The body lay naked and facedown, a deathly gray, spatters of blood staining thesnow around it. It was minus fifteen degrees Celsius and a storm had passed justhours before. The snow stretched smooth in the wan sunrise, only a few tracksleading into a nearby ice-block building. A tavern. Or what passed for a tavernin this town.

There was something itchingly familiar about that outthrown arm, the line fromshoulder down to hip. But it was hardly possible I knew this person. I didn'tknow anyone here. This was the icy back end of a cold and isolated planet, asfar from Radchaai ideas of civilization as it was possible to be. I was onlyhere, on this planet, in this town, because I had urgent business of my own.Bodies in the street were none of my concern.

Sometimes I don't know why I do the things I do. Even after all this time it'sstill a new thing for me not to know, not to have orders to follow from onemoment to the next. So I can't explain to you why I stopped and with one footlifted the naked shoulder so I could see the person's face.

Frozen, bruised, and bloody as she was, I knew her. Her name was SeivardenVendaai, and a long time ago she had been one of my officers, a younglieutenant, eventually promoted to her own command, another ship. I had thoughther a thousand years dead, but she was, undeniably, here. I crouched down andfelt for a pulse, for the faintest stir of breath.

Still alive.

Seivarden Vendaai was no concern of mine anymore, wasn't my responsibility. Andshe had never been one of my favorite officers. I had obeyed her orders, ofcourse, and she had never abused any ancillaries, never harmed any of mysegments (as the occasional officer did). I had no reason to think badly of her.On the contrary, her manners were those of an educated, well-bred person of goodfamily. Not toward me, of course—I wasn't a person, I was a piece ofequipment, a part of the ship. But I had never particularly cared for her.

I rose and went into the tavern. The place was dark, the white of the ice wallslong since covered over with grime or worse. The air smelled of alcohol andvomit. A barkeep stood behind a high bench. She was a native—short andfat, pale and wide-eyed. Three patrons sprawled in seats at a dirty table.Despite the cold they wore only trousers and quilted shirts—it was springin this hemisphere of Nilt and they were enjoying the warm spell. They pretendednot to see me, though they had certainly noticed me in the street and knew whatmotivated my entrance. Likely one or more of them had been involved; Seivardenhadn't been out there long, or she'd have been dead.

"I'll rent a sledge," I said, "and buy a hypothermia kit."

Behind me one of the patrons chuckled and said, voice mocking, "Aren't you atough little girl."

I turned to look at her, to study her face. She was taller than most Nilters,but fat and pale as any of them. She out-bulked me, but I was taller, and I wasalso considerably stronger than I looked. She didn't realize what she wasplaying with. She was probably male, to judge from the angular mazelike patternsquilting her shirt. I wasn't entirely certain. It wouldn't have mattered, if Ihad been in Radch space. Radchaai don't care much about gender, and the languagethey speak—my own first language—doesn't mark gender in any way.This language we were speaking now did, and I could make trouble for myself if Iused the wrong forms. It didn't help that cues meant to distinguish genderchanged from place to place, sometimes radically, and rarely made much sense tome.

I decided to say nothing. After a couple of seconds she suddenly found somethinginteresting in the tabletop. I could have killed her, right there, without mucheffort. I found the idea attractive. But right now Seivarden was my firstpriority. I turned back to the barkeep.

Slouching negligently she said, as though there had been no interruption, "Whatkind of place you think this is?"

"The kind of place," I said, still safely in linguistic territory that needed nogender marking, "that will rent me a sledge and sell me a hypothermia kit. Howmuch?"

"Two hundred shen." At least twice the going rate, I was sure. "For the sledge.Out back. You'll have to get it yourself. Another hundred for the kit."

"Complete," I said. "Not used."

She pulled one out from under the bench, and the seal looked undamaged. "Yourbuddy out there had a tab."

Maybe a lie. Maybe not. Either way the number would be pure fiction. "How much?"

"Three hundred fifty."

I could find a way to keep avoiding referring to the barkeep's gender. Or Icould guess. It was, at worst, a fifty-fifty chance. "You're very trusting," Isaid, guessing male, "to let such an indigent"—I knew Seivardenwas male, that one was easy—"run up such a debt." The barkeep saidnothing. "Six hundred and fifty covers all of it?"

"Yeah," said the barkeep. "Pretty much."

"No, all of it. We will agree now. And if anyone comes after me later demandingmore, or tries to rob me, they die."

Silence. Then the sound behind me of someone spitting. "Radchaai scum."

"I'm not Radchaai." Which was true. You have to be human to be Radchaai.

"He is," said the barkeep, with the smallest shrug toward the door. "Youdon't have the accent but you stink like Radchaai."

"That's the swill you serve your customers." Hoots from the patrons behind me. Ireached into a pocket, pulled out a handful of chits, and tossed them on thebench. "Keep the change." I turned to leave.

"Your money better be good."

"Your sledge had better be out back where you said." And I left.

The hypothermia kit first. I rolled Seivarden over. Then I tore the seal on thekit, snapped an internal off the card, and pushed it into her bloody, half-frozen mouth. Once the indicator on the card showed green I unfolded the thinwrap, made sure of the charge, wound it around her, and switched it on. Then Iwent around back for the sledge.

No one was waiting for me, which was fortunate. I didn't want to leave bodiesbehind just yet, I hadn't come here to cause trouble. I towed the sledge aroundfront, loaded Seivarden onto it, and considered taking my outer coat off andlaying it on her, but in the end I decided it wouldn't be that much of animprovement over the hypothermia wrap alone. I powered up the sledge and wasoff.

I rented a room at the edge of town, one of a dozen two-meter cubes of grimy,gray-green prefab plastic. No bedding, and blankets cost extra, as did heat. Ipaid—I had already wasted a ridiculous amount of money bringing Seivardenout of the snow.

I cleaned the blood off her as best I could, checked her pulse (still there) andtemperature (rising). Once I would have known her core temperature without eventhinking, her heart rate, blood oxygen, hormone levels. I would have seen anyand every injury merely by wishing it. Now I was blind. Clearly she'd beenbeaten—her face was swollen, her torso bruised.

The hypothermia kit came with a very basic corrective, but only one, and onlysuitable for first aid. Seivarden might have internal injuries or severe headtrauma, and I was only capable of fixing cuts or sprains. With any luck, thecold and the bruises were all I had to deal with. But I didn't have much medicalknowledge, not anymore. Any diagnosis I could make would be of the most basicsort.

I pushed another internal down her throat. Another check—her skin was nomore chill than one would expect, considering, and she didn't seem clammy. Hercolor, given the bruises, was returning to a more normal brown. I brought in acontainer of snow to melt, set it in a corner where I hoped she wouldn't kick itover if she woke, and then went out, locking the door behind me.

The sun had risen higher in the sky, but the light was hardly any stronger. Bynow more tracks marred the even snow of last night's storm, and one or twoNilters were about. I hauled the sledge back to the tavern, parked it behind. Noone accosted me, no sounds came from the dark doorway. I headed for the centerof town.

People were abroad, doing business. Fat, pale children in trousers and quiltedshirts kicked snow at each other, and then stopped and stared with largesurprised-looking eyes when they saw me. The adults pretended I didn't exist,but their eyes turned toward me as they passed. I went into a shop, going fromwhat passed for daylight here to dimness, into a chill just barely five degreeswarmer than outside.

A dozen people stood around talking, but instant silence descended as soon as Ientered. I realized that I had no expression on my face, and set my facialmuscles to something pleasant and noncommittal.

"What do you want?" growled the shopkeeper.

"Surely these others are before me." Hoping as I spoke that it was a mixed-gender group, as my sentence indicated. I received only silence in response. "Iwould like four loaves of bread and a slab of fat. Also two hypothermia kits andtwo general-purpose correctives, if such a thing is available."

"I've got tens, twenties, and thirties."

"Thirties, please."

She stacked my purchases on the counter. "Three hundred seventy-five." There wasa cough from someone behind me—I was being overcharged again.

I paid and left. The children were still huddled, laughing, in the street. Theadults still passed me as though I weren't there. I made one morestop—Seivarden would need clothes. Then I returned to the room.

Seivarden was still unconscious, and there were still no signs of shock as faras I could see. The snow in the container had mostly melted, and I put half ofone brick-hard loaf of bread in it to soak.

A head injury and internal organ damage were the most dangerous possibilities. Ibroke open the two correctives I'd just bought and lifted the blanket to lay oneacross Seivarden's abdomen, watched it puddle and stretch and then harden into aclear shell. The other I held to the side of her face that seemed the mostbruised. When that one had hardened, I took off my outer coat and lay down andslept.

Slightly more than seven and a half hours later, Seivarden stirred and I woke."Are you awake?" I asked. The corrective I'd applied held one eye closed, andone half of her mouth, but the bruising and the swelling all over her face wasmuch reduced. I considered for a moment what would be the right facialexpression, and made it. "I found you in the snow, in front of a tavern. Youlooked like you needed help." She gave a faint rasp of breath but didn't turnher head toward me. "Are you hungry?" No answer, just a vacant stare. "Did youhit your head?"

"No," she said, quiet, her face relaxed and slack.

"Are you hungry?"

"No."

"When did you eat last?"

"I don't know." Her voice was calm, without inflection.

I pulled her upright and propped her against the gray-green wall, gingerly, notwanting to cause more injury, wary of her slumping over. She stayed sitting, soI slowly spooned some bread-and-water mush into her mouth, working cautiouslyaround the corrective. "Swallow," I said, and she did. I gave her half of whatwas in the bowl that way and then I ate the rest myself, and brought in anotherpan of snow.

She watched me put another half-loaf of hard bread in the pan, but said nothing,her face still placid. "What's your name?" I asked. No answer.

She'd taken kef, I guessed. Most people will tell you that kef suppressesemotion, which it does, but that's not all it does. There was a time when Icould have explained exactly what kef does, and how, but I'm not what I oncewas.

As far as I knew, people took kef so they could stop feeling something. Orbecause they believed that, emotions out of the way, supreme rationality wouldresult, utter logic, true enlightenment. But it doesn't work that way.

Pulling Seivarden out of the snow had cost me time and money that I could illafford, and for what? Left to her own devices she would find herself another hitor three of kef, and she would find her way into another place like that grimytavern and get herself well and truly killed. If that was what she wanted I hadno right to prevent her. But if she had wanted to die, why hadn't she done thething cleanly, registered her intention and gone to the medic as anyone would? Ididn't understand.

There was a good deal I didn't understand, and nineteen years pretending to behuman hadn't taught me as much as I'd thought.

Nineteen years, three months, and one week before I found Seivarden in the snow,I was a troop carrier orbiting the planet Shis'urna. Troop carriers are the mostmassive of Radchaai ships, sixteen decks stacked one on top of the other.Command, Administrative, Medical, Hydroponics, Engineering, Central Access, anda deck for each decade, living and working space for my officers, whose everybreath, every twitch of every muscle, was known to me.

Troop carriers rarely move. I sat, as I had sat for most of my two-thousand-yearexistence in one system or another, feeling the bitter chill of vacuum outsidemy hull, the planet Shis'urna like a blue-and-white glass counter, its orbitingstation coming and going around, a steady stream of ships arriving, docking,undocking, departing toward one or the other of the buoy-and beacon-surroundedgates. From my vantage the boundaries of Shis'urna's various nations andterritories weren't visible, though on its night side the planet's cities glowedbright here and there, and webs of roads between them, where they'd beenrestored since the annexation.

I felt and heard—though didn't always see—the presence of mycompanion ships—the smaller, faster Swords and Mercies, and most numerousat that time, the Justices, troop carriers like me. The oldest of us was nearlythree thousand years old. We had known each other for a long time, and by now wehad little to say to each other that had not already been said many times. Wewere, by and large, companionably silent, not counting routine communications.

As I still had ancillaries, I could be in more than one place at a time. I wasalso on detached duty in the city of Ors, on the planet Shis'urna, under thecommand of Esk Decade Lieutenant Awn.

Ors sat half on waterlogged land, half in marshy lake, the lakeward side builton slabs atop foundations sunk deep in the marsh mud. Green slime grew in thecanals and joints between slabs, along the lower edges of building columns, onanything stationary the water reached, which varied with the season. Theconstant stink of hydrogen sulfide only cleared occasionally, when summer stormsmade the lakeward half of the city tremble and shudder and walkways were knee-deep in water blown in from beyond the barrier islands. Occasionally. Usuallythe storms made the smell worse. They turned the air temporarily cooler, but therelief generally lasted no more than a few days. Otherwise, it was always humidand hot.

I couldn't see Ors from orbit. It was more village than city, though it had oncesat at the mouth of a river, and been the capital of a country that stretchedalong the coastline. Trade had come up and down the river, and flat-bottomedboats had plied the coastal marsh, bringing people from one town to the next.The river had shifted away over the centuries, and now Ors was half ruins. Whathad once been miles of rectangular islands within a grid of channels was now amuch smaller place, surrounded by and interspersed with broken, half-sunkenslabs, sometimes with roofs and pillars, that emerged from the muddy green waterin the dry season. It had once been home to millions. Only 6,318 people hadlived here when Radchaai forces annexed Shis'urna five years earlier, and ofcourse the annexation had reduced that number. In Ors less than in some otherplaces: as soon as we had appeared—myself in the form of my Esk cohortsalong with their decade lieutenants lined up in the streets of the town, armedand armored—the head priest of Ikkt had approached the most senior officerpresent—Lieutenant Awn, as I said—and offered immediate surrender.The head priest had told her followers what they needed to do to survive theannexation, and for the most part those followers did indeed survive. Thiswasn't as common as one might think—we always made it clear from thebeginning that even breathing trouble during an annexation could mean death, andfrom the instant an annexation began we made demonstrations of just what thatmeant widely available, but there was always someone who couldn't resist tryingus.