An Exchange of Hostages (21 page)

“And?”

“And you can do it without having to authorize an exception. Take Koscuisko’s offer of speak-sera. The regulation allows bond-involuntaries sentenced at this Level to serve as experimental subjects.”

The Administrator snorted in disbelief, as Chonis had anticipated he would. “And how am I going to manage all of this? There’s a Class Two violation on Record against St. Clare, we can’t just lose it as if it was a Student Exception.”

It was understood that Students tended to overreact to their first taste of absolute power. There was an administrative pressure valve in place to prevent the assigned bond-involuntaries from being egregiously abused. Complaints against bond-involuntaries could be set aside as “Student Exceptions,” on advice from the assigned Tutor — when the bond-involuntary involved could get to a Tutor in time, that was. But that wasn’t what Chonis had in mind.

“Think about the Controlled List for a moment,” he urged his superior. “It is permissible for research work on the Controlled List to be carried out at this Station, isn’t it? Research and testing. Valid Fleet enrichment functions.”

Now Clellelan had got it; Chonis could tell by the way he chewed on his pickle. “Research and testing,” he repeated slowly. “You’re right, of course. Koscuisko is young, untried, we don’t know for certain what he is capable of.”

Just so. “There isn’t any qualification on statute about what kind of Controlled List drug it has to be. Simply that the condemned can be offered the choice, at Administrative discretion.”

As a matter of fact, there were only nine places in all of Jurisdiction Space where the exception could be applied. Eight research stations; and Fleet Orientation Station Medical. Naturally the provision had been made with other drugs less innocuous than mere speak-sera in mind, if even speak-sera could be called harmless when an entire community could be condemned through the action of the drug.

Most often there was very little to choose between suffering discipline for a Class Two violation and serving as a Controlled List volunteer. Since many of the drugs on the Controlled List were lethal in ultimate effect, any bond-involuntary with an eighth of self-preservation would naturally elect the purely physical — predictable, dependable — punishment.

The fact remained that on any one of nine stations a bond-involuntary who had committed a Class Two violation could be offered research duty as a substitute for discipline. And Koscuisko had developed a speak-serum. Given Koscuisko’s scholastic record, it was unlikely that anything that he developed along the lines of his psychopharmacological Second Branch would turn unexpectedly terminal on Robert St. Clare.

“I like it.” Clellelan took a moment longer, clearly enjoying his meditations on what Chonis’s proposal could get for him. “It satisfies on a number of counts. Koscuisko gets what he seems to be so anxious for, by your report. We manage without having our embarrassing lapse show up on the replacement request.” And no matter whether they had been in fact negligent, or Koscuisko was just damn good. As far as Fleet Procurement would be concerned, the request for a replacement body for St. Clare would signal a careless waste of the resource, pure and simple. “All right, Adifer, answer me two questions and I’ll agree to it.”

“Two questions?” He was mildly surprised; he could only think of the one, at a guess.

“Making Verlaine happy. And how do you mean to keep it all from going to Koscuisko’s head, bending the regulations to get what he wants, and so forth.”

Oh, well,
that
.

Chonis smiled.

“Verlaine is happy because we graduate his very own pet Inquisitor. Think about it, Rorin. She doesn’t need to go through the same course as the others; she’ll never be in a field environment anyway. Isn’t that what the Fleet Exception specifies? We’re to prepare her to assist the Bench in routine inquiry, to be exercised by direct Bench warrant instead of Fleet’s Command directive?”

Clellelan was nodding, but Chonis couldn’t tell if it was because he remembered or because he wanted the server who had come up to take away his hot-dish to bring him his after-sweet.

“So all she needs to know is how to press the doses through with an osmo-stylus. Koscuisko can show her that. Practically anybody could show her that, the osmos have gotten so sophisticated these days.” Leaning back in his chair, Chonis paused while the server put the fruit dish down in front of him. “She’ll take her Levels, all right, but just this once it’s going to be drug-assisted all the way. And that’s the only way to guarantee that she’ll get through, with her background.”

At least Clellelan was thinking about it. Chonis could practically hear the micro-gates clicking. “And, coincidentally, a neat trick on the First Secretary,” the Administrator said slowly, as if tasting the idea in his mouth as he spoke. “Sending him an orderly when he thought he was going to get, well, someone like Koscuisko, for instance. Access to the Controlled List — she’ll do more harm than good for him, not knowing the interaction tables. It’s ingenious.”

And Chonis didn’t mind accepting that bit of flattery, either. It was one of his better jokes, if he said so himself. Noycannir would have access to the Controlled List without the first real notion of how to use it, which meant — even taking her native intelligence into consideration — that there simply wasn’t a great deal she was going to be able to do.

There were too many intangible considerations affecting use of drugs on the Controlled List. The Administrative criteria had yet to be reduced to any expert system under Jurisdiction; use of Controlled List drugs remained a judgment call, one which Noycannir could not hope to make without killing the First Secretary’s victims on too regular a basis.

The First Secretary didn’t want his enemies killed.

He wanted them intimidated into submission by his proprietary access to an Inquisitor capable of plumbing their most damning secrets, who was just waiting for the word to go to work on them. Once it became obvious that their deaths were the worst they had to fear from Noycannir, Verlaine would find that all his influence and manipulation had got him precisely nowhere. Fleet would have made its point. The only truly effective Inquisitors were medical officers. That was the way it had to stay.

“Come on, man, the other thing.”

He’d let his mind wander, savoring the pleasing completeness of Verlaine’s future frustration. “Sorry. Yes. Koscuisko. Needs to be firmly kept down. And he was the one who proposed it . . . ”

Granted, that it wasn’t playing quite fair. But St. Clare still was getting off easy, no matter which way the blows fell.

“When Koscuisko came to my office yesterday mid-second, he suggested that St. Clare be considered insubordinate to him, and disciplined by him at the Class One level accordingly. I propose to keep my young Andrej in hand by requiring he administer the punishment per his suggestion. And bind St. Clare over to him for the duration, to serve as a constant reminder of what almost happened when he decided to express a little temperament. Student Koscuisko suffers his pangs of conscience very deeply, from all indications. I think it will work out very nicely.”

There was a problem, of course, with suffering any pangs of conscience too deeply in this line of work. But that was not the immediate problem. The immediate problem was that the Administrator was frowning.

“You want to hazard him with the new drug, and then arrange a flogging on top of it?”

Chonis had foreseen the problem, and Chonis could answer for it. “It’s only a speak-serum, Administrator.” A little more formality couldn’t hurt, at this crucial point. “St. Clare will lose his deferment, but you’ll have the option of granting the reduction in his Bond. That’s well worth a whipping, surely. And Koscuisko knows what he’s doing in that lab, at least to judge from his scholastics. If the speak-serum itself is going to cause a problem, he’ll let us know. We can negotiate.”

Clellelan chewed on his lower lip for a long moment.

But when he spoke again Chonis knew that he had won. “Thought of everything, haven’t you?”

“It’s an important opportunity.” There was no room for false pride. It was a judgment call, in the end; Clellelan’s judgment call. “I had to be sure that it was justifiable.” And neither of them were under any illusions concerning precisely what was at stake for Koscuisko’s unfortunate prisoner-surrogate.

The Administrator nodded, acknowledging several layers of meaning at once. “How do you propose to execute?”

Clellelan would have to be present to adjudicate St. Clare’s discipline; it was a requirement. Chonis had checked the scheduler already.

“Koscuisko is sleeping things off, and I want him in surgery once he wakes up. Idarec.” No further explanation was required. The potential loss of a bond-involuntary would reflect badly on the Administrator’s cost management, let alone the potential loss of two — and within a single week, at that. So he could be confident that Idarec’s case had been on the Administrator’s mind.

“Worth a try,” Clellelan said. “This evening?”

“You’ve got the third quarter free, this second-shift. I don’t know how long Koscuisko will take in surgery. I rather thought that making an appointment for the third quarter would be safest, if it suits the Administrator’s convenience.”

Clellelan nodded. “Let the scheduler know what you want blocked. You’ve outdone yourself this time, Adifer. Not one, but two cost savings, both at the First Judge’s favorite ‘tactical significance’ level. Give yourself an extra commendation or two.”

His words were casual as he rose to leave, his hand on Chonis’s shoulder to prevent the otherwise obligatory courtesy of standing as one’s superior left the table. Chonis accepted the token with a bowed head. It was a lot of money. And two lives. Three lives, if you counted bringing Koscuisko into line, and making a productive resource out of all that talent and passion.

He hadn’t been certain that the Administrator would agree to go along with his plan.

And only now was it safe to see St. Clare.

Chapter Seven

Robert St. Clare was hungry and hurt, cold and despairing, but he knew enough to find his way to his feet when his guards came to sharp, heel-clicking attention. There were two of them posted on either side of his open-fronted cell — stationed there as much for their benefit as for his own — to take education from the bad example that he presented. The sudden movement alerted him: someone was there, someone with rank. He knew what to do in the presence of people with rank. It had been drilled into him to the point of reflex, and not even the hopelessness of his situation could stifle the insistent voice of his conditioning or stay the governor’s inevitable response to any attempts to resist it.
Stand up:
but they’re going to murder me.
Stand up:
but they’re going to torture me again.
Stand up:
but there’s nothing they can do to punish me if I don’t, not more than what they’re going to do to me already.

The Jurisdiction’s Fleet had trained him all too well.

You will stand to attention in the presence of a superior officer.

Stumbling in his dizziness, he rose from the unpadded block that served as the cell’s one piece of furniture — too shallow to lie flat upon, too short to lie at length upon. He stood up and straightened his spine as best he could, trying to ignore the throbbing agony in his shoulder. Perhaps it was just as well, after all. His family were dead. His mother was dead, and his father was dead; his brothers were dead; his uncles — most of his cousins — his kin-group were all gone.

Perhaps it was just as well for him to join them.

But his sister . . .

Pain that was deeper than physical seized him, writhing in his gut like a nest of adders. His sister. Because of his failure, his flaw, his betrayal, he’d never be able to find her, to buy her back from Jurisdiction, to take her away from the life that the Bench had mandated.

Because he had not been able to keep his mouth shut.

Because he had — vaingloriously — hazarded the offered chance to reduce his term, and reduce her term with his, she was condemned to a full thirty years — if she could survive that long, in shame and suffering. Never to know what had happened to him until the day when her Bond was past, and her body would be hers to call her own again.

His sister . . .

“Robert St. Clare. Do you remember me?”

It would have been better never to have tried. But those four years . . . what four years in a Jurisdiction service facility could mean to Megh —

“Sir. The officer is Tutor Chonis. Sir.”

Eight years, with hers and his together. Eight years he could have won, and Security was honest service compared to what Megh was to be put to. Instead there would be nothing for her, nothing, because he had not been able to do his duty by his sister.

“Relax, man, you’re not at Mast, not yet. Stand at ease. Better yet, go and sit down.”

The words were meaningless. He stood numbly at attention as the guards opened the power grid, carrying a chair through for the Tutor’s use. Chonis himself came right up to him, pushing him gently back until his legs struck up against the edge of the rest-block, and he sat.

“Clearly you don’t need to be told what an unpleasant situation we have here.”

The Tutor’s words were beginning to come clear through the heavy pounding of his pulse. They might have been funny; but he wasn’t sure why he thought so. “Sir.”

“It may — I must emphasize that word, may — not be quite as impossible as it seems. There is no question about the offense, of course.”

Of course. Despair and shame flooded his mind; but anger swamped those sapping emotions, fury at being spoken to as if his imminent torture — not to speak of poor Megh’s prostitution — were inconveniences, in the greater scheme of things.

“There is no question about the offense.” That Tutor Chonis gave him. That the Jurisdiction had committed. “Sir.”

“Rabin, have you ever heard of the Jurisdiction’s Controlled List?”

“In Orientation. Yes. Sir.” And they used his name so casually, his private name, the name that none but his deprived sister had any right to speak without permission . . .

“On an experimental station a bond-involuntary who has committed a Class Two violation may elect to serve as a sentient subject for Controlled List purposes, rather than undergo other discipline. Now. Here we have . . . a problem.”

Except that this was not an experimental station but a teaching station. And only a man more desperate than even he would risk the Controlled List by choice: They didn’t need condemned men for the speaking drugs, after all, it was only the other sorts that would be involved. “Yes, sir. The officer states the existence of a problem.”

It wasn’t quite coming out the way it should. He sounded rather thick-tongued to himself, not to say disrespectful. Why should he care about disrespectful? He was going to die.

Because his governor didn’t care whether or not he was going to die, and to his governor disrespect was much more serious than mere termination.

“The officer — Student Koscuisko, your Interrogator. You remember him? Of course you do.”

Of course he did. Repulsive, short, pale, colorless man, his voice the only live thing about him. Oh, and his hands, his pitiless strength, his mocking eyes. “Sir.”

“Koscuisko is determined that there was no Class Two violation, but that a Class One offense has been offered to him by you. For which he wishes you to be disciplined. Student Koscuisko has a gift, St. Clare.”

Oh, was that what it was called, here in this place? “A gift, sir. Yes, sir.”

“He has a gift for drugs. For psychoactive drugs, specifically. Student Koscuisko is willing to trade his skill for your life, Rabin. And his skill may be worth far more to us, in the end, than you could ever hope to be, alive or dead.”

And, oh, but that was precisely the thing to tell him, wasn’t it? This man, you see, he’s a poisoner, and we need good poisoners. We don’t particularly care what happens to you one way or the other. One must keep one’s poisoners happy. “Sir.”

“Good, I’m glad you’re following me. Now. Koscuisko has presented us with a speak-serum, and we want someone to test it. Volunteer to test this speak-serum, Rabin, and the Administrator will accept it in lieu of Class Two discipline, as long as there is no question about the Class One violation.”

Something was not adding up, and Robert shook his head to clear it. “Class One? Two? Experimental station? Sir — ”

“Although this is not an experimental station we are permitted to carry out research for the Controlled List. Therefore the exception applies.” The Tutor rose to his feet now, pacing the few measures of the cell with deliberation. As if he was not quite sure on his pronouncements and wanted to convince himself as he laid the argument out.

“You have committed a Class Two violation. Therefore you may elect to test a Controlled List candidate drug in lieu of other Class Two discipline, if you are offered the alternative by the Administrator. Koscuisko is determined that you have committed a Class One violation. Therefore we will let the Class Two pass with the token ordeal — a talking-drug . . . ”

Stopped in front of where he sat, now, the Tutor fixed his eyes on Robert’s face. For emphasis?

“And you will accept Class One discipline from Student Koscuisko. Your officer.”

He couldn’t be sure, there was too much to think about. He almost thought that he was being offered a way out, a chance, his life; but that was too dangerous to dream on. Hope had confused his mind, making him hear things that never had been implied. That had to be the explanation.

In his confusion he said the first thing that came to his mind, in response to the last thing he’d heard the Tutor say. “The greater fault overrides the lesser fault. Sir. The more severe discipline replaces all the lesser.”

As if he would object on that head, if he could believe that there was any hope at all. As if that would make a difference, between a chance for life and death by torture.

The Tutor smiled. “Yes, of course you’re right,” he said. “At least under normal circumstances. But in this case, the greater punishment is being waived on a technicality, because Koscuisko has got stubborn about it. Do you really mean to challenge the Bench on this issue?”

Mindless panic flooded Robert’s mind at the mere phrase. Challenge the Bench? Challenge the Bench? Of course he could not, dare not, challenge the Class One discipline. To challenge the Bench would be . . . it would be —

“Be at ease.” Tutor Chonis was quite near to him now, speaking low and confidentially in his ear. “It’s just your governor, Robert, running a little hyperactive, probably should be adjusted for stress. Of course no one suggested such a thing. I — regret — my thoughtless use of the phrase.”

There was the strangest note of strained unbelief in Tutor Chonis’s voice, almost as if he did not understand why he was saying the words that he heard himself speak. Believable or not, the words restored Robert’s psychic equilibrium — to a degree — almost as quickly as it had been upset in the first place.

“Sir.” The Tutor moved away, quickly. “No disrespect was intended, if the Tutor please. Spoken for clarification only. Sir.” In fact he was unsure why he had made so ill-advised a remark; but the Tutor, nodding, merely continued in his explanation, as if he had decided to treat it as unobjectionable.

“It is already a rather extreme appeal to Administrative privilege to substitute the trial of such an innocuous drug where the other less benign ones were clearly intended. The Administrator must demonstrate that his decision was based on reason and sound Judicial practice, and the best interest of Fleet. And this has nothing to do with you, St. Clare, we aren’t doing you any favors. It has everything to do with Andrej Koscuisko.”

Now it began to be real, to Robert. He finally started to grasp the actual meaning of what the Tutor was saying to him. That they would offer him reprieve was not within the realm of even the wildest fantasy for a bond-involuntary with a Class Two violation. That they would reprieve him by the way, as a casual gesture designed to ingratiate them with their young torturer, made much more sense.

He remembered Koscuisko’s fingers in his shoulder, the officer’s cold amused tone of voice, commenting on the beating that he was administering. He couldn’t suppress a shudder.

“It might be quicker,” he whispered. “With the Tutor’s permission. To take it all at once, and die of it. Instead of . . . what?” The conflict of emotions warring in his mind unmanned him, leaving him vulnerable to nameless imagined horrors. “What is this Koscuisko, that he wants so much to see me bleed? Again?”

Talking to himself, he did not at first realize that the Tutor was answering his question.

“If he wanted merely to see you bleed, we’d have given you to him for your Class Two violation, and see what he would make of his Advanced Levels. No, I think he’s trading something he very much doesn’t want to do, simply in order to get you off the charge. But it doesn’t matter what either of us thinks.”

The Tutor signaled at the gate, continuing to talk with his back turned as he stepped out into the corridor.

“You’re to be assigned to him, as it happens. Permanently. Get used to the idea.”

Assigned?

To Koscuisko?

To be responsible for the life of the man who had shamed him, to die in defense of the man who had put him to torture?

“And he’s the one who wanted it that way.” The Tutor stood on the other side of the gate now, with his hands clasped behind his back and an odd look of amusement and self-satisfaction on his face. “So you’ll have plenty of time to decide how you feel. And twenty-six years is a long time, isn’t it, Rabin? But not so long as thirty.”

Then Chonis nodded — in the face of Robert’s speechless stare — and was gone from his line of sight.

Twenty-six years? Instead of thirty?

Then Megh would not need to suffer the extra term, after all. . .

For the freedom to ransom his sister he could do anything.

He could even submit to Koscuisko, and wait for the Day.

###

Near the second quarter of second-shift, Joslire woke to the sounds of Koscuisko starting to stir. Slipping out into the corridor, he ordered the officer’s meal — a little on the heavy side, Koscuisko hadn’t eaten for nearly five shifts now. Koscuisko was in the wet-shower when Joslire got back, leaning up against the back wall with the water full in his face — trying to clear his head? To wake up? Under other circumstances, Joslire might have grinned, Koscuisko was so obviously struggling with his sleep. But officers were not to be smiled at, no matter how indulgently, not even in the privacy of one’s own thoughts.

Joslire contented himself with setting up the meal tray instead.

Koscuisko took his time in the wet-shower. Joslire got the uniform of the day hung neatly on the rack in the inner room, without hurrying, and was just about to check the depth of steep in the rhyti brewer when the shower shut off. Koscuisko came out of the lavatory dripping and half-naked, toweling his hair; he was beginning to look a little less asleep, but only just, and Joslire stood to attention to greet him without any sort of trepidation about what sort of mood his Student might be in.

“The officer slept well?”

Which only made the shock, and his confusion, the more abrupt and disorienting. He hadn’t been expecting Koscuisko to do or say anything in particular, certainly nothing like this.

“I imagine. What time is it? Good morning, Joslire, would you be so good as to remove your clothing.”

It was a moment before Joslire quite understood what Koscuisko had said, the order coming directly on the heels of Koscuisko’s rather disconnected response. But Koscuisko was clearly waking even as he spoke, and by the time Joslire absorbed the fact that he’d been told to undress Koscuisko had already become a little impatient with the delay. “If you please, Joslire.”

In fact he sounded almost angry, angry at Joslire. Bowing quickly, Joslire moved his hand to the secures at his blouse’s collar almost before he’d well completed his salute. “The officer’s pardon is — ”