Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie Page B

not used to taking risks you don’t have decades—centuries—to prepare for,” I said. I had dropped all pretense of human expression, spoke in my flat ancillary’s voice. “All the parts of you have been part of you since birth. Probably before. You’ve never been one person and then suddenly had ancillary tech shoved into your brain. It isn’t pleasant, is it?”
    “I knew it wasn’t.” She had, now, better control of her breathing, had stopped throwing up. But she spoke in a hoarse whisper.
    “You
knew
it wasn’t. And you thought you’d have access to meds to keep you going until you got used to it. You could take them right out of Medical yourself and use your accesses to make
Mercy of Kalr
cover your tracks.”
    “You outmaneuvered me,” she said, still miserable, still looking down at the now-fouled bench. “I admit it.”
    “You outmaneuvered yourself. You didn’t have a standard set of ancillary implants.” It hadn’t been legal to make ancillaries for nearly a hundred years. Not counting bodies already stocked and waiting in suspension, and those were nearly all on troop carriers. None of which had been anywhere near Omaugh Palace. “You had to alter the equipment you used for yourself. And meddling with a human brain, it’s a delicate thing. It wouldn’t have been a problem if it had been your own, you know
that
brain front to back, if it was one of your own bodies you’d have had no problems. But it couldn’t be one of your own bodies, that was the whole
point
, you don’t have any to spare these days, and besides I’d have shoved you out the air lock as soon as we gated if you’d tried it. So it had to be somebody
else’s
body. But your tech, it’s custom-made for
your brain
. And you didn’t have time to test anything. You had a week. If that. What, did you grab the child, shove the hardware in her, and throw her onto the docks?” Tisarwat had missed tea with her mother’s cousin, that day, not answered messages. “Even with the right hardware, and a medic who knows what she’s doing, it doesn’t always work. Surely you know that.”
    She knew that. “What are you going to do now?”
    I ignored the question. “You thought you could just order
Mercy of Kalr
to give me false readings, and Medic as well, to cover up anything that needed covering. You’d still need meds, that was obvious the moment the hardware went in, but you couldn’t pack them because Bo would have found them immediately and I’d have wondered why you needed those particular drugs.” And then, when she couldn’t get them, her misery was so intense that she couldn’t completelyhide it—she could only order Ship to make it appear to be much less than it actually was. “But I already knew what lengths you were willing to go to, to achieve your ends, and I had days just lying here in my quarters, recovering from my injuries and imagining what you might try.” And what I might be able to do to circumvent it, undetected. “I
never
believed you’d give me a ship and let me fly off unsupervised.”
    “
You
did it without meds. You never used them.”
    I went to the bench that served as my bed, pulled aside the linens, opened the compartment underneath. Inside was that box that human eyes could see but no ship or station could, not unless it had ancillary eyes to look with. I opened the box, pulled out the packet of meds I’d taken from Medical, days before that last conference with Anaander Mianaai on Omaugh Palace. Before I’d met Lieutenant Tisarwat in Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat’s office, or even known she’d existed. “We’re going to Medical.” And silently, to
Mercy of Kalr
, “Send two Kalrs.”
    Hope flared in Anaander Mianaai, once Lieutenant Tisarwat, triggered by my words, and by the sight of that packet of medicine in my gloved hand, along with an overwhelming wish to be free of her misery. Tears ran from her ridiculously lilac eyes, and she gave a very tiny whimper, quickly