By the time Basnaaid arrived, I was dressed and had managed to look a bit less as though I’d just fallen off a cliff and then nearly drowned or asphyxiated. I debated for a moment whether to wear Lieutenant Awn’s gold memorial tag, since it had seemed to anger Basnaaid the last time she had seen it, but in the end I had Twelve pin it to my jacket, next to Translator Dlique’s silver and opal. Twelve had managed to produce a stack of small cakes and laid them out on my table along with dredgefruit and, at long last, the very best porcelain, the plain, graceful white tea set I’d seen last at Omaugh, in that last meeting with Anaander Mianaai. On first thought, I was astonished that Five had gotten up the courage to ask for it. On second thought, it wasn’t the least bit surprising.

I bowed as Basnaaid entered. “Fleet Captain,” she said, bowing herself. “I hope I’m not inconveniencing you. It’s just that I thought we ought to talk in person.”

“No inconvenience at all, Horticulturist. I am at your service.” I gestured with my one good arm to a chair. “Will you sit?”

We sat. Twelve poured tea, and then went to stand, stiff and ancillary-like, in the corner of the room. “I want to know,” Basnaaid said, after a polite sip of tea, “what happened to my sister.”

I told her. How Lieutenant Awn had discovered the split in Anaander Mianaai, and what one side of the Lord of the Radch was doing. How she had refused to obey the orders of that Anaander, and as a result the Lord of the Radch had ordered her execution. Which I had carried out. And then, for reasons I still didn’t fully understand, I had turned my gun on the Lord of the Radch. Who had destroyed me as a result, all of me except One Esk Nineteen, the only part of me to escape.

When I finished, Basnaaid was silent for a good ten seconds. Then she said, “So you were part of her decade? One Esk, yes?”

“One Esk Nineteen, yes.”

“She always said you took such good care of her.”

“I know.”

She gave a small laugh. “Of course you do. That’s how you’ve read all my poetry, too. How embarrassing.”

“It wasn’t bad, considering.” Lieutenant Awn hadn’t been the only officer with a baby sister who wrote poetry. “Lieutenant Awn enjoyed it very much. Truly she did. She loved to get your messages.”

“I’m glad,” she said, simply.