An Exchange of Hostages (40 page)

He dared not feel any gratitude toward her, in case it was some kind of an obscure joke on her part. He dared not stop to think until the word was given, and the exercise complete.

“Forty-three.”

One last time with the snapper, and it lit at Robert’s shoulder and took an ugly bite above the other bleeding wounds on Robert’s back. Too high, too high, he was not doing well, it would hurt too much — Robert would hurt, and any such hurt could only be too much —

“Four-and-forty. Student Koscuisko, you may stand away, if you wish.”

Oh, it was over, it was finished. It was done. Andrej put the back of his hand up to his face with the driver still clutched firmly in his desperate grip, and tried to clear his eyes of salt and sweat. Someone made as if to take the driver from him; he thought he recognized Joslire’s familiar warmth, and tried to loose his cramped fist to drop the damned thing, without success.

“Here, wipe your face,” the Provost Marshall said, holding out a white-square in front of him. “Next time you’ll want a towel close at hand. Anyone would think you had been crying.”

Andrej reached out stupidly for the white-square, and ‘the driver dropped to the floor as he opened his hand to grasp the linen cloth. Would they think that? What difference did it make what anyone thought? Now that he could see, he realized that Tutor Chonis and the Administrator had gone to see St. Clare where he hung chained against the wall. They seemed to be examining Andrej’s handiwork, as if there was some further test to be made of him and St. Clare alike, even beyond the punishment that St. Clare had endured. Andrej pulled off his gloves and wiped his face a second time. He could not afford to fail to pay attention — not even though it ate at him to see St. Clare still prisoned on the wall. And he had set St. Clare to hang from the hook in chains during the Fourth Level, and he had thoroughly enjoyed tormenting him then. Why was this different?

Administrator Clellelan had turned from the wall, coming toward Andrej where he stood with Marshall Journis. What was he going to do with her white-square? Andrej wondered, in a sudden panic. She certainly wasn’t going to want it back, not soiled as it was. He stood to polite attention and made his best salute, staggering only slightly as he straightened up.

“An . . . impressive . . . demonstration, as I’m sure we all agree.” He couldn’t tell from the Administrator’s tone whether that was supposed to be a good thing or a bad one. He could only stand and wait, mute and desperate, for Chonis to give the word.

“Emphatically. An apt pupil, your Koscuisko,” the Provost Marshall replied. “It was his speak-serum we were evaluating the other day, wasn’t it?”

How could they stand and speak so casually with each other while a man was bound in agony behind their backs? Why wouldn’t they just go away, and let him call for medical support?

“His speak-serum, his troop,” Chonis answered for the Administrator, and Chonis’s voice was affectionate and indulgent at once. Andrej blushed, but he wasn’t certain why. “I take it that we can call the matter closed, with the Administrator’s approval. As long as the Provost Marshall is satisfied.”

She nodded. “Well and truly. And I’d go ahead and call a medical team, if it was me. Your troop stood up to that like an honest man. He’s earned a few days’ rest.”

Yes, call a medical team, they had to call a medical team. He had used Robert as brutally as he had just so that they would permit medical support. Nobody had asked him. He could say nothing.

“Very well,” the Administrator said. “We’ll leave you to finish up here, Student Koscuisko. Now if you’ll excuse me, Tutor Chonis, there’s other business that requires my attention. Well done, all around.”

Andrej kept his position as the Administrator left, the Provost following after. He still had her white-square — he’d think about it later. Tucking the crumpled cloth into his over-

blouse placket, he waited as best he could for word from Tutor Chonis.

“Andrej, that was beautiful.” What? The punishment? Or his pathetic attempts to minimize it? “Marshall Journis has cleared you to call for medical support, I think she was impressed. Take a day to recover, and I’ll see you after mid-shift tomorrow.”

A day for him to recover, surely. Surely the Tutor did not expect St. Clare to return to duty so soon as that. Marshall Journis had said “a few days.” He’d heard her. “But . . . with respect, Tutor Chonis . . . ”

The Tutor had turned to go out, and looked a little startled at Andrej’s attempt to speak. Good little Students spoke only when spoken to . . . but there was no help for it. Andrej could not afford to let mere protocol stand in the way of painease for St. Clare’s suffering.

“Yes, Andrej? There is something?”

“The medical team, please, Tutor Chonis. I do not know if I have the authority.”

Understanding met with confusion in the Tutor’s face. If Andrej had been any less anxious — he realized — it might have looked funny. “Ah. Well said, I’m not sure, either. Very well.” The medical call was there, beside the door. Andrej knew where it was, just not whether they would listen to a Student. “Infirmary, this is Tutor Chonis, I want a medical team with a litter to Exercise Theater Second-down-five-over. And a bed for . . . ”

Chonis raised his eyebrows at Andrej, and Andrej held up his fingers, not hoping that the Tutor would grant him all that he wished but unwilling to ask for less than he would want. The Tutor frowned, and went back to his communication.

“A bed for four days. The Provost Marshall has authorized full supportive medication at Student Koscuisko’s discretion. Chonis, away.”

It had been five days before St. Clare had been ready for therapy after the prisoner-surrogate exercise, and he had been more badly hurt, as well as worse injured. It had been fond of him to hope for so much as five days now. Four days was something to be grateful for; and Andrej bowed to his Tutor, wanting him to leave — so that he could go to St. Clare.

“Good night, Andrej.”

And Chonis knew it, too, to listen to him. The door slid shut behind the Tutor’s back. Andrej shook himself out of his tense formality, hurrying to the wall.

“Haspir, name of the Mother, unfasten these. Lora, Vely, help him down away from there, try not to hurt him, if you can help it.”

He shouldn’t be making such demands of these Security. Surely it went without saying that they didn’t want to hurt St. Clare any more than he wanted St. Clare to be hurt, and it was very good of them not to show any sign of resenting his stupidity in saying such ridiculous things. They knew what they were doing far better than he could hope to. Each with one of Robert’s arms around their shoulders, they backed St. Clare carefully away from the wall, and Andrej was horrified to see from the stumbling of St. Clare’s feet that he was still conscious. This was terrible. He should not be awake to be suffering this pain . . .

Here was the litter at the door, and Joslire let it through to the middle of the room so that the Security could maneuver St. Clare into position to lie down on his back in the stasis field. There seemed to be good deal of blood, and white torn flesh; and blood on St. Clare’s mouth as well where he had bitten into his lip. The medical team with the litter performed emergency stabilize, charging the support fields, starting a patch for fluid replacement and for pain reduction. Andrej leaned over the head of the litter, blotting the sweat of pain from St. Clare’s face with the white-square; and St. Clare opened his eyes.

“Is’t done, is it?”

His gaze was frank and fearless, even past his pain, without a trace of hatred or resentment. What pain and apprehension Andrej could see there did not seem to be directed at him personally.

“Yes, Robert, it’s done, it’s all over. We’ll go to Infirmary, now.”

His eyes were closing again, under the influence — Andrej guessed — of whatever painkillers the medical team had chosen to patch through. Robert blinked them open with a frown of concentration. “Again? Boring. Bad habit to get into. Really finished?”

There was a sudden note of anxiety in St. Clare’s voice that filled Andrej with great trouble of spirit. “Yes, I promise you.”

“Gi’s kiss, then.”

What?

“I’m sorry, Robert, I didn’t quite catch that. What did you say?”

The medical team had finished their preparations and were standing away from the litter. Waiting for him, obviously.

St. Clare explained himself patiently, and there was a subtle undertone of pleading there as well, now. “When’s over Uncle gi’s tha’a kiss. Gi’s kiss, Uncle, if’s over.”

Andrej could not bear that St. Clare should plead with him. He stooped to kiss St. Clare’s bitten mouth, hastily, eager to provide what measure of psychological comfort he could.

St. Clare sighed, turning his head away with now-closed eyes, and fell silent. Surrendering his consciousness at last, Andrej supposed.

“Let’s go.”

The orderlies would drive the litter, and he didn’t mind following since he didn’t know the way. He’d see to St. Clare’s new wounds and check the pain medication levels, and then he and Joslire could both go to bed — since Joslire wouldn’t go to bed before him.

Was he too tired to beware of his dreams?

What did he care?

Robert’s ordeal was over. Robert was safe.

That was all that was important to Andrej.

###

Andrej knew the spicy scent of the wood in the dark, hot room in his dream, knew the feel of the slatted bench beneath him, worn soft and smooth by the bare buttocks of generations of his family before him. He was at home, in the sauna at the hunting lodge that belonged to his Matredonat estate; so it was probably late winter, when they still set a watch to guard the early young from the wolves that came down from the mountains. If it was late winter, they’d be getting at the last of the apples — he liked them better, even winter-old, than the fresh fruit that hospitality demanded the kitchen set to table at Rogubarachno. The last of the apples, the first bitter greens, and the milk just starting to fatten with the year . . .

He stretched himself in the heat, the room so dim that he could only just discern the motto carved on the facing wall above the firebox.
Blessed St. Andrej, intercede for us, who have offended . . .
The familiar phrase irritated him. Patron saint of filial piety. But Andrej had offended, and the saint would not intercede for a man who would not repent. What difference did it make? It was only a carving on the wall. It could have nothing to do with him. The Matredonat was his own property. His father would not come here without an invitation, nor his Uncle Radu either.

Andrej heard Joslire at the door and surrendered to the distraction gladly. Joslire’s five-knives . . . He beckoned to Joslire to come closer so that he could look at the five-knives. He hadn’t taken adequate advantage of the opportunity he’d had earlier, as he remembered. Joslire bowed grave and submissive before him, and Andrej could not see his face; but it was the knives that beguiled him — the knives, and their sheathing. It looked so random and unbalanced to him. There didn’t seem to be a single line connecting any of the straps that he could see crisscrossing his Emandisan’s bare chest.

Frowning, Andrej rose to his feet to be able to look more closely. Joslire did not stand still, though, not even when Andrej put his hand out to stay him. Joslire knelt down on the slatted bench and bent his neck, his face turned to the floor. Very peculiar. Andrej reached out to touch one of the straps to try to follow how the harness worked, but met no strap at all — only warm flesh. Bruised flesh, hot with insult and with inflammation, swollen and bloody — not straps at all, not harness. The whiplash witness, the weals and welts of a stern beating. Who had done this thing to Joslire? And yet his hand did not recoil in horror. He pressed his fingers hard against the swollen stripe instead, and when Joslire swallowed back a reluctant cry of pain he only pressed again, at the same spot, and harder.

He was the one who had done this shameful thing. He had tormented this defenseless man, and enjoyed it. He was enjoying it now. Perhaps it wasn’t Joslire, now that he thought about it. Perhaps it was another, and if it was — if it was another, he had more than simply beaten him, he had more than just enjoyed it . . .

The horror came upon him from behind, catching him unawares and unprepared. No, not Joslire at all, another man. Another man, with wounded hands as shapeless and pulpy as overripe fruit shining white and red even in the dim light of the sauna. An animated corpse, too animated, its spirit crying out to be relieved of torment, trapped within a mutilated frame.

He had to kill it so that it could rest. There was nothing else he could do for the grotesque thing. He had to take it by the throat and strangle it since he had no other means to set it free; but he couldn’t bear to touch it. He retreated from the horror instead, unable to stand his ground. It came after him, it followed him, begging him with its terrible hands to kill it as he had done before. There was nowhere for him to go. It was a small room, and the mangled corpse of the murdered drug dealer crawled up to him with garbled incoherent pleas and touched him with its hands —

The light went on in the outer room, and Andrej was awake at once. It was hot because he had been drinking wodac, and wodac heated the blood. He could not move because he had tangled himself too thoroughly in the rack-wrap that served under Jurisdiction for bedclothes. And it hadn’t been the restless corpse of a murdered man whose unformed and insane sounds had so horrified him, it’d been his own noise, his own cries that had awakened him. Or at least awakened Joslire, and Joslire had awakened him — on purpose, no doubt, since Joslire was quiet and stealthy enough on other occasions.

Andrej sat up, pushing the rack-wrap away from him. He needed something to drink, he was thirsty. But he was afraid to go out into the next room for fear he would discover that he’d beaten Joslire after all, as he had whipped his poor Robert St. Clare. True, there was no reason he could think of for having beaten Joslire, but there hadn’t really been any reason to beat St. Clare, had there been? Except — of course — that it had been required of him.