“Horticulturist, I…” But I couldn’t speak, not and keep my composure. A cake or a piece of fruit was too complicated a way to distract myself. A sip of tea insufficient. I waited, merely, Basnaaid sitting patient and quiet across the table, also waiting. “Ships care about their officers,” I said, when I thought I could speak again. “We can’t help it, it’s how we’re made. But some officers we care for more than others.” Now, perhaps, I could manage it. “I loved your sister very much.”

“I’m glad of that, too,” she said. “Truly I am. And I understand now why you made the offer you did. But I still can’t accept.” I remembered her conversation with Tisarwat, in the sitting room in the Undergarden. None of it was for me. “I don’t think you can buy forgiveness, even at a price like that.”

“It wasn’t forgiveness I wanted.” The only person who could give me that in any way that mattered was dead.

Basnaaid thought about that for a few moments. “I can’t even imagine it,” she said, finally. “To be part of something so big, for so long, and then suddenly to be so completely alone.” She paused, and then, “You must have mixed feelings about the Lord of the Radch adopting you into Mianaai.”

“Not mixed at all.”

She smiled ruefully. Then, calmly serious, “I’m not sure how I feel about what you’ve just told me.”

“You don’t owe me any account of how you feel, or any explanation of why you feel it. But my offer stands. If you change your mind, it will still be open.”

“What if you have children?”

For a moment, I had difficulty believing she had suggested such a thing. “Can you imagine me with an infant, Citizen?”

She smiled. “You have a point. But all sorts of people are mothers.”

True. “And all sorts of people aren’t. The offer is always open. But I will not mention it again, unless you change your mind. How are things in Horticulture? Are they ready to turn the gravity back on?”

“Almost. When Station turned it off there was more water than just the lake lying around. It’s been a job chasing all that down. We didn’t lose as many fish as we thought we would, though.”

I thought of the children I’d seen running down to the bridge to feed the fish, bright-scaled, purple and green and orange and blue. “That’s good.”

“Most of the first level of the Undergarden escaped damage, but the support level will have to be entirely rebuilt before the water can go back into the lake. It turns out that it had been leaking for some time, but a very small amount.”

“Let me guess.” I picked up my tea. “The mushrooms.”