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Ekalu.
    “We’ve served together a long time,” Medic replied. Ekalu, discomfited, did not look up, or say anything in response. “Before you were promoted, you’d have gone to your decade-mates for support, but you can’t go to them anymore. They’re Seivarden’s now.” Before I’d come—before Mercy of Kalr ’s last captain had been arrested for treason—Ekalu had been Amaat One. “And I suppose you feel like you can’t go to your Etrepas.” The Etrepa attending Ekalu stood impassive in a corner of the room. “Plenty of other lieutenants would, but they didn’t come up out of the decades, did they.” Didn’t add that Ekalu might be worried about undermining her authority with shipmates who’d known her for years as a common soldier. Didn’t add that Ekalu knew firsthand how unequal suchan exchange might be, to demand any sort of comfort or emotional support from the soldiers serving under her. “I daresay you’re the first to do it, to come up out of the decades.”
    “No,” replied Ekalu, voice flat. “Fleet Captain was.” Me, she meant. “You knew the whole time, I suppose.” That I was an ancillary, and not human, she meant.
    “Is that the problem then?” asked Medic. She hadn’t touched the tea the Etrepa had given her. “Fleet Captain is first?”
    “No, of course not.” Ekalu looked up, finally, and her impassive expression flickered for just a moment into something different, but then it was gone. “Why would it?” I knew she was telling the truth.
    Medic made a gesture of unconcern. “Some people get jealous. And Lieutenant Seivarden is… very attached to Fleet Captain. And you and Lieutenant Seivarden…”
    “It would be stupid to be jealous of Fleet Captain,” said Ekalu, voice bland. She meant that, too. Her statement might conceivably be taken for an insult, but I knew that wasn’t her intention. And she was right. It didn’t make any sense at all to be jealous of me.
    “That sort of thing,” observed Medic, dryly, “doesn’t always make sense.” Ekalu said nothing. “I’ve sometimes wondered what went through Seivarden’s mind when she discovered Fleet Captain was an ancillary. Not even human!” And then, in response to the merest flicker of an expression across Ekalu’s face, “But she’s not. Fleet Captain will tell you so herself, I imagine.”
    “Are you going to call Fleet Captain it instead of she ?” Ekalu challenged. And then looked away. “Your gracious pardon, Medic. It just sits wrong with me.”
    Because I could see what Ship saw, I saw Medic’s dubious reaction to Ekalu’s overly formal apology, Ekalu’s suddenlycareful attempt to erase her usual lower-house accent. But Medic had known Ekalu a long time, and most of that when Ekalu had still been, as Medic put it, in the decades. “I think,” Medic said, “that Seivarden imagines she understands what it is to be on the bottom of the heap. Certainly she’s learned it’s possible to find oneself there despite good family and impeccable manners and every indication Aatr has granted you a life of happiness and plenty. She’s learned it’s possible that someone she’d dismissed and disregarded might be worthy of her respect. And now she’s learned it, she fancies she understands you .” Another thought struck her. “That’s why you don’t like my saying the fleet captain’s not human, isn’t it.”
    “I’ve never been at the bottom of any heap.” Still carefully broadening her vowels in imitation of Medic or Tisarwat. Of Seivarden. Or of me. “And I said there wasn’t anything wrong.”
    “I’m mistaken, then,” replied Medic, no rancor or sarcasm in her voice. “I beg your indulgent pardon, Lieutenant.” More formal than she needed to be with Ekalu, whom she’d known so long. Whose doctor she had been, all that time.
    “Of course, Medic.”
    Seivarden still slept. Unaware of her fellow lieutenant’s (and lover’s) discomfiture. Unaware, I feared, of Ship’s