A Choice of Treasons (47 page)

The next case, another stationside spacer, stepped in front of York, looked at him defiantly, threw her chin out and stood righteously forth to plead her case. York didn’t like the look of the situation.

“The charges?” Maggie asked.

A middle-aged woman stepped forward. “Chief Petty Officer Therma reporting as ordered, ma’am. I’m preferring charges against Spacer First Class Jayna Dyte for insubordination.” The NCO’s upper lip was badly swollen, a fact they all wanted to ignore.

“Yesterday,” Therma continued, “at about twelve hundred hours, Spacer Dyte refused a direct order.”

Maggie frowned. “Did she refuse the order, or merely misunderstand it?”

“She refused to obey it, ma’am, with considerable profanity.”

Maggie shook her head. “Please be more specific, Chief Therma.”

Therma frowned, glanced uncomfortably toward the empress and spoke reluctantly. “She told me to fuck myself with a neural prod, said she’d suck
feddie
cock before she’d take any orders from me.”

York closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. There was a lot more to this than Therma was telling them. She clearly wanted to handle it quietly on her own, and he hoped she’d be allowed to do so.

“Spacer Dyte.” Maggie looked at the angry young woman. “Did you understand the order given to you by Chief Therma?”

Dyte lifted her chin even higher. “O’course I did. I was—”

“Thank you, Spacer Dyte. Chief Therma, did—”

“Wait a minute,” Dyte interrupted. “You haven’t even asked what the order was. No one gives me that kind of—”

“The specific order,” Maggie said, “is irrelevant—”

“And she assaulted me,” Dyte continued, “grabbed me by my tunic, lifted me right out of my seat. No one touches me that way. No one, do you hear me? She was lucky I only hit her once. If she’d tried anything else—”

Dyte suddenly froze in mid sentence. Without realizing it York had stood, shoving his chair back with his legs and leaning forward on the table. At the unexpected action from him everything had come to a sudden stand-still, thought Dyte shrank away from him.

“You struck your station commander?” he asked, though it came out in a growl.

“I ah . . . I was . . . just defen . . .”

“God damn it!” York shouted. “I asked you a question. Did you strike your station commander?”

Dyte hesitated, suddenly unsure of herself. “I don’t allow anyone to touch me that—”

“Did you strike her?” he shouted.

She shrank further. “Well, yes I did. But you have to—”

“Shut up,” York shouted as he sat down. He had to think carefully. “Chief Therma. What was ship’s status at the time of this incident?”

Therma cleared her throat uncomfortably. “Watch condition red, sir.”

“We were on alert?”

“Yes, sir.”

Dyte had forced his hand, shot off her big mouth with no concept of what she was getting into. “Spacer Dyte,” he said. “Do you deny Chief Therma’s allegations that you refused to obey a direct order?”

“No, but I—”

“And do you admit you struck Chief Therma while this ship was on alert?”

“Yes, sir, I do. But she had no right—”

Maggie jumped up. “Shut up, you idiot! “

Dyte started shouting. Maggie shouted back at her. During the commotion York keyed his implants. “Sergeant Palevi, I need an executioner up here, on the double.”

Maggie and Dyte shouted at one another until Rame shouted them both down. “Miss Votak,” York said. “Please sit down. Commander Rame, thank you for injecting some sanity into this proceeding. And Miss Dyte . . .” He looked carefully at the woman spacer. “Please be silent until you’re invited to speak.”

York hesitated for a moment. “ You committed a serious breech of naval regulations, and under naval law your actions constitute a capital offense.”

No one missed those words and the crowd began to grumble. Rame shouted, “Silence.”

York continued. “But under captain’s mast I can show you some leniency. You’re sentenced to fifty strokes of the lash, sentence to be carried out immediately.”

Dyte lunged forward suddenly, shaking her head and pointing an accusing finger at York. “You have no right. I know what the lash is, and you can’t do this to me without a trial. I demand a proper trial.” She looked around the deck for support.

York stood and faced her squarely. “You do have the right to such a trial—a court-martial actually—if you so choose. But if you do, I’ll have to prefer formal charges against you, and I’ll be forced to follow the prescribed procedures. But at captain’s mast I can exercise some . . . discretion.”

“I want the trial,” she shouted. “I’m not going to let you beat me senseless.”

York felt very tired as he said, “Lieutenant Votak, please explain to Spacer Dyte the ramifications of a court-martial.”

Dyte glowered at Maggie as she spoke carefully. “If you persist in your demands, then we must try you for the charge of assaulting a superior officer, which, under alert, is a capital offense.”

For the first time a hint of uncertainty appeared on Dyte’s face. “Capital offense?”

Maggie continued. “Captain Ballin will be required to convene the court-martial as soon as possible. It will be his responsibility to choose the three jurists who sit in judgment upon you. I assume that because of the magnitude of the offense, he will sit as chief jurist . . .” She glanced at York and he nodded, then she looked back at Dyte. “He will also appoint prosecution and defense councils. You and your council will be given a few hours to prepare, after which time the court-martial will convene. And because of your admissions here during the last few minutes, you’ll be found guilty. The punishment for such a crime is death, and I assume the sentence will be carried out at dawn tomorrow morning by venting you alive to space. Are there any questions, Spacer Dyte?”

Her confidence had disappeared completely. At that moment the lift doors clanged open and a marine in full combat armor stepped out of it. His rank, insignia, and name stencil were hidden beneath black tape and he carried a length of lash. Dyte shook her head, looked at the marine with the lash and mumbled. “Death? You’re insane. You have no right . . .”

“But we do,” York said calmly. “This ship is a deep space man’o’war isolated behind enemy lines. And the rules here are different from what you’re used to. Everything Lieutenant Votak has just described to you is not only legal, it is required, if you persist in your demands.”

York looked at the empress, expecting to see disapproval in her eyes, but instead there seemed to be a curious sort of understanding there. On the other hand Aeya and several others looked on with contempt and denial.

“What choice do I have?” Dyte whispered into the silence.

York couldn’t hide a grimace. “You can be tried by a court-martial, and executed, or you can waive that right and accept the judgment of this mast. Do you still want a court-martial?”

Dyte just stood there, shaking her head almost imperceptibly. She opened her mouth for a moment, couldn’t seem to find the strength to speak.

“Answer me.”

She shook her head violently. “No.”

“Then do you waive your right to a formal hearing?”

She mumbled something.

“Speak up. Say it.”

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, damn it!” she shouted. “I waive my right to a hearing.”

York had almost hoped she wouldn’t agree. A quick death in the vacuum of space might even be preferable to the lash. He looked at Palevi and said simply, “Sergeant.”

Palevi bellowed out a couple of names and two marines hustled forward, almost picked Dyte up by her armpits. They half carried her to an arch between two plast girders, cuffed her wrists to a couple of girders in an all too familiar position, then cut away the back of her coveralls with a power knife. As York watched he could feel a bead of sweat rolling down his back.

He owed Dyte one thing, the same thing Jarwith had given him. He would look her in the eyes through every stroke of the lash. It was a debt he also owed Jarwith.

He crossed the deck, stepped beneath one of Dyte’s extended arms, stopped a few paces in front of her and turned to face her. Her face was flushed, and there was a wild, animalistic look in her eyes. Behind her he could see the mixed crowd of civilians and crew looking on with horror. Dyte grimaced at him. “Please,” she said.

When everything was ready the marine in the armor uncoiled the lash, let one end of it drop to the deck, then waited for York’s command. Another bead of sweat rolled down York’s back as he looked at the marine and gave a slight nod of his head. “Proceed.”

The first stroke of the lash was over and done with, the sound of the crack echoing in York’s ears, and etched in his memory was an image of Dyte as she exploded toward him, her back arching, her wrists tearing frantically at the cuffs, her face detonating with anguish and pain. As her scream settled down among them all York thought he could almost feel the searing line of pain on his own back. “One,” the marine said.

The lash struck again, and again Dyte screamed and tore at the cuffs. “Two.”

Each stroke seemed to cut deeper into York’s memory. “Three.”

Dyte struggled, screamed and pleaded, begged for mercy. “Four.”

And he wanted to show her mercy, to call a halt to the whole thing, but he didn’t know how. “Five.”

It was then York noticed Aeya and many of the civilians had closed their eyes, turned their faces away from the grisly sight. “Six.”

That made York mad, for this was their punishment as much as Dyte’s. “Seven.”

“Halt,” he shouted, and the marine froze.

Dyte’s cries faded slowly to a whimper. “Doctor Yan,” York said as he marched past Dyte. “Please take a look at Spacer Dyte.”

York was past Dyte and approaching Aeya, who was only now opening her eyes. She saw him approaching and grimaced angrily. He stopped in front of her and a silence descended about them that not even Dyte’s sobs could penetrate. “Your Highness,” York said, finding it strangely easy to stay calm. He looked past her and scanned the faces of those around her as he spoke. “It’s imperative you watch this proceeding, as unpleasant as it may be. So I cannot allow you to close your eyes and look away.”

She shook her head, leaned forward and growled in his face, “You can’t stop me.”

“No. I can’t. However, if you, or anyone here, looks away during a stroke of the lash, then that stroke will not count as part of Spacer Dyte’s sentence. If we have to stand here all day and beat the poor woman to death until you see a full fifty strokes, then we will.”

Aeya opened her mouth, but her jaw just hung there, a look of horror and loathing in her eyes. Behind her the empress kept her part of their bargain, and there was nothing to be read in her face. The d’Hart woman, though, seemed to have the opposite reaction, as if she had thought of York as a monster when the beating had begun, but now she understood its real purpose.

“That applies to all of you,” York said, again scanning the faces in the crowd. “If any one of you looks away, then Spacer Dyte will have to suffer that stroke again.”

He didn’t wait for a reaction, spun around and saw Dyte’s back for the first time, the red welts etched there, the first few trickles of blood beginning to well forth. He ducked beneath one of her arms and stopped in front of her.

She hung by the cuffs, no longer able to support herself on her feet, Alsa Yan standing beside her. “She’s strong and healthy,” Yan said. “She’ll survive with nothing more than memories.”

York nodded. “Thank you. Dismissed.”

Yan backed away as York looked into Dyte’s eyes. “Please,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” he said, suddenly conscious of the plug of leather suspended from a plast string around his neck, and he realized he’d been gripping it through the material of his coveralls through each and every stroke of the lash. He’d kept it with him all these years, though no longer even aware that it existed. But there it was, as if he’d subconsciously carried it all these years for just this moment. He reached into his coveralls, and though it was a bit awkward to do he lifted the loop of string over his head and held the plug of leather in his hand for a moment, looking at it. He could still see the faint traces of his own teeth marks.

Without warning he thrust the plug of leather between Dyte’s teeth. She looked at him, surprised by the strange action. “Someone gave me that a long time ago,” he told her. “It’s made from the skin of a cow, though I don’t know what a cow is. But that doesn’t really matter, does it? When you feel the lash strike, bite down hard on it, byte down with everything you’ve got. It helps . . . a little. I know.”

She frowned at him, and maybe she even understood a little.

He backed away a few paces, planted his feet squarely with his hands gripped behind his back and gave the order, “Proceed.”

The crack of the lash rocked Dyte forward, though now the plug of leather muffled her screams. “Eight.”

She and York locked their eyes together, and he couldn’t look away as the lash returned relentlessly to her back. York felt the fire of each stroke, almost as if it were cutting away the flesh of his own back. And slowly both she and he settled into the rhythm of the ordeal: the whip-crack sound of the lash as it struck her back, the strange sort of delay between that moment and the actual onset of the pain, followed by the toneless voice of the marine as he announced the count.