An Exchange of Hostages (8 page)

Deep, and insolent. For a moment Andrej sat torn between reacting and thinking out his own approach to this problem. He knew how he was expected to react. And he didn’t want to have to think about it.

Much of the medical process did involve hurting people, as a necessary part of helping them heal. Surprise was as unpleasant as pain, apprehension as noxious. When one was required to do something that would hurt — remove dried-out field dressings or palpate a sprain, or any number of contacts with wounded or painful tissue — one minimized apprehension and surprise by building up to the bad part slowly. Starting with small, impersonal contact at safe body sites, always remembering species-specific or cultural taboos. When one approached the painful thing in neutral graduated steps of that sort, patient apprehension could be significantly reduced, helping to ensure that the pain involved would be kept to its lowest level.

Now Andrej was expected to strike a man who was to be restrained from striking back, and the very idea was morally repugnant on its deepest level.

He would try to sneak up on it. That was it. That was what he could do to get through, for today.

“Stand up.” Andrej rose to his feet and took the prisoner by the shoulder, giving him a little push. He was horribly reluctant to so much as touch the man; and yet he would be expected to hit him, and hard enough to at least bruise. “I said stand up, what are you waiting for?”

Security came to his rescue; Andrej imagined they had experience helping uncertain Students through the paces. They had the Bigelblu on his feet in short order, their efficient handling quite unimpaired by “Cari’s” grumbled protests.

“Easy, you guys, where’s your sense of humor? ‘Vent I been standing all day, waiting for this . . . little . . . ”

Andrej never got a chance to hear what Cari meant to call him; no, the Security were too efficient for that. One of them had the prisoner’s arm behind his back, and apparently did something unpleasant to it; at least to judge from the expression it produced.

“One is expected to use his Excellency’s dignity with appropriate respect,” the Security troop said. With a straight face; truly, Andrej admired his control. Surely such a clumsy start as he’d made could only make him ridiculous in front of these people, and no “appropriate respect” about it.

“If he’s tired of standing, let him kneel. But sitting on the floor gives one an unpleasant feeling that one is not being taken quite seriously . . . ” No, he was better off staying away from that line of thought. Tutor Chonis would think that he was being insolent again.

“ . . . which is surely not what you meant to do. On your knees, then. No, here.”

Working with his hands, pushing a bit, pulling a bit, moving the prisoner from side to side. Getting used to the warmth of the prisoner’s body beneath his hand. Doing what he could to nerve himself to the shameful test, taking the edge off his reluctance to hit the man by pushing the prisoner around. He didn’t like it, but it seemed to work. Andrej felt he could manage the next step, if only he could avoid being distracted by the fact that he meant to strike someone he wasn’t even angry at.

He had a clear field now, even had a modest advantage of height as he stood before the kneeling prisoner. Andrej repeated the question in a sterner voice, trying to convince himself he was determined by speaking harshly.

“State your identification, and the crime of which you are accused.”

“Now, Soyan, didn’t I just tell you that? My name’s Cari, and . . . ”

The tension within him was not shame and reluctance, Andrej told himself, knowing he lied. The tension within him was irritation at being sworn at, and irritation could be relieved by directing it at its natural object. Andrej moved on his target with a smoothness born of thin-blade dueling, giving his prisoner a backhanded slap across the face which surprised all of them: Security, because they had to compensate for the force of the blow, and they had not apparently anticipated his movement; Andrej, because he was wearing his great-grandfather’s ring on his left hand, and one test was all that was required to demonstrate the sense of using his right hand for the remainder of the exercise. He was going to have to remove the ring next time.

“Be so kind as to answer the question.” He had done the thing, now, with never a Mayon monitor to report his lapse of professional conduct to the Administration. He had successfully raised his hand against a man restrained and defenseless. He had passed the filthy test of indecency. Now all he had to worry about was the next blow; and the one after that.

“Ah, well, Cari is short for Kerrimarghdilen. My family name is Pok.” Last but not least, Cari had apparently been surprised into sensibility. At least for the moment. “I was picked up for vagrancy at Merridig, but I had some timmer on me — personal use only, really, I swear- — so I’m here in front of his Excellency for illegal trafficking.”

At least timmer was a little less mundane than flour. There was still a problem with this, of course. Why should he himself have unlimited access to the intoxicants traditional to his culture — every bit as destructive when abused, and without sanction as a sacrament — at the same time that an otherwise honest Bigelblu could be prosecuted by the Bench for trading in a culturally traditional and sacramentally essential hallucinogen? A problem, yes, and not the less so because the answer was so obviously a matter of whether Bigelblu or Aznir had economic clout.

But the distance between what the prisoner had done and what the Bench meant to do in reprisal was not as extreme as the first had been. That was a relief.

“You have stated your personal name, but have failed to provide your identification. Full identification is required to complete the Record. State your identification, and the crime of which you have been accused.”

Apart from the general problem of double standards — and the immediate ache of his knuckles beneath the weight of his great-grandfather’s ring — Andrej was not as sickened at himself for having struck the man as he had expected to be. The Bigelblu was a prisoner, and for the striking. Andrej was required to strike him. And it wasn’t as if this man had come to him for healing; he had been brought here to make confession.

Andrej had no false conviction that these rationalizations made it morally correct to strike a prisoner, or that he should feel no guilt for having done so. But just for the moment to feel little enough guilt that he could fulfill the specific requirements of a Second Level interrogation was all that Andrej asked of his life.

“What a dullump, Soyan. Nobody told me that I was going to have to put up with so much damn natter-tattering — ” Andrej hit him again, with his right hand this time.

“What’d you do that for? I’ve got a right to — ”

Andrej responded almost easily, as if there was no barrier of decency and shame between a man in power and one in chains to stay his hand and moderate his temper.

“No . . . ” — it was only a short stoop to glare down at this Cari nose-to-nose, with a hand at his throat to discourage any sudden movements — “No, you’ve no particular right to anything, just at the moment, and you and I both will find ourselves considerably less exercised at the end of our discussion if you can persuade yourself to accept that concept now. Answer as you’re bidden, I am in no mood for insolence.”

The language came out of the preparatory material, with its model interrogations and its examples from the previous students’ taped practica.

Andrej cultivated what irritation he could find to help him forward.

“Answer the question. Or must I repeat myself?”

If yielding to irritation would get him through this — then yield he would.

And willingly.

###

Tutor Chonis settled his shoulders back against the chair, folding his hands in front of him as he spoke.

“For the Record.”

Third of three Preliminary Level exercises, third of three evaluation and observation sessions. Curran behind him, to his right — Student Koscuisko. Hanbor behind him, to his left — Student Noycannir. Third of three, last of three, and life was due to become interesting for all concerned within a matter of days. For now there was only the Record to complete, while preparations continued to be made for rougher exercises.

“Preliminary Levels, the Third Level, assisted inquiry. Tutor Adifer Chonis, for the Record. Students Noycannir and Koscuisko in the theater.”

Student Noycannir had taken her place with the careful stiffness that characterized her when she was more aware than usual of being watched. Straight-backed and straight-faced she sat, her gaze apparently fixed on some point of interest midway between the prisoner’s door and infinity. It was an interesting meditation to try to imagine how Noycannir would characterize infinity, when her birth and upbringing had been so sordid and so crushingly constrained. There was no hope of discussing it with her, however. From all indications, Mergau still felt that everything her Tutor did or said was first and foremost something to react against; and the conversations he had with her had been a little strained accordingly.

There was no stiff artificiality to Koscuisko this morning, however. Quite the opposite. Student Koscuisko occupied space with a sort of unthinking presence, a sense of self that was as much a part of him as Noycannir’s apparently inbred defensiveness. There was no disguising the quality of Koscuisko’s blood, or of his upbringing, at least. Nor any getting around the fact that Koscuisko was drunk, no matter how perfect — relaxed, confident, and apparently secure — his posture might be said to be.

Chonis sighed, and set the pause interrupt on his audio string. “Curran, he’s been drinking? Again?”

Curran’s grave bow managed to communicate a little of the confusion he seemed to feel. “As regularly as if scheduled, with the Tutor’s permission. There does not seem to be any adverse impact on the Student’s health.”

Yet. Koscuisko was young; his body could still take it. What should it matter to him if Koscuisko drank? Except that Koscuisko hadn’t on Mayon, not like this. Not so consistently as every night, for as long as they’d been practicing on the Preliminary Levels — every night for four weeks. Students who drank like that didn’t earn Koscuisko’s ratings. On the other hand, Fleet didn’t expect much by way of actual medicine out of its Ship’s Inquisitors once they were on Line. It was sentiment on his part, pure and simple, Chonis told himself with disgust. There was no other explanation for the fact that he could not help caring about what became of Koscuisko’s medical skills if Koscuisko continued to respond to the stress by self-medicating with overproof wodac.

Chonis set the string back in braid. “Student Noycannir is calm and assured in manner.” The prisoner-surrogates had made their entrance, the exercise could begin. Noycannir was on the attack from the first, raising her voice, confronting her prisoner verbally and physically. “She displays no hesitation or uncertainty in enforcing the Protocols.”

Koscuisko simply sat where he was with his chin in one hand, his elbow propped up on the arm of the chair. Koscuisko liked to feel his way into things. From Curran’s reports, Koscuisko was still struggling with the idea that it was appropriate to hit his prisoners. “Student Koscuisko continues to display a conservative approach. Although he has fully supported the Protocols, he provides adequate intervals in which the prisoner may offer information or other responses.”

Whereas Noycannir was just a shade to the wrong side of the aggressive approach to Inquiry. Noycannir waded into her Levels like a Bladerau into a street fight, and her prisoners had to work at it to get a word in edgewise. “Student Noycannir is aggressive and confident. A point of discussion is to be made on the issue of timing. She will need to prepare herself to build more slack time into her interrogations.”

Not that that really mattered, either. After all, the First Secretary would expect her to get information. That would necessarily require her to stop knocking her prisoners around long enough to listen to what they had to say.

“Student Koscuisko continues to engage his prisoner on a personal level. There is a potential cause for Administrative concern . . . ” Chonis heard Curran stiffen slightly at the criticism. Students who could not learn to keep their psychic distance tended to get lost more often than other Inquisitors did. There was madness along that path, and not of a sort useful to the Fleet, either. Therefore to be discouraged.

“ . . . which will be addressed in the Advanced Levels if necessary. Student Noycannir maintains a commendable degree of personal separation from her subject.”

An excess of empathy would not be a problem with Noycannir. She took to the habit of depersonifying her prisoners quickly and well. Chonis approved of her detachment; it was a good deal easier to kick an inanimate object than a fellow being. Far better to think of them all as mere lumps of recalcitrant matter to be worked into conformity than to spend as much time getting into their heads as Koscuisko did. While it was true that Inquisitors like Koscuisko got much better information, more consistently, it was also true that less involved Inquisitors like Noycannir tended to last a good deal longer on Line.

Koscuisko had risen to his feet, standing in front of his prisoner with his arms folded across his chest. His body language was as clear a sign as any that he didn’t want to be here. But the stance was also one that presented no threat, putting the prisoner off his guard. Chonis was almost as startled as the prisoner was when Koscuisko hit him. And Chonis had seen him do it before. An ability to backhand a taller man across the face — and knock him down with the force of the blow, from that awkward angle — was no small thing; and Koscuisko made it all look quite natural.

“Student Koscuisko makes effective use of limited force. In this respect he is more apt than the average Student.” Praise should be read into Record when due, and might soothe Curran a little as well. Chonis took his audio out of the string, again, to talk to Hanbor about the same issue.

“She’s overdoing it again, isn’t she?”

On the exercise floor, in the exercise theater, whether training or Inquiring, Noycannir did not seem to possess much of a sense of proportion. He and Hanbor had talked about the problem more than once during their daily status meetings.