Ancillary Justice (Imperial Radch #1) - Ann Leckie Page 0,63

at that time been in orbit around Valskaay itself, but ultimately they were replaced with copies. Not long after, the decades below Esk were emptied and closed, but the windows still hung on the walls of the empty, dark decade rooms.

Lieutenant Issaaia entered, walked straight to the icon of Toren in its corner niche, and lit the incense waiting in the red bowl at the icon’s feet. Six officers frowned, and two made a very quiet, surprised murmur. Only Lieutenant Dariet spoke. “Is Awn not coming to breakfast?”

Lieutenant Issaaia turned toward Lieutenant Dariet, showed an expression of surprise that did not, so far as I could tell, mirror her actual feelings, and said, “Amaat’s grace! I completely forgot Awn was back.”

At the back of the group, safely shielded from Lieutenant Issaaia’s view, one very junior lieutenant cast a look at another very junior lieutenant.

“It’s been so very quiet,” Lieutenant Issaaia continued. “It’s difficult to believe she is back.”

“Silence and cold ashes,” quoted the junior lieutenant who had received the other’s meaningful glance, more daring than her companion. The poem quoted was an elegy for someone whose funeral offerings had been deliberately neglected. I saw Lieutenant Issaaia react with an instant of ambivalence—the next line spoke of food offerings not made for the dead, and the junior lieutenant conceivably might have been criticizing Lieutenant Awn for not coming to supper the night before, or breakfast on time this morning.

“It really is One Esk,” said another lieutenant, concealing her smirk at the very junior lieutenant’s cleverness, looking closely at the segments that were at the moment laying out plates of fish and fruit on the counter. “Maybe Awn broke it of its bad habits. I hope so.”

“Why so quiet, One?” asked Lieutenant Dariet.

“Oh, don’t get it started,” groaned another lieutenant. “It’s too early for all that noise.”

“If it was Awn, good for her,” said Lieutenant Issaaia. “A little late though.”

“Like now,” said a lieutenant at Lieutenant Issaaia’s elbow. “Give me food while yet I live.” Another quote, another reference to funeral offerings and a rebuttal in case the junior lieutenant had intended insult in the wrong direction. “Is she coming or not? If she isn’t coming she should say so.”

At that moment Lieutenant Awn was in the bath, and I was attending her. I could have told the lieutenants that Lieutenant Awn would be there soon, but I said nothing, only noted the level and temperature of the tea in the black glass bowls various lieutenants held, and continued to lay out breakfast plates.

Near my own weapons storage, I cleaned my twenty guns, so I could stow them, along with their ammunition. In each of my lieutenants’ quarters I stripped the linen from their beds. The officers of Amaat, Toren, Etrepa, and Bo were all well into breakfast, chattering, lively. The captain ate with the decade commanders, a quieter, more sober conversation. One of my shuttles approached me, four Bo lieutenants returning from leave, strapped into their seats, unconscious. They would be unhappy when they woke.

“Ship,” said Lieutenant Dariet, “will Lieutenant Awn be joining us for breakfast?”

“Yes, Lieutenant,” I said, with One Esk Six’s voice. In the bath I poured water over Lieutenant Awn, who stood, eyes closed, on the grating over the drain. Her breathing was even, but her heart rate was slightly elevated, and she showed other signs of stress. I was fairly sure her tardiness was deliberate, designed to give her the bath to herself. Not because she couldn’t handle Lieutenant Issaaia—she certainly could. But because she was still distressed from the past days’ events.

“When?” asked Lieutenant Issaaia, frowning just slightly.

“About five minutes, Lieutenant.”

A chorus of groans went up. “Now, Lieutenants,” Lieutenant Issaaia admonished. “She is our senior. And we should all have patience with her right now. Such a sudden return, when we all thought the Divine would never agree to her leaving Ors.”

“Found out she wasn’t such a good choice, eh?” sneered the lieutenant at Lieutenant Issaaia’s elbow. She was close to Lieutenant Issaaia in more than one sense. None of them knew what had happened, and couldn’t ask. And I, of course, had said nothing.

“Not likely,” said Lieutenant Dariet, her voice a shade louder than usual. She was angry. “Not after five years.” I took the tea flask, turned from the counter, went over to where Lieutenant Dariet stood, and poured eleven milliliters of tea into the nearly full bowl she held.

“You like Lieutenant Awn, of course,” said Lieutenant Issaaia. “We all do. But she doesn’t