Chapter Two
The first few days of a class were the same no matter what the course material, Andrej mused, glancing around Tutor Chonis’s office idly. There’d be introductions, though he’d already met Tutor Chonis and Student what-was-her-name Noycannir. There would be the review of the course schedule. And they would have a summary lecture, or else the first of several introductory lectures, depending upon the complexity of the coursework and the relative length of the Term.
The medical university on Mayon was a compound city the size of his family’s estate at Rogubarachno, huge and ancient. Older than his father’s House, in a sense. Mayon had already been a surgical college of considerable antiquity and status when the Aznir were still busily annexing worlds without the tedious interference of the Jurisdiction and its impressively efficient Fleet; that was well before their crucial first encounter with the Jurisdiction’s Bench, and the subsequent substitution of armed conquest with aggressive market management. The classrooms he’d occupied during his student years had ranged from back rooms in drinking houses to the blindingly sterile theaters where infectious diseases were treated; but he didn’t think he’d ever sat a class in someone’s office until now.
“Good-greeting, Student Koscuisko, Student Noycannir. Thank you, please be seated.”
Slept in teachers’ offices, yes; quarreled with the Administration over the interpretation of some test results or clinical indications, perhaps. He’d never sat in class with only one fellow Student, either. Huge as Mayon complex was, it had always been packed to fullest capacity with students and staff even so, because it was the very best facility in known Jurisdiction Space for those who wished to learn the art of surgery and medicine. Only the strict planning codes that had controlled construction for over five hundred years, Standard, had prevented Mayon from becoming claustrophobic. Student housing varied naturally according to the needs and the resources of each Student; but there had been sky and air enough for everybody, even in the heart of the great Surgical College itself. Andrej had only been here at Fleet Orientation Station Medical for two days. He missed the night breeze already.
“You’ll have reviewed the assigned material, of course. Rhyti, anyone? Please, help yourselves.” The Tutor’s gesture indicated the serving-set on the Tutor’s squarish shining work-table, just between Andrej and Student Noycannir. She had declined to speak to him except to return his greeting. Andrej didn’t care whether she liked him or not; there were too many other things to think about. He’d never had much use for overly compulsive Students. Aggression could cover for lack of skill for a time, that was true. Sooner or later, though, competitiveness failed before superior ability.
Andrej fixed himself a flask of rhyti in polite silence. Joslire had brought cavene for fast-meal this morning; Andrej didn’t like cavene, and had said so. He would have had some now, though, if the Tutor suggested it. In Andrej’s experience teachers expected everything they said to be taken as good advice or outright direction. But Noycannir just sat there — and did not move to take a flask for herself when Andrej nudged the serving-set closer to her elbow.
“You will have noted that the Term is to comprise six Standard months of instruction, twenty-four weeks. Student Noycannir, you’ll not need to adjust your time-sense, since Chilleau Judiciary is of course on Standard time. Student Koscuisko, I expect you’re still on Standard time from Mayon, unless going back to Azanry reset you to home-chrono. How long were you home?”
Azanry did not follow the Jurisdiction Standard, but he hadn’t been back there for long enough to have forgotten. “Two months, Tutor Chonis. Perhaps five weeks, by local reckoning.” Not long at all. There had been plenty of time to embrace his old servants, to tour his fields, to visit his land-pledges. Time enough to compromise the lady Marana and quarrel with his father. Not long enough to change his father’s mind or make him understand.
“Well, you’ll have leave again soon enough, I’m sure. As I was saying, the Term is twenty-four weeks. Perhaps thirty, if the Administration identifies a weakness in some aspect of your professional development.”
The Remedial Levels, that was what Chonis meant. An extra cushion of time to serve as catch-up for dull Students. But if the Student should fail to fulfill some element of the teaching paradigm even at the Remedial Levels, there would be nothing left to do but to recycle her to the next Term. And Noycannir would probably be recycled to the next Term because — having reviewed the lesson schedule — Andrej could not for the life of him imagine how a woman with no medical background could hope to master such a body of information in only thirty weeks. It looked challenging enough to him; and he had nearly eight years of intensive medical training to draw on.
Perhaps he was reading more into the requirements than was really to be demanded of them.
“You’ll have noted also that our time divides rather neatly into two halves: one for instruction, one for practical exercise. There is a good deal of material to cover. I cannot emphasize strongly enough the need for diligent study.”
Andrej sipped his rhyti, feeling a little bored. Yes, there was a lot to get through, history, philosophy, formal structure, the legal issues, the Writ. The Levels. He wasn’t sure why Tutor Chonis felt good study habits needed emphasis, however. What else was there to do here but study? Well, study, exercise, and attend lecture and laboratory, of course.
“Are there any questions?”
None that had occurred to him, at least not yet. Andrej glanced over at his partner, Student Noycannir; she sat with her eyes fixed on the Tutor, not moving. So she didn’t have any questions, either. Or she simply wasn’t willing to raise any.
“Your personal schedules have been carefully arranged to maximize your study time accordingly. Your assigned Security will continue to provide you with your meals in your quarters. Exercise periods are scheduled before mid-meal and before third-meal. Student Koscuisko, Curran will be your trainer. As you know, he’s Emandisan, and quite good. Student Noycannir, you’ll start out with Hanbor. He’ll adjust your training as required to ensure that you get the level of combat drill you’re accustomed to.”
Interesting. The Tutor expected her to be able to fight hand-to-hand, and clearly well enough to warrant a more advanced teacher than the one provided him. She was in good physical condition, to look at her. It seemed a little unusual to Andrej for a Clerk of Court to have any background in combat drill, but what did he know?
“Let’s get started, then. Andrej, you’ll remember the remark you made at dinner yesterday about the role of coercive force in the interrogation process in your father’s time?”
Into the lecture, then. According to schedule they would take a week to discuss why it was reasonable to use torture as an instrument of Judicial order. They would explore the communication problem, and the unquestionable truth that the single most universal language under Jurisdiction was pain, even if its dialects — fear, hatred, and fury, terror and desperation — could not be reliably interpreted.
“Yes, Tutor Chonis. I understand from the material that the Jurisdiction Bench did not shift responsibility for such functions until the tenure of First Judge Upan Istmol?”
To a certain extent it was old material. After all, much of his early medical training had focused on reading pain and how to sort it from shame or embarrassment when the Jurisdiction Standard did not satisfy. A good general practitioner needed thorough grounding in that grammar, and he had been highly praised in his evaluations for the delicacy of his exploratory touch. Eight years from entry-level general-medical to advanced certifications in neurosurgery and psycho-pharmacology, and all of it just so that he could go to Fleet and implement the Protocols — it hardly seemed worth it.
“Quite so, Student Koscuisko. You’ve started the assignment, I see. Istmol’s critical reading of the implementation of Fleet Procedure Five clearly demonstrates the reasoning behind the decision. Reasoning that is, of course, still current, as received.”
Andrej concentrated on the Tutor’s words, doing his best not to think about why it was so important to rationalize the institutionalization of torture. Deterrent terror. Swift and strict punishment for crimes against the Judicial order. The shock value of a mutilated body on display at local Judicial centers. Living, breathing examples of what a person risked when they tried to challenge the rule of Law.
It didn’t matter how he felt about it.
He would keep up and do well; it was expected. It was required. For the rest — since there could hardly be any congenial drinking-places at a stand-alone Station founded on a barren piece of rock — he would simply have to find distraction where he could.
###
Mergau Noycannir was prompt to class, and had been prompt each of the forty-eight Standard days that class had met since the Term had opened. Forty-eight days; six weeks, Standard. They were halfway through the initial orientation phase and still just speaking in generalities. What good could all of this background do anyone?
Did they think that they were going to lecture her to death, and be rid of her that way?
She heard the signal at the Tutor’s door. It would be Koscuisko, of course, since Chonis did not signal for admittance to his own office. She threw an idle taunt at him as the door opened, pretending to be providing reassurance.
“Safe you are, Student Koscuisko, our Tutor is delayed.”
Six weeks. She was bored, and getting anxious. Koscuisko was a safe target. He came into the room with too much energy, like a man who’d never been forced to watch his step, moderate his gestures, or govern his expression. People who were so egocentric, so self-defined, could only disgust her. Had he never learned to be afraid of somebody? Would he ever take any of this seriously? And yet she had to be wary of him, because he had the medical education that Fleet valued so highly.
She did not.
Secretary Verlaine had seen no reason to lose one of his best Clerks of Court to years of medical training when all he wanted was someone who had custody of a Writ to Inquire.
“Thank you, Student Noycannir. I trust you had good practice.”
Koscuisko answered politely, clearly not noticing her reprimand. Koscuisko didn’t notice her at all, in some fundamental fashion. That was much worse than any criticism he could have turned on her; but it was not surprising.
“Thank you, I have had good practice.” Of all those here, only Security gave her a measure of the respect that she had earned, that she deserved. It wasn’t hard to force them to respect her in combat drill. They were not permitted to rebuke her if she hurt them or failed to observe the rules of practice. And she could fight. “Your practice also?”
Koscuisko, on the other hand, was still learning recruit-level hand-to-hand; she knew that from things Tutor Chonis said. She was better than he was in the arena. If she could have him to herself, no interference, one-on-one, she would not even ask for a weapon. She was confident that she could make him respect her then.
Koscuisko met her eyes and laughed, small and meekly. “Not up to your standards, Student Noycannir, I am quite sure. I find it much more complex a procedure than breaking brew-jugs over peoples’ heads.”
He knew she was better, but he didn’t believe it. She could fantasize all she liked; it wasn’t the same. Nor could she afford even fantasies any longer — Tutor Chonis arrived, which meant that she had to make a good show of attention.
The Tutor set his cubes down at his viewer and began to talk without looking at either of them. It was his way to try to catch them unawares. She had learned his habits, and she could best him at his own game. “Well, as I had been saying this morning. History, philosophy, a little — shall we say — political context.”
The standard Judicial Structures chart was still on the projection viewer, displayed across the length and breadth of the wall behind the Tutor’s chair. Nine Judiciaries; nine Judges, with Fleet shown as subordinate to the Bench in the person of the First Judge Presiding at Toh Judiciary. There was Chilleau Judiciary, Second Judge Sem Porr Har Presiding, on a line with the other eight subordinate Benches; and even at such a global scale as the Judicial Structures chart, First Secretary Verlaine was called out by name, head of Administration.
The Sixth Judge Sat at Sant-Dasidar Judiciary. Fourth or fifth on the list of circuit Courts reporting to the Sixth Judge, one could just make out the name of Koscuisko’s system of origin. Secretary Verlaine’s name was easy to read on the Judicial Structures chart; the Dolgorukij Combine was all but lost in the small script. It was too bad Student Koscuisko was so clearly incapable of taking an obvious lesson from that, Mergau mused.
Tutor Chonis was still talking. “We’ve been through all that. The formal structure of the current organization, organizational philosophy, and so forth. I think we’ve worked that quite thoroughly, so unless you have any last questions? Student Koscuisko?”
She didn’t have any questions, and she didn’t care about Fleet’s organizational structure, either. What difference did it make to her whether there were three pharmacists and a rated psycho-tech on staff rather than one psycho-pharmacist, two pharmacists, and an extra critical-care technician instead? Were the five extra staff in the complement at the Fleet Flag level ever going to matter to her? What difference did it make whether the interrogation area was within the surgical area or well removed from all other medical facilities?
Koscuisko shook his head without a word, clearly understanding he wasn’t expected to raise any issues at this point. Koscuisko might well care about the pharmacists. Koscuisko might well understand what point there might be in spending two weeks and more on administrative issues like standard skill mixes on cruiser-killer-class warships. It might be important to him in the future. For Mergau herself it was a complete waste of time, which belonged to First Secretary Verlaine, and merited more respect than that accordingly.
“Very well. You’re to feel free to raise any issues that come to mind at any point, of course. Later.” A formality on the Tutor’s part. Koscuisko gave every indication of having studied the structure carefully. More fool Koscuisko, because once he got to where he was going, none of that would matter in the slightest. Everybody knew what Ship’s Surgeons were really there for.
“Let us proceed, then. You’ve been introduced to the philosophy behind the Levels of Inquiry, Confirmation, and Execution, which is to say the Bench endorsement of the principle of swift and certain punishment for crimes against the Judicial order. It’s time for us to begin to examine these Levels in greater detail, to prepare a foundation upon which to build when we reach the practical exercise phase of Term.”
And not a moment too soon for her taste, either. This was what Mergau had come here for, after all; this was what her Patron meant for her to master. The Levels. The Levels, and the Writ itself, which they were not to consider as a separate lecture subject until nearly five more weeks had passed — just before the exercises were to start.
That would not be boring, when they got to the exercises.
“Levels One through Three, the Preliminary Levels, Inquiry. The Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Levels, the Intermediate Levels, Inquiry and Confirmation. Levels Seven, Eight, and Nine, the Advanced Levels — Inquiry, Confirmation, and Execution. The Tenth Level of Inquiry, Command Termination. Let us first consider the Judicial foundations implicit to the process of Inquiry. Student Noycannir, if you will assist us?”
She didn’t mind the sly trick in Tutor Chonis’s method. She was ready for him. She was almost always ready for him; not only ready but more than willing to play the Tutor’s manipulative game.
“The Preliminary Levels, Tutor Chonis. The first level at which it is permissible to invoke the use of force. Security may take measures appropriate to the Preliminary Levels, but only at risk of discipline unless the Security is under the direct guidance of a fully rated Inquisitor with custody of an active Writ.”
This was the beginning of the single most dangerous challenge she had ever undertaken, and she could not bear to stop and think of how complete her ruin would be should she fail to prevail in her Patron’s name.
She let the joy of battle comfort her, instead, and concentrated on the fact that she was nearer day by day to victory.
###
“And with this discussion of the Writ we conclude our examination of the history, the philosophy, the formal structure, the Levels, and the Judicial mandate of an Inquisitor with a Writ to Inquire.”
Tutor Chonis addressed himself to the summary title still displayed on the wall-screen viewer behind his desk. He knew that his Students were tense. The closer they got to the crucial break between pure lecture and the first practical exercise, the tenser they became, too. “Let’s just review the block of instruction.” Who should he call on first? He’d catch them both, of course, and off their guard if he could manage it. Much more than mere replay-knowledge was to be tested at Fleet Orientation Station Medical — and as often as could be maneuvered without becoming crushingly obvious.
He heard a shifting sound from the table behind his back. Student Koscuisko. Sliding his seat away from the study-table, probably. They’d had twelve weeks together in indoctrination and review; Chonis felt confident in predicting that young Koscuisko would be scowling, his wide, high forehead scored with irritation, his mouth pursed sourly.
Koscuisko was too easy.
So he would call out Noycannir to be first.
“Student Noycannir, will you detail the Privilege of the Writ for us, please.”
He could not hear a reaction, not even with the augmented hearing in his right ear — where he had all but lost the natural faculty years ago in an explosion. He knew what that no-sound looked like, well enough. She’d be stiff as stalloy in her seat, and glaring — an equal mix of aggression and insecurity.
“The Privilege of the Writ. Established by Judicial order 177-39-15228. The First Judge Caris Raber, Presiding.” Well? her sullen, stony eyes always seemed to ask. Is that good enough for you? I’ll bet you thought I couldn’t get it right. Well, it’s high time you learned better. She never seemed to be secure, even when she clearly knew the material very well.
“The Writ is granted by Judicial order, and cannot be voided except by Judicial order or expiration of contract of service. It is a failure to support the Judicial order to reject a grant of Writ prior to the expiration of Fleet contract.”
She could be subtle, too, and politic; she rehearsed the abstract blandly, without the slightest hint that she even cared about that irony visible on her narrow, sharp cunning face. Once the Writ was granted, it was treason to attempt to lay it down before your eight years of service had been completed. Which reminded him . . .
“Thank you, Student Noycannir, it’s quite a lot for one person to try to get through alone. Perhaps Student Koscuisko would explain the unique legal position granted by the Privilege of the Writ?”
He knew Koscuisko didn’t like this part. As if Koscuisko could be said to care for any of it.
“Of the Judicial offenses punishable under Law, only one can override the Privilege of the Writ. That offense is challenging the Judicial order by act of treason, mutiny, or insurrectionary intent.”
As represented, for instance, by failure to obey lawful and received instruction from one’s superior commanding officer. Or in terms of Koscuisko’s birth-culture — one’s oldest brother, one’s father, or the oldest brother of one’s father, if there was one. In other words, precisely what Koscuisko had been trying so strenuously to accomplish before he had finally submitted to the overwhelming weight of Aznir tradition and reported to Fleet Orientation Station Medical as his father directed.
“Wrongful imprisonment cannot be cried against the Writ, because the Inquisitor does not bind into confinement but only enters into the Judicial process when a suspect has been apprehended.” Koscuisko was obviously of a mind to be thorough about it, since he had been asked. “Loss of function cannot be cried against the Writ, because the Inquisitor would not be free to perform his Judicial function without fear of repercussions, and one cannot be penalized for performing one’s Judicial function. For the same reasons loss of life cannot be cried against the Writ. Loss of personal or real property cannot be cried against the Writ, because the Bench does not apprehend without reason . . . ”
Turning around now in his seat, Tutor Chonis regarded Koscuisko with a benevolent eye. It was always gratifying to have one’s mental image confirmed. Student Koscuisko was sitting with his legs crossed and one elbow on the study table, marking off points one by one on the fingers of his left hand; precisely as Tutor Chonis had imagined him.
“ . . . and the integrity of the Jurisdiction is considered to be resident in the Writ. Judicial discrimination may not be questioned in Judicial process. Loss of privacy cannot be cried against the Writ — ”
Tutor Chonis held up his hand and Koscuisko fell silent, folding his itemized fingers into a pensive fist. “Thank you, Student Koscuisko. Well. You have made it quite clear that you are both thoroughly familiar with the philosophy and the crucial legalities that justify, or I should say mandate, your Writ.”
Not to mention keenly aware of how useful a Writ could be to an ambitious administrator like First Secretary Verlaine. What had put the idea in Verlaine’s mind at the beginning was anyone’s guess; all Tutor Chonis really knew for certain about it was that Verlaine had been pulling strings, trading favors, cashing in tokens with reckless abandon over the past two years in his campaign to get Student Noycannir admitted.
Verlaine didn’t want an Inquisitor on loan from Fleet who would necessarily have divided loyalties. Verlaine felt Fleet could have more Inquisitors at much less expense if it waived its requirement for Bench medical certifications. Student Noycannir was here to prove that point.
If the First Secretary had his way, there’d be Inquisitors at each Bench center, for each circuit, and for each Judicial processing center — all in support of the Judicial order, of course.
And only incidentally to the detriment of the political power of the Fleet, which had up until now maintained an unchallenged monopoly over the Writ and the lawful exercise of coercive and punitive physical force.
“I have reviewed your progress with the Administrator, who has expressed very great satisfaction with your mastery of the material to date. It has therefore been decided that the scheduled week of assurance iterations will be waived. We are permitted to move directly to the next block of instruction.”
Insult 101, as Tutor Jestra had been wont to call it. The Preliminary Levels of the Question started with hearing a confession out and ran through assisted inquiry — which was the maximum degree of violence that could be invoked without a Warrant. Inquisitors were seldom disciplined for violating restrictions, though, since superior officers were generally willing to overlook such lapses as long as they didn’t have to look too closely at what was happening in the first place.
To Orientation Station staff, assisted inquiry seemed so benign compared to the Intermediate or Advanced Levels that as far as Tutor Chonis was concerned it did in fact amount to little more than calling a person names.
The prospect of their first practical exercise generally affected the students somewhat more dramatically. Chonis checked the reactions to his surprise: Student Noycannir froze up in her seat whenever she felt threatened, yes, just like that. Student Koscuisko straightened up in his seat, leaning over the table and staring at the carefully replicated artificial grain of Chonis’s semi-veneer wall-covering as if there was a text to be read there.
“The Administrator has asked me to declare an extra half of personal time, in token of his appreciation for your accomplishments. Please prepare the material issued for first lecture, Segment Two, the Preliminary Levels. We will start first thing in the morning. Thank you, Student Noycannir, Student Koscuisko.”
Fortunately by this time Students were accustomed to spending their personal time alone with only their bond-involuntary Security for company. The Administration took steps with every class to ensure that Students were isolated from each other to the maximum extent possible; training was much more efficient if Students were utterly dependent on their Tutors for approval and validation.
Now, for instance, if Students were permitted to meet and compare notes, they might conceivably recognize the schedule shift for the simple psychological trick that it was. There was no time allowance for assurance iteration.
There never had been.
Every Term it appeared on the schedule, to give the Students the false sense of temporary security that a weeklong buffer between pure theory and the first messy — clumsy — practical exercise could provide.
And every Term Students were moved straight into Preliminary, to keep them off balance and insecure and so eager for reassurance — for official approbation — that they would be willing to beat some helpless stranger with their bare hands just to get a word of praise from their Tutor.
“We start tomorrow with first-lecture, usual time. And then we’ll move to theater in a few days.” They needed some extra nudging to get them up and out of his office. “Your first exercise is scheduled for today week. We’ll review some of the previous exercises to help you prepare prior to the practicum. Enjoy your free time. Good-shift to you, Students.”
Koscuisko shook his head just a fraction, as if breaking himself out of his immobility, and started to rise. The moment Koscuisko began to shift, Noycannir was out of her chair smoothly and swiftly, unwilling — as always — to see him get one step ahead of her in anything. Tomorrow, Students, Chonis promised them in his mind, watching them take their confusion out of his office. Tomorrow we will begin to test your mettle.
And in the meantime?
In the meantime reports from the assigned Security troops usually proved amusing, as each Student sought to find some psychic balance after the unexpected shock.
The door slid together behind Koscuisko’s back, and Tutor Chonis leaned back in his chair and smiled.
###
It had been a week since the Tutor’s traditional trick of moving the Students straight into preparation for their first practical exercise. Joslire had taken his officer through the evening drill; now Koscuisko was relaxing with his rubdown, quite possibly thinking of nothing more than his supper to come.
Koscuisko seemed to be relaxed enough.
Lying on his belly with his arms folded under his head, Koscuisko nuzzled his chin into his fist like a blissfully happy young animal, making undefined sounds of contentment. Joslire suppressed his involuntary grin of amused recognition. Yes, that muscle had pulled tense during today’s training; and yes, it did feel good, when it surrendered up its tension to an expert hand. And if he was not an expert hand, at least Joslire was good enough by this time to tend to Koscuisko’s relatively minor aches and pains to his satisfaction.
He’d had Students both more and less athletic than this one in the past, but none who accepted the requirement for exercise with so good a grace. Stiff, sore, and grumbling strictly to himself, Koscuisko never hinted at avoiding practice or suggested cutting it short, except in carefully qualified jest. That made things easier for everybody. Joslire was grateful to his Student for the grace with which Koscuisko took direction; it made living with his governor much easier. He was adequately confident of his own ability to discriminate between being sworn at in the line of duty and being sworn at because he wasn’t doing his duty; but the possibility of confusion arising was an unpleasant one.
The more perplexing problem remained that Koscuisko seemed to take all of Fleet Orientation — physical exercise and soon-to-be-intensified combat drill alike — as some sort of an amusement, or a joke. Koscuisko was younger than his years, there was that. The Aznir stayed children for longer than the Emandisan did, Aznir lived longer than Emandisan, and Joslire had told himself he could have expected Koscuisko’s attitude to retain some of the blithe, carefree flavor of a privileged childhood even after years of medical school.
He was finished with the strained back muscle. Koscuisko let one arm drop over the edge of the rub-table, pillowing his cheek against the flattened back of his other hand — and grinning like an infant with never a care in the world. Except Joslire could feel the base tension in Koscuisko’s body had yet to yield to massage. Koscuisko kept his nerves to himself. All Joslire could tell the Tutor about Koscuisko’s state of mind was what little he could gain from observation and inference. The muscles in Koscuisko’s sturdy shoulders could no longer be persuaded to relax as completely as they had during the first weeks, even allowing for improved muscle tone. Koscuisko was tense; but that was hardly news, not with the practical exercise scheduled for first thing next first-shift. In the morning. There was nothing new there to tell Tutor Chonis.
Working his Student’s feet, Joslire pondered his problem. Bond-involuntaries who wanted to stay out of trouble kept their mouths shut, so as to avoid giving their governors or their Students cause to discipline them. Joslire desperately wanted to stay out of trouble. But part of his job was to keep Tutor Chonis up to date on what was going on in Koscuisko’s head. Bond-involuntaries learned early on that their best protection was to perfect their duty, gaining a measure of immunity from their governors’ strict censorship by maintaining unchallengeably correct thought and conduct. And Tutor Chonis had gone an extra pace for him before.
“With the officer’s permission . . . ”
Koscuisko grunted inquiringly in response, sounding half asleep. A good start, Joslire decided, and was encouraged to go on.
“The First Level exercise is tomorrow, as the officer will remember. In the past other Students have shared comments of one sort or another. It has often seemed to help to put things in perspective.”
How do you feel? What do you feel? What are you thinking? What is on your mind?
“Hmm. Well. I feel that Jurisdiction wodac is not of the best quality, which is not surprising. And that the instructional material is badly in need of a technical update, in places.”
Not precisely what Joslire had in mind, but there was no way in which he could question more directly — not and keep peace with the governor that the Bench had spliced into the pain linkages in his brain. Joslire stepped back half a pace. “If the officer would care to turn onto his back.”
Koscuisko didn’t mind being uncovered. Aznir Dolgorukij didn’t seem to have privacy taboos about masculine nudity, at least not among men of the same age; though from what Joslire had read about Koscuisko’s ethnicity, relative age made all the difference. There was a Jurisdiction Standard for personal modesty, though, as much a part of the common language as the grammar was. Koscuisko would be expected to conform to those standards once he reached Scylla. It was up to Joslire to instruct him by example. Joslire laid a clean towel across Koscuisko’s lap and began to address the upper part of Koscuisko’s right knee, where yesterday’s training bruise was just beginning to mellow to a rich gold-and-purple blotch around the joint.
And after a moment Koscuisko spoke again.
“What is the manner in which an Emandisan frees himself from error, if he has sinned? Is there such a need in your birth-culture?”
It didn’t seem to be related to the issue Joslire had raised, but there was no telling. Chonis had commented on Koscuisko’s effective — but sometimes disconcerting — tendency to come at a question from an angle that was itself part of his answer to whatever problem.
He wasn’t eager to answer all the same; such issues weren’t widely discussed among free Emandisan, let alone enslaved ones. Of which latter category he was the only one he knew. He hadn’t wanted to tell Student Pefisct what his crime had been, either, since it wasn’t information he was required to surrender, on demand; but Student Pefisct had gotten it out of him at the last, when his enforced submission had come too late to do him any good. Joslire decided that he couldn’t face the memory of his last attempt at serious reticence. It would be easier to capitulate to Koscuisko’s casually phrased demand.
“If it please the officer, there is only . . . disrespect. Of steel.” He wasn’t sure how to say it and be faithful. It didn’t translate very well; he’d never tried to put it into Standard before. Perhaps he’d been lucky that his other Students hadn’t been curious about his five-knives. Joslire could imagine no worse torment than to be constrained to discuss what Emandisan steel meant to an Emandisan.
Koscuisko didn’t seem to be disturbed at the vagueness of Joslire’s response. Koscuisko stretched, yawning, and folded his wrists behind his head, staring up at the low gray ceiling of the cool room reflectively.
“You make it sound quite simple. Is something the matter, Joslire?”
Yes. He’d been thinking about Student Pefisct. Joslire ducked his head to obscure his confusion, following a line of muscle down the outside edge of Koscuisko’s shin with the hard knuckle of his thumb. “It never is as simple as it sounds. With the officer’s permission.”
“There is more truth than comfort there, however.” Koscuisko did not seem to suspect any hidden thought, apparently content to follow his own stream to the rock. “Where I am at home, there are three great sins, and all others relate to one or more of them in some way. But none are unforgivable except the three most grievous ones.”
What three great sins were those? Joslire wondered. He had done all he could with Koscuisko’s knee. Moving around to stand at the head of the rub-table, Joslire began to finish on Koscuisko’s shoulders, listening to his Student talk.
“And the first, perhaps the most difficult thing, is that you must confess yourself, or never hope to be forgiven. This is very annoying, Joslire. One would think that if the whole world knew that one had spoken with disrespect about one’s elder brother or one’s uncle that it would be enough to have one’s penance decided and made known to one, and be done with it.”
This was good. This was the sort of thing that he had been hoping for when he had asked the question. There was every reason to expect that Tutor Chonis would be able to explain what Koscuisko had been getting at, when the time came to give Chonis his report.
“But one would be mistaken. There can be no reconciliation without repentance, and there can be no repentance without acknowledgment of fault, and there can be no acknowledgment of fault without individual confession. I wonder how different it can be when all is said and sung, Joslire.”
Maybe it wasn’t all that different at that. The Jurisdiction required punishment before setting the Record to null, and declined to apply any of the agony that could lawfully be invoked to force confession against the penalty to be assessed.
So Student Koscuisko saw a connection there, and seemed to take comfort from it.
Joslire lifted Koscuisko’s head between his two hands to work the neck back to the relaxed range of supple motion that was normal for his Student.
Somehow he could not quite believe that the two parallels were really so simply aligned as that.
###
It’d been harder than mastering any of the technical material, Andrej remembered that very clearly. With the possible exception of some of the more arcane degenerative diseases among category-four hominids, nothing had been as difficult as learning to take a patient history; and he’d been too grateful for his teachers’ praise when he finally began to demonstrate some skill to worry too much about what that struggle had said about him.
All of his life he had asked whichever question he liked, never needing to consider whether the answer would be readily forthcoming — or accurate, when it did come. All of his life, the function of language had been to communicate his desires for the understanding and instruction of others around him. There were exceptions, of course; the language of holy service was humble and petitioning enough. It was also formalized by centuries of devout practice, and no longer really signified.
But in order to take a good and useful medical history from a patient already ill and not in the most conciliatory mood because of it — that required he learn to ask. To submerge any hint of personal frustration beneath a sincere and, yes, humble desire to know. To set the patient at the very center of the Holy Mother’s creation, to listen with every combined power at his disposal, to subordinate everything he was and everything he knew absolutely to whatever unsatisfactory and imperfect responses his patient would condescend to give.
There’d been times when he had despaired of ever attaining the art. There had certainly been times when his teachers had despaired of him. He’d been counseled by the Administration on more than one occasion to consider abandoning his goal in favor of a technical certification that would require no patient contact whatever, and he’d seriously considered doing just that; but he kept on trying. Graduation with full certification from Mayon Surgical College required demonstrated ability to develop a complete and accurate patient history, one-on-one — on an equal, not autocratic, footing with each patient who came under care.
Now Andrej sat in a padded armchair in the middle of the exercise theater, thinking about these things. The theater and the chair that was provided, he’d seen before; if not this precise theater, then others much like it, as Tutor Chonis reviewed paradigmatic exercises with them during their initial study. There was a door to the right through which the prisoner would enter. There was a table at his left, sturdy enough to support the body of an adult of most of the hominid categories, high enough for him to work at without tiring. Only his rhyti stood on that table now; his rhyti, and the Record. They’d add things gradually as they went along — instruments of Inquiry, then Confirmation, finally instruments of Execution, and there would be a side table for the Recorder.
For now the table was still safe for him. He could take his rhyti from it without shuddering, even knowing as he did what role it would play in his further education as a torturer. Security was posted behind him even now, even though it was only the first of the Levels — a free offering of confession, unassisted. Andrej wondered if Security was as apprehensive as he was to be starting this. Surely even Security had feelings about the work ahead of them all, the blood and the torment of it?
Without shifting his posture from the position of relaxed attentiveness he had assumed when he sat down, Andrej concentrated on the movements of the two Security troops behind him. He used to try to guess exactly what faces his young nieces and nephews behind him were making at the kneelers during the long hours in chapel on one Saint’s day or another; and now he found that the old pastime had the effect of giving him eyes in the back of his head, where the strictly subservient Security were concerned. The prisoner had not been brought in just yet, and Security seemed to permit themselves a bit more restlessness than they might have had they felt that someone was watching them — or watching them now as opposed to hours later on Record, where they would like as not be out of orb anyway, if the demonstration tapes were any indication. The image in his mind’s eye amused him — a pleasant relief from the fretful night he’d spent.
“Gentlemen, a little concentration, if you please,” Andrej said, sensing their surprise and stiffening posture. Quite probably they’d never been forced to kneel devoutly for hours at a time while Uncle Radu declaimed at length about the improbably perfect virtue of some probably hypothetical martyr.
Perhaps he should approach his task from a different angle after all, Andrej mused.
To take a medical history one had to connect with a patient, and he wanted as little connection with this place as possible. He wasn’t interested in making any person-to-person contact with the prisoner; but he couldn’t take a medical history without engaging his empathic self.
His final evaluations in that all-critical block of instruction had cited his “genuine and responsive empathy of a very respectable degree,” and he was proud of himself to have won over his own limitations, proud of how completely his proctor had been surprised as she read the commendatory prose from his record.
It would be better for him if he could turn the empathy off, pretend he’d never fought through the icy bare-rock pass between his mind and heart. It would be better for him to observe clinically, without emotion. Except all that he was and all that he had won at Mayon depended upon his passionate empathy; how could he set that prize aside, and not diminish himself?
He was no further toward a solution to the problem this morning than he had been last night, talking to Joslire. What had he been talking to Joslire about? There’d been a good deal of wodac after supper. He wasn’t quite sure.
The warning signal sounded at the door; Andrej remembered. Uncle Radu, the tiresome business of the confessional, and the brutal simplicity of it all. Confess or be unreconciled. Be contrite or unreconciled; accept your penance joyfully. Or be un-Reconciled.
Reaching for the glass on the table at his elbow, Andrej drank off half the rhyti in one draw, regretting his gesture immediately for the uneasiness that it betrayed.
Control, he told himself.
He had to have control.
“Step through.” He could hear no tremor in his voice, no uncertainty or nervousness. He had confessed and he was contrite, but Uncle Radu — and the whole of the Blood by extension — could not accept that he was truly penitent while he still resisted his father’s will. He left his home for this place un-Reconciled because he couldn’t accept his father’s wishes without protest. Disgraced and unblessed, and sitting here as though he’d been set by the Holy Mother to examine her children for flaw or fault . . . “State your identification. And the crime to which you wish to confess.”
He looked up only as he ended the first of the listed questions. He had the series set out in text for him on the scroller at his elbow; a Bench catechism of sorts, the litany for preserving the forms of the Judicial order. Perhaps it would be better to approach it that way. As long as he was un-Reconciled, he might as well be irreverent, and be damned for it. His father had kissed him and blessed him as well as he could under the circumstances. But the Church was pitiless.
The Church and the Bench’s Protocols were well matched for that.
“Abbas Hakun, Sampfel Sector, Dorl and Yenzing, your Excellency.”
Familiar as the title was, it startled Andrej to hear it in this place. On his home-world his father was an Excellency, a prince not of the Autocrat’s lineage. And since all of a prince’s sons were princes — regardless of whether they would inherit, regardless of whether there was anything to inherit — Andrej had been an Excellency from his infancy. It only took him a moment to remember. Chonis had warned them that their prisoners were required to address them as if they were already commissioned.
“The crime to which I wish to confess is that of defrauding the Bench, your Excellency.”
It is my shame to be un-Reconciled, and if I cannot be relieved of fault by penance I must die nameless and unwept, never to stand in the presence of my Holy Mother beneath the Canopy.
His prisoner was Mizucash, tall, broad-shouldered, and imposing for all his bound hands and meek demeanor. The language of submission and confession sounded strangely in the Mizucash’s mouth, to Andrej’s ear.
“In what manner have you defrauded the Bench?”
Just like the confessional. The crime had to be quantified and categorized before the appropriate penance was assessed. And if the prisoner or child under Canopy did not have answers ready, the questions themselves would elicit information to complete the Record and define the penalty.
“My employment was in a Judicial Stores contract company, your Excellency. Our contract lay in the provision of the nine flours Standard for fast-meal menus of hominid categories eight, ten, eleven, and nineteen.”
Yes, my Mother’s servant, I have challenged my father’s will and my father’s wisdom, and not submitted instruction, as a filial child would not fail to do. I cannot accept my father’s will, though I am to do it. He cannot know what he requires of me.
“Describe the actions that you took, or failed to take, that resulted in the crime of defrauding the Bench.”
So easy, to pass from the neutral “crime to which you wish to confess” to the necessarily self-incrimination “crime of defrauding the Bench.” One hardly noticed the all-important shift in emphasis. Was this how Uncle Radu felt when he heard confession beneath the Canopy?
“I operated the sweeper in the packaging area of my plant. My instructions specified that flour sweepings were to be collected and weighed for use as wastage statistics for the development of the billing rates.”
What was the man talking about, anyway? “Explain how your actions vis-a-vis the floor sweepings defrauded the Bench.” He had to concentrate on the task before him and set aside his brooding. What could be so important about flour sweepings that they would send a man all the way out to Fleet Orientation Station Medical to confess about them? Or was that the point, that it was an unimportant crime, and therefore it was no matter if a Student Interrogator botched the job?
“Wastage statistics reduce the billing rates by the value of the sweepings in flour by weight. My wife and I, we’re in violation of the recommended reproduction levels, your Excellency, and rations only allow for two children. So instead of bringing the flour to be weighed, I took as much of the sweepings home as I could manage on each shift. In violation of my published procedure.”
So he was to take the confession of a man who had cheated the Bench out of a few eighths of flour. It had to be a joke. If he were in Uncle Radu’s place, he would have had so pathetic a sinner turned out of sanctuary and beaten for his presumption, or for the sin of aspiring to an excess of piety. One might as well beat the gardener for having chewed on a leaf of jessamine while cultivating the plantation. Could this be some sort of an initiation prank, like throwing the class’s best student into the waddler-pond for luck before final exams commenced? Andrej decided to test it, distracted from his private conflicts by the obvious absurdity of the situation.
“Describe the value of the flour sweepings you have confessed to having misappropriated.” Which would in turn define the degree to which the Bench had been defrauded, so that he could form a better idea of the severity of this crime.
“We used to have a saucer-cake for the chilties’ morning meal from them. A good eighth in Standard scrip, your Excellency. Sometimes as much as four-eighths, and my Balma would eat, too.”
Ridiculous.
He’d have to revise his mental comparison. To prosecute defrauding the Jurisdiction Bench at this level was like selling the gardener’s children into prostitution because the gardener had inhaled too deeply of the jessamine fragrance on three consecutive warm mornings, thereby defrauding the House in concept of some minute amount and unrecoverable amount of the essential oil.
“Oh, fine,” Andrej said — to the monitor as much as to the prisoner. He felt completely at ease now, his sense of the ridiculous having overpowered his self-pitying introspection. “Very good indeed. You are a very great sinner, Abbas Hakun.” He couldn’t tell whether Security’s sudden twitchiness behind him was affront or the giggles; he didn’t care. He had half a mind to walk out on this farce of a confession right now. “What impelled you to confess your crime to the authorities so that the Judicial order might be preserved?”
Or else he would continue with the questions as they were written, which had the potential for becoming really rather hilarious in the absurdity of applying them to the theft of a handful of flour.
“My wife developed an allergic reaction to one of the flours. They’re not available as rations to the mill staff . . . ” It was the first trace of real emotion Andrej had heard from his prisoner; and the desperation he read underneath that neutral statement was too honest to be amusing.
Perhaps it wasn’t funny.
But it was no less absurd.
“She was at risk of being accused for trade on illegal markets, so I turned myself in. It’s true that she ate, but it was me who stole, your Excellency. It is for this reason that I asked to be allowed to make this confession.”
Torn as he was between his inability to take the crime seriously and his appreciation for the prisoner’s obviously sincere desire to protect his wife, Andrej was unsure as to his next move. Azanry was too rich a world; no one lacked for a handful of flour, at Rogubarachno . . .
He decided to complete the forms.
Tutor Chonis would explain the joke — if joke there was — when he and Tutor Chonis went over the tape of this session for critique.
“Very good. There was no question in your mind at any time that your violation of procedure constituted willful fraud, then.”
There just had to be a joke in here someplace.