An Exchange of Hostages (42 page)

The Tutor sounded a little wary, but not surprised. Maybe he should have expected Chonis to have guessed.

“There are only three years remaining in my Fleet deferment, Tutor Chonis. Student Koscuisko seems unusually promising an officer.”

As an Inquisitor as well, but that was only part of the point. It was difficult to find words that expressed how Joslire felt about seeing Koscuisko’s performance in theater. The better Koscuisko got at his torturer’s craft, the more difficult it got.

Chonis was not talking. Waiting for him to finish, maybe, letting him have all the time that he needed to get the whole issue out.

“In short, with the Tutor’s permission. Mean to ask Student Koscuisko to permit this troop to accompany him during his tour of duty.”

Chonis sighed, and stood up. “Now, Curran, let’s think about this for a moment. You paid in blood for your deferment, you earned it, no one can take it away from you. Three years is three years.”

And in all those years, the odds of turning up another officer like Koscuisko were not worth betting on. At least it hadn’t happened within the past five. “Even so, Tutor Chonis.” Other Students had been easier to see to. And other Students had almost invariably tested their newly granted authority against him. “Is there an impediment?”

If the Student for whom Joslire had performed as prisoner-surrogate was still on active status, Fleet would not release him from the Orientation Station. That was the real reason behind the grant of Fleet deferment. If the officer who had been Student Abermay encountered Joslire Curran as a bond-involuntary troop, not as a prisoner, it was just possible that Abermay would recognize him, and the secret would be out.

“Abermay is still on active status.” Bad news, then. But Chonis was still talking, and hadn’t said no, yet. If Chonis knew that right off, did it mean that Chonis had checked it out already? Was he really that obvious, even if only to the Tutor? “But he’s recently asked for reassignment to prison duty from the Lanes. Needs a break from the stress of the Sanfort campaigns.”

Joslire could certainly understand how that could be, although prison duty wasn’t generally taken for recreation. Abermay was obviously desperate to get away. And if Abermay was on prison duty, he was not on Line anywhere in the Lanes; Joslire could safely be released to Koscuisko. “Then the officer can be approached, with the Tutor’s permission.”

Chonis nodded, his reluctance evident. “The Administrator will send you to
Scylla
if Koscuisko’s willing to take you, Curran. I’m afraid you could have a problem with that part of it, though.”

True. He wasn’t confident at all that Koscuisko would agree, or that Koscuisko even cared one way or the other. The change in status involved a significant degree of risk, and Koscuisko might object to that; but he’d answer to Koscuisko when the time came. Right now all he had needed was the Tutor’s unwilling assurance that the Administration would release him to Koscuisko, if Koscuisko was willing to accept his Bond.

“Heard and understood, Tutor Chonis. Thank you, sir.”

There wasn’t anything more to be discussed.

Chonis sat back down and pulled the sound levels up again; Joslire held his place, silent and steady, turning the problem over in his mind. He didn’t have to ask. He could decide to let Koscuisko go alone. With only untried Security for company? He wasn’t committed, not yet, not absolutely, though he had given his knives over. He wouldn’t be committed absolutely until he asked Koscuisko; and he wasn’t quite sure when that was going to happen. Only that it had to happen soon, because Koscuisko would be going within days.

In the exercise theater things had quieted down to a soft and understandably self-pitying whimper on the prisoner’s part. Koscuisko held the upper part of the prisoner’s mutilated body in his arms, stroking the raw weals and the new burns with tender care; completely absorbed in listening to his prisoner’s pain by the look of him. But what was Koscuisko saying?

“Come now, my dear. You can’t sell weaponry of that sort without munitions to go along. Answer me truly, what kind of a fool would think such a thing?”

Chonis raised the levels up another few eighths. The end of the third day, on an unsupported Ninth Level, no wake-keepers, no drugs — and Koscuisko could still carry on it conversation.

“N-no. Y’rex’lency. It’s true.”

“Then you do have a source for munitions. You’ve been protecting someone, haven’t you?”

“No, don’t ask.” Slurred and indistinct as the prisoner’s voice was, Joslire could still make out his words. He’d listened to too much of this. He’d gotten good at making out the words.

“You’ve been protecting someone, I say.” Koscuisko’s caress grew more cruel, touching on more grievous hurts. “Tell me.”

“I won’t — ”

Koscuisko set the firepoint against the prisoner’s chest, pressing it to the livid wounds the whip had made.

“Tell me.”

“I can’t — ”

Koscuisko worked the firepoint delicately, and Joslire could almost feel the agony all over again. The Student Interrogator, and his prisoner-surrogate exercise. But Student Abermay hadn’t had a fraction of Koscuisko’s instinct, of Koscuisko’s art.

“Please don’t ask me that. Don’t ask me. I can’t tell you. I can’t.”

Koscuisko worked bruise and burn between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand.

“Oh, but I am certain that you can.”

There were no words for several long moments. Koscuisko took his pleasure with his prisoner, and Joslire — watching him — could understand if the Tutor were confused about why he would want to go. Tutor Chonis hadn’t challenged him on it, though. That had been a mark of respect on Tutor Chonis’s part, which Joslire appreciated deeply.

“Please. Please don’t ask. They don’t know. I lied to them, don’t ask.”

This was as close to absolute surrender as Joslire had ever seen. There was no indication from the prisoner that he would not answer whatever question it might beguile Koscuisko to raise; only an honest, final plea that Koscuisko would graciously refrain from asking.

Koscuisko declined to refrain from asking.

“Then surely they are in jeopardy, if you lied to them. They will appeal to the local Judiciary for their funds, and be prosecuted for making a fraudulent claim. Tell me who the people are, and the Bench will satisfy itself as to their innocence.”

“Torture them until they say what’s wanted — what you mean . . . ”

Joslire couldn’t see what Koscuisko did, but the strained, anguished rail in the prisoner’s throat was clear enough. Too clear. “Well, then, they’re for it one way or the other, aren’t they? And it will go easier with them if you have already confessed to the deception. Tell me.”

Whatever it was that Koscuisko was doing, it was finally too much for his prisoner.

“Stop. Stop. Please stop. Please. I’ll tell — I’ll tell you, tell His Ex’lency, stop — ”

Koscuisko passed the firepoint to Cay and took the prisoner’s head between his hands with his thumbs at the base of his prisoner’s skull, rolling his fingers until he found the place he wanted. “There. Better, yes? Now talk to me.”

No drugs, and still Koscuisko could shut a portion of the pain away with pressure upon nerves. Koscuisko was a sorcerer: Joslire had known that from the moment Administrator Clellelan had declared the Record closed on St. Clare’s punishment. The prisoner’s voice was stronger now, but his dead hopelessness was all the more difficult to ignore, that way.

“Yes, Y’rex’lency. I get munitions; four, there are four manufacturies, all small. None local. One in the Gystor prefecture, a collective, Irmol city, Irmanol commune. One in Silam, owned by a family, Fourrail.”

Koscuisko made an adjustment in his grip at the prisoner’s neck; and the man continued, swallowing hard between his phrases. “One near Baram, in a place called Hafel, owned by a woman named Magestir Kees. And one at Getta, in Nannan — ”

Silence, as if it had become too difficult for the prisoner to speak. Koscuisko waited for a moment, but took the question up again, relentless.

“There are many manufacturies in Getta. Probably several in Nannan. Which did you have in mind? Specifically?”

Koscuisko had loosened his grip from its warding place, and the prisoner turned his head restlessly, as if seeking the comfort of that touch — the relief of pain that it seemed to have provided.

“No, surely there will be enough, how can I give them over . . . to the torture . . . no one should have to suffer, as I have — ”

“Come, now, they will.” Oddly enough — in Joslire’s understanding, at least — Koscuisko had settled his hands back in their place, blocking the rise of pain messages to the brain. Maybe Koscuisko wanted to be sure that the man was listening to him, and had the strength to understand. “You’ve told me Getta, in Nannan, you must tell me more. Or they will all suffer, every manufactury in Nannan, you know that it is true.”

“It’s monstrous, there are six or eight in Nannan, no — not even Jurisdiction butchery — ”

“I have not lied to you, not in all of this time. Is it not so?”

Something was driving Koscuisko forward now, something quite different from his lust for torture or the twisted pleasure that he too clearly took from pain and used to further his Inquiry. Koscuisko sounded focused, keenly aware, no longer distracted either by the sounds of his client’s torment or the prisoner’s submission to his hand.

“Excellency, please, just one of four, just one.”

“It will be six or eight instead of one unless you say the word. You have given the evidence, and the Bench will be satisfied.”

“The Bench can rot and burn for all I care — ”

“Only one of six or eight is even involved, but you have condemned them all, unless you tell me which one. You must tell me which one. We do not have much more time.”

“And once I’m dead I can’t be made to tell, so that’s just fine.”

“Tell me which one,” Koscuisko said. And Joslire believed Koscuisko’s desperate determination; believed that he understood Koscuisko’s change of mood. Koscuisko was telling the absolute truth. Now that the Record showed that a manufactury in Nannan was supplying munitions for the illegal sale of weaponry to Free Government terrorists, the Bench would not be satisfied until every facility in Nannan with capacity for such production had been intensively audited. And that meant Inquiry, which of course assumed Confirmation, which would almost inevitably require Execution.

“No, no, I’ll not . . . I’ll not — ”

“Which one,” Koscuisko said. “Or they are all for it.”

Taking his hands away, he let the prisoner’s head drop back to rest against the tabletop, deprived of even the small protection Koscuisko had been providing against the pain. Joslire was surprised that Koscuisko risked so much, so late. Certainly it seemed the most that Koscuisko dared, if he wished to get the word he wanted before the prisoner died and condemned who knew how many honest souls by his stubborn silence. “Which one?”

“My. Mother’s people. Excellency. Damn you.”

It was enough.

Koscuisko did not need to know what “my mother’s people” meant exactly. The local Judiciary would be responsible for that. But it was enough to isolate one manufactury from any other. Koscuisko would know that much.

“It is well done of you,” Koscuisko said. “For every soul the Bench will make to suffer, you have saved as many as you could. And for this may all Saints remit your punishment. Tutor Chonis?”

Joslire was humbled, in his heart. He had not believed that Koscuisko would have mastery this time. He should have understood that Koscuisko would have mastery in all things, he told himself. Because it was the temper of Koscuisko’s will.

Chonis leaned forward, keyed his communication channel. “As you like, Student Koscuisko,” Chonis said.

Koscuisko set his hands at the back of the prisoner’s neck again, and the body’s tension seemed to ebb away. Then there was a crack as of a sodden stick underfoot in heavy leaf-fall, clearly audible over the sound channel; and the prisoner’s head fell to one side in Koscuisko’s grasp, fell to one side at the wrong angle. Dead. Koscuisko had taken the man’s resistance and his secrets. But then Koscuisko had taken the man’s pain, and finally his life.

“You’d best go and collect your Student,” Chonis said, switching the monitor off. “Keep me informed about your status. Any changes. And be certain that we’d hate to lose you, Curran, even to Student Koscuisko. All right?”

Joslire bowed in respectful silence and left the room.

Koscuisko would want a shower, a lefrol, wodac, maybe even his third meal.

And he had to study how he was going to ask.

###

Andrej was too tired to think. It had gone on for so long. He had indulged himself so shamelessly. He went back to his quarters with Joslire and stood naked in the shower with his face between his hands until the stream startled him by cycling off of its own accord. Had he been standing there that long? Giving the control an impatient, unbelieving push, he set the stream for as hot as he could bear it, hoping to lose some of his tension in the waste-stream.

It didn’t work.

Drying himself in a desultory fashion, he left his wet hair only half-combed and went out again into the main room. There was his supper; there was his wodac; there was Joslire, with his face professionally empty of expression and his uniform as perfect as it ever was. Andrej sat down at the study-set heavily, suppressing an irrational and uncharitable urge to scuff Joslire’s boots. There was no sense in being offended at Joslire simply because Joslire was safely collected within himself while Andrej felt frayed at every seam of his being.

There was no sense in grieving for his innocence.

It had been bad enough when he had lost a patient for the first time — an infectious disease case, referred too late for certain intervention. He’d tried the recommended course, and he’d got permission to try an additional intervention; but when neither had stemmed the course of the disease, he had been forced by the absolute logic of Mayon’s medical creed to transfer all of his energy to supportive care to ease the dying. He had hated it, hated to give up, hated to be beaten even by one of the most virulent of plagues under Jurisdiction. And he could not argue about it. He was expected to concentrate on his patient, and ignore the outraged protests of his ego. He had to bend his neck and submit himself to the service of mortality, and ensure that the passage he so fiercely wished to bar would be accomplished smoothly, with as little fear or pain as possible.