The Administration Series (192 page)

Chevril frowned. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Tribunals. To assess whether you're the kind of person the new Administration wants working for them. Probably Carnac's bloody stupid idea, although he says not. There's going to be an announcement about it. Basically, all you have to do is turn up, answer a few questions and they'll let you out."

"Hang on, what happens if I'm
not
the kind of person they want working for them?"

"It's just a formality, I promise. Don't worry about it."

"Don't bloody
worry
?" Chevril took hold of his sleeve. "Toreth, what happens if they say no?"

"Carnac's threatening executions."

Chevril sat up abruptly, then went pale.

Toreth disentangled himself, then patted Chevril's arm. "There's nothing to worry about, I promise. Listen — I'm putting the paras through first. We need the senior staff desperately, so they won't reject anyone to start with. And I'm going to get the system scrapped, somehow, before we get too far down the list."

Chevril lowered himself carefully back onto the makeshift bed, wincing. "If I end up in front of a firing squad, Elena won't be happy."

"All you have to do is turn up, be a bit cooperative, and you'll be out — and don't mention that I warned you about it. I'll be there anyway, keeping an eye on things. It'll be fine."

"Easy for you to say. I bet you didn't get a bloody tribunal, did you?"

No, he hadn't. Which meant, according to what Carnac had said last night, that his own reemployment was 'purely provisional'. Not a happy thought.

Before he could reply, a woman's voice broke in on the conversation. "Para Toreth? Someone said you were here. I need to talk to you."

Toreth turned to find one of the senior medical officers in the doorway. He recognised her at once — he'd put her in charge of co-ordinating medical supplies only yesterday, but his mind blanked completely on her name. Even by the current standards of the medical unit, she looked harassed.

"Is there a problem?" he asked.

"Yes, Para. There are Service people in the medical stores, taking things."

"What things?"

"Everything, more or less."

He stood up, instantly forgetting Chevril and the impending tribunals. "Show me."

In the stores he found a dozen troopers, busy crating up supplies under the supervision of a lieutenant.

"What are you doing?" Toreth asked, with what he thought was admirable politeness.

The group looked up, then went back to their work, dismissing him. As soon as he'd finished here, he had to get a uniform from the stores. "I said, what the hell are you doing?"

The lieutenant sighed, and came over.

"I've already explained everything to your colleague," he said.

"And now you can explain it again to me."

For a moment, the man clearly weighed up the advantages and disadvantages of simply telling him to mind his own business. Then he said, "We have orders to requisition surplus supplies for the use of the Service medical units."

Bastards. "Well, they're not surplus, so you can put them back and leave."

"Major Bell gave us permission to search the stores here."

"Major Bell doesn't have the authority to do that." Then, just too late, it occurred to him that Major Bell very well might. Carnac had mentioned martial law, and he hadn't had the time to look up exactly what that meant. Nothing to do but continue with confidence.

"My name is Senior Para-investigator Toreth, and I have operational authority at I&I. If you don't believe me, you can check with Carnac. You do know who
he
is, don't you?"

The lieutenant shrugged slightly. "The order applies to all non-essential medical stations. I suggest that
you
confirm that with the major."

"I don't need to talk to the major, I need you to stop what you're doing, put everything back, and leave. Look outside — does this
look
bloody non-essential?"

"It's designated as such. The major will tell you that as well."

Was punching a Service officer mutiny, or was there an exclusion that said it was okay if they were being an infuriating tosser? He was seriously considering the merits of finding out, when someone spoke.

"Excuse me, sir?"

It took him a moment to realise he was being addressed. Then he turned to find Payne behind him. He wondered how long he'd been there. "What?"

"There's a message for you. An urgent message."

He followed Payne a little way off. "Well? What?"

"Let me have a go," Payne said, in a low voice.

Toreth blinked. "What are you — you mean, with him?"

"Yes. You don't have a rank he recognises; he probably hasn't even heard about you if he's from out of the building."

"Well . . . " Toreth thought it over. He certainly hadn't been getting anywhere. "Okay."

"Thanks." Payne waited for a moment then added, "If you could . . . "

"Piss off while you're talking to the grown-ups?"

"That's the one, sir."

Once outside the stores, and somewhat to his irritation, he found himself smiling. Payne was turning out to be less of a bore than he'd looked set to be. Not to mention, if he could pull this off, a lot more useful. Maybe he'd try some light flirting later and check exactly
how
happily married the man was.

In the meantime, Toreth's dry run on Chevril had given him some idea of how the seniors would take news of the tribunals. He went back to the reception area, prised a receptionist away from the mob and told her to check the whereabouts of four dozen paras, mostly seniors, whom he'd known long enough that they'd be willing to believe him when he said he wouldn't play tame executioner for Carnac. Some of them were bound to be in Medical and also well enough to be released. For the rest, he could get cell locations from Adams.

While he waited, he wondered how many of the names would turn out to be on neither list. The list of dead was too patchy to be useful yet, so he'd just have to see how many on his list couldn't be found anywhere.

In the end, the receptionist found less than a quarter of them. Toreth took the paper list, almost reluctantly, then scanned down it. Mike Belkin in the medical unit with a fractured collarbone and a serious concussion — not bad, since Toreth would've bet on the resisters killing him. Perhaps, like Bevan and unlike Sed, when the pinch came Belkin had known when to fold. Christofi back in the cells with only minor injuries — lucky bastard as usual. Tom Hepburn had been a recent transfer into General Criminal from Political Crimes. He wouldn't be fascinating the office with his tirades at the junior members of his team in the near future, if ever: fractured skull, coma, another paragraph of injuries Toreth didn't bother reading. Scratch him from the tribunals.

Turning a page, he found Chris Doyle's name. The junior had left Toreth's team more than two years ago, but Toreth still felt a proprietorial pleasure at seeing him listed as a survivor. Doyle seemed to have suffered almost as badly from the systems failures as the resisters, being brought up to medical with severe dehydration to accompany an impressive litany of broken ribs and fingers, and bruising. Doyle was tough, though, and smart. He'd see the necessity of cooperating with Carnac's charade.

A cough distracted him from the list. He pocketed it and turned to find Payne looking pleased with himself.

Toreth waited for a moment, then asked, "Well? Did you sort it?"

"I explained the situation, and he agreed to clarify it with Socioanalyst Carnac before continuing. Until then, he'll put everything they've already taken back."

"Good. Excellent, in fact." Toreth didn't believe in stinting praise when it was due. "Well done."

Payne glowed quietly. "Thank you, Para."

Toreth decided to test him out a bit further. "Now I need you to go up to the office and do the same trick with Major Bell. Make it a courtesy call. You're not asking permission, you're explaining the misunderstanding so she doesn't get embarrassed later. I'm unfortunately unavailable, that sort of thing."

"Yes, sir."

Payne always slipped back into bad habits when there were senior officers involved. "I'm going to call Carnac from down here, so when Bell calls
him
about it, he's forewarned. Off you go."

Personal comm frequencies had gone down again, so he found an office with a working comm and tracked down Carnac, in another part of Int-Sec. Carnac sounded less than thrilled that Toreth had probably managed to upset Bell again so soon, but he nevertheless conceded that having half the staff die of untreated injuries would impair the efficiency of the Division.

That done, Toreth went off to pay a few more visits to the sick before the tribunals began sitting.

Toreth hadn't raised much objection with Carnac to the idea of tribunals, because he'd suspected what would happen. The interviewees were suspicious, frightened and therefore angry; most of them would say nothing at all. Meanwhile, faced with actual people, people they could sit and talk to (or at least talk at), most of the tribunal members lost their enthusiasm for authorising executions.

Toreth had decided to give it most of a day before tearing up the procedure and starting again, so that no one could accuse him of not giving the system a fair trial. However, it was so clearly a disaster that he had to make an effort to let the tribunal limp on until late afternoon. They'd done half as many people as they'd hoped to; it would have been only a quarter without his unilateral decision to send back to their cells anyone who hadn't said anything after fifteen minutes.

The tribunal had agreed to that without hesitation, frustrated and possibly embarrassed by the lack of cooperation. Of course, they weren't to know he'd picked the most paranoid bastards he could think of to interview first, for exactly that reason. When he finally called a halt, the sense of relief around the table was all he could have hoped for.

He walked round the table and faced the panel. Nine members in total: a majority of civilian resisters, two Service officers, a Justice rep Carnac had dragged in, presumably to give the thing an air of respectability, and an empty chair for the senior para fraternizing with the enemy. No wonder the I&I staff weren't keen to talk — he didn't much like the view himself.

"Right" he said. "I think it's fair to say we're getting nowhere."

Nods and murmurs of agreement.

"With your permission, I'd like to try a different scheme. The first thing I suggest is to cut the panel from nine to three. We can do more cases, and people will be less intimidated. Secondly, effectively telling people that they're here to answer questions and you'll kill them if they get the answers wrong isn't the best way to conduct an interrogation. Trust me on that."

He smiled, and the tribunal looked suitably uncomfortable. "So I suggest that we start with the offer of re-employment — set out why they're here, and make it sound positive. If people refuse, let them go anyway."

One of the resisters shook his head firmly. "You're saying that we should allow the guilty to escape punishment. While it's understandable you might have some loyalty towards — "

"I'm sorry to interrupt, but nothing is further from my mind. I'm being practical. We lack the resources to keep people here indefinitely. Most of the ones who go will change their minds in a few days anyway, and those who don't can be re-arrested later when we have a clearer idea of the final number of surplus staff. The more it looks as if we're keeping our promises, the more willing people will be to consider the proposals. News of what's going on here
will
get back down to the cells, believe me."

There was no necessity to explain or suggest. He could simply order them to run the tribunals any damned way he wanted. However, after Carnac's warning, he thought tact was in order. In the end he didn't have to sell it very hard.

The first one in was Chevril, and he was such a model of eager cooperation that Toreth felt sure the tribunal would smell a rat of gigantic proportions. They didn't. Nor did they as he sat with them through the list of pre-briefed interviewees, and onto the beginning of the list of paras, graded by Sara from most to least likely to play along. He decided that they were simply delighted to have some progress to report to Carnac.

Sometimes he wondered where the socioanalyst found idiots of this calibre.

In the car on the way home that night, Sara slept next to him all the way, and he practically had to carry her up the stairs and into her bedroom. Bastard hissed furiously, then retreated under the bed as Toreth aimed a kick at him. Sara was too wiped out even to protest. To the accompaniment of a perpetual low growl from Bastard, Toreth helped her undress, amused by the role-reversal from last night.

As he left her room, he met McLean in the corridor. Toreth knew he must be missing Warrick, because he caught himself thinking that McLean wasn't unattractive, from the point of view of fucking him from behind in a darkish room. That was just his cock feeling lonely, and besides Sara had staked out a definite interest. From the way McLean frowned when he saw Toreth coming out of her room, she probably wasn't wasting her time.

"How's the face?" Toreth asked.

McLean touched the fading scratches. "Fine. Injured almost in the line of duty, so I picked something up for it yesterday from the SimTech stores."

Toreth wondered idly what else SimTech had, and whether he could commandeer it to take to I&I's medical unit. "Speaking of which, shouldn't you be at SimTech, keeping an eye on Warrick?"

"Normally, yes." The frown had disappeared, replaced by professional politeness. "I was told to stay here."

To look after himself and Sara, no doubt. "How long are you lot going to be hanging around?" Warrick, should he ever reappear, didn't like an audience.

"Until the risk assessment program decides we're no longer needed. My guess is weeks rather than days. There's still trouble in the city and besides, in the current climate, there's an upgraded risk of corporate sabotage."