An Exchange of Hostages (25 page)

He hardly seemed to be working at all, it went so fast.

And when the laser fingers had traveled up the spine to nestle beneath the brain box at the base of the skull — the site of the most critical damage, where Noycannir had kicked her unconscious prisoner-surrogate in an apparent spasm of frustration — Koscuisko only slowed his pace a bit. The most delicate of all the surgical interventions, repair of critical connections at the cellular level, and Koscuisko only slowed down, as sure — as certain — as he’d been before, only more deliberate in respect to the more dangerous environment.

Then the surgical machine was moving away from the table, backing up against the wall. Chaymalt shot a startled glance at the chronometer on the wall — had it been that long? Already? She’d hardly been aware of the passage of time, Koscuisko’s absolute self-confidence had mesmerized her.

But it was done.

The scanner descended from the ceiling as the operating chair retreated, and tracked slowly up the torpid body on the table. Chaymalt coded the display abruptly, suddenly anxious that she know the criterms now, when she could just as well have waited for them. The scanner report began to scroll across the desk surface: residual bruises, torn muscle fiber, edema — but the neurological damage had been masked by surgical repair.

With the astonishing speed characteristic of successful microsurgery, the normal electrical activity of the nerves was already beginning to recover — for all the world as if the damaged tissue had not been functionally nerve-dead with shock and trauma three scant eights ago.

It was incredible.

Healing was neither instant or absolute, of course. All Koscuisko had really done had been to restore the system’s integrity in the places where it had been compromised by Noycannir’s assault. And he had done it with minimal surgical trauma, although the conventional standards recognized that the surgery could do as much damage as it undid, even in the most skilled of hands.

Ligrose Chaymalt knew as well as anyone how natural it was for newly graduated medical practitioners to overrate their own abilities, relative to more objective assessments.

This was the first time she could think of where the performance of a Student actually exceeded expectation.

Tracking complete, the scanner returned to its place in the ceiling, its statistical report processing into Standard language phrases as it did so. She could read the same information Koscuisko saw from within the operating chair: substantial restoration of neurological function. Baseline activity returning to normal, adjusting for effect of anesthesia. No significant operational trauma. Consciousness may safely be invoked within three days, physical therapy to be scheduled after completion of waking tests.

Prognosis excellent.

Her orderly was preparing the patient to return to the recovery room. Koscuisko had switched the surgical machine off; it unfolded from around him, the webbed restraints that had supported the weight of his body in suspension loosening gradually to ease his body to the floor. Chaymalt could not help staring at Koscuisko as the chair backed off and left him standing alone, the white of his under-blouse stark against the dark gray walls.

He looked completely centered in his life, a master of his craft, a surgeon of significant potential.

It was an obscene waste to abandon such skill to Inquisition.

###

Andrej stood alone in the operating theater fastening up his duty-blouse, drinking in the solitude, relishing the relative privacy of the now-empty surgery. Oh, there were monitors in place, he knew that — had this been an ordinary operating theater, there would necessarily have been monitors. It wasn’t that. From the time he’d arrived at Fleet Orientation Station Medical, he’d hardly been alone for a single moment; either because Joslire was in the next room or because he was in class. And he was alone now, alone to bask in the satisfaction of a surgical procedure well completed. Alone, to cradle the comfort of having helped to heal an injured man to himself, and to cherish the blessing in his heart.

He could not hold the pleasure long.

So sensitive had he become to the expectations and regulations that being alone began to worry him. Where was Joslire? Or where was Travis, for instance, in Joslire’s absence? What was going on out there, out in the working areas of the station, outside this sanctuary space?

He covered his face with his hands for a moment, then finger-combed his hair with a decisive gesture. Enough was enough. There would be sufficient with which to concern himself, he could be certain of that. It was time to return to the real world, harsh though it was. This surgery had been a brief respite of sorts, but there was still as much to be done, and as little to his liking, as there had been before.

Turning toward the sterile-lock door, Andrej saw Joslire Curran standing beyond the near-transparent membrane. At least it looked like Joslire to Andrej, and whomever it was bowed politely in salute, which rather strengthened the supposition.

Andrej went through.

“Well met, Mister Curran.” There was another Security post in the corridor, but she was nothing to do with Andrej, so he ignored her, beyond using a more formal address for Joslire in token of her presence. “Is it too early for third-meal?” Because he was hungry again. A little full of himself, just now perhaps, but surely he could be permitted a little egotistic self-congratulation under the circumstances?

Joslire looked as if he’d not been fed for a few days, though. Pale and drawn, with a glazed look in his eyes that seemed to speak to Andrej of a stunning shock of some sort. Oh, what now, what now?

What next?

But he knew better than to ask the question, at least in so many words.

“The officer’s third-meal shift is two hours old, the officer’s meal can be made available at any time. With respect, your Excellency . . . ”

That was odd. He wasn’t an Excellency outside of practical exercise theater, not yet, not to Fleet. Not to Joslire. “Yes?”

“Tutor Chonis has suggested that the officer may wish to provide an additional service in Infirmary, if the officer pleases. It was suggested that the officer might consent to take a moment, once the scheduled surgery was completed.”

Nor did Joslire use a direct form of address when he was paying attention to himself, no matter how many extra words there were to separate “your Excellency” from “if the officer pleases.” Surely he wasn’t still shaken by what had passed between them earlier?

“That which my Tutor has suggested, I must me receive as instruction.” It was actually a quote from Mergau Noycannir, not as if Joslire would know that. Andrej found Noycannir’s dialect rather engaging. It was her bullying, manipulative personality he found objectionable. “Let’s go, Mister Curran, lead on. Is this our guide?”

The Security post simply bowed, and took off, with Andrej and Joslire following up the rear. Through mazes of corridors and doors she led them, until Andrej felt a little dizzy. It wasn’t as if they needed to keep the location secret from him. He didn’t know where he was in the first place. How would he even know the difference, if they’d led him around the spiral steps for some obscure Security joke?

No matter.

Except that it kept him from his supper, and he wanted to go see Tutor Chonis, just to test once more whether there was to be any hope at all for his unfortunate prisoner-surrogate.

If they refused his offer, he would not be in honor bound to support the Controlled List, which was an abomination beneath the Canopy. He could hold himself stainless, in at least that one piece of his larger degradation; and it would be good to have some little thing in which he could comfort himself that he was not utterly disgraced. But if they refused his offer — an innocent man would suffer horribly, and probably die, and Andrej could not make himself believe that it was worth it that a man should die if only he could avoid the Controlled List.

Finally a long corridor with a clearly visible door at the far end — the way out. Oddly enough, the same Security team that he had had with him for that fateful exercise — two days ago? Just yesterday? — was waiting in the hallway as they came around the comer. Sorlie Curran and the rest, Andrej was sure of it. They were too busy saluting him to allow him any time to question them, however, because Sorlie Curran had apparently signaled at the door, and Joslire behind him was still moving at too brisk a pace for Andrej to feel confident of his ability to put a brake on the man’s momentum before he ran Andrej down.

All right.

Into the room, then.

A minor surgery facility, clearly enough, with a body on the levels and a technician standing by with a pharmacy unit while two orderlies worked at cleaning the wounds of a man who had been beaten. It all looked quite commonplace to Andrej. What was the point behind all this?

“Attention to the officer,” Sorlie Curran called sharply, from behind him. The two orderlies backed away from the levels quickly, almost as if they were timid about something. Andrej acknowledged their salutes quickly, waving them off.

He was beginning to have an idea.

“What is this man’s status? . . . Best close the door.” He advanced on the body that lay on the levels, unsure of how interested he really was in looking at the evidence. Swollen flesh and fiery inflammation two and three days old, bruises upon bruises, welts upon welts. A shoulder swollen and livid with insult, striped and bloodied with blows from a whip that had struck just exactly where it would hurt the most. An ugly beating all ‘round, and Andrej recognized his handiwork, although he shuddered to see it. They had brought him to St. Clare. Why?

One of the orderlies, turning the record-monitor at the head of the levels so that he could see the display more clearly, gestured nervously and saluted once again. What in the name of all Saints were they so jumpy about? The medical record was clear enough. But the status block had a continuation code; frowning, Andrej keyed the scroller to see what it was that was causing such consternation.

ROBERT ST. CLARE, the status block said. BOND-INVOLUNTARY, CURRENT OFFICER OF ASSIGNMENT STUDENT ANDREJ KOSCUISKO. LAST RECORDED ACTION, ADJUDICATION OF PUNISHMENT FOR A CLASS TWO VIOLATION, EVALUATION DUTY FOR CONTROLLED LIST SPEAK-SERUM. TO BE RETURNED TO DUTY STATUS AT ASSIGNED OFFICER’S DISCRETION TO STAND EVALUATION DUTY, OUTSTANDING CLASS ONE VIOLATION PENDING, TO BE STRICKEN FROM THE RECORD. BY THE BENCH INSTRUCTION.

St. Clare was his?

“Joslire, what does this mean?” he asked in a hushed whisper. “I cannot trust myself to understand.” Or to face the bargain he had made without cringing away from what he had sworn to do. What he would do.

“With respect. Sir.” Not that Joslire sounded much better, at the moment. “The Administrator has permitted St. Clare to test his Excellency’s . . . the officer’s new speak-serum, in lieu of other Class Two discipline. It is on Record.”

And there could be no hidden trick or reversal if it was on Record. They meant to have what he had offered them, and how could he grudge it when they had delivered St. Clare from the sin that Andrej had committed against him?

He was numb with the accumulated shocks his spirit had sustained over the past two days.

He could find it in him neither to rejoice nor weep.

He checked that the sterile field was up and active instead, and started to unfasten his duty-blouse once more. “Very well. Give me the medical report, I’ll want to check on this. You, there, technician, what are my clearances for practice?” As opposed to research. Obviously no decently run Infirmary would permit just anyone to gain access to proprietary stores, whether physician or no; and there was no particular reason for the Fleet to allow him to do so. Hadn’t there been a nasty comment of some sort in the administrative material about different levels of treatment support for bond-involuntary troops in need of medication?

Joslire took his blouse, and the technician blushed and bowed. “The officer is cleared to order at the officer’s discretion and best judgment. A credit ceiling of four hundred thousand, Standard, has been imposed to cover the cost of medication only. Doctor Chaymalt’s personal instruction.”

“I am deeply obliged to Doctor Chaymalt, and hope I will have the opportunity to tell her so. Joslire. Is there rhyti?” Supper would wait. Four hundred thousand, Standard, was it? The official replacement cost levied against a Fleet command whose loss of a bond-involuntary was judged to have resulted from criminal negligence. Even then it was the Command’s administrative budget, and not the Commander, who paid. But if Chaymalt was willing to recompense him in this manner for the surgery that he had performed under her authority, Andrej was more than willing to accept the grant as given, crude though it was.

He could hear the door open behind him; Joslire going for rhyti, he supposed. He hoped. The orderlies looked confused; he wanted them handy, he might be needing them later on. “Who is senior of the two of you? What are your orders?”

The shorter one was senior, a Binbin woman with her head half-shaved after the fashion of her kind. “With respect. We were tasked to provide primary support in the officer’s absence, and to assist the officer at his discretion. We’re at the officer’s disposal.”

And if he didn’t feel like troubling himself? There would be no secondary support. Or there would be treatment of the injuries, and it would stop well short of soothing for the pain. They would have been quite sure that he would do what was needful, though, having already paid such coin for the man. “Very good. Prepare me a double dose of hanerdoi, and I’ll want a good vasodilator as well. What have you got on hand for Nurail besides extract of sandspreader?”

The shoulder first, and hit it with a deep neural block straight off, so he wouldn’t have any problems if St. Clare began to wake up. Not that he expected that to happen any time soon, not with what the metabolic blood report had to tell him about protein starvation and too much jacherul for common sense and reason. They’d wanted St. Clare conscious to stand hi, hearing, well, that made a certain amount of sense.