NEBULA AWARD NOMINEE

BEST NOVEL

EXCERPT FROM ANCILLARY MERCY

ANN LECKIE

Ann Leckie is the author of the Hugo, Nebula, and Arthur C. Clarke Award winning novel Ancillary Justice. She has also published short stories in Subterranean Magazine, Strange Horizons, and Realms of Fantasy. Her story “Hesperia and Glory” was reprinted in Science Fiction: The Best of the Year, 2007, edited by Rich Horton.

Ann has worked as a waitress, a receptionist, a rodman on a land-surveying crew, and a recording engineer. She lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

FROM THE AUTHOR

I have yet to outline. Maybe I will someday. I knew how I wanted this story to end, but not exactly how it would end up there, so it was kind of nerve-wracking, especially when I could see people online saying things like “I can’t wait to find out what happens in this book!” and I would think, “Neither can I!”

. . . The hatch clicked, and thunked, and swung open. Governor Giarod stiffened, trying, I supposed, to stand straighter than she already was. The person who came stooping through the open hatchway looked entirely human. Though of course that didn’t mean she necessarily was. She was quite tall—there must have barely been room for her to stretch out in her tiny ship. To look at her, she might have been an ordinary Radchaai. Dark hair, long, tied simply behind her head. Brown skin, dark eyes, all quite unremarkable. She wore the white of the Translators Office—white coat and gloves, white trousers, white boots. Spotless. Crisp and unwrinkled, though in such a small space there could barely have been room for a change of clothes, let alone to dress so carefully. But not a single pin, or any other kind of jewelry, to break that shining white.

She blinked twice, as though adjusting to the light, and looked at me and at Governor Giarod, and frowned just slightly. Governor Giarod bowed, and said, “Translator. Welcome to Athoek Station. I’m System Governor Giarod, and this”—she gestured toward me—“is Fleet Captain Breq.”

The translator’s barely perceptible frown cleared, and she bowed. “Governor. Fleet Captain. Honored and pleased to make your acquaintance. I am Presger Translator Dlique.”

The governor was very good at looking as though she were quite calm. She drew breath to speak, but said nothing. Thinking, no doubt, of Translator Dlique herself, whose corpse was even now in suspension in Medical. Whose death we were going to have to explain.

That explanation was apparently going to be even more difficult than we had thought. But perhaps I could make at least that part of it a bit easier. When I had first met Translator Dlique, and asked her who she was, she had said, I said just now I was Dlique but I might not be, I might be Zeiat.

“Begging your very great pardon, Translator,” I said, before Governor Giarod could make a second attempt at speech, “but I believe that you’re actually Presger Translator Zeiat.”

The translator frowned, in earnest this time. “No. No, I don’t think so. They told me I was Dlique. And they don’t make mistakes, you know. When you think they have, it’s just you looking at it wrong. That’s what they say, anyway.” She sighed. “They say all sorts of things. But you say I’m Zeiat, not Dlique. You wouldn’t say that unless you had a reason to.” She seemed just slightly doubtful of this.

“I’m quite certain of it,” I replied.

“Well,” she said, her frown intensifying for just a moment, and then clearing. “Well, if you’re certain. Are you certain?”

“Quite certain, Translator.”

“Let’s start again, then.” She shrugged her shoulders, as though adjusting the set of her spotless, perfect coat, and then bowed again. “Governor, Fleet Captain. Honored to make your acquaintance. I am Presger Translator Zeiat. And this is very awkward, but now I really do need to ask you what’s happened to Translator Dlique.”

I looked at Governor Giarod. She had frozen, for a moment not even breathing. Then she squared her broad shoulders and said, smoothly, as though she had not been on the edge of panic just the moment before, “Translator, we’re so very sorry. We do owe you an explanation, and a very profound apology.”

“She went and got herself killed, didn’t she,” said Translator Zeiat. “Let me guess, she got bored and went somewhere you’d told her not to go.”

“More or less, Translator,” I acknowledged.

Translator Zeiat gave an exasperated sigh. “That would be just like her. I am so glad I’m not Dlique. Did you know she dismembered her sister once? She was bored, she said, and wanted to know what would happen. Well, what did she expect? And her sister’s never been the same.”

“Oh,” said Governor Giarod. Likely all she could manage.

“Translator Dlique mentioned it,” I said.

Translator Zeiat scoffed. “She would.” And then, after a brief pause, “Are you certain it was Dlique? Perhaps there’s been some sort of mistake. Perhaps it was someone else who died.”

“Your very great pardon, Translator,” replied Governor Giarod, “but when she arrived, she introduced herself as Translator Dlique.”

“Well, that’s just the thing,” Translator Zeiat replied. “Dlique is the sort of person who’ll say anything that comes into her mind. Particularly if she thinks it will be interesting or amusing. You really can’t trust her to tell the truth.”

I waited for Governor Giarod to reply, but she seemed paralyzed again. Perhaps from trying to follow Translator Zeiat’s statement to its obvious conclusion.

“Translator,” I said, “are you suggesting that since Translator Dlique isn’t entirely trustworthy, she might have lied to us about being Translator Dlique?”

“Nothing more likely,” replied Zeiat. “You can see why I’d much rather be Zeiat than Dlique. I don’t much like her sense of humor, and I certainly don’t want to encourage her. But I’d much rather be Zeiat than Dlique just now, so I suppose we can just let her have her little bit of fun this time. Is there anything, you know . . .” She gestured doubt. “Anything left? Of the body, I mean.”

“We put the body in a suspension pod as quickly as we could, Translator,” said Governor Giarod, trying very hard not to look or sound aghast. “And . . . we didn’t know what . . . what customs would be appropriate. We held a funeral . . .”

Translator Zeiat tilted her head and looked very intently at the governor. “That was very obliging of you, Governor.”

She said it as though she wasn’t entirely sure it was obliging.

The governor reached into her coat, pulled out a silver-and-opal pin. Held it out to Translator Zeiat. “We had memorials made, of course.”

Translator Zeiat took the pin, examined it. Looked back up at Governor Giarod, at me. “I’ve never had one of these before! And look, it matches yours.” We were both wearing the pins from Translator Dlique’s funeral. “You’re not related to Dlique, are you?”

“We stood in for the translator’s family, at the funeral,” Governor Giarod explained. “For propriety’s sake.”

“Oh, propriety.” As though that explained everything. “Of course. Well, it’s more than I would have done, I’ll tell you. So. That’s all cleared up, then.”

“Translator,” I said, “may one properly inquire as to the purpose of your visit?”

Governor Giarod added, hastily, “We are of course pleased you’ve chosen to honor us.” With a very small glance my way that was as much objection as she could currently make to the directness of my question.

“The purpose of my visit?” asked Zeiat, seeming puzzled for a moment. “Well, now, that’s hard to say. They told me I was Dlique, you recall, and the thing about Dlique is—aside from the fact that you can’t trust a word she says—she’s easily bored and really far too curious. About the most inappropriate things, too. I’m quite sure she came here because she was bored and wanted to see what would happen. But since you tell me I’m Zeiat, I suspect I’m here because that ship is really terribly cramped and I’ve been inside it far too long. I’d really like to be able to walk around and stretch a bit, and perhaps eat some decent food.” A moment of doubt. “You do eat food, don’t you?”

It was the sort of question I could imagine Translator Dlique asking. And perhaps she had asked it, when she’d first arrived, because Governor Giarod replied, calmly, “Yes, Translator.” On, it seemed, firmer ground for the moment. “Would you like to eat something now?”

“Yes, please, Governor!”