The Devil and Deep Space (37 page)

He had done it to protect his people, but he had been wrong to do that. He had no right to beat a prisoner to save a bond–involuntary a beating, he had no right to make such decisions, he had been wrong. And had killed Captain Lowden, not because he had been wrong — there was no help for what crimes he had done, they were done, he could not call them back — but in order to protect his Bonds from imposition.

All this time he had been guilty of so far greater a confusion of the mind. He had always known that Inquiry was evil, and that he was committing sin each time he implemented the Protocols. He had known that from the beginning. He had believed that he had no choice. Now he could see it. All of this time he had traded torture for his own security, his own pride, his own parochial and misguided set of values.

How could filial piety require that he sin? Why had he ever thought that his father and his mother would be more honored in a son who committed gross atrocity than in one who refused the obscene torture of sentient souls? In what way could his duty to the Holy Mother require that he mutilate the flesh and bone of souls that were of Her own creation?

There was the old theological question, of course, of whether hominids who were not Dolgorukij had souls. It didn’t matter. He knew well enough that souls who were not Dolgorukij suffered as horribly as Dolgorukij did when they were tortured. The Holy Mother Herself would cry out in anguish to witness such suffering; and if She did not, how could She be holy?

If he returned to the
Ragnarok
he could lose everything, and he had so recently been given everything: his parents’ forgiveness, if not their understanding; the chance to be truly married with Marana; and a beautiful and loving child who was his son. The power of the Koscuisko familial corporation. Freedom from Secured Medical’s horrible requirements, forever after. Everything.

He could not turn his back on his people. There was nothing that he owned or had enjoyed that was worth the lives of his Security: and it would only begin with the lives of his Security. He knew how Fleet inquiry was executed, after all. He better than most.

Lek Kerenko was a bond–involuntary. Lek had nothing that was his; even his body belonged to the Fleet, and the Fleet could do whatever it wanted with him, its absolute power moderated only by rational considerations of efficiency and replacement costs.

Lek had given him the only thing that Lek had left to call his own — his trust, and perhaps even a portion of affection. How could he reject so great a gift as everything from a man who had nothing for the sake of mere fields and houses, money, wealth, and the domestic comforts of a hearth to which he was still yet a stranger?

Brachi Stildyne had had nothing all his life. Stildyne had no cause to return anything to the world that had given him so little; and yet, Stildyne, who had grown up comfortless, uncomforted, tried to give comfort to a man from so different a background that he might as well have been an alien species.

Stildyne, to whom nobody had ever extended charitable kindness or sought to understand, had saved Andrej’s life and helped preserve his sanity by exercising charitable kindness, trying to understand, efforts all the more remarkable coming from a man who’d never had the luxury of caring for another soul in his life.

And when Stildyne had found someone to care for, how had Andrej honored that regard — except by declining to reject it outright? How great a sinner would he be if the best thanks he had for Stildyne’s strength over the years was to turn his back on his own crew and let them fall to torture, one by one?

The people here on Azanry were his by birth and blood and familial affection. But his people on the
Ragnarok
were his because they consented to enter into the relationship, and not with the son of the Koscuisko prince, not with their sibling or son or father, but with a mere man, and a more than ordinarily flawed one. He had to go back.

He’d live if he could but he’d die if he had to, and if he had to, he’d do it defending the people to whom he owed his life and his sanity. Andrej opened his eyes and started to sit up. It didn’t work.

Stildyne held him as he fell back the few fractions he’d been able to raise himself off the surface of the diagnostic bed, and Andrej’s body knew better than to try to argue with Stildyne. Someone adjusted the shades on the nearest light and raised the level of the bed; Andrej cleared his throat.

Stildyne was there with a flask of rhyti. The room came back into focus. Medical personnel, looking pale and very severe. Stildyne, more sensed than seen, at his side. Stoshik. Bench specialist Jils Ivers, and his father, leaning up against the wall with his arms folded and reminding Andrej suddenly and incongruously of the First Officer.

“Can Lek fly the thula?” Andrej asked, looking at Cousin Stanoczk. Cousin Stanoczk looked rather pale himself. Andrej wondered what Stanoczk might know about Noycannir’s scheme that he could not reveal; or could it be that the Malcontent had not anticipated her attempt? That would truly be unnerving.

“He will have to,” Stanoczk nodded, with grim amusement. “If you are to reach the
Ragnarok
at Taisheki Station.”

What?

Fleet Audit Appeals Authority was at Taisheki Station. Had ap Rhiannon been unable to defend herself against Pesadie on her own? Why else would the
Ragnarok
go to Taisheki, except to file an appeal? It was a worrying indication. The only people Fleet could lay a claim to this early, without evidence, were here; but Noycannir had produced false evidence. Had ap Rhiannon been forced to surrender collateral witnesses?

He needed to review the Record; he needed to know exactly what Noycannir had placed into evidence. And then he needed to know if she’d transmitted that so–called evidence anywhere, anywhere at all. He could review the Record once they were in transit.

“When do we leave?” Andrej asked, to find out what the parameters were. Cousin Stanoczk bowed.

“At his Excellency’s convenience entirely,” Stanoczk said. “But you have to take my navigator.” And why did Andrej think he knew exactly who that was? Later. Andrej nodded thanks and acceptance at once.

“Stildyne, I need to get dressed. Meet me at the thula as soon as you can. Specialist Ivers, would you care to accompany me?”

She was in an interesting position. It all came down to the documents, didn’t it? Ivers nodded, a gesture that was almost a bow. “Delighted, your Excellency.” With rank. So they understood each other. “I may never have a chance to travel on a thula again. They cost money, after all.”

A note of warning, there. The Bench had evidence in hand of how much money the Malcontent commanded. There would unquestionably be an inquiry, over the coming years, into how deeply the fingers of the Malcontent truly reached. That was the Malcontent’s lookout, though, and the Malcontent was more than adequately qualified to protect its interest. Andrej looked past Ivers for the medical people.

“Prognosis, Doctor. Status, please.” He himself was a surgeon, not a soft–tissue specialist, and his experience of traumatic wound management was almost completely limited to the care–giving side of the equation. The house physician stepped forward and bowed.

“Gross physical trauma to the upper right–hand portion of your chest, sir, the muscle beneath the front part of your shoulder. Some of the lymph is damaged, potentially some of the lung. It’s too early to tell. We got the flush–and–neutralize started in good time, but there is danger.”

Of course there was danger. Every muscle in his back and side and belly on the right side of his body hurt, and a good representative sample of the corresponding elements on the left were protesting in sympathy. There was a huge empty space in his body where the upper portion of his chest was supposed to be — local anesthesia, Andrej presumed — and his mind seemed to be floating at some few measures’ remove from his body in a comforting narcotic haze.

“Stabilize for transport, please, Doctor. I’ve got to get out of here. My duty absolutely requires that I return to my ship immediately.” He recognized the expression of condescending superiority on the doctor’s face; it was one of his own favorites.

“I’m sorry, sir, it’s out of the question. I cannot permit it. Your wound absolutely requires immobilization while the neutralysis completes, and a single wrong move could set muscle–regeneration back days. Weeks. No.”

As a matter of principle Andrej always unfailingly deferred to his general practitioners when he was the patient, whether or not he agreed with them. It was simply good protocol. Just as well that he was at Chelatring Side, and not on board of the
Ragnarok
, because he would never have dared pull rank on one of his subordinate physicians. So arrogant a misstep could undo years of careful building of relationships.

“I hear and comprehend, Doctor, but I insist. It is absolutely necessary that you stabilize for transport immediately. The alternative is not cancellation of transport but transport without stabilization, and we both know that to be a much more dangerous proposition. You are master in your own infirmary, Doctor, but I have a duty to the Bench which must override even your authority.”

He knew his argument was persuasive, as far as it went, and that it was unlikely to be acceptable. Andrej would have respected the house physician less if he didn’t object strenuously to any such suggestion. The doctor looked across the room to Andrej’s father, scowling.

“Your Excellency,” the doctor said. “This is an imprudent suggestion. I will not answer for the consequences. Your son faces serious and permanent injury, your Excellency, and possibly a fatal outcome. Relieve me of this requirement.”

Andrej’s father straightened up, crossing the room to come to Andrej’s side. “He is my son,” Andrej’s father agreed. “I know this man, in a manner of speaking. So I believe what he has said, that his duty requires that he travel. As dangerous as it may be for him to travel with such a wound, it will be much worse if you will not consent to do what can be done.”

The point exactly. Andrej could have smiled, but he had already annoyed the doctor, and who knew better than he that a physician was not to be challenged in his own infirmary?

“I therefore lay the blame on his head,” Andrej’s father said kindly, but implacably. The expression on the doctor’s face reflected his clear realization that he had no choice; he would have to comply. “You are to accept no portion of the blame, Doctor. It is my son’s decision. Stabilize for transport, if you please.”

It was an order even a physician had to obey. The doctor bowed. “Going for transport kit directly,” he said. “According to his Excellency’s good pleasure.”

He left the room. That left Ivers, Cousin Stanoczk, and Andrej’s father, if one disregarded the technicians for the moment.

“It is necessary?” his father asked. Andrej nodded.

“It is crucial.” That didn’t make it easier; just explained why it had to be done. “To save the lives of my Security, and possibly many more beside. I am I regret still your unfilial son. And will challenge the Bench if I must.”

It was a reference to the letter that his father had sent him after the trials at the Domitt Prison. His father did not rebuke him for the reproach, however; it was almost as good as an apology. “Come back soon, then, son Andrej,” his father said. “I want you home. And you have explaining to do to the Ichogatra.”

Yes. He did. And if his punishment for marrying Marana was to be the negotiation of reparations and new contracts in light of the prejudicial cancellation of the planned contract of marriage — he was still ahead of the game.

Andrej held out his left arm — with some difficulty, because his muscles ached. His son had embraced him. He could not embrace his father, not under these circumstances. But he could indicate his desire to. “I will come home when I can, sir,” he said. Promised. “Depend upon it.”

A long handclasp, a paternal kiss, and Andrej’s father turned around and went away. There was nothing more to say. Maybe his father couldn’t say anything more anyway.

He’d have to say good–bye to his mother, if he had time, but now there was only Stoshik to get through and he could leave. “Who is to beg forgiveness from Marana?” Andrej asked. “As I am taking Ferinc with me, Stoshik. Somebody must go and explain. This is the last thing anyone could have expected.”

Stoshik was very pale. “It shouldn’t have happened,” he said. “I blame myself. Derush, we are supposed to have better care for you than to allow you to be assaulted by madwomen. Specialist Ivers, what do you know of this?”

Stanoczk had to know that Ivers knew nothing. He was just playing the scenario out; Ivers was an envoy from Chilleau Judiciary, after all. Noycannir had belonged to Chilleau. It could be made to look ugly. The Combine would make Chilleau pay dearly for the potential of the appearance of a conspiracy to assassinate the son of the Koscuisko prince.

“I probably know even less than you do.” Ivers seemed to have no stomach for the play; or else her blunt frankness was her role. Perhaps that. “I will report to the First Secretary as soon as is prudently possible. But I feel completely confident in this much: Noycannir was on her own. Chilleau Judiciary has no hand in this.”

Maybe Chilleau Judiciary was going to have to leave the issue of the thula alone, after all. Andrej didn’t feel that he had much time; the drugs were fast overtaking his consciousness. “Stoshik, I’ll come back as soon as I can. If I can. Speak to Marana for me, I beg you. This is grotesque injustice to her. But I can see no option worth considering.”

“Taisheki space,” Stanoczk said, his reply indirect but obvious enough. “Ferinc will have the briefing. Good travel, Andrej, Bench specialist. We can speak again when you’ve come home, Derush.”

Stanoczk wouldn’t tell him anything about the Bench warrant, not in Ivers’s presence. Had he got everything? The doctor was back with a medical team, and they had brought a stasis–mover with them, an inclined sort of a mechanized bed — they meant him to be as thoroughly stabilized as possible.

How many days to Taisheki, even in a thula, and confined within a stasis–mover? Andrej closed his eyes wearily, overcome with dread at the prospect. Once he closed his eyes, they stayed closed. The drugs pulled him down into the darkness, and he was lost.