And that sounded dangerously like someone much older than Tisarwat ostensibly was. But Piat seemed unable to deflect it. She was driven to a last-ditch defense. “I’ve seen you mooning around the past few days. You’re only here because you’ve got a crush on Horticulturist Basnaaid.”

That scored a hit. But Lieutenant Tisarwat kept her outward composure. “I wouldn’t even be here except for you. Fleet captain told me I was too young for her and stay away. It was an order. I ought to stay away from the Gardens, but you’re here, aren’t you. So let’s go somewhere else and have a drink.”

Piat was silent a moment, taken aback, it seemed. “Not the Undergarden,” she said, finally.

“I should think not!” replied Tisarwat. Relieved, knowing she’d won this round, a minor victory but a victory all the same. “They haven’t even started repairs there yet. Let’s find somewhere we don’t have to pee in a bucket.”

By now Sword of Atagaris had moved away from the Ghost Gate, closer to Athoek Station. It had said almost nothing to Mercy of Kalr the whole time. Hardly surprising—ships generally weren’t much given to chitchat, and besides, Swords all thought they were better than the others.

On Mercy of Kalr Lieutenant Ekalu had just come off watch, and Seivarden had met her in the decade room. “Your opposite number on Sword of Atagaris was asking after you,” Ekalu said, and sat at the table, where an Etrepa had set her lunch.

Seivarden sat beside her. “Was she, now.” She already knew, of course. “And was she glad to see someone she knew on board?”

“I don’t think she recognized me,” replied Ekalu, and after a moment’s hesitation and a quick gesture from Seivarden, who’d had supper already, she took a mouthful of skel. Chewed and swallowed. “Not my name, anyway, I was only ever Amaat One to her. And I didn’t send any visuals. I was on watch.” Ekalu’s feelings about that—about Sword of Atagaris’s Amaat lieutenant not realizing who she was—were complicated, and not entirely comfortable.

“Oh, I wish you had. I’d have loved to have seen her face.”

I saw that while Ekalu herself might well have enjoyed the Sword of Atagaris lieutenant’s discomfiture at being faced with an officer of such common origin, Seivarden’s obvious amusement at the same prospect troubled and dismayed her. It reminded me a bit too painfully of some of Lieutenant Awn’s interactions with Skaaiat Awer, twenty years gone and more. Ship said, in my ear, where I sat in the flier, “I’ll say something to Lieutenant Seivarden.” But I wasn’t sure what Ship could say that Seivarden would understand.