An Exchange of Hostages (20 page)

“I want that man for my Security.” The rhyti was helping; reaching out a tentative hand, he poured a third glass, remembering almost too late to top off the Tutor’s glass politely — like the submissive little Student that they wanted him to be. “You know the one, St. Clare. And after our last meeting I had a thought.”

Tutor Chonis’s skeptical raised eyebrow was no less effective for the disorder of his hair. Granted, he looked like a sleepy scurry-hunter, but a sleepy scurry-hunter was a scurry-hunter none the less.

“I believe that if the Tutor reviewed the exercise, it would demonstrate that St. Clare did not in fact at any time give up the restricted information — until he was convinced that he was clear of the environment in which it was restricted, as indicated by the question he was asked, a question which clearly presupposed full knowledge of the entire situation.” Not as if he was as confident as he would have liked to be of that, but he had to relate it as he remembered it.

“The Tutor has also expressed a concern over my inappropriate expansion of the Writ. I have meditated on the Tutor’s comments . . . ” — to find a way around them, a way to use them to get what he needed to have. No matter what it took — “and have determined that the Tutor is correct. There is no way in which St. Clare can be bound over to me after his unfortunate lapse. And also that the Tutor’s reservations about my . . . attitude . . . must be accepted as valid criticism.”

How was he going to approach this?

Tutor Chonis made no move, showed no reaction. Perhaps Tutor Chonis was asleep. He was on his own either way.

“The only uncertainty in my mind concerns whether one of these circumstances might in fact change. Because if one could change, it would be an indication that change was possible in other areas as well.”

Now at last Tutor Chonis bestirred himself to drink his rhyti. “One might ask oneself if Student Koscuisko believes that the rule of Law is to be amended with no more substantial or significant a cause than one Student’s vanity.”

All right. They both knew what he was trying to say. It was time for his last-chance offer, the desperate gamble that had kept him at work in the lab until he’d found what he’d been looking for.

“It is the vanity of a good Student, Tutor Chonis. Whether or not I was remiss in chasing down the secret — and I will sup the sin-cake freely, if I must — the fact remains that it is not a thing often done. You told me as much yourself. With respect. Sir.”

At least he thought so. He was almost certain that he remembered Tutor Chonis telling him that.

Or had it been Joslire?

He was so tired that his hand shook as he reached the clear vial that he held out across the table to where Tutor Chonis’s hand rested, holding the rhyti glass. “And there is something that the Student has to offer to the Bench in consideration. Apart from any claim to skill or efficiency, at the Question.”

Tutor Chonis plucked the vial away from Andrej’s nerveless fingers, frowning at it as though there should be some explanatory text within. “And you are referring to?”

“The Tutor had expressed the hope that the Student would enrich the Controlled List.” The Controlled List was an abomination under Heaven. So was he. He was a man who had learned to take ecstatic pleasure from torturing a bound man.

“That which you hold may well prove worthwhile from that point of view.” And even with so much at stake, it was almost too difficult to promise such a thing. Andrej was surprised at how hard it was to say it.

Especially in the face of Tutor Chonis’s sudden eagerness, his greedy interest too plain by half on his no-longer-sleepy face as he held the damning vial to the light and rolled it in his fingers to make the liquid sparkle. “What have you brought me, young Andrej?”

My honor. My honor and my decency, which I will give to you as sacrifice in exchange for the life of that hapless bond-involuntary. I will trade. Give me his life, and I will do as you have asked me.

“It should be a speak-serum.” He was no longer quite sure what it was, in the specific sense. He was too keenly aware of what it was in the general sense, for his own peace of mind. “For Mizucash, since you gave me one of those. Or was he actually Security as well? Species-specific. But I think it can safely be deployed against a broader spectrum. Something about a handful of the protein clusters looked quite familiar, except I didn’t have the time to run it all down before first-shift.”

“Your duty to the Fleet requires you — ”

Andrej was ready for that obvious objection. “My duty to the Fleet requires that I perform according to my Writ and according to my rated field. Which is not pharmacology. That lies outside — apart — ”

“You’ve got it all worked out, haven’t you?” Tutor Chonis sounded either sarcastic or curious, Andrej could not tell which. “Let me see if I understand you, Student Koscuisko. At the heart of the matter, you are saying that if I oblige you, then you will oblige me. The Fleet. The Bench.”

No, surely not, wasn’t there some problem in suggesting he “oblige” the Bench? “I think so, Tutor Chonis. I may not have expressed myself correctly, I am not thinking very well.” He reached for the rhyti jug, surely near empty by now. But by the time he had it in hand, he’d forgotten why he’d wanted it, and stared at it stupidly, trying to focus his thought.

“Only give me the life of that man, I will administer discipline at the Class One level, and I will undertake to provide speak-sera . . . ”

“ . . . And the sensory factors. And the nerve agents.”

Andrej shuddered in profound horror at the thought. Or was it just fatigue? It didn’t matter. All he wanted was the life of Robert St. Clare. He would do anything they wanted. “I will satisfy the Bench for it, Tutor Chonis. If only this man can be not guilty of fault, since it was none of his.”

There was a silence, as Tutor Chonis mused over the vial in his hand.

“Very well.” Finally Tutor Chonis tucked the vial into a pocket of his bed-dress and stood up. “I will bring this to the attention of the Administrator when the case is heard. Perhaps an exchange of hostages would not be inappropriate, when all is written and read in.”

Did that mean yes?

“Thank you, Tutor.”

It didn’t matter any more what Tutor Chonis meant. He had done his utmost. There was nothing else he could do except wait and see whether they would take the trade or not. “May I be excused? I think it may be time. For fast-meal. And I think I may be hungry.”

Tired, too tired to think straight.

“Go to your quarters, Andrej. Get some sleep.”

What was Chonis talking about? He didn’t have time to get any sleep. He had class in less than three eights, class with Tutor Chonis.

“You’re excused from training until further notice. I have to discuss this matter with my superiors. But — in the time intervening . . . ”

Between now, and what?

“ . . . since you already know, there is something you can do for us, quite apart from the matter of St. Clare. The man who served your fellow Student as prisoner-surrogate needs surgery within your rating. We’re not rated an assigned specialist on site, so there’s no one else here qualified for the job.”

Between now and the decision, obviously. Andrej stood up, and nearly fell over, hanging against the back of the chair for balance. Didn’t he know better than to run the time-string out like this? “Noycannir. Is he stable? I couldn’t do anybody any good, not right now.” Except that Tutor Chonis had told him to get some rest. So obviously the man was stable.

“I’ll inform Infirmary, they’ll be ready for you. Once you’re rested. Curran.”

He hadn’t heard the door open behind him. Tutor Chonis must have signaled for Joslire, because Joslire was here, and Andrej was fairly certain that Joslire had not been privy to the entire conversation.

“The Tutor requires?”

And shame on him, too, for keeping Joslire up so late, when Joslire could hardly beg off his assigned duties — whatever they were — just because a Student had been having a long night of it.

“Curran, take Student Koscuisko back to quarters. He is to be excused from training until further notice. Once he’s rested, he’ll be wanted in Infirmary. We think that he may be able to salvage Student Noycannir’s prisoner-surrogate Idarec.”

“Heard and understood, Tutor. With respect, the officer should come to quarters now.”

There was an arm at his back, steadying him. A hand at his elbow, turning him gently. It was time for him to go to bed.

Had he remembered his prayers?

“Good rest, Andrej. Try to get some sleep.”

It was a voice from far. away, speaking a language Andrej no longer understood.

He was asleep before he could decide whether it was important to reply.

###

Administrator Clellelan pushed the relish-pickle dish across the table, frowning past Tutor Chonis’s head at the front end of Tutor’s Mess as he did so. “No, it won’t do, Adifer. It won’t do at all.”

Clellelan was a good man for detail, it being so important in Fleet Medical to know which details one was assiduously to ignore for the sake of one’s own peace of mind. Because Clellelan was so good at minutiae, Tutor Chonis was confident that the pickles were to be taken as a sign, and not absentminded hospitality; nothing that Clellelan did was really absentminded, no matter how casual it seemed. The gesture was meant to offset a categorical rejection of Chonis’s proposal with an unselfish offer of a mutually favorite — and rather scarce — breakfast salt-pickle. Chonis appreciated the balance, crunching loudly on a nice chunk of imtell to show his gratitude. Just because he was going to make the Administrator reverse his position didn’t mean he wasn’t happy to hog as much of the salt-pickle as he could during the process.

“Now, Rorin, you aren’t paying attention. I’m offering a real benefit for us all.” Intangible, perhaps, but no less valuable for that, and the Administrator had to know what he was thinking as well as Chonis himself did. “The last six Consultations all proved it. The less these officers have to get their hands dirty, the likelier they are to live out their assignments. Judicial Concern MC-double-two-sixteen, sub five, and all the rest.”

The orderly came to refill the steaming-jug, and the Administrator took advantage of the moment to spear a piece of salt-pickle for himself on the end of his pronged knife. It was a positive sign. Say absolutely not, offer salt-pickles; say maybe, take some back.

Chonis gave his superior a moment to chew on his thoughts, and his pickle, before he continued. “Maximizing our resources is the thing to do these days, what with Fleet bleeding us dry out in the Lanes. Get Koscuisko’s cooperation, get him busy, and we’ll start seeing benefit immediately. One Inquisitor is worth any number of bond-involuntaries, as far as the Bench is concerned. You know that better than I do.”

Both Inquisitors and bond-involuntaries were getting harder to come up with, that was true. But it was still significantly easier to find qualified Security material under Judicial order than it was to find Inquisitors who were capable of performing their Judicial function for even as many as eight years without letting themselves succumb to paranoia, psychosis, or other dysfunctionalities along the way.

“You really want me to do it, don’t you? Adifer. Only last night you were telling me that your Koscuisko could turn into a battery with a random detonation sequence, if we weren’t careful with him.”

“Did I say that?” No, actually, Chonis didn’t think he had. Clellelan had put in too much time in Engineering in his youth, and still tended to think of uncontrolled aggression in young Inquisitors as if it were a simple matter of reinstalling a worn-down safety circuit. “That was before he came to my office, this morning.”

The conversation was beginning to get serious. Chonis paused for a moment to savor the memory of his early morning interview with that spirited little Aznir autocrat-to-be. The intensity. The desperation. The self-conscious pledge to accept being managed in return for an annulment of the consequences of what he had done, as if he had actually been at fault.

“It’s usually not an issue, you know that. Most of our Students are too depressed by being here in the first place to question authority. Controlling Koscuisko could be a real problem for the Fleet. He doesn’t like being told what to do — has got no practice in being told what to do — and he seems capable of putting a real sapper in the works, making a mockery of Inquisition. Remember Poneran?”

Clellelan winced. “Please, Adifer, not at the fast-meal table. Four years of deliberate obstructionism, just short of insubordination. Just short. And then she disappears, and into the Free Government, from all indications. We don’t need any more like her.”

“So we give Koscuisko what he wants, we leave him with a reminder of why he should behave, and out of it we get to keep the troop. And we get a rope around Koscuisko’s neck, to avoid any more embarrassments like Poneran. And we extend the working life of every Inquisitor in Fleet by giving them more and more ways to do their jobs with nice clean drugs instead of the instruments of Inquiry and Confirmation. We even make the First Secretary happy, and that makes the Second Judge happy, and that means — we might even get funded for better quarters next year.”

Chonis could tell that the Administrator was tempted by the glazed look in his eyes. After a moment, however, he shook his head, reaching for a piece of brod-roast.

“It would be nice. But I can’t authorize an exception, not without a Judicial hearing. You know that. And then they’d want to know how it got so far out of hand in the first place. Unacceptable.”

It was as close to a criticism as the Administrator had come yet; but in the warm glow left by Koscuisko’s submissive petition, Chonis felt he could easily accept so mild an implied rebuke without wincing. “That’s not the least of the things that impresses me about my Andrej, you know. I still don’t understand what tipped him off.” Joslire Curran had said that the prisoner-surrogate had started to call Koscuisko “the officer,” once, during the Fourth Level. That was true enough. But then Curran was apparently convinced that Koscuisko saw people’s thoughts, and smelled what they were thinking.