,88888,    I saw them all, suddenly, for just a moment, through
         ,88'   '88,  non-Radchaai eyes, an eddying crowd of unnervingly
         88'     '88  ambiguously gendered people. I saw all the features that
         88,      88  would mark gender for non-Radchaai—never, to my
         '88,   ,88'  annoyance and inconvenience, the same way in each place.
           '88888'    Short hair or long, worn unbound (trailing down a back,
              8       or in a thick, curled nimbus) or bound (braided, pinned,
             888      tied). Thick-bodied or thin-, faces delicate-featured
              8       or coarse-, with cosmetics or none. A
                      profusion of colors that would have been         88888
       gender-marked in other places. All of this matched               ,888
       randomly with bodies curving at breast and hip or not,          88' 8
       bodies that one moment moved in ways various              ,888888
       non-Radchaai would call feminine, the next moment       ,88'   '88,
       masculine. Twenty years of habit overtook me, and for   88'     '88
       an instant I despaired of choosing the right pronouns,  88,      88
       the right terms of address. But I didn’t need to do     '88,   ,88'
       that here. I could drop that worry, a small but           '88888'
       annoying weight I had carried all this time. I was
       home.
                                                          Ancillary Justice
                                                                 Ann Leckie
       
 (DIR) return