Prisoner of Conscience (24 page)

“Not sure. Heard. Assault on family. Bench in Pyana pockets.”

The prisoner’s face was dirty, under the bright lights; dirty, and pale. Bruised, and altogether disreputable to look at. Why would anyone think twice about spurning a piece of such human trash under his foot, and taking what pleasure there was to be had in the death-throes of human vermin?

Why should he torture himself, day in, day out, precise to Protocol and strictly to the Judicial standard, when any of these prisoners confessed could be lawfully tortured until they died for crimes against the Judicial order?

“What came of it?” The defection of Haren Morguiss had been a matter of much debate in recent months, debate about whether Nurail were inherently treacherous because of their savage animal nature or were simply incapable of understanding more complex concepts of loyalty and fidelity. Andrej knew better than to imagine that Nurail were incapable of loyalty. He had firsthand experience: much of it here.

“Family was compromised, children sold. Disrespect of Bench. Pyana treachery.”

The Domitt Prison had been built by Pyana with imprisoned Nurail slave labor, was staffed almost exclusively by Pyana as far as Andrej had seen —

“It’s illegal to sell children under Jurisdiction, Tarcey. Watch what you say,”
Andrej warned. But not because he meant it. He wanted more information; and also Tarcey was fearfully sensitive, by now, to any criticism from his torturer.

“No disrespect – sir – please — no disrespect — ”

So sensitive that his fear of punishment was almost as strict and terrible to him as the punishment itself. Almost. Andrej knew that he should reassure Tarcey, and pose the question in a form that Tarcey could understand; and yet why should he?

Why shouldn’t he take one, just one, of all these souls, and instead of keeping constant guard over himself to prevent the commission of some cruelty in excess of the gross cruelties that the Bench required of him, put his conscience aside, misgivings away, shut up the voice of decency and pity, and revel in the rich wide field of horror that the Bench had granted him?

So many souls in torment, why should he not take one, just one, and see if he could satisfy his lust once and for all by indulging it to its fullest extent?

“Sent to prison for civil offenses by Pyana torturers, one of the daughters indentured — I — I think, oh, please. Your Excellency. No disrespect.”

“It’s all right.” His voice was soothing and reassuring. The prisoner lapsed into silence with his eyes shut tight against the bright lights and remembered horrors, weeping. Andrej rose unsteadily to his feet, half-sick with conflict, desire, and self-loathing; and went to put the extra doses Kaydence had brought away in the shelf-rack.

Wake-keepers.

Pain-maintenance drugs.

Put them together and a man went to Hell, and lived there, abiding in ferocious torment for eternities before the body finally failed or the dose wore off. Or the torturer took pity. Whichever came first.

And Tarcey was so frightened, of the mask.

Just next to the dose-rack, cleaned and returned to storage. Waiting. Promising.

Andrej slipped the catch, and opened the equipment rack, reaching out a waiting hand to touch the cold heavy surface of the thing.

It had worked for him in Tarcey’s case, right enough; but Tarcey had confessed, and had no more to say that Andrej was interested in hearing. And would be put to death. Lethal injection.

What if . . .

He was the rule of Law at the Domitt Prison. He could do anything he liked.

Staring at the equipment rack, one hand to the cheek-piece of the mask, Andrej stared at the wall unseeing for long moments. Struggling.

Realizing only gradually that someone was speaking to him.

“ . . . for third-meal.”

What?

“If you would care to take it in your office, sir. Or perhaps go up to quarters now?”

Kaydence. That was right. He’d had Kaydence run an errand for him. He’d forgotten to send him away.

What had gotten into Kaydence, though? Bond-involuntaries were not to speak unless they had been spoken to first. Andrej didn’t want third-meal. He wanted to take the mask to show Tarcey, just to show him. Tarcey was so afraid of the mask. Andrej wanted to enjoy that helpless terror.

“Oh, go away, Kaydence.” Kaydence wasn’t being insubordinate, not really. Kaydence was trying to help out. It was so hard to close an equipment rack up and walk away, sometimes. It got harder and harder as he went along. “I don’t want my supper. Go and wait outside. I will come when I am ready.”

Kaydence’s intervention was grounded in genuine care and enabled by trust; was it best in the long run — Andrej asked himself — to have given his people the idea that they could trust any officer?

Because Kaydence was not doing as he was told.

“Yes, sir. Going immediately, sir, except that the officer should come away as well. If the officer please.”

Or, in plain language,
you are not in command of yourself and should be removed from this environment before you do something you’ll regret later
. Andrej wondered at Kaydence finding the nerve to speak to him like that, issues of trust aside. This was far from the strict standard of careful respect and formality that bond-involuntaries were expected to exemplify — for their own protection.

He stroked the mask, distracted, his fingers feeling their way from the cheek-piece to the eyepiece almost without conscious volition. The eyepiece. The earpiece. The —

Kaydence was nearer to Andrej, now, standing very close behind him. Moving slowly, moving deliberately, Kaydence reached around from behind Andrej to take his hand at the wrist, plucking it away from the seductive surface of the mask with careful but unapologetic firmness.

“There’s a nice bit of savory for the officer’s third-meal,”
Kaydence said. Coming around from behind Andrej now to close up the equipment rack and lock it into place, putting his back to it, placing himself between Andrej and the temptation that tormented him. “Baked apple for after-sweet. The officer will wish to wash. Please. Sir. Come away from here.”

Kaydence’s voice had begun to tremble, just a bit. As though he were beginning to realize how flagrantly he was violating all that he’d been taught. Backing up toward his chair, staring in astonishment, Andrej sat down, trying to understand how he felt about this.

Insubordination.

Clear and repeated failure to comply with lawful and received instruction, utterly contrary to conditioning.

His Security had learned to take liberties, over the years. As long as Andrej himself was careful to take no notice, Security weren’t forced to evaluate their actions against their codes of conduct. Without the internal stress state resulting from having done something one knew one should not have done — or having not done something that one should have — the governor did not engage.

The governor.

Hardwired into pain centers in the brain, and calibrated to respond to specific internal stress states by providing a corrective noxious stimulus direct —

Like the most merciless torturer imaginable, literal-minded and absolute, and one that was immune to appeals to conscience or affection, one that Kaydence himself had invoked and surrendered to . . . one that would continue to execute a fearful penalty, defined on a predetermined scale and measured against the extremity of Kaydence’s distress, for as long as Kaydence believed that he had earned punishment —

Oh.

It was an astonishing idea.

And Kaydence knew that he had been insubordinate. No, worse than insubordinate, he had actively interfered, Kaydence had committed an intervention. Bond-involuntaries were never to handle instruments of torture without explicit instructions, though of course they were expected to tidy up from time to time in due course. Still less were they to use coercive force against their officers, preventing or compelling in any way —

Kaydence knew, because Kaydence was white in the face and breathing a little shakily, standing at attention now but with his eyes fixed desperately on Andrej’s face.

Andrej smiled.

It was too perfect; he couldn’t help it.

Kaydence knew that he’d earned punishment.

And Andrej didn’t even have to touch him to make him suffer.

“I am surprised at you,”
Andrej observed, and kept his voice careful and level. To give no hint. To provide no hope of indulgence or forgiveness. “How do you mean to explain yourself to me, Mister Psimas?”

Kaydence was tall and powerfully built, broad-shouldered and as steady as an oak.

Now Kaydence staggered under the ferocious force of Andrej’s cold rebuke, and crashed down to his knees as though he had been struck by lightning.

“You’d only. Hate yourself.” Kaydence’s words were heavy with a burden of fathomless grief and dreadful fear. “Even more. And there’s so little we can do.”

Kaydence couldn’t keep to his knees. He fell onto his face on the floor, crawling forward awkwardly to crouch trembling at Andrej’s feet. The governor. It didn’t know Kaydence had acted from love. It didn’t care. It only knew that Kaydence had taken a chance, and was to be disciplined for insubordination strictly enough to put teeth into the mildest of rebukes from his officer.

Leaning his forehead against the edge of the chair just to one side of Andrej’s knee, Kaydence clutched at Andrej’s wrist, seeking reassurance, forgiveness. His voice staggered and halted like a drunken man, so brokenly that Andrej could hardly make sense of his words.

“Only. Touch me, if you’re going to. Punish me. I could still pretend — I mattered to you, then — ”

Time stopped, and the instant shimmered in Andrej’s mind too full of conflict and promise for comprehension.

Kaydence.

Suffering.

Loved him and trusted him, how much more would Kaydence suffer to be punished —

Andrej blinked once, and time was, once again. Oh, no. Not Kaydence. Holy Mother, in the name of all Saints. Not Kaydence.

Paralyzed with horror, Andrej could not move.

Kaydence had reached up for Andrej’s hand, petitioning for some small comfort in his pain. But Andrej could not move to clasp Kaydence’s trembling fingers. Kaydence’s hand slipped slowly down to cover his face, instead; curling his other hand around Andrej’s ankle, Kaydence started to shake, shuddering with pain and weeping with desolate grief.

Andrej knew how to translate that language in Kaydence’s body. Kaydence’s governor had not stopped, when time had stopped. Kaydence believed that Andrej was angry with him, and meant for him to suffer. Kaydence’s governor was equal to the task of punishment.

Not Kaydence.

Oh, holy Mother, in the name of all Saints, not Kaydence.

Out of his chair in a spasm of ferocious anxiety, Andrej cradled Kaydence to lie on the floor, desperately trying to get through. “Please, Kaydence, you’ve done nothing wrong, you were quite right to mention my supper, Kaydence, don’t — ”

It was too late.

Kaydence was lost, his governor hell-bent on performing its function. Punishing Kaydence. Putting him to torture for his crime of trying to take care of his officer, trying to protect his officer, trying to do right.

Kaydence’s eyes were open and staring, fixed on some point in space that had to be more horrifying than anything Andrej had ever seen. To judge from Kaydence’s expression.

The governor had engaged. And the governor punished out of all proportion with the severity of the offense, because bond-involuntaries were criminals after all; and had to be strictly disciplined, to ensure they took their lessons to heart. There was nothing that could be done but put Kaydence out, interrupt the pain response with induced unconsciousness so that the governor could complete its punishment sequence without Kaydence quite feeling it.

No time to kiss Kaydence’s staring eyes and beg forgiveness.

Andrej put his thumbs to either side of Kaydence’s neck and pressed until the body relaxed, limp and unconscious.

It wouldn’t last.

Kaydence would wake again to agony within too short a time. But Andrej could get him to Infirmary by then, and get the drug he needed. He didn’t have it with him. Kaydence wasn’t Nurail, Kaydence was Class One, an entirely different category of hominid. The drugs Andrej had brought for Nurail patients and Nurail prisoners would do no good for Kaydence.

He had to get to Infirmary.

And what punishment a man might merit who had been for even that one instant willing to consider torturing an enslaved soul who trusted and believed in him —

Later.

Andrej sprinted for the door to fetch Toska, leaving his prisoner to fall asleep and die.

His overriding need to shut off Kaydence’s pain canceled all others.

###

The Domitt Prison’s Infirmary was as bleak and depressing as everything else about a prison was. Erish envied Code his familiarity with the place: Code had been here before. He’d been the officer’s escort on his tour of the prison.

Nine weeks ago, now? Ten?

Maybe as long as that. Erish didn’t remember, exactly, and he didn’t want to think about it. He had been Bonded in a prison. The operation had been done in a prison surgery, although one considerably more sophisticated than this. He could remember the terror as he woke as clearly as though it had been yesterday, rather than seven years ago.

The operation. The implantation of his governor. And how vulnerable it had made him feel, how difficult it had been for the Infirmary staff not to take advantage, just that little bit, of the fact that he was helpless and terrified, and could only comply with whatever instruction as quickly as he could and hope to avoid punishment.

Kaydence’s governor —

Erish didn’t know what was going on; nobody did. Chief Samons had got the call from Toska, they’d arrived just in time to hear the officer tell the guards to take them to Infirmary. Right away. Immediately.

Kaydence laid out on a carry-plank, guards as guides. Koscuisko had hurried them all through to Infirmary to transfer Kaydence to a treatment table, calling for sixteen units of one of the most powerful anodynes in the entire Inventory.