“Please stay for supper.” She was right, I needed to lie down, or perhaps I needed Twelve to bring me some cushions. “It’s a long ride back, and it’s much more comfortable to eat with gravity. I won’t impose my company on you, but I know Tisarwat would be glad to see you, and I’m sure the rest of my officers would like to meet you. More formally, I mean.” She didn’t answer right away. “Are you all right? You had just as difficult a time as the rest of us.”

“I’m fine.” And then, “Mostly. I think. To be honest, Fleet Captain, I feel like… like everything I thought I could depend on has disappeared, like none of it was ever true to begin with and I’ve only just realized it, and now, I don’t know. I mean, I thought I was safe, I thought I knew who everyone was. And I was wrong.”

“I know that feeling,” I said. I couldn’t go much longer without those cushions. And my leg had begun to ache, for no reason I could see. “Eventually, you start making sense out of things again.”

“I’d like to have supper with you and Tisarwat,” she said, as though it was an answer to what I’d just said. “And anyone else you’d invite.”

“I’m glad.” Without any order from me, Twelve left her place in the corner, went to open one of the storage benches lining the wall. Pulled out three cushions. “Tell me, Horticulturist, can you say, in verse, how God is like a duck?”

Basnaaid blinked, surprised. Laughed. What I had hoped for when I had changed the topic so abruptly. Twelve pushed a pillow behind my back, and two under the elbow of my immobilized left arm. I said, “Thank you, Twelve.”

“There once was a duck who was God,” said Basnaaid. “Who said, it’s exceedingly odd. I fly when I wish and I swim like a fish…” She frowned. “That’s as far as I can go. And it’s only doggerel, not even a proper mode or meter. I’m out of practice.”