Chapter Three
Lights were dimmed and room was quiet, but Garol woke with immediate certainty that he’d heard something. He kept his breathing slow and regular, his eyes still shut, listening hard. There was only Jils in the room with him, Jils in the bed beside him as companionable as a sister. It wasn’t Jils who’d awakened him, then; not unless it had been her signal.
Garol opened his eyes and sat up in the dim hush, cautiously, and the tone came at the outer door, the door at the end of the room outside the bedroom. Someone in the corridor.
Jils was awake now too, and he could trust Jils’s judgment better than his own. She hadn’t signaled danger: not yet. Very well. They’d see.
Pushing his feet into the slew-socks that Dohan Dolgorukij wore for bed-slippers, Garol belted his heavy blue brocade bed-robe — a present from the Danzilar prince — around his waist as he made for the door. The signal was tuned to its lowest intensity, but it was persistent.
He keyed the admit and opened the door, and found himself face to face with the Danzilar prince Paval I’shenko himself, standing in the corridor with a household technical officer and some Security behind him. Bowing, Garol wondered; the Danzilar prince had never come to him in quarters, and had never interrupted his sleep-shift, either.
Danzilar himself seemed to have just gotten up, if the butter-yellow jacket he had on over his thin white silk bed-suit and the tousled condition of his nondescript brown hair was any indication.
“Do not waken the lady, I beg it of you,” Danzilar said, softly. “No woman should have to hear of such a thing. There is a problem, Garol Aphon, and I believe that I must insist on an immediate response.”
Jils was listening in the other room, Garol knew. She would pretend she was still asleep, then.
“At your disposal, your Excellency, of course. At any time.” The “Excellency” had been a little distracting to Vogel, because the same title that translated for the respectful language due a Dolgorukij aristocrat applied to Fleet superior officers in Standard as well. Andrej Koscuisko was an Excellency twice over, even as the Danzilar prince was. And neither the Danzilar prince nor Jils Ivers knew what Garol held in his keeping for Andrej Koscuisko. “Is there a place where we can go to talk?”
Danzilar nodded grimly. “Come, and we will discuss. We can use a side room, here — ”
Not far from his quarters, and servants already standing by with service tables. As far as Garol had been able to tell, fresh beverage and hot bread was next to godliness for Danzilar’s Dolgorukij. Jils would probably remind him that people whose body temperature ran high usually did need to eat a little more frequently to keep themselves going.
“Here is the master of communications, who has brought me this. You will oblige me by reading it for yourself, Garol Aphon. We have had it done into Standard, and I am unwilling to go into the details.”
The Danzilar prince habitually called him by two of his names in the formal Dolgorukij manner. Garol had a hard time really resenting it, even though he had never liked his second name. The Danzilar prince looked so young. But looks were deceiving; the Danzilar prince was forty-seven years old, Standard. Older than Garol himself was.
Garol took the report slate that the watch-master offered him and sat down.
From Burkhayden, not too surprisingly. A protest against damage to property specifically included in the terms of the Contract, more or less predictable. Except that the property was a woman, not a public building or a farm utility vehicle. The whole issue of bond-involuntaries had always given Garol a raging case of the toe-cramps. And the report was brutally precise on the important issue of exactly what was meant in this case by the “damage.”
There didn’t seem to be anything for him to say. Garol passed the report slate back to the officer.
“Yes, your Excellency?”
“There is nothing to be done about the vandal, I know that.” Danzilar had seated himself in a well-padded chair as Garol read; now he smoothed the broad band at his wrap-jacket’s hem carefully over his crossed knees, frowning. He meant Wyrlann, Garol guessed.
Danzilar was right.
There wasn’t anything that anyone could do about Wyrlann, except what Garol had been sent to do about Koscuisko. And he had yet to exercise his authority to revise a Bench warrant, regardless of the provocation. He wasn’t about to start with a warrant he could not even decide was legitimate.
Danzilar was still talking. “But the staff of a service house is not of small importance, because comfort must be had. And the contract has been signed.”
What was Danzilar getting at? “His Excellency will of course be compensated, once the review board has validated loss of function.” It didn’t make sense for Danzilar to be as upset about this as he seemed to be. The price of any sixteen bond-involuntaries could be easily lost in even the smallest detail of the contract’s fiscal stipulations. Yet Danzilar was not only visibly upset, he seemed not far from actually furious, rising to his feet with a ferocious if controlled gesture of rejection.
“I do not want her price, Garol Aphon. I want her worth, as I have been promised in the contract. Her symbolic function at this point is of paramount importance. She belongs to me, Garol Aphon, and I demand her rights.”
Of which she had none, whoever she was. Apart from the obvious, of course. “I’m afraid I don’t quite understand, your Excellency.”
“Aah, it is the middle of the night. I am only — very angry.”
Why?
It was perhaps not inappropriate to indulge oneself in a certain degree of moral outrage, under the circumstances. But Danzilar was not a child, no matter how much like a twenty-five-year-old he looked to Garol. The Dolgorukij had defined atrocity, at least as far as the Sarvaw were concerned; and Danzilar’s second cousin thrice removed — or fourth cousin five times distant, or whatever the hell the relation was — was the self-same Andrej Koscuisko who held a Writ which authorized him to practice very much the same sorts of things that Wyrlann appeared to have done to the poor whore at his will and good pleasure, in support of the Judicial order.
So it couldn’t be that Danzilar had simply never run into this sort of thing before.
What was going on in Danzilar’s mind?
Garol kept silent, and after a moment Danzilar continued. “To do this thing so casually, it shows a lack of respect. For me as well as for the holy Mother. I cannot afford to discard this woman as a piece of spoiled goods. What kind of treatment would any other expect from me, if I did that? These people are to be my people, Garol Aphon. I am responsible for their well-being.”
Well, it was true that Dolgorukij were peculiar in that respect. As with Danzilar’s cousin Koscuisko, again; and nobody touched Koscuisko’s Security, not after what Koscuisko had done to the people he had decided to consider responsible for the death of that bond-involuntary Emandisan of his at Port Rudistal.
“No disrespect is intended, your Excellency. I’m simply not sure what you want me to do about it.”
Danzilar glanced at the report slate in the watch-captain’s hands with what seemed to be a shudder of horror, or of barely suppressed disgust. “Four pieces of glass, it says, Garol Aphon. And the wounds as long as my hand is broad. There is no surgeon in Burkhayden to address such injuries effectively. My medical administrator says that we will not have a trauma surgeon on site before it cannot but be too late for this poor woman.”
Garol started to shrug in involuntary perplexity; but smoothed his shrug out, thinking quickly. He was beginning to think that he knew what the Danzilar had in mind.
“You want Fleet to send a trauma team to Burkhayden. Possibly when Jils and I leave.” They were scheduled to depart inside of ten eights, and a ship of the Ragnarok’s size carried modular units for just such requirements — although they were usually used to bring newly repossessed or liberated facilities on line.
If there was a hospital building still standing in Burkhayden the Ragnarok could furnish a surgery and a surgeon, up and running in — how long? Garol did some calculations, concentrating hard. The report was already ten eights old. They had a day and a half or more in transit time, ahead of them; maybe if they left a few hours early —
“I want Fleet to send the best surgeon at its disposal here and now. The Chief Medical Officer’s personal involvement would send the strongest possible signal to my people in Burkhayden. That is what I wish you to have done.”
“Koscuisko?”
The name escaped Garol in an involuntary yelp of disbelief.
Send Koscuisko to minister to a woman raped? Send the single most notorious pain-master in the entire inventory to tend to a woman brutalized by his own ship’s First Lieutenant?
Koscuisko.
It made a certain amount of sense, once he thought about it.
“There are two things that the most uneducated of rabble knows about my cousin Drusha,” Danzilar replied, with utter seriousness. It took Garol a moment to make sense of the name: Drusha, from the intimate form of Andrej. “No, perhaps three things. First, there is of course the obvious. Second, that he is the Chief Medical Officer on board the Ragnarok. And finally, that there are none better at what he does, irrespective of the capacity in which one invokes his expertise. Is it not so?”
Well, maybe not really. Once the first point had been raised and controverted the rest faded a bit in significance. Still, Koscuisko was recognized as a senior officer by token of the Inquisitorial function that he performed, if nothing else. Koscuisko’s symbolic subordination to a Service bond-involuntary was probably a pretty damn solid way for Danzilar to make his point, if that was what Danzilar was after.
“I’ll send an emergency override, your Excellency.” It was within his authority to demand that Lowden comply with any measures he deemed necessary to complete the transfer of function. Garol decided that he might very well enjoy making a point of that. “The ship’s Chief Medical Officer to travel to Burkhayden with me, and to treat the traumatic injuries this woman has sustained to the maximum extent of his professional ability. Shall I report to his Excellency when the requirement has been communicated to Captain Lowden?”
“Four pieces of glass, Garol Aphon.” Danzilar stared at the closed door, clearly distracted. “Please, yes, let me know. This must be addressed, and it cannot be done too soon, you understand.”
Maybe there was some cultural peculiarity that made Wyrlann’s particular crime especially horrible to Danzilar.
Or maybe Danzilar was simply a decent sort at heart, with decent instincts.
“I understand. If you’ll excuse me, your Excellency, I’ll go to communications right away.”
Nodding, Danzilar put his hand out to Garol’s shoulder, walking with him toward the door and talking with evident intent to lighten the atmosphere somewhat. “Yes, thank you, Garol Aphon. Excuse me to my cousin that I do not greet him before you leave, beg for me his forgiveness. And remind him. There is to be a party. There will be dancing.”
The more Garol thought about it the better he liked the idea of Captain Lowden forced to make good the senseless damage his First Lieutenant had done.
###
Captain Lowden usually enjoyed disciplinary events on a number of levels, but today was different.
Today his secret knowledge of the joke he planned to play on Koscuisko distracted him to such an extent that he almost wished Koscuisko would just get it over with, and Koscuisko wasn’t off his game, no, nor was the guilty technician unresponsive to the impact of Koscuisko’s whip. Koscuisko’s performance was, as always, a thing of abstract beauty; as great passion and great control were always beautiful, perfect in form and in execution.
Discipline administered as adjudicated, Technician Hixson, if Lowden remembered correctly. Three-and-thirty. Hixson, bound by the wrists to the wall, two Security troops standing facing the room on either side at several pace’s remove so as to be out of danger of any stray blow.
Ship’s Engineer, the aggrieved party, present as much to keep an eye on Koscuisko as to provide witness that the penalty had been administered and the grievance satisfied. Jennet ap Rhiannon, counting the strokes, because Lowden felt it was important to involve junior lieutenants in the full range of their duties as Command Branch officers.
The room was crowded. All the better. Koscuisko would swallow down questions he might otherwise ask, to spare listening ears the unpleasantness; and that would help the joke forward.
“Twenty-six, twenty-six, twenty-seven,” the Lieutenant counted, her voice flat and free from any inflection that might betray any emotion she felt. Did crèche-bred have emotions? Lowden wondered. Neither Fleet nor the Bench had much use for emotions, so why would crèche-bred have been issued any? Apart from the Standard, of course.
Whether it was her dispassionate demeanor or something else that Lowden hadn’t noticed, Koscuisko apparently objected to the Lieutenant. Or to something she had done. “Twenty-eight, Lieutenant, the count is twenty-eight. Twenty-nine. Thirty.”
Yes, right, now that Lowden thought about it she’d counted twenty-six two times over, just now. Lowden had thought the stroke a hair on the light side himself, but there were good reasons not to challenge Koscuisko on it.
For one thing Lowden was serenely convinced that Koscuisko wouldn’t dare actually muddle his count with his Captain in the room. It was the officer’s mess, not Secured Medical, so there were no record tapes to review to determine a true count. But Koscuisko was too well trained.
“With respect, sir, the Standard calls for — ”
The Standard called for blood to be let on every stroke or the stroke repeated. Koscuisko knew that. Koscuisko was the Judicial officer on board. It wasn’t very appropriate for the Lieutenant to challenge him on his count.
“Thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three,” Koscuisko called firmly, ignoring the Lieutenant. “Three-and-thirty. Gentlemen. Release the technician. Wheatfields, your man.”
Ap Rhiannon stifled well; yes, Koscuisko had interrupted, but Koscuisko was the senior officer. Lowden rose from his observation post and stepped down from the Captain’s Bar to examine the evidence and decide the issue for himself.
Koscuisko had handed the whip off to one of his Security already, and was drinking a flask of rhyti in his shirtsleeves. Discipline was warm work. Koscuisko always took his over-blouse off. It had only been three-and-thirty, though. Apart from his loosened collar and rolled-back cuffs Koscuisko seemed unaffected by the exertion: He wasn’t even breathing hard.
There were medical people standing by to take Hixson to Infirmary, because though Koscuisko had called Wheatfields to take custody of Hixson — as per standard operating procedure — in reality Hixson was to go to Medical to have the welts on his naked back salved. The orderlies and Security stood away for Captain Lowden’s approach, of course.
Lowden counted the welts, one ear to the conversation taking place behind him. Koscuisko was apparently in a mood.
“Lieutenant. While I appreciate your concern for the letter of the Law I must say that your behavior surprises me.”
Koscuisko had every reason to be in a mood. He’d had that fateful interview with Jils Ivers days ago, and Ivers had accomplished miracles. Lowden was in her debt without being in the least actually obligated to her, which was the best of both.
Koscuisko had been drinking ever since, almost as heavily as though he’d had an assignment in Secured Medical. If Koscuisko hadn’t been Dolgorukij — Lowden thought to himself, walking his fingers from welt to welt, counting as Hixson trembled — Koscuisko’s body would never have been able to support the demands he made of it.
“I apologize, your Excellency.” Ap Rhiannon meant no such thing. It was the approved formula, no more than that. “It was an error on my part. I felt his Excellency would think less of me if I failed to note the . . . what seemed to me to have been a mis-stroke.”
Thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two bloodied tracks, and one mere bruise, purple and weeping clear fluid. Well. Either Koscuisko had missed or the final stroke was laid too exactly over an earlier one to be called out as such. Koscuisko could have missed. But if Koscuisko had dared to try a cheat in his Captain’s presence — and Lowden really didn’t think it had been deliberate — the joke he was going to play would be entirely adequate punishment.
And junior officers should not controvert with their superiors on principle.
“Three-and-thirty,” Lowden said firmly, turning away from Hixson with a gesture for the medical people to come forward. “I call it good. Lieutenant. I shouldn’t have to remind you that Koscuisko’s count is the true count here. If he says three-and-thirty the only person on board this ship who can say differently is me.”
Koscuisko bowed in formal appreciation of this endorsement, but he didn’t look surprised or relieved. It had been as Lowden had thought. If Koscuisko had made a mistake it had been a genuine mistake, one of which he was genuinely unaware.
Koscuisko could be excused a mistake, just this once. The joke Lowden had in mind would be that much more effective if it was unlooked for.
Ap Rhiannon could only swallow the rebuke. He’d left her no room to cry an honest error. “Of course, Captain. My apologies, your Excellency, no disrespect was intended. It was a failure of good judgment on my part.”
Not that Koscuisko cared. “It is forgotten, Lieutenant,” Koscuisko assured her, fastening his cuffs before he allowed his Security to help him into his over-blouse. Unlike portions of the uniform that were visible from the outside there was no Jurisdiction Standard for under-blouses; some classes of hominid — the particularly hairy ones — weren’t even required to wear an under-blouse in uniform.
The under-blouses that Koscuisko wore had a short little collar that stood straight up from its seam, and very full sleeves, a good deal of fabric gathered into the yoke of it, and fastened with ties slightly to the left of center. Lowden had often wondered what it would look like with blood soaking through it from the other side. “Captain?”
Nobody could leave the room until Lowden as ranking officer had, with the exception of the medical team and their patient. Lowden had no intention of depriving himself of an audience for this.
“Andrej, something’s come up. It’s difficult.” Something had come up during the early eights of first-shift, as a matter of fact. He’d been asleep. But Bench intelligence specialists were allowed global override on privacy channels, any time, any place. “I’m really sorry to have to do this to you. There’s been a draft on services, your services. At Burkhayden.”
And there was a draft on Koscuisko’s services, too — Vogel had made that quite clear. Andrej Koscuisko — no other — and the surgical unit. And immediately. Two eights into third shift, actually, and only an eight left to second shift now — Koscuisko would have no time to think twice about it. Perfect.
Koscuisko looked pale, but then Koscuisko had looked pale from early on. He wasn’t well. He drank.
“Services, your Excellency.” Koscuisko’s tone of voice made it quite clear that he thought he knew precisely what Lowden had meant in selecting that word. “Forgive me for asking, but can it not wait? We will at Burkhayden arrive soon enough.”
Quite so. For himself Captain Lowden tried to give Koscuisko adequate anticipation time; it sharpened Koscuisko’s appetite and improved Koscuisko’s performance. Koscuisko was a resource of very significant value . . . not only to the rule of Law, but to Lowden himself, personally, intimately. Monetarily.
“I regret, Andrej. But Vogel was very insistent. Nothing will do for him but that you travel to Burkhayden immediately to support his requirement.”
And now he was to have Koscuisko for another period of time — who knew how long? He had connections. Chilleau Judiciary was going to be in no mood to endorse any request for reassignment; quite the contrary, he could rely on Chilleau Judiciary to come up with good reasons why Koscuisko could not be spared from Ragnarok, even though Standard procedure was to rotate every four years. Ragnarok had demonstrated its ability to make full use of Koscuisko in his Judicial function. It was Koscuisko’s experience on the Ragnarok that had finally convinced Koscuisko to renew his Term. Yes.
“According to his Excellency’s good pleasure.” Koscuisko knew better than to press it any further. “Name the time and the place, if you will, sir.”
And what would Koscuisko not do, to protect his assigned troops from sanctions?
Could it be that Lowden was to find a way to have his wish, and watch the blood flow from fresh livid weals on Koscuisko’s own smooth-skinned and aristocratic back?
“Docking bay down-forward three, and at third and two. First Officer is sending one of your senior Security as acting Chief, I understand. The documentation surrounding Chief Stildyne’s refusal of that promotion to First Officer on JFS Sceppan isn’t complete, and he has to answer to the evaluation board for it. Reasons for declining, and so forth.”
Koscuisko hadn’t heard about that, either. The pupils of Koscuisko’s eyes had shrunk to small angry smoldering coals surrounded by ice. Oh, it was very gratifying, very gratifying indeed.
The only person who wasn’t getting the joke was ap Rhiannon, too new to have heard all about Stildyne’s personal predilections, and how he had used to treat the Bonds, and how that had changed with Koscuisko’s arrival. And why. And why, and why, and why, and why. She’d get an earful soon enough. Lowden knew he could rely upon his other officers to see to that.
“Very good, sir. Down-forward three. Captain.”
He’d done everything he’d wanted; his joke was set, primed, and ready.
“And we’ll see you in a week or two. Thank you, gentles, well done all ‘round.”
It was only a matter of time before his joke went off in Garol Vogel’s face; and that would serve Vogel right, for shaking a senior Fleet officer out of bed in the middle of his sleep for no better reason than that Wyrlann had beaten some Nurail whore.
Again.
###
Jils Ivers watched the Ragnarok’s loaders position the surgical unit beneath the courier ship’s waiting cargo area, soothed as she always was to see a task done quickly and done well. The Security that was to travel with them to Burkhayden stood waiting for their officer near the passenger loading ramp; Jils thought she could put names to some of them, after all these years of watching Koscuisko for Verlaine.
The tall Nurail would logically be Robert St. Clare, whose lapse had almost ruined Koscuisko for them before he’d even reported to his first duty. Godsalt, whose precise role in the riots at Arnulf had yet to be determined, whether or not there had been Evidence enough to convict him — and impose his Bond.
One man she didn’t recognize, but since he was Pitere to look at him, he was probably Garrity.
And the smiling man with the light brown curls might be Hirsel, who had escaped a full Eighth Level inquiry so narrowly in his previous command. They hadn’t been able to prove enough to pursue the offense on such a terminal level. But they had sent him to the Ragnarok, right enough, and before Koscuisko had come that had been almost as bad where bond-involuntaries were concerned.
Brachi Stildyne she knew: there was no mistaking that wreckage of a face. Stildyne had come from mean streets, and his face showed his history; one eyebrow off center and lined through with scar tissue, one cheekbone noticeably higher than the other, and his nose had been broken so many times it hardly even mattered any more.
Stildyne was talking to the big black Scaltskarmell who would logically be Pyotr Micmac, or Micmac Pyotr, whichever; but that made six in total. There were one too many. Not only that, but there was an officer’s duty-case with the Security that Jils thought she recognized — and found out of place.
What would Koscuisko be wanting a field interrogations kit for?
“Garol, give me an eye or two here.”
“Um.” Garol had been in a bit of a mood since early this morning, and she wasn’t exactly sure what the matter was, because it seemed to run deeper than any combination of perfectly reasonable explanations for Garol’s being on the brood. “Whatcha got, Jils?”
She pointed. “What does that look like, to you?”
There was a pharmacy tech down there now, and a little genial frisking seemed to be taking place between St. Clare and the woman with her issue — pouch while the senior troops’ backs were obligingly turned. “Looks like a date to me, Jils, has it been that long? Really?”
“No, you idiot. The box on the deck.” The tech was leaving, but St. Clare had the issue-pouch. Garol crunched in closer to the view-port, frowning.
“What the . . . ? Stinking three-days-rotten ftah.” Well, it wasn’t just her suspicious nature, then. “What does he want to travel with that thing for? Jils, I’m not having it on board this ship.”
The surgical unit contained the surgical machine, the sterile unit, supplies to address gross trauma and delicate microsurgery alike. That box down on the decking with Koscuisko’s Security contained other things, the things that a Chief Medical Officer might need if he was being sent to the field for another reason entirely — field interrogation. Instruments of field-expedient Inquiry, Confirmation, and Execution.
“Listen, Garol.” Jils had an uneasy feeling that she just might have guessed at what was going on. Lowden was a master manipulator. She’d known that about Koscuisko’s superior officer for years. “You didn’t talk to Koscuisko, did you? Just to the Captain?”
“Damn it, Jils, I’m not having it, we’re not on a search-and-mutilate, not this time — ”
Overreacting a bit. Garol didn’t usually get emotional about the Judicial function, and it was a little funny to see him bouncing around so far outside of his normal operating mode of depressed disgust. “So we don’t know what Lowden told Koscuisko.” And it was just the sort of thing that would appeal to Lowden’s sense of humor, too.
Garol had his eyes fixed on the scene outside. Trying to identify what it was that he found so fascinating, Jils followed his line of sight and discovered Andrej Koscuisko just entering the loading bay from the far end.
“Well, I’m going to find out.”
Garol was halfway across the room before she could say anything, but his intent was screamingly obvious. Jils hurried to follow him. She wanted to know how Koscuisko was holding up after what she’d told him about his new post with Verlaine.
And she had a good notion that Koscuisko wasn’t about to chat with her over a friendly game of relki, not even if it was to take a month and a half to get to Port Burkhayden rather than a day and a half or so.
Security might have heard Garol coming, or they might just have been quick to respond to Garol’s surely unexpected entrance. They were at attention one way or the other; Jils didn’t think Stildyne had seen Koscuisko yet, he was still talking with Pyotr. Garol was just intercepting Koscuisko when she caught up with him, well short of Koscuisko’s waiting people.
“Your Excellency.” The formal address always sounded disconcertingly casual coming from Garol. Koscuisko had stopped where he stood, looking past them to where his Security detachment waited for him. “I’m Vogel, your Excellency, Bench intelligence specialist second sub seven Garol Vogel. We’ve met once before, but only briefly. His Excellency may not remember. We’ll be traveling together to Burkhayden, sir.”
Koscuisko looked at Garol with suspicion and hostility evident in his pale eyes. He didn’t look well. “The Captain has told me that you require my professional services. Specialist Ivers.”
Acknowledging his nod in her direction with a careful salute, Jils realized just how good Lowden really was. Garol did in fact have a job for Koscuisko that required Koscuisko’s “professional services,” and Lowden need only have said that much and no more to create the absolutely opposite impression of what was to be asked of him in Koscuisko’s mind.
“Well, actually, it’s the Danzilar prince who insisted upon his Excellency in person. Because the woman was very badly treated, and Paval I’shenko feels very strongly that the best surgeon Lowden’s got should be the one to put her right.”
Nor was there anything explicit in Garol’s statement to make his question too obvious or his suspicion too clear. It was just the kind of thing that anybody could have said, offering further information about a mission that had — of course — been fully explained to Koscuisko already up front. Lowden had done no such thing: Jils knew it from Koscuisko’s face.
“Mister Stildyne.” Koscuisko’s Chief of Security had joined them, posted behind Garol and Jils and waiting for Koscuisko’s word. “I shall have a word for you, Chief, in a moment. Specialist Vogel. Be very careful what you say. Captain Lowden has given me to understand that I am needed for an interrogation, and I can only take your meaning as to the contrary.”
“There may have been a bit of confusion on Lowden’s part, sir. But Wyrlann isn’t denying it, and the Bench doesn’t Inquire into cases like this anyway, since the woman’s just a service bond-involuntary.” Carefully, carefully. Garol put his words simply and succinctly, as respectful of rank as Garol could be when nobody had given him any reason yet why he should not. “His Excellency is needed to perform reconstructive and restorative surgery. Nothing more.”
Koscuisko grimaced suddenly in ferocious pain and turned his head to one side, down and away, the white of his under-blouse gleaming unexpectedly between his neck and the dark of his duty blouse. Garol took a half-step closer with his hands held quiet at his sides. “Are you all right, sir?”
Stildyne stepped forward three paces, as though he would have got between them if he could have managed it. “Give us a few eighths, Specialist,” Stildyne suggested, the deference due Garol’s unspecified rank as evident as Stildyne’s determination to be rid of the two of them. “His Excellency will be along presently.”
Retreating a full step, Garol bowed politely to the silent figure of Andrej Koscuisko. “Take your time,” Garol agreed. “The sooner we leave the sooner we get there, though.” There was nothing more either of them could possibly say. She and Garol returned to the courier ship, leaving Koscuisko to sort things out with Stildyne. Garol was swearing under his breath; she could guess at what he was probably saying to himself, because of long experience of Garol’s moods.
Needs a wire, he does .. Needs a full energy charge, about gut-level. Needs the Sisprayan plague. Yeah. Needs a bullet.
So was he talking about Lowden, or Koscuisko? Lowden for deliberately creating the certainty of an abhorrent duty in Koscuisko’s mind when quite the opposite was in fact intended? Or Koscuisko himself, since Garol’s stated opinion was that there wasn’t anything to choose between the two of them?
“Hey.” She didn’t need him in this mood, especially not at the beginning of a trip. “So it’s all right, now, okay? Come on.”
Safely inside the ship, now, Garol turned toward her suddenly and put his fist to the wall the way he did when he was so unhappy that only inflicting gratuitous physical pain on himself could make him feel any better. It was a problem that Garol had; they’d been living with it for years. “All right nothing, Jils, you’ve got to know better than that. You saw the look on that sorry jack’s face — it’s not all right at all. What a cheap trick, jerking on a man’s chain like that — ”
This was almost funny. “That’s good, coming from you, Garol. Just the day before yesterday, was it, that Koscuisko was a deeply disturbed sicko who wasn’t worth the consideration you’d give the average ass-wipe? Remember?”
Being reminded of his own excesses always drove him wild. Garol rolled his eyes in utter exasperation. “He’s a man, and any man deserves a little basic decency. You saw his face, Jils, come on, you saw it, the same as I did.”
“Yeah, right, sure, and he’s probably kind to children and small animals, too. As if that means squat. I don’t believe you.” He was letting things get a little out of control, if anybody asked her. Which they hadn’t. “Ready to promote him to human being just because Lowden didn’t give him all the facts?”
“There’s more to it than that.” He was calmer now, but stubborn still. “I don’t like the way that Stildyne tiptoes around him. Something’s going on that no one’s telling us, and that could be dangerous, Jils, when it’s somebody like Koscuisko that we’re talking about.”
Whatever it was that had upset him so deeply he wasn’t able to quite put his finger on it. At least not yet, or he’d tell her. “We’ve got company, Garol. Go start the shutdowns. I’ll make nice with our guests for you.”
Garol stomped off ungraciously toward the control room, and Jils sighed to herself, arranging her face even as she did so.
Even Koscuisko — hostile and resentful as he was bound to be — was company to be preferred to Garol, when Garol was in a mood.
###
This was not good. Stildyne knew how much pleasure Captain Lowden took in setting up his little pranks; before Koscuisko’s arrival and subsequent agreement with the Captain had put an end to it, many of Lowden’s best gags had resulted in assessment of two-and-twenty on up for whichever bond-involuntary happened to be closest at time of occurrence.
“Your Excellency, I’m — ”
Sorry, Stildyne started to say. Sorry you had to stay. Sorry I'm not going with you to Port Burkhayden, but we both know that Pyotr would be Chief of Security if he weren't under Bond. I'm not sure he doesn't outrank me even with his Bond. You'll be fine with Pyotr.
Unfortunately Koscuisko wasn’t having any of it. Stildyne wondered, just that fraction of a moment too late, what other humorous trap Captain Lowden might have set recently.
“Tell me then that this nonsense of refusing Sceppan is also a lie.” Koscuisko challenged him directly, his voice flat and cold and wickedly cutting. “And I will say no more about it. I am waiting to hear, Mister Stildyne.”
Koscuisko wouldn’t hear what he was waiting to hear. Because that much was true. Why hadn’t he said anything to Koscuisko before? Koscuisko had been drunk, that was why. Koscuisko had had problems of his own.
“Very well. If you want to hear more lies.” It wasn’t going to be pleasant any way he looked at it. Maybe it would be just as well to get it done and over with here and now. Koscuisko was leaving for Port Burkhayden; Stildyne wouldn’t see him for more than a week. That could give Koscuisko time to accept the idea and become reconciled to it. One way or the other Stildyne wasn’t about to back down.
“You are offered the post of First Officer. It is the culmination of your career,” Koscuisko noted; quite calmly, really. “And you know as well as I do that such slots are created only by attrition or new commission, and there are precious few new commissions in these troubled times. How long will it be before there is another chance for you?”
So far, so good. “If his Excellency wishes to state that he finds my performance unacceptable, then do so to my face. Because otherwise I’m not going. I have responsibilities here.”
That concept was still as new and alien to him as when he had first realized that he was going to refuse Sceppan, and why. Responsibilities. He, himself, Brachi Stildyne, every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost. Koscuisko was at fault. Koscuisko was at fault for so much.
“Stildyne, we have to go, I do not have time to dance with you. You must know how things are. You do not imagine they will change. Why will you not go to Sceppan?”
Yes, he knew how things were. On Sceppan he would have respect, responsibilities, the safety of a crew and the effectiveness of its fighting troops as his to nurture and protect. On Ragnarok he had — what?
“I knew that I was going to decline the promotion when First Officer put it in front of me, your Excellency. And that was before anything changed your plans.” On Ragnarok he had nothing but grief, No perks left to being Chief Warrant Officer over bond-involuntary Security when Koscuisko disapproved so strongly of anyone taking advantage of sexual access to them.
No particular degree of rapport with Koscuisko himself, who was not inclined to admire other men and who emphatically resented being openly admired himself. Nothing. “You were going home. There would be nobody to look after Godsalt and the others.”
Nothing but grief and worry. Koscuisko had tricked him over the years, somehow. Lured him into feeling responsible for the Bonds, while he wasn’t looking. Into wanting to do what he could do to protect them from Lowden’s sense of humor for no other reason than that they were not permitted to protect themselves.
“For the gentlemen you have made this decision?” He’d caught Koscuisko off guard, startled him. That was funny. Andrej Koscuisko, caught off guard. “Mister Stildyne. I am astonished at you. I had thought — ”
He knew what Koscuisko had thought.
Am I never to be forgiven for having once desired you?
Stildyne knew better than to say the words, though.
Koscuisko turned the phrase away, and continued.
“And yet they will not be unshielded here now, because I have the bargain arranged with Captain Lowden. Therefore you need not turn away from the opportunity.”
“Yes, right, and you can do it all yourself. You’ve done it all yourself these years past, haven’t you?” A man could get exasperated. “Sorry, sir, it’s not negotiable. If you want to get rid of me you’ll have to bring a complaint before First Officer. Why don’t you load the courier, sir, and leave me to do my job.”
He wasn’t staying just because he liked short lithe intransigent blonds. If he liked Dolgorukij he knew where he could buy them, at least for a few hours, even if they did run a little high to market — Dolgorukij men in service houses were relatively uncommon, but not impossible to find. Stildyne had hired his share of them over the course of the past four years. It never seemed to make dealing with Koscuisko any easier: so obviously whatever it was about Koscuisko wasn’t just wanting him.
Stildyne wasn’t interested in thinking it through more thoroughly than that. He had enough problems.
“As long as we are clear, you and I,” Koscuisko said thoughtfully. “Because you are quite right, I am not proof against Captain Lowden, and to the extent to which I have implied that you have not protected these gentlemen beyond my ability to do so I apologize to you, Mister Stildyne, from my heart. I am a very great sinner. It was not my intent to attempt to deny respect to you.”
That probably meant something, and he would probably figure it out. Sooner or later. For now he had to get Koscuisko on board the courier and away.
“Don’t think twice about it.” And whatever you do don't try to explain anything. Koscuisko’s explanations never seemed to explain. They only made things worse. “You’re wanted on courier, sir.”
For a moment Stildyne thought that Koscuisko was going to open his mouth, say something. For a moment.
Then Koscuisko apparently decided that it would be not only expedient but appropriate to yield the last word, because he only nodded.
Stildyne stepped aside.
Koscuisko crossed the decking toward the courier and climbed the ramp into its waiting belly, and never once looked back.
That's the way to do it, Stildyne me lad, Stildyne told himself.
Never look back.
You've bought these boots now well and truly, and paid cash money, too.
It's up to you to break them in and wear them.