,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