An Exchange of Hostages (31 page)

He was surfeited with the sweet taste of the mouths of women, drunk with the explorations of his fish, utterly exhausted in the best of ways.

When they were done with him, they settled him on the floor and went away, and he could only hope that they had had good reward for the trouble they had taken with him; because for himself, he was unstrung, undone, scarce capable of moving.

He lay on his back in the dim, hushing roar of the ventilators, without thinking, without worry, until Joslire came to help him into the sauna.

###

There were two basic approaches to the process of Inquiry and Confirmation, Tutor Chonis knew. One followed necessarily from the other: one either depersonalized the prisoner in order to successfully ignore the common bond of vulnerability to pain; or one personalized the contest, turning it into an individual issue in which one specific person or prisoner was talking back to one specific individual Inquisitor. In this way, since the Inquisitor could take the predictable curses of the prisoner as personally directed, the Inquisitor could proceed with a comforting feeling of righteous indignation at being personally attacked for doing what did — after all — have to be done. In this way, Inquiry and Confirmation caused much less personal conflict.

Tutor Chonis hadn’t yet decided which way Koscuisko would ultimately decide to go. In his practical exercises to date, Koscuisko had neither denied the validity of the prisoner’s pain — with St. Clare, for instance — or let himself get personally exercised over St. Clare’s insolence, no matter how intrigued he clearly was by the pain he inflicted. Perhaps the mocking humor Koscuisko displayed on the practice floor was Koscuisko’s own personal distancing mechanism. Time would tell.

Sixth Level of the Question, Inquiry and Confirmation. Tutor Chonis sat in his place to watch Koscuisko perform. His Student looked remarkably rested, all things considered; fresh and rather full of himself — as well he might be, after what had happened to him last night. Chonis knew very well why Curran had chosen the exercise area he had, and twilight drill at that. Curran was displaying an unusual degree of sensitivity on Koscuisko’s behalf, as witnessed by his care in ensuring that neither sound nor sight would uncover his Student’s nakedness.

Chonis wondered if he was going to have a problem with Curran.

“Step through.”

It had amused Chonis to select the bond-involuntaries who had functioned as prisoner-surrogates during Koscuisko’s first three Levels to form most of the team. Koscuisko stood with his back to the prisoner’s gate, drinking his rhyti; already wearing those gloves he’d picked up, Chonis noted. Koscuisko was staring at the various instruments on the table with his head cocked a little to one side, as if he were making up his mind about something.

Where to start. Which to choose. Whether he could make a break for the door, perhaps. Koscuisko continued to display profound ambivalence to the concept and practice of Inquiry which seemed only to have gotten worse once Koscuisko discovered that he liked it.

“I am Andrej Koscuisko, to whom you must answer by the Bench instruction. State your name, and the crime for which you have been arrested.”

Security had fallen back to the wall at Koscuisko’s gesture. The prisoner stood alone in the middle of the room, defiant and apprehensive — not as if it mattered whether the prisoner were frightened or not. The course of a Sixth Level was fairly unforgiving; and whether it would take longer or less time to execute the Protocols was entirely up to Koscuisko.

“Yes?”

There was an unmistakable note of demand, of threat, sharpening Koscuisko’s voice; and from Chonis’s vantage point he could see Koscuisko finally make his selection. The driver. A long, thin coiled whip, black and shiny with oil, with the snapper-end tied off into an innocuous-looking butterfly knot that could tear flesh clear through to the bone, if well handled. An interesting choice.

It took practice to handle the driver, and not do oneself an injury. Koscuisko had worked St. Clare with the handshake: less lethal a whip, less dangerous a weapon, less of a challenge.

The prisoner had still not answered, and Koscuisko seemed to grimace to himself. His voice was clear and neutral, though, showing no trace of the tension Tutor Chonis was certain that Koscuisko must be suffering.

“Gentlemen, be so good as to escort my client to the wall.” Handing the driver off to the Bigelblu — Cay Federsmengdhyu, if Tutor Chonis had all the syllables right in memory — Koscuisko picked up a loosely gathered bunch of restraints in its stead.

Oh, really?
Chonis thought, intrigued.
Trefold shackles?
This was interesting. A little unusual. Students were generally anxious to get right into the middle of the Protocols, get things over with. Koscuisko was making a slow start of it, but it didn’t seem to be discomfort or reluctance so much as deliberation on distinct and possibly unrelated subjects.

Trefold shackles were useful, but they were considered to fall into the category of mere restraint. Koscuisko surely knew that he was expected to use far sterner measures before his exercise could be considered to be complete. Koscuisko used the restraints to bind his prisoner — a thin Chigan of middling age, barefoot, skinny — in a kneeling position facing the wall, with the loop that passed around the Chigan’s throat caught tightly around ankle and wrist bonds to ensure that any deviation from correct posture would result in an unpleasantly cumulative constriction of the airway. Straightening up, now, with what might almost have been a steadying gesture of some sort on the prisoner’s shoulder, Koscuisko beckoned to the Bigelblu. Chonis began to have an idea of where Koscuisko was headed with this.

“You have been referred to me on Charges to be Confirmed at the Sixth Level of Inquiry. It is yours to decline to speak. I, on the other hand, am expected to convince you to do so. Gentlemen, I require instruction, can one of you assist me in this practice?”

He was such a polite little bastard; Chonis couldn’t help but smile at him. Polite, submissive, tamed — and obvious. Practicing for the discipline that he would be required to administer to St. Clare. The driver, when properly handled to avoid contact between the snapper-end and living flesh, was the fastest — most practical, even most conservative — way in which to administer two-and-twenty, three-and-thirty, four-and-forty of any of the whips from which Koscuisko would be required to chose. Had Koscuisko had words with Joslire Curran on the subject?

Chonis made a decision, keying his override. “Please stand by, the Inquiry. Assistance to be forthcoming.”

Actually it was probably Vanot who was the best for the instruction Koscuisko was requesting. He could have Vanot on site within a matter of moments. “Instruction to be provided at Student Koscuisko’s request. You may proceed with your Inquiry as you like.”

The fact that Koscuisko might already have met the formidable Vanot would surely not interfere with his training. For one thing, Koscuisko had discipline. And for another, Curran had seen to it that the lights had been so low, the hush-noise level so high, that Chonis had been unable to identify more than one of Koscuisko’s sparring partners from the night before.

Of course, he hadn’t needed to recognize more than the one of them.

If the Station Provost Marshall chose to engage Student Inquisitors for her recreation, it was certainly not Tutor Chonis’s place to question her about it.

###

Andrej wasn’t quite sure whether Tutor Chonis’s interruption was welcome, because it meant another few moments before he had to begin in earnest; or unwelcome, because it meant another few moments before he could begin — and he could not complete the exercise until he had begun it.

He took advantage of the temporary suspension of the exercise to recheck the trefold shackles, easing the ligature at the prisoner’s throat, loosening the cord that bound the man’s ankles together by as much slack as reasonably possible. He was going to practice how to use the driver; he needed a still target.

But he did not like to touch the man. The prisoner was thin and dirty and unprepossessing, and the Administration expected Andrej to do unspeakable things to that captive body. He had to separate himself from his sense of the fragility of bone and blood. If he could only manage to ignore that this Chigan felt and suffered, perhaps the thing would not come upon him again this time.

The sound of the entry-tone at secured access was a welcome distraction from his apprehensive brooding. Andrej straightened and stood away from the wall, eyeing the entrance expectantly. A Security expert sent by Tutor Chonis to provide instruction — they’d had some basic orientation, true, but it had been clear to Andrej from the moment he’d struck St. Clare the first time that there was considerably more to the successful exercise of a whip than seemed obvious.

The Security troop was Station Security, but seemed quite comfortable in theater for all that; perhaps she had been inured to her environment. “Pobbin Vanot reports at Tutor Chonis’s direction,” she announced to the world at large, standing in the middle of the theater. “Student Koscuisko desires coaching in the use of a . . . let me see . . . the driver, sir?”

Andrej frowned.

Wasn’t there something familiar about the woman?

Hadn’t he met her recently?

Of course not. That was absurd. How could he have met her, when the only contact with Station Security he’d had all Term had been that one unsanctioned formation in Infirmary?

And last night.

It was the voice of his fish in his mind, and Andrej blushed despite himself to hear it.

Of course.

He had met her last night, she was tall and dark and . . . it was better to concentrate on the problem at hand, no matter how quick his fish might be to jump to conclusions. Or jump to anything at all that reminded it of the ocean.

Andrej bowed formally to cover his confusion. “Even so, Miss Vanot. It would be a privilege to receive instruction.” It had been a privilege to have received instruction from the Security team of last night’s drill. Andrej put the thought away from him firmly. Fish had no sense of time or place or propriety. Fish thought only of oceans. “I have before the handshake exploited, but clumsily. This weapon seems to me much more intriguing.”

The Chigan was face to the wall, and the driver had a good length to it. Separation. Andrej had good hopes that he could keep himself separate from the beast in his belly, which hungered so for agony. If only he could hold himself apart.

“Very good, sir. If the officer will permit.” She took the driver from his outstretched hand and posted herself well back from the wall.
Interesting,
Andrej thought. She didn’t turn to the opposite wall from the prisoner but contented herself with standing well to one side. “The officer will please attend to these basic points. The recommended beginner’s stance is like so, to minimize the chances of catching the snapper at one’s own back if one should fail to pull the length clear. Please note the fundamental movement, a wide arc is recommended for appropriate clearance — ”

The snapper-end of the driver struck the wall of the theater with a report like that of an old-fashioned percussion-cap pistol, five spans to the right of the prisoner’s head.

The Chigan’s body jerked involuntarily in a spasm of startled fear. He lost his balance and fell to his side on the floor, struggling against the shackles that bound and choked him. For a moment Andrej dreaded a loss of balance on his own part; then he shut his ears to the sound of the Chigan’s choked cries, and gestured Security forward. “Set this one up again, gentlemen, if you please. And see that there is a good allowance for slack around the throat.” Fear could wear on a man. Perhaps it would help wear the Chigan down. He had to concentrate on learning how to manage the whip, and keep the beast at bay.

“Thank you, gentlemen, very good. Miss Vanot, if you would?” She’d moved almost too quickly, a graceful gesture swinging the long lash in a controlled arc against her target. She did it again, and the sound of the impact was like the sudden crack of a log on the fire or a flat rod striking a metal table, sharp and loud and angry. From where he stood, it almost seemed to Andrej that she had put a dimple in the wall. What would such a thing do against living flesh?

What would it not do?

The Chigan had held to his place this time, still and stiff and horribly tense where he knelt. For a moment Andrej had a thought about a blindfold. Would that not make the surprise the more unpleasant, the shock more sudden and dreadful?

He knew what was happening within him, and he could hardly bear it. But he would not let himself be beguiled by it. The Chigan was dead meat, and he had to perform a Sixth Level exercise.

He did not have to enjoy it.

“Let me try this.” Yes, that was right, he was not torturing a sentient being, he was only learning an odd and not very useful physical skill. He had to concentrate on that. He was learning how to practice with the driver.

He had read up on all the whips at his disposal, handshake and rake, lictor and driver, fanneram and peony; and the driver was the best one to use for discipline of the sort that the Fleet would require of him. He was decided on that. He had watched the tapes.

If he could learn to lay the lash out horizontally, and let the snapper crack in empty air, the whip would pull a narrow bloody line across a prisoner’s back. More of a scrape than an actual cut, the skin would be deeply abraded but not quite torn; and although it quite obviously hurt in many ways, it could be said to do less damage.

“From the right, Miss Vanot? Certainly I will remember to keep my elbow well in, yes. Let me see.”

The snapper-end of the driver hit the far wall with a dull thud, but at least he’d gotten it there. Andrej gathered the driver up into a loose coil on the floor by his foot and tried again. Straighten the lash. Swing it. A pathetic excuse for an impact, he had to try again. Better. Again. Better yet.

Again.

It was more work than he had imagined.

But after four or five more tries, he heard the same sound when the snapper-end hit the wall as a glass candle-dish made when it was allowed to burn too long, and cracked at the base of its own heat.