Ancillary Sword Quotes

For my part,” I replied, “I find forgiveness overrated. There are times and places when it’s appropriate. But not when the demand that you forgive is used to keep you in your place.

When they behave properly, you will say there is no problem. When they complain loudly, you will say they cause their own problems with their impropriety. And when they are driven to extremes, you say you will not reward such actions. What will it take for you to listen?

Translator Dlique was saying, very earnestly, “Eggs are so inadequate, don’t you think? I mean, they ought to be able to become anything, but instead you always get a chicken. Or a duck. Or whatever they’re programmed to be. You never get anything interesting, like regret, or the middle of the night last week.

Sit up straight, Dlique. Don’t dismember your sister, Dlique, it isn’t nice. Internal organs belong inside your body, Dlique.

And it’s so easy to just go along. So easy not to see what’s happening. And the longer you don’t see it, the harder it becomes to see it, because then you have to admit that you ignored it all that time.

Memory is an event horizon What’s caught in it is gone but it’s always there.

We are all of us only human. We can only forgive so much.

Strange, how equally important, just different always seemed to translate into some “equally important” roles being more worthy of respect and reward than others.

People don’t riot for no reason.

Water will wear away stone, but it won’t cook supper. Everything has its own strengths. Said with enough irony, it could also imply that since the gods surely had a purpose for everyone the person in question must be good for something, but the speaker couldn’t fathom what it might be.

If there was anything any Radchaai considered essential for civilised life, it was tea.

Oh, how I missed the rest of myself.

You take what you want at the end of a gun, you murder and rape and steal, and you call it bringing civilization. And what is civilization, to you, but us being properly grateful to be murdered and raped and stolen from? You said you knew justice when you heard it. Well, what is your justice but you allowed to treat us as you like, and us condemned for even attempting to defend ourselves?

Betrayer! Long ago we promised To exchange equally, gift for gift. Take this curse: What you destroy will destroy you.

I find forgiveness overrated. There are times and places when it’s appropriate. But not when the demand that you forgive is used to keep you in your place.

many of the Ychana’s problems would be remedied if only they became better citizens.” “Just how good a citizen does one have to be,” I asked, “in order to have water and air, and medical help?

Life is unpredictable,” I said, “and we are not always the people we think we are. If we’re unlucky, that’s when we discover it. When something like that happens, you have two choices.” Or, more than two, but distilled, they came down to two. “You can admit the error and resolve never to repeat it, or you can refuse to admit error and throw every effort behind insisting you were right to do what you did, and would gladly do it again.

You are so civilized. So polite. So brave coming here alone when you know no one here would dare to touch you. So easy to be all those things, when all the power is on your side.

Children are all sorts of people, aren’t they, and I suppose if I knew more I’d find some I like and some I don’t, just like everyone else.

It's always for show, Citizen. It is entirely possible to grieve with no outward sign. These things are meant to let others know about it.

And what is civilization, to you, but us being properly grateful to be murdered and raped and stolen from?

These people are citizens.” I replied, my voice as calm and even as I could make it, without reaching the dead tonelessness of an ancillary. “When they behave properly, you will say there is no problem. When they complain loudly, you will say they cause their own problems with their impropriety. And when they are driven to extremes, you say you will not reward such actions. What will it take for you to listen?

Do you love randomly?” She blinked in bewilderment. “What?” “Do you love at random? Like pulling counters out of a box? You love whichever one came to hand? Or is there something about certain people that makes them likely to be loved by you?

But I had never noticed that anyone profited from needless spite,

People don’t riot for no reason. And if you’re finding you have to deal with the Ychana carefully now, it’s because of how they’ve been treated in the past.

So much is metaphor, an inadequately material way to speak of immaterial things.

Still that expressionless face. “Water will wear away stone, sir.” It was a proverb. Or half of one. Water will wear away stone, but it won’t cook supper. Everything has its own strengths. Said with enough irony, it could also imply that since the gods surely had a purpose for everyone the person in question must be good for something, but the speaker couldn’t fathom what it might be.

It all goes around It all goes around The planet goes around the sun It all goes around My mother said it all goes around It all goes around The ship goes around the station

From a child I was taught to forgive and forget, but it's difficult to forget these things, the loss of parents, of children and grandchildren.

The tyrant had said our backgrounds were similar, and in some ways they were.

Not tea but blood!

Get some rest. Kalr will bring supper to your quarters. Things will seem better after you’ve eaten and slept.” “Really?” she asked. Bitter and challenging. “Well, not necessarily,” I admitted. “But it’s easier to deal with things when you’ve had some rest and some breakfast.

Captain,” I said after ten steps, without breaking stride. “I do understand that this is the Genitalia Festival. But when you say genitalia, doesn’t that usually mean genitals generally? Not just one kind?” For all the steps I’d taken, and as far down the corridor as I could see, the walls were hung with tiny penises. Bright green, hot pink, electric blue, and a particularly eye-searing orange.

Say exactly what we told you to and nothing will go wrong, they said. Well, it all went wrong anyway. And they didn’t say anything about this. You’d think they might have, they said lots of other things. Sit up straight, Dlique. Don’t dismember your sister, Dlique, it isn’t nice. Internal organs belong inside your body, Dlique.” She scowled a moment, as though that last one particularly rankled.

They were prepared to be disgusted with her ignorance, a baby fresh from training, a matter for mocking and exasperation, yes. But also for sympathy, and some anticipatory pride. Her Bos would be able to claim credit for any of Tisarwat’s future accomplishments, because after all they would have raised her. Taught her anything she knew that was really important. They were prepared to be hers. Wanted very much for her to turn out to be the sort of lieutenant they would be proud to serve under.

Eggs are so inadequate, don’t you think? I mean, they ought to be able to become anything, but instead you always get a chicken. Or a duck. Or whatever they’re programmed to be. You never get anything interesting, like regret, or the middle of the night last week.

You call that rest, do you?” asked Medic. “Up until the bomb went off, yes.

I was under no illusions as to my physical attractiveness. It was not such that it would inspire propriety-overwhelming enthusiasm.

It had been, for both of our lives. Frantic action, then months or even years waiting for something to happen.

I greatly fear', Citizen Fosyf said before I could answer, 'that the fleet captain's interests are musical rather than spiritual. She's only interested if there's singing

Just how good of a citizen does one have to be" I asked, "in order to have water, air, and medical help?

Those green fields we’d flown over, all that tea, the complicated production, was not a matter of maximizing cost efficiency—no, the point of Daughter of Fishes was prestige.

had been an ambitious poet, without a particularly delicate sense of language, but an abundance of melodrama and overwrought emotion.

My heart is a fish.

An ancillary body might feel momentarily overwhelmed, or irritable, or any emotion one might think of—it was only natural, bodies felt things. But it was so very small, when it was just one segment among the others, when, even in the grip of strong emotion or physical discomfort, that segment knew it was only one of many, knew the rest of itself was there to help.

God’s intentions could be discerned by the careful study of even the smallest, most seemingly insignificant events. And the past weeks’ events were anything but small and insignificant.

Everyone is potentially one of those people, Governor," I replied. "It’s best to learn that before you do something you’ll have trouble living with." Best to learn it, really, before anyone—perhaps dozens of anyones—died to teach it to you. But it was a hard lesson to learn any other way, as I knew from very personal experience.

Do you even know,” she said, and I could tell from the sound of her voice that she was about to cry, “can you even imagine what it’s like to know that nothing you can do will make any difference? That nothing you can do will protect the people you love? That anything you could possibly ever do is less than worthless?” I could. “And yet you do it anyway.” “Superstitious savage that I am.” Definitely crying now. “Nothing I do will make any difference. But I will make you look at it. I will make you see what it is you’ve done, and ever after, if you would look away, if you would ever claim to be just, or proper, you’ll have to lie to yourself outright.” “Most esteemed Queter,” I said, “idealist that you are, young as you are, you can have no idea just how easy it is for people to deceive themselves.

I came to see her strangely serene manner as both a sign of just how much she expected to get whatever she wanted, and also an instrument by which she managed to do that, plain persistent saying what she wanted to be true in the expectation that it would eventually become so. It's a method I'd found worked best for those who are already positioned to mostly get what they want. Obviously Fosyf had found it worked for her.

Are all the section doors leading to the Undergarden disabled and propped open like this?” “It’s as I said, Fleet Captain, this area was sealed off, but people kept breaking in. They’d just be sealing it off over and over to no purpose.” “Yes,” I acknowledged, gesturing the obviousness of her words. “So why not just fix the doors so they work properly?” She blinked, clearly not quite understanding my question. “No one’s supposed to be in this area, sir.” She seemed completely serious—the train of reasoning made perfect sense to her. The ancillary behind her stared blankly ahead, apparently without any opinion on the matter. Which I knew was almost certainly not the case. I didn’t answer, just turned to climb over the broken table and into the Undergarden.

The creation of the Undergarden was no doubt unintended,” I continued, as Mercy of Kalr showed me a brief flash of Kalr Eight speaking sternly to a junior priest, “but as it has benefited you, you tell yourselves that its condition is also just and proper.” That constant trio, justice, propriety, and benefit. They could not, in theory, exist alone. Nothing just was improper, nothing beneficial was unjust. “Fleet Captain,” began Governor Giarod. Indignant. “I hardly think—” “Everything necessitates its opposite,” I said, cutting her off. “How can you be civilized if there is no uncivilized?” Civilized. Radchaai. The word was the same. “If it did not benefit someone, somehow, there’d be plumbing here, and lights, and doors that worked, and medics who would come for an emergency.

You can trust her to the end of the universe. She’ll never let you down.

The omens had indicated continuing good fortune, of course, only the most foolish of captains would find any other sort of pattern in the fall of those metal discs on the cloth.

There was room for more gods, there always was. But I didn’t believe in any of them.

Once Captain Hetnys had gone, I thought for a bit about what to do next. Meet with Governor Giarod, probably, and find out what, besides medical supplies, might come up short in the near future, and what we might do about that. Find something to keep Sword of Atagaris and Mercy of Phey busy—and out of trouble—but also ready to respond if I needed them. I sent a query to Mercy of Kalr. Lieutenant Tisarwat was above, on level two of the Undergarden, in a wide, shadowed room irregularly illuminated by light panels leaning here and there against the dark walls. Tisarwat, Raughd Denche, and half a dozen others reclined on long, thick cushions, the daughters, Ship indicated, of tea growers and station officials.

And by dealing with them in such circumstances, we are rewarding these people for threatening us. What do you think they’ll do but try it again, since it got them what they wanted once already? And we need things calm here.” “These people are citizens.” I replied, my voice as calm and even as I could make it, without reaching the dead tonelessness of an ancillary. “When they behave properly, you will say there is no problem. When they complain loudly, you will say they cause their own problems with their impropriety. And when they are driven to extremes, you say you will not reward such actions. What will it take for you to listen?

Sphene isn’t human, either,” I said. “Or Athoek Station. Or Sword of Atagaris, or Sword of Gurat. We are all AIs. Ships and stations. For thousands of years AIs have worked closely with humans. You saw this quite recently, while you were a guest of Mercy of Kalr. You’ve spent time with Sphene, and with me. You know I’m captain, not just of Mercy of Kalr, but of the Athoek fleet.” Which consisted only of Mercy of Kalr and whatever slight response we might compel from Mercy of Ilves, but still, fleet captain I was. “You’ve seen me deal with the humans in this system, seen them work with me.” And against me. “As far as the humans here are concerned, I might as well be human. But I’m not. That being the case, there’s no question in my mind that we AIs are not only a separate species from humans, but also Significant.

Children are all sorts of people,

You are so civilized. So polite. So brave coming here alone when you know no one here would dare to touch you. So easy to be all those things, when all the power is on your side

Do you even know,” she said, and I could tell from the sound of her voice that she was about to cry, “can you even imagine what it’s like to know that nothing you can do will make any difference? That nothing you can do will protect the people you love? That anything you could possibly ever do is less than worthless?” I could. “And yet you do it anyway.” “Superstitious savage that I am.” Definitely crying now. “Nothing I do will make any difference. But I will make you look at it. I will make you see what it is you’ve done, and ever after, if you would look away, if you would ever claim to be just, or proper, you’ll have to lie to yourself outright.” “Most esteemed Queter,” I said, “idealist that you are, young as you are, you can have no idea just how easy it is for people to deceive themselves.” By now the tops of the mountains were bright, and we were nearly over the ridge. “I’ll do it anyway.” “You will,” I agreed, and we walked the rest of the way in silence.

You and your ship will immediately familiarize yourselves with the guidelines for dealing with citizen civilians. And you will follow them.

Now that’s something different! I’m not bored of buckets yet!

You are very uncomfortable company, Fleet Captain', observed Station Administrator Celar, her voice bitter and sharp. 'Do you do this sort of thing everywhere you go ?' 'Lately it seems so', I admitted.

I've been wanting to compliment you on that', I said to her, in Delsig. 'It was nicely done. Do you compose it that moment, or had you thought about it before?

Sometimes it feels it's us and Ship against everyone else.

Fuck! Is that what Special Missions is like?

ships weren’t people, weren’t fleet captains or officers of any sort, didn’t invite anyone to tea.

It was a proverb. Or half of one. Water will wear away stone, but it won’t cook supper. Everything has its own strengths.

Five stood aside, and Translator Dlique entered, smiling broadly. “Fleet Captain! How glad I am to see you. The governor’s residence is terribly boring. I’d much rather have stayed on my ship, but they said there was a hull breach and if I stayed I wouldn’t be able to breathe. I don’t know, it doesn’t seem like much, does it? Breathing?” She took a deep breath, gestured irritated indecision. “Air! It’s just stupid, really. I’d as soon do without, but they insisted.” “Translator.

If Athoek Station had any importance at all, it was because the planet it orbited produced tea.

Human eyes could see it, even when those eyes were part of an ancillary body. But no scanner, no mechanical sensor could see that box, or the gun inside, or its ammunition—bullets that would burn through anything in the universe. How this had been managed was mysterious—not only the inexplicable bullets, but how light coming from the box or the gun might be visible to human eyes but not, say, to cameras, which in the end worked on the same principles. And Ship, for instance, didn’t see an empty space where the box was, where something ought to have been, but instead it saw whatever it might have expected would occupy that space. None of it made any sense. Still, it was the case.

I’d run straight into a bulkhead trying to walk and receive data at the same time…

I find forgiveness overrated. There are times and places when it’s appropriate. But not when the demand that you forgive is used to keep you in your place. With Queter’s help I can remove Raughd from this place, permanently. I will try to do more if I can

Do you even know,” she said, and I could tell from the sound of her voice that she was about to cry, “can you even imagine what it’s like to know that nothing you can do will make any difference? That nothing you can do will protect the people you love? That anything you could possibly ever do is less than worthless?” I could. “And yet you do it anyway.” “Superstitious savage that I am.” Definitely crying now. “Nothing I do will make any difference. But I will make you look at it. I will make you see what it is you’ve done, and ever after, if you would look away, if you would ever claim to be just, or proper, you’ll have to lie to yourself outright.” “Most esteemed Queter,” I said, “idealist that you are, young as you are, you can have no idea just how easy it is for people to deceive themselves.” By now the tops of the mountains were bright, and we were nearly over the ridge. “I’ll do it anyway.” “You will,” I agreed, and we walked the rest of the way in silence.

No just act could be improper, no proper act unjust. Justice and propriety, so intertwined, themselves led to benefit.

Obvious, in retrospect. Obvious before, you’d think. But it’s so easy to just not see the obvious, even long past when it ought to be reasonable.

The sort of thing I had always liked, in an officer. The willingness to admit she was in the wrong, when she realized it. The willingness to insist she was in the right, when she was sure of it, even when it might be safer not to.

spent several years wandering, dissipated, aimless. Not quite willing to die, I suspected, but hoping in the back of her mind to meet with some fatal accident.

Seriously. Interlibrary Loan is the most amazing thing.

You never get anything interesting, like regret, or the middle of the night last week.

But it had been a crisis waiting to happen. Thousands of bodies distributed over all of Radch space, twelve different headquarters, all in constant communication but time-lagged. Radch space—and Anaander herself—had been steadily expanding for three thousand years, and by now it could take weeks for a thought to reach all the way across herself. It was always, from the beginning, going to fall apart at some point. Obvious, in retrospect. Obvious before, you’d think. But it’s so easy to just not see the obvious, even long past when it ought to be reasonable.

What sense the universe had made to them had disappeared with my words, and they were unsure of how to fit what they’d heard me say into a reality they understood.

God is a duck

You take what you want at the end of a gun, you murder and rape and steal, and you call it bringing civilization. And what is civilization, to you, but us being properly grateful to be murdered and raped and stolen from?

The flower of justice is peace. The flower of propriety is beauty in thought and action. I am the sword of justice properly wielded, wet with the blood of the wicked. My armor is righteousness and my weapon is truth. There is no beginning without an end, no light without darkness. There is no motion without stillness, no existence without nonexistence. The flower of benefit is Amaat, whole and entire.

Sit up straight, Dlique. Don’t dismember your sister, Dlique, it isn’t nice. Internal organs belong inside your body, Dlique.

Governor," I replied. Very evenly, very calmly. "The residents of the Undergarden and the Valskaayans who pick tea are citizens. I did not like what I found in the Undergarden, and I did not like what I found in the mountains downwell.