This year Ann Leckie ’s debut novel Ancillary Justice swept the science fiction awards , taking home base Hugo , Nebula , British Science Fiction , Locus and Arthur C. Clarke Awards for best novel . Now the continuation , Ancillary Sword , is about to hit bookstores , and we ’ve got an exclusive extract for you !
Cover fine art by John Harris
Below , we ’ve stimulate all of chapter 2 from Ancillary Sword — you canread chapter 1 over at Orbit Books . Due to Amazon ’s dispute with Hachette Books , you’re able to not pre - enjoin this amazing novel through Amazon — please pre - club through Powellsor theindependent bookseller of your choice . If youorder through Orbit , you have a chance to get a sign bookplate !
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Ancillary Sword — Chapter Two
The despot had said our backgrounds were similar , and in some ways they were . She was — and I had been — compose of hundred of bodies all deal the same identity operator . From that angle , we were very much the same . Which some citizen had observe ( though only relatively latterly , within the last hundred or so geezerhood ) during arguments about the military ’s enjoyment of ancillaries .
It seemed horrible when one opinion of it happening to oneself , or a friend or relative . But the Lord of the Radch herself undergo the same , was arguably in some mode the same sort of being as the ship that serve her , so how could it peradventure be as bad as depreciator lay claim ? Ridiculous to say that all this sentence the Radch had been anything less than entirely just .
One of a triad , that word . Justice , correctitude , and gain . No just act could be improper , no proper human action inequitable . Justice and propriety , so intertwined , themselves led to benefit . The question of just who or what benefit was a issue for late - night give-and-take over half - empty bottles of arrack , but commonly no Radchaai questioned that justice and correctitude would ultimately be good in some gods - approved path . Ever , except in the most sinful circumstances , questioned that the Radch was anything but just , right , and beneficial .
Of course , unlike her ships , the Lord of the Radch was a citizen — and not only a citizen but ruler of all the Radch , absolute . I was a artillery she had used to expand that prescript . Her servant . In many ways her slave . And the departure belong further . Every one of Anaander Mianaai ’s bodies was very to all the others , ringer , conceive and develop for the express aim of being parts of her . Each of her thousands of brains had grown and developed around the implant that joined her to herself . For three thousand days she had never at any fourth dimension experienced being anyone but Anaander Mianaai . Never been a single - incarnate person — preferably in recent adolescence or early adulthood , but older would do — taken enwrapped , stash away in a suspension pod for decades , maybe even hundred , until she was needed . Unceremoniously dethaw out , implant shoved into her brain , severing connexion , make up new ones , destroying the identity she ’d had all her biography so far and replacing it with a ship ’s AI .
If you have n’t been through it , I do n’t think you could really imagine it . The panic and nausea , the horror , even after it ’s done and the body knows it ’s the ship , that the somebody it was before does n’t subsist anymore to care that she ’s died . It could last a week , sometimes longer , while the body and its brain adjust to the new state of affairs . A side effect of the process , one that could peradventure have been egest , presumably it could have been made a good deal less horrific than it was . But what was one body ’s temporary soreness ? One body out of dozens , or even hundreds , was nothing , its distraint merely a passing incommodiousness . If it was too intense or did n’t slake in a reasonable amount of time , that consistence would be removed and destroyed , replaced with a Modern one . There were plenty in storage .
But now that Anaander Mianaai had declared that no new ancillaries would be made — not counting the prisoner still suspended in the holds of the immense scout troop mailman , thousands of bodies immobilize , await — no one need vexation themselves with the interrogation at all .
As senior pilot of Mercy of Kalr , I had quarter all to myself , three meters by four , describe all around with judiciary that double up as storage . One of those judiciary was also my layer , and inside it , under the corner and cases that held my will power , was a box that Ship could n’t see or common sense . Human eye could see it , even when those eyes were part of an ancillary body . But no digital scanner , no mechanical sensor could see that boxwood , or the gas inside , or its ammo — fastball that would burn through anything in the universe . How this had been managed was mysterious — not only the inexplicable hummer , but how light coming from the box or the gun might be seeable to human eyes but not , say , to cameras , which in the end worked on the same principles . And Ship , for instance , did n’t see an empty place where the box was , where something ought to have been , but instead it saw whatever it might have expected would occupy that outer space . None of it made any mother wit . Still , it was the case . Box , weapon , and its ammo had been manufactured by the alien Presger , whose objective were obscure . Whom even Anaander Mianaai dread , lord as she was of the vast reaches of Radch place , commandant of its on the face of it endless armies .
Mercy of Kalr knew about the boxwood , about the gun , because I had told it . To the Kalrs who serve me , it was just one boxful among several , none of which they ’d opened . Had they really been the ancillaries they sometimes pretended to be , that would have been the end of it . But they were not ancillaries . They were human , and consumingly curious . They still speculated , look lingeringly , when they stowed the linens and palette I catch some Z’s on . If I had n’t been captain — even weightier , fleet chieftain — they’d have been through every millimeter of my luggage by now , twice and three time , and talk over it all thoroughly among themselves . But I was captain , with the power of life and death over my entire gang , and so I was granted this little privacy .
This room had been Captain Vel ’s , before she ’d chosen the wrong side in the Lord of the Radch ’s battle with herself . The level covering and the cloths and cushions that had covered the benches were gone , left behind us at Omaugh Palace . She ’d had the walls painted with elaborate scrollwork in purples and greens , a style and a palette that she ’d taken from a preceding era , one presumptively nobler and more civilized than this one . Unlike Captain Vel , I had lived through it and did n’t much repent its loss . I ’d have had it hit , but there were other , more urgent concerns , and at least the paint did n’t extend any farther than the captain ’s quarters .
Her gods , which had sat in a niche under the ship ’s god — Amaat , of track , chief of Radchaai gods , and Kalr , part of this ship ’s name — I had replaced with She Who Sprang from the Lily , an EskVar ( the Emanation of beginning and terminate ) , and a small , trashy image of Toren . I had been fortunate to find that . Toren was an one-time god , not popular , almost draw a blank except by the crews of the ship that bore the name , none of them stationed near here , and one of them — myself — destroyed .
There was way for more gods , there always was . But I did n’t trust in any of them . It would have look odd to the crew if I ’d had none besides the ship ’s , and these would do . They were not gods to me , but reminders of something else . The crew would n’t hump or understand that , and so I burn incense to them day by day , along with Amaat and Kalr , and just like those gods they received offerings of solid food and enameled boldness heyday that had made Five frown when she ’d first discover them , because they were crummy and common and not , she thought , what a Mianaai and a fleet captain ought to offer to her gods . She ’d said so to Kalr Seventeen , sidelong , not mentioning my name or form of address . She did n’t know I was an adjuvant , did n’t fuck how easy it was , because of that , for Ship to show me what she felt , what she say , wherever she said it , whenever I care . She was confident Ship would keep her gossip secret .
Two day after we gated , on our way to Athoek in our own tiny , isolated fragment of universe , I baby-sit on the edge of my bottom drinking tea from a soft , inscrutable rose glass bowl while Kalr Five cleared away the omens and the cloth from the morn ’s cast . The omens had designate continue good luck , of class , only the most goosey of captains would regain any other form of formula in the fall of those metal discs on the cloth .
I shut down my eyes . Felt the corridors and rooms of Mercy of Kalr , spic-and-span lily-white . The whole ship smell comfortingly and familiarly of recycled air travel and cleaning solvent . Amaat decennium had scrubbed their share of those corridors , and the rooms they were responsible for for . Their deputy , Seivarden , senior of Mercy of Kalr ’s lieutenant , was just now finish her inspection of that piece of work , giving out praise and expostulation , assignments for tomorrow , in her antiquely refined dialect . Seivarden had been born for this study , had been born with a face that stigmatize her as a member of one of the highest house in the Radch , distant cousins to Anaander Mianaai herself , wealthy and well - bred . She had been raised with the expectation that she would control . She was in many esteem the very image of a Radchaai military officer . address with her Amaats , relaxed and assured , she was closely the Seivarden I ’d fuck a thousand years ago , before she ’d lost her ship , been shove into an evasion pod by one of its ancillaries . The tracker on the pod had been damaged , and she had drifted for century . After she ’d been found , and dethaw , and discovered that everyone she ’d ever screw was dead , even her star sign no longer existing and the Radch changed from what she ’d known , she ’d fled Radchaai space and spent several years cast , scatter , aimless . Not quite willing to die , I suspected , but go for in the back of her judgement to play with some fateful stroke . She ’d gained free weight , since I ’d found her , built back some of her bemused muscle , looked considerably healthier now , but still more or less the worse for wear . She ’d been forty - eight when her ship ’s ancillaries had pushed her into that escape cock pod . numeration that thousand flash-frozen years and she was the 2d oldest person aboard Mercy of Kalr .
Next in seniority , Lieutenant Ekalu stand watch in Command with two of her Etrepas . It was n’t theoretically necessary for anyone to stand any kind of watch , not with Mercy of Kalr always awake , always watching , invariably cognizant of the ship that was its own body and of the space around it . Especially in gate place , where nothing untoward — or , honestly , even interesting — was potential to happen . But ship systems did sometimes malfunction , and it was a good deal faster and easy to react to a crisis if the gang was already alert . And of course stacks of masses take into a humble ship involve work to keep them disciplined and meddlesome . Ship drop up numbers , maps , graphs in Lieutenant Ekalu ’s vision , murmured into her pinna , information combine now and then with friendly encouragement . Mercy of Kalr liked Lieutenant Ekalu , had confidence in her intelligence and power .
Kalr was captain ’s decade , my own . There were ten soldiers in all the other ten on Mercy of Kalr , but there were twenty in Kalr . They slept on a staggered docket , because also unlike the other X , Kalr was always on responsibility , a last leftover of the days when Ship had been crewed by accessory physical structure , when its soldiers had been fragments of itself and not dozen of item-by-item human beings . The Kalrs who had awakened just now , as I had , were gather in the soldier ’ mess , white - walled , plain , just big enough for ten to eat and space to pile the dishes . They stood , each by their saucer of skel , a fast - grow , despicable , dismal - immature plant that contained any nutrients a human physical structure needed . The taste took some getting used to if you had n’t grown up on it . A lot of Radchaai had in fact grown up on it .
The Kalrs in the soldiers ’ mess began the dayspring prayer in ragged unison . The flower of justice is repose . Within a give-and-take or two they settled into step , the words fall into familiar cycle . The flower of properness is lulu in thought and activity .
medical officer — she had a name , and a nominal membership of deputy , but was never addressed by either — was attached to Kalr , but was not Kalr Lieutenant . She was , just , Medic . She could be — had been , would be in another hour — order to abide a watch , and two Kalrs would stand up that watch with her . She was the only one of Captain Vel ’s officer remaining . She would have been difficult to replace , of class , but also her involvement in the late week ’s consequence had been minimal .
She was improbable and free , unclouded - skinned by Radchaai standard , haircloth enough lighter than brown to be more or less singular , but not the sorting of striking wraith that might have been stilted . She lour habitually , though she was n’t ill - tempered . She was seventy - six years honest-to-goodness and looked much the same as she had in her thirties , and would until she was past a hundred and fifty . Her female parent had been a Dr. , and her mother before that , and her mother before that . She was , just now , extremely furious with me .
She ’d wake dictated to present me in the shortsighted time before she went on sentinel , had said the morning prayer in a rushed murmuration as soon as she ’d rolled out of bed . The flower of welfare is Amaat whole and integral . I had turn my attention away from Kalr in the soldiers ’ fix , but I could n’t see the first lines without listen the eternal rest . I am the sword of justice … Now Medic stood tacit and tense by her own seat in the decade room , where the policeman ate .
Seivarden came into the decade room for what would be her supper , smiling , relaxed , saw Medic waiting , steadfast and impatient , frowning more intensely than usual . For an instant I see vexation in Seivarden , and then she dismissed it , apologized for her tardiness , got a mumbled , perfunctory it ’s nothing in return .
In the soldiers ’ mess Kalr fetch up the morning orison , mouthed the redundant lines I ’d ordered , a brief supplication for the drained , and their name . Awn Elming . Nyseme Ptem , the soldier who had mutinied at Ime , preventing a state of war with the foreign Rrrrrr , at the cost of her own life .
Bo decade sleep in what was more an alcove than a room , barely prominent enough for their ten close dormancy bodies , no privacy , no individual space , even in their bed . They twitched , sighed , daydream , more restless than the ancillaries that had once slept there .
In her own tiny quarter , their deputy , the very young , impossibly lilac - eyed Lieutenant Tisarwat , slumber as well , still and dreamless , but with an fundamental current of unease , adrenaline just a touch higher than it ought to be . That should have awaken her , as it had the dark before , but Medic had given her something to help her rest .
Medic bolted her breakfast , muttered alibi , and all but stormed out of the decade room . “ Ship , ” she message , finger twitch emphatically , gesturing the words . “ I desire to verbalise to the fleet police chief . ”
“ Medic ’s hail , ” I say to Kalr Five . “ We ’ll offer her tea . But she probably wo n’t take it . ” Five check the level of teatime in the flaskful and pull out another of the rose glass trough . I suspected I would n’t see my old enamel set again unless I specifically ordered it .
“ Fleet Captain , ” said Mercy of Kalr directly into my ear , and then render me an Amaat on her way to the soldiers ’ mess , singing softly to herself , one of those collections of inconsequential nonsense children from intimately anywhere sing . “ It all goes around , it all goes around , the planet goes around the sun , it all goes around . It all goes around , the lunar month goes around the planet … ” Thoughtless and off - key .
In my one-quarter Kalr Five stand stiffly at attention , order in an expressionless vocalism , “ medical officer request permission to speak with you , Fleet Captain . ”
In the corridor , the Amaat , hearing the step of another Amaat behind her , fall unsounded , suddenly self - witting . “ Granted , ” I said to Five , needlessly of course , she already knew I plan to speak with Medic .
The doorway opened and Medic entered , a number more abruptly than was rigorously proper . “ Fleet Captain , ” she start , tight and furious .
I raised a forestalling script . “ Medic . Sit . Will you have teatime ? ”
She sat . Refused tea . Kalr Five left the way at my order , just the tiny bit resentful at missing whatever Medic had to say , which show every signboard of being something interesting . When she was gone , I gestured to Medic , sit down tense across the tabular array from me . Go forward .
“ pray the fleet senior pilot ’s indulgence . ” She did n’t vocalize at all as though she cared whether I ’d give it or not . Under the table , she clenched her gloved hand into fists . “ Fleet Captain . Sir . You ’ve removed some medication from Medical . ”
“ I have . ”
That stop her momentum , in short . She had , it seemed , expected a self-denial . “ No one else could have done it . Ship insist they ’d never leave behind inventory , and I ’ve bet at the log , at the recording themselves , I ’ve been all through them , and there ’s no record of anyone taking them . There ’s nobody else on board who could conceal that from me . ”
I feared that was no longer on-key . But I did n’t say that . “ Lieutenant Tisarwat came to you yesterday at the end of her shift and asked you for help with some minor sickness and anxiety . ” Two days ago , some hours after we ’d gated , Lieutenant Tisarwat had begun to feel accented . Slightly sick . Had find herself ineffective to deplete much of her supper that eve . Her Bos had note , of course with concern — the trouble with most seventeen - yr - olds was prey them enough , not tempt them to eat up . They had decided , among themselves , that she was homesick . And distressed by my obvious ire at her presence . “ Are you worried for her health ? ”
Medic nearly set about up out of her seat in indignation . “ That ’s not the point ! ” Recollected whom she was speaking to . “ Sir . ” eat up , waitress , but I said nothing . “ She ’s spooky . She read as under some emotional focus . Perfectly perceivable . Perfectly normal for a babe lieutenant on her first assignment . ” bring in , as she was speaking , that I probably had extensive experience of what was normal for very young lieutenants on their first assignments . regret speak , regretted , momentarily , coming here to confront , to accuse me . Just for an blink of an eye .
“ dead normal under the circumstance , ” I gibe , but I stand for something different .
“ And I could n’t aid her because you ’d take every single Master of Education I might have given her . ”
“ Yes , ” I acknowledged . “ I had . Was there anything in her organization when she come ? ” I already knew what the answer would be , but I asked anyway .
trefoil blinked , surprise by my question , but only for an twinkling . “ She did look as though perchance she ’d choose something , when she come to Medical from the shuttle . But there was nothing when I scanned her . I think she was just tired . ” A tiny shift in her carriage , a variety in the emotions I record come from her , suggested she was considering , now , the significance of my question , the unpaired , small mismatch of how Lieutenant Tisarwat had look , to her professional optic , and what the readings had said .
“ Any recommendations or orders to dole out medicament , in her data file ? ”
“ No , nothing . ” Medic did n’t seem to have come to any ratiocination . Much less the one I ’d descend to . But she was funny now , if still angry along with it . “ Recent events have been nerve-wracking for all of us . And she ’s very young . And … ” She hesitated . Had , perhaps , been about to say that by now everyone on control board knew I ’d been very angry when Lieutenant Tisarwat had been assigned to Mercy of Kalr . Angry enough to contain singe for several hours .
By now the whole crew knew what that meant . Had begun , even , to find it ease to have such an obvious fashion to know if everything was as it should be . “ You were going to say ? ” I asked , my verbalism and voice as noncommittal as I could make them .
“ I guess she palpate like you do n’t need her here , sir . ”
“ I do n’t , ” I said . “ As it pass off . ”
Medic shook her head , not understanding . “ Begging the fleet captain ’s indulgence . You might have refused to take her . ”
I might have refused to take her . Might have left her on the castle dock , when Mercy of Kalr ’s shuttle left , and never come back for her . I had seriously considered doing that . Skaaiat would have sympathize , I was indisputable , would have contrived to discover that not a single docked ship could get the untried lieutenant out to Mercy of Kalr until it was too former . “ You gave her something ? ”
“ Something to help her sleep . It was the destruction of the twenty-four hour period for her . It was all I could do . ” That galled Medic , not only that I had interfered in her domain , but that she had been ineffectual to help .
I could n’t help a prompt , momentary look . Lieutenant Tisarwat , at rest but not deeply . Not quietly . Still tense , still that quiet background of uneasiness . “ Medic , ” I said , returning my attending to where I was , “ you have every right to be raging with me . I expected you to be angry , and bear you to protest . I would have been let down if you had n’t . ” She flash , nonplussed , hands still clenched in her lap . “ entrust me . ” There was n’t much more I could say , just yet . “ I am an strange quantity , I am … not the sort of person who ’s generally given dictation . ” A flicker of recognition on Medic ’s face , slender horror and then plethora at having felt that , where she knew I could see it , experience I was almost certainly watching her reception . Medic had repaired my implants , which I had deactivated and damaged , to hide them . Medic bang what I was , as no one else alongside but Seivarden knew . “ But trust me . ”
“ I do n’t have a choice , do I , sir ? We ’re cut off until we touch Athoek , there ’s no one I can complain to . ” Frustrated .
“ Complain at Athoek when we get there . If you still require to . ” If there was anyone there to quetch to , that would do any good .
“ Sir . ” She rose , bit back whatever else she ’d wanted to say . Bowed stiffly . “ May I go ? ”
“ Yes , of form , Medic . ”
Lieutenant Tisarwat was a job . Her official personal history , a dry recitation of fact , said she ’d been hold and put up on a satellite , the third tike of one parent and the second of another . She ’d had the variety of breeding any well - off , moderately well - turn out Radchaai had . Done well at math , had an enthusiasm but no gift for poetry , lack both for history . She had an allowance from her parents but no expectation to mouth of . She ’d endure into space for the first clip when she ’d leave for training .
read between the lines , she had been born not to take some particular place in her house , or inherit anyone ’s wealth and posture , or meet any picky expected value , but for her own sake , and no doubt her parent had bed her and baby her mightily up to the Clarence Day she ’d leave for the armed forces . Her agreement with her parents confirmed this . Her siblings , all older , seemed not to resent her posture as favorite , but took it in footstep and pet her nearly as much as their parents did .
Flighty , Skaaiat Awer had said of her . Frivolous I had thought on seeing the certainly purchased color of her eyes , and the aptitudes data in her filing cabinet suggested the same . That data did not suggest self - have . Nor did it suggest the nervous gloom she ’d display since curtly after boarding Mercy of Kalr .
Her trainer had met her form before , been concentrated on her on report of that , but not cruelly so . Some of them no doubt had baby sister of their own , and after all she was intend for an administrative mail service . It barely mattered if in microgravity she could never keep her supper down — plentifulness of other Modern lieutenants had the same problem , peculiarly if they had slight experience in distance .
Two daylight before , while Tisarwat had sat being examine in Medical , while Ship made the connexion that would lease it — and me — read her like it could every other member of the crew , her Bos had gone over every millimeter of her baggage and come to reasonably accurate conclusions about her history . They were prepared to be sicken with her ignorance , a sister fresh from preparation , a matter for mocking and aggravation , yes . But also for sympathy , and some anticipatory pridefulness . Her Bos would be able to claim course credit for any of Tisarwat ’s next acquirement , because after all they would have raised her . Taught her anything she bang that was really important . They were prepared to be hers . require very much for her to plow out to be the variety of lieutenant they would be proud to serve under .
I so very much wanted my suspicions not to be true .
Watch was , of line , uneventful . Medic survive from our conference to Command , still raging . Seivarden ’s Amaats were exercise , bathing , would soon be climbing into their own bed , settling into their accustomed places with shove and the occasional incensed rustle — there was n’t much room to stretch out . Ekalu ’s Etrepas scrubbed the already near - spotless elbow room and corridors they were responsible for for . Lieutenant Tisarwat would n’t wake for closely four hours .
I go to the ship ’s small gym , a few last Amaats scurry out of my fashion . Worked out , hard , for an hour . go , still tempestuous , still sweaty from exercise , to the kindling range .
It was all simulation . No one wanted bullets flying on a minuscule ship , not with hard vacuum cleaner outside the hull . The targets were images Ship roll on the far wall . The artillery would have it away and shrink as though it had fired real heater , but it fool away only easy . Not as destructive as I wanted to be , that very second , but it would have to do .
Ship lie with my mood . It bedevil up a quick chronological sequence of quarry , all of which I hit , intimately unthinking . reload — no indigence to reload , really , but there would be if this had been a existent weapon system , and so the preparation routines demanded it . Fired again and again , reload again , fired . It was n’t enough . visualize that , Ship gear up the targets move , a twelve of them at a time . I settle into a familiar cycle , fire , reload , fire , reload . A birdcall come into my mind — there was always a song , with me . This one was a long story , an account of the terminal dispute between Anaander Mianaai and her erstwhile friend , Naskaaia Eskur . The poet had been executed fifteen hundred years ago — her rendering of the effect had roll Anaander as the villain and end with the promise that the dead Naskaaia would come back to revenge herself . It had been almost utterly forgotten inside Radch infinite , because singing it , possibly even knowing it existed , could well cost a citizen a thoroughgoing reeducation . It still propagate some places outside Radch influence .
Betrayer ! Long ago we promised
To interchange equally , talent for talent .
Take this curse : What you destroy will destroy you .
Fire , reload . Fire , reload . Doubtless small of the song — or any other on the same subject — had any groundwork in fact . Doubtless the issue itself had been quite mundane , not so poetically dramatic , ringing with mythic and prophetical partial . It was still fulfil to peach it .
I came to the end , lowered my weapon . Unbidden , Ship testify me what was behind my back — three Etrepas crowd the entrance to the firing range , watching , stunned . Seivarden , on her way to her own quarter and bed , stand behind them . She could not read my mood as intimately as Ship could , but she knew me well enough to be upset .
“ Ninety - seven percent , ” said Ship , in my ear . Needlessly .
I took a breath . Stowed the weapon in its niche . turn . The expression of the three Etrepas turned straightaway from astonishment to white , ancillary - like expressionlessness , and they stepped back into the corridor . I brushed past them , out into the corridor and forth , toward the bathtub . Heard one Etrepa say , “ Fuck ! Is that what Special Missions is like ? ” Saw the terror of the others — their last captain had been very exacting about swearing . Heard Seivarden , outwardly jovial , say , “ Fleet Captain is pretty fucking badass . ” The vulgarity , compound with Seivarden ’s archaic , elegant accent , set them laughing , relieved but still unsettled .
Mercy of Kalr did n’t ask me why I was furious . Did n’t ask me what was wrong . That in and of itself suggested my suspicions were right . I wished , for the first sentence in my two - thousand - yr spirit , that I was sacrifice to swearing .
Ann LeckieBooks
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