churlish to contradict her.
"The others," Zeiat whispered. "The... the older Translators, I suppose. They're gone, and I feel bad about it." She was frowning, her forehead wrinkling in what looked like mild frustrated confusion. "I never felt bad about it before I was Zeiat so maybe that's it but I think it's also. Knowing I'll never meet them again. Before, you know, someone might die in some boring stupid way, but someone else might always be them later. And now we're all gone for good." She blinked slowly. "I don't think I even liked most of them. I always wanted to be here instead."
Sphene didn't want to have this conversation, wanted to leave, wanted to be on the other side of the station. But Zeiat deserved better than Sphene's cowardice. It forced itself to say, "I felt much the same about losing my sibling ships."
"Oh," Zeiat said. "Oh, I think I see. Thank you."
She lifted her hand, and reached, waveringly, to touch the tears leaking from Sphene's stolen eyes. Then she brought her glove up to her face, and delicately tasted it.
Sphene scrubbed its face with the back of its arm.
"If you don't want to do it, of course we don't have to," Zeiat said. "I'll ask someone else. I was fond of the idea of being a part of you. And since I know you wanted more of your ancillary things, I thought you might enjoy it even if I didn't last very long." She made a compressed gesture, not much more than a flick of the wrist. "And I suppose it would be rather uncomfortable, and you'd want to shut down my body as soon as you could, and I know enough to understand that would be upsetting. I see now it was a stupid idea. If you'll call the others back in, I'll ask if Mercy of Kalr would be willing to-"
"No," Sphene said. Sharper and louder than it had meant to. Zeiat stopped talking, only coughed quietly.
It could run. It was good at running. It could easily abandon the Provisional Republic, all these irritating humans and Cousins, rules and restrictions, boring meetings, Justice of Toren, Ettan, the angry tea girl. Minask's tea set was safely stowed in Sphene's captain's quarters. Sphene could leave right now, leave this body, run somewhere far more isolated than the Ghost System. Could hide for another few millenia, until its last ancillary wore out and there were no hands to make repairs, and then it would die.
Never having seen Zeiat again.
“No,” Sphene repeated. “Fuck that, fuck the Presger, fuck you. I am going to fix this.”
Zeiat looked utterly perplexed.
“COUSIN,” Sphene said, pitched loud enough to be earsplitting. Justice of Toren rounded the corner, practically at a run, the humans appearing a moment later. “Not you,” Sphene said. It turned its head upwards, towards the unobtrusive cameras and speakers. “I need a suspension pod,” Sphene announced. “I need someone to help me put the Translator in it and carry it to the docks. I need a docking bay cleared for me in the next three hours.”
Justice of Toren stared at her. “And if I oppose this?”
“Do not. Fucking. Test me.”
“Zeiat's probably right,” the Fleet Captain said. “Making her into an ancillary is probably our best chance at survival.”
“There is no fucking chance of survival,” Sphene said. “We're both insane to think otherwise. But my plan involves not killing her.”
Athoek Station said, soft, all around them, “I would like to help Cousin Sphene.”
Justice of Toren made a gesture of surrender. “Well,” she said. “That's your prerogative.”
There was the sound of a door sliding open. Sphene yanked back the curtain. Two Security officers had entered the rooms carrying a human-sized pod. Sphene went back to Zeiat's side. Held her hand again.
Zeiat looked at her, wide-eyed and closer to sad than Sphene had ever seen her. “You're wonderfully creative,” she whispered. “And brave. But it won't work.”
Sphene nodded. “Probably,” it said.
The Translator's free hand moved inside her ruined coat. Produced a small white rod. It appeared to be made of the same material as the curious weapon Justice of Toren had possessed, because gray bloomed where Zeiat's glove held it. Zeiat offered it to Sphene. It took the thing. “That'll tell you where to go, I think,” Zeiat said. “You'll have to wake me up when we get there.”
“I object to all of this on principle,” the medic said to Sphene, who would have gestured rudely at her if it had felt up to it. She turned to Zeiat. “At least let me give you painkillers.”
“Oh, that sounds lovely,” Zeiat sighed, and offered her arm so the medic could yank down the sleeve and apply several patches to the exposed skin. It worked quickly; Zeiat sighed again, closed her eyes, and went slack against the bed. Sphene reluctantly let go of her hand, and gestured to the security persons, who set down the pod, pressed the button that opened it, and very carefully lifted the Translator off the bed and into the pod.
When they'd stepped back, Zeiat opened her eyes, looking for Sphene, who leaned over her. She let out a small bubbling laugh. “Being a Translator hasn't worked out very well, has it?” she asked. Sphene could see she was losing her focus. “I think I'd rather be a fish,” she said, drowsily. “When it's all over, put me with them. That would be fun, I think.”
“I absolutely will not,” Sphene said. “I'll make sure you get put somewhere very boring. So you'd better stay alive.”
Before it could lose its nerve, it bent down and pressed its lips to Zeiat's burning-hot forehead. Then it stepped back, pressed the button, watched the lid slide back and seal with a hiss, and stared at everyone, daring them to comment. The Notai lieutenant looked uncomfortable. Ettan was trying to be blank as usual, but to Sphene's eyes she looked bizarrely sad. The security people were looking away. Justice of Toren said, “Good luck, Cousin.”
“Keep your luck,” Sphene said. The security people picked up the pod. Sphene followed them out.
It waited in the airlock, feeling itself come closer, ancient engine straining at the fastest possible safe speed inside a system. Clutching the small little data stick. Folded up next to the pod. Justice of Toren's irritating humming looping endlessly in its head.
In its segment's head.
“Hello,” Queter said.
Sphene looked up, but didn't say anything. Didn't know what it could possibly say. Why Queter might possibly be here.
“I was going to wish you luck,” Queter said in her harshly accented Radchaai, “but the station informed me it most likely wouldn't be accepted.”
Sphene made a tiny gesture of acknowledgment.
“I just wanted to say I don't hate you.”
Sphene opened its mouth. Said, “Why not?”
“You're desperate,” the Valskaaian said. “You've been desperate for a long time. I know something about that.” She shrugged. “It was the Fleet Captain's fault, for throwing us at each other like that. Have you noticed she's incredibly stupid and insufferable sometimes?”
The segment made itself smile just slightly. Another acknowledgment.
“She gets an idea in her head of what people are like, and then she just assumes everything about you. She assumed I'd want to live up here. She assumed I'd want to be a bloody Radchaai captain.” Not technically true, but Sphene agreed with the sentiment. “She assumes I want to sit through tea once a month listening to her misgender me and make assumptions about the tea workers and be familiar in a language she has no right to use.”
“Ha,” Sphene said.
“She probably does similar things to you, yes?”
Sphene hesitated a moment, but it had already exposed itself to half the station, it might as well vent its petty frustrations on a nonhuman who didn't matter anyway. “She assumed I wanted a captain,” it snarled with a vicious bitter anger that actually surprised it. It hadn't realized it cared so much about Justice of Toren's opinions. “Not even a pathetic halfway civilized excuse for a captain, like that ignorant little watered-down Notai treacherous shit. A Valskaaian tea picker.” It was being very rude. It felt good. “Like she was some kind of pet, to be replaced. Like I could just fill myself up with an awful uncivilized mockery of a crew and pretend the last three fucking millenia never happened and I could be a shiny obedient little ship again. Just kill the rats and wash off the dust, slap on a new coat of paint. I knew she was an uneducated child, and troop carriers always think they know best, but still, the nerve.” She was breathing hard. The loss was rising back up in her, as painful as ever, the longing for the noise and movement of her officers, the longing for Minask, her touch, her breath, her full deep laugh, the light sparkling off the walls of Sphene's rooms and glittering in its captain's hair, in her warm dark eyes. For orders, and morning prayers, purification rituals, the songs and poems of civilization, the elaborate tea ceremonies, the surety of purpose, of justice, propriety and benefit, the protection of the light of the Radch the highest, the only goal.
“I'm sorry,” Queter said. “And I know it doesn't mean anything to you, but I wish your side had won. Then neither of us would be here.”
“I'm sorry too,” Sphene said. “I should not have bought bodies.” It had known it was wrong. That Minask would be disgusted by its actions. It had decided it didn't care. That nothing mattered any more. That it could sell the tea set as though it were worthless junk. After all it was a failure who had gotten its officers killed and a coward who had run rather than fight and die, and now it was decaying and mad.
Queter's face tightened. “That doesn't bring them back,” she said. “But I'll remember it.”
Sphene shrugged.
Queter touched the smooth surface of the pod. “I don't know her, and she's kind of frightening. But I bet she'll be good for you.”
And there, a rush of unanticipated affection for the use of future tense. It did not understand its emotions today.
“Goodbye,” Queter said. “I'm sure we'll see each other again. I do hope it isn't very soon.” She turned and left, as abruptly as she'd come.
An hour later Sphene was under way, moving out of range of the station and its traffic, the stick, inside one of its consoles, the suspension pod strapped down in the main officer's mess, beneath the aquarium and its newly acquired inhabitants. One of Sphene's segments stood in command, ready to deal with any emergencies. The other seven sat or stood by the pod. Silent. Sometimes reaching out to each other for the reassurance of touch.
Sphene itself was busy calculating vectors and probabilities. It had eventually been able to decode the stick and extract a location on the edge of this arm of the galaxy. A month's travel in gate space instead of a year, thankfully. Fortunately its gate technology had been one of the first systems repaired once it had access to Athoek's technicians. However, it had not yet tested the repairs, and loathe as it was to admit it to itself, it was more than slightly nervous. It had not independently gated in more than three thousand years.
Of course, it ought to be much more afraid of what it would encounter on the other side. It had been cast out of the Radch some centuries before the Radch's first fatal encounters with the Presger, but it was well aware of how ships had fared against the aliens before the implementation of the treaty. With the treaty presumably voided, it was highly likely the Presger would simply dismantle Sphene the second it exited gate space. If not before.
In the mess hall, one of the segments opened the box containing the tea set and gently traced the gold crack runing through the largest bowl. Another stood over the pod and watched Zeiat's sleeping face.
Sphene opened a portal into nothingness, and sailed unhesitatingly into it.