Chapter Three
Tutor Chonis was not actually angry. Perhaps a little annoyed. Koscuisko’s scorn had been rather sharp, and as Koscuisko’s Tutor, Chonis took that personally. Annoyed, yes, but not enraged, and that meant that he had to make a conscious effort to compose his face for the desired dismaying effect as he keyed the office’s admit with unnecessary force, making noticeable show of fighting with imperfectly suppressed disgust while awaiting the tiresome membrane to slide slowly apart to allow him entry.
“Can you really imagine that we’re that stupid?”
Choosing the blunt unreasonable words carefully, Tutor Chonis all but spat them into Koscuisko’s face before continuing past his startled pupil to take his seat behind his desk. Noycannir was startled as well, of course — but not without a subtle under-shadowing of gratification in her flat, shining hazel eyes. Tutor Chonis wouldn’t have had it any other way. It was his business to set Students at each others’ throats and make them compete for his approval and respect. That was one of the reasons that Tutors handled two Students in the same Term, and on the same shift as well. Receiving a stern reprimand in the presence of a social and professional inferior could, with any luck at all, be counted on to set young Koscuisko’s aristocratic teeth on edge.
“I’ve reviewed your practical exercise, Koscuisko. I am disgusted with the manner in which you conducted yourself. You seem to think that this is all some sort of a perverse amusement, an adolescent game.”
And he could all but hear Koscuisko seething where he sat, with his spine locked rigid and his hand that lay on the table suddenly motionless; still, there was no hint of Koscuisko’s fingertips whitening at the point of the stylus in his hand. Koscuisko had control.
Chonis didn’t know if that was a good thing or not, yet.
“It is a game.” Sweet and soft, Koscuisko’s reply, but Chonis could hear the confusion and worry behind the response. “You explained it to us yourself, Tutor Chonis. We pretend that the crime deserves its punishment, and in return the prisoner pretends that there is hope of Judicial leniency.”
It wasn’t the sarcastic route Koscuisko’s reasoning took that disturbed Tutor Chonis. He knew about it already, of course, from Joslire’s reports; and his own experience had prepared him to expect it from a man like Koscuisko. It was not an uncommon psychological defense, especially at the beginning of the Term.
“Don’t try to mock me.”
He turned away from the two of them in order to emphasize his displeasure and to analyze its source at the same time. The real problem was that Koscuisko gave every evidence of possessing an unusually healthy sense of the ridiculous. He could not be permitted to leave Fleet Orientation Center Medical with that sense of the ridiculous intact.
“Capital eight-six. On the appropriate display of the accepted psychological conviction.” Damn the insolent little wretch, Koscuisko was quoting his own lesson citations at him. “The Inquisitor is at all times to display clearly evident conviction that the Jurisdiction’s scale of punitive measures is wise, tempered with mercy, and above all completely just. Correct moral stance on the part of the Inquisitor will greatly facilitate the creation of the appropriate attitudes of contrition and submission to the Law on the part of the prisoner.”
As if he didn’t know, when he had all but written the text himself. “Leaving apart for the moment the unpleasant flavor created by a Student attempting to lecture his instructor. Dare you suggest that your clownishness in the practical exercise created the appropriate sense of respect for the Judicial order in the mind of your prisoner?”
He turned slowly back to face his Students again as he spoke. Noycannir first: she seemed to be enjoying the show. If only she could learn from it. Her first exercise had been completely serious — without technical error and with every indication of utter conviction, as if her personal background — her proven skills for survival in the unspeakably sordid circumstances of her earliest years in an ungoverned Port, her demonstrated facility for carrying useful survival strategies to their logical limits — had somehow deadened her imagination. She would not make an adequate Inquisitor without an imagination. A torturer with an intensive medical background and a set of legal parameters to conform to could be considered to be a perversion of a sort, that was true. But a torturer without imagination was only a brute.
“A man,” Chonis continued, “since you obviously need the reminder, who was honest enough to make a full and free confession. In order to protect his family from the consequences of his own guilty actions. Whose dignity should have been respected.”
Koscuisko met his eyes squarely, and did not drop his gaze until a precise fraction of a moment before the stare would have become too insolent to be permitted to pass. Koscuisko looked rather more enraged than irritated, very much as if he was considering some internal vision of Tutor Chonis in three pieces. His glare seemed to wash the color out of his pale eyes until they almost seemed all white and no pupil — like the Nebginnis, whose vestigial eyes, no longer functional, had been replaced by sonar sensing. Chonis was gratified with the effect. It had not been easy, but it looked at last as if he had got Koscuisko’s attention.
He resumed his line of discourse. “Remember well that the dignity of even the guilty must be carefully cherished. . . . And is not the painful disregard of that dignity one of the most severe marks of the Bench’s regretful censure of wrong conduct?”
Except that if he didn’t watch his own tone of voice he would lose all that he had gained. He sounded almost sarcastic to himself; and if he thought he sounded sarcastic — with his lifetime’s worth of training in picking up linguistic subtleties — then there was the danger that Koscuisko, whose records pointed to a high level of innate empathy, might sense the same thing. Chonis pulled a weapon from Joslire Curran’s daily reports to use against Koscuisko’s formidable sense of center.
“You are at least nominally an adult, by the Jurisdiction Standard. I understand that in your birth-culture confessions are made only to priests, and all the rules are unwritten. It is not so here.” In Koscuisko’s birth-culture, no man whose father was out of cloister was an adult. The women had it easier on Azanry, in that sense at least, because women became adults with the birth of their first legitimate child — no matter how old their mothers lived to be.
Koscuisko, seemingly disinclined to be drawn out, had squared his chair to the desk and folded his hands. He appeared to be concentrating on the minuscule text printed on the index line of one of the record-sets on the library shelf, his expression one of mild, polite disinterest as Chonis lectured.
“Confession is a deadly serious legal action. And the penance voluntarily accepted by the transgressor is serious, too, Koscuisko, remember that.” In order to provide the correct exemplary deterrent. “It isn’t the sort of risk you ever took. That is, if you’re religious.”
Confession and penance. Koscuisko had nerved himself up to his ordeal by drawing the analogy himself. Koscuisko had been thoroughly scolded now, and Noycannir put on notice as to what sort of reception her first stumble would earn her. Perhaps one final pious admonition . . .
“After all, whatever penance you might have risked could hardly be said to equate with the just outrage of the Judicial Bench.”
Koscuisko stared him in the face once more, and this time his gaze was frank and honest — no trace of resentment or rebellion.
“You never had to confess to Uncle Radu after an anniversary party,” Koscuisko said.
Humor.
Koscuisko’s ability to find humor in the current situation only indicated that there would be more problems yet down the time-stream.
“Very well. We will speak no more about it.” But the Administration would watch and wait, record, and meditate.
“As you will have noted, the next practical exercise is scheduled for five days from now. We will be defining the Second Level of the Preliminary Levels. Please direct your attention to your screens.”
Humor and a sense of proportion were both unpredictable traits, not subject to reliable manipulation. Koscuisko’s unpredictability had to be explored, detailed, and controlled.
Because an unpredictable Inquisitor with a sense of the ridiculous and an imperfectly submerged sense of proportion was potentially more disruptive of the Judicial order than even the Writ in Noycannir’s ignorant hand could be.
###
Standing in the lavatory, Andrej stared at himself in the reflector. He could hear Joslire in the outer room; it was a familiar set of sounds, easily ignored. His face did not much please Andrej this morning. It was too pale; and it had always seemed to him that some proportion or other had been neglected when the issue of his likeness had been controverted among his genes in utero. To be fair, his pallor was perhaps his own fault. He had taken a good deal of wodac with his third-meal, yet again, last night.
Still, a man needed more emphatic a nose if he were to go through life with such wide flat cheekbones — or at least eyebrows with dash and flair, or eyes that made some sort of an impact to draw a person’s attention away from the crude materiality of his skull. Too much cheekbone and too deep a jaw; there was no help there. A plank of wood with a chip of nothing for his eyes, which were of no particular color; a splinter for a nose; and his mouth would never carry a debate against his cheek — there was too much distance there from ear to front. No color, no drama; he might as well not have a face at all. There was paint, of course, but not even the best of that had made his brother Iosev any less unpleasant to look at, so there was no help to be found in that direction.
He was only trying to put off the morning, and he knew it. Sighing to himself at his own transparent motive, Andrej dried his damp face briskly with the towel and combed his hair back from his face with the fingers of his left hand. His brother Mikhel had all the face in the family, and all of the beard as well. Mikhel, and perhaps Nikolij, too. But, then, Nikolij was such an elf-faced child. There was hope for Nikolij. And even Lo — as blond and as bland of face and feature as Andrej himself — Lo had some of Meeka’s height. There was no justice in the world. Where was the benefit of being the eldest of his father’s sons if all he could hope to inherit was all of the land, and all of the property, and all of the authority, and all of the estate?
Joslire would be getting nervous, and it wasn’t fair of him to make Joslire wait when none of it was Joslire’s fault. Andrej set his mind to silence, stubbornly determined to not think of the morning’s work until he was well into it.
Successfully distracted by the simple pleasures of the fast-meal table, Andrej found himself sitting in the Student Interrogator’s chair once more without a very clear idea as to how he had got there. It wasn’t how he’d come back to this room that needed his attention, though. Not really. It was how he was to get out of it again that posed the more immediate problem. The Second Level of the Question — and there was every chance that Tutor Chonis would take any deviation from form as a personal insult, after his reaction to the First Level — would be more difficult.
The First Level had been Inquiry pure and simple. The Second was Supported Inquiry — a little pressure was to be brought to bear. That was what Fleet called it, Supported Inquiry. Mayon would have called it patient abuse, and summarily stripped any Student who so much as threatened a patient with physical violence of any chance for patient contact ever again in any Bench-certified facility — which also meant, realistically speaking, losing any chance of graduating with the prestigious Mayon certifications. But these weren’t patients in any usual sense of the word, so what did it matter?
Except that in Andrej’s home dialect, the word for the Standard “patient,” someone seeking medical care, came from the same root as the verb that signified suffering, or to bear physical pain. Andrej did not care to mull over the double meaning. It was too unfortunately apt for his comfort.
He wouldn’t have thought that he would mind simply hitting people so much, not really, and that was all today’s exercise should entail — hitting someone. Hitting them frequently, perhaps, and the fact that they were not to be permitted to hit back was certainly distasteful, but they need suffer no permanent ill effect from the blows. He certainly hadn’t come all the way through his medical training without ever hitting anybody. There was a difference, of course, when it was strictly after class hours, outside the patient environment, usually in a tavern of some sort, and never without either having been hit or being immediately hit back. He had done his share of recreational brawling, with a little thin-blade dueling thrown in. Violent physical exercise could be a great reliever of stress, and as far as Andrej could remember, he’d enjoyed it — not the residual bruises, no, but the energy surge had been a tremendous mood enhancer.
Though conservative of traditional Aznir ways, in many respects Andrej’s father was a progressive man who didn’t think children or servants should ever be beaten for their misdeeds, and who refused to tolerate any such behavior within his Household. Therefore it had come to pass that Andrej had never struck anybody in his life who had not been in a position to retaliate, without hesitation or restriction. Andrej supposed it was a handicap, of sorts.
He heard the signal at the prisoner’s door. Well, soonest started was soonest sung. “Step through.” Still, there was something he’d wanted to remember. Something his teachers on Mayon had said about hurting people. What had it been? “State your identification, and the crime of which you have been accused.”
This prisoner was a Bigelblu, his legs almost as long as Andrej was tall. He sauntered into the room insolently before sinking into cross-legged repose in front of Andrej where he sat.
“You c’n call me Cari.” He had a deep voice, the prisoner had. Nearly as deep as Meeka’s singing voice, which was so low that the saint’s-windows shook in sympathetic vibration when he sang “Holy Mother.” “I dunno, Soyan, s’a mystery to me.”
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.
“The Student did not receive the Tutor’s prior comments on the issue as the Tutor would wish, with the Tutor’s permission.” Hanbor had his work cut out for him this Term: Noycannir was not responding well to shaping. Curran had the easier Student of the pair. “She did make a comment that may be pertinent, as the Tutor please. In reviewing the instructional paradigms, Student Noycannir called this troop’s attention to the fact that when she hit people they stayed hit.”
There was no hint of tension in Hanbor’s voice; he was a consummate professional, like Curran. And Hanbor wouldn’t bother to mention it if she did beat him, unless he felt it pertained to information that Tutor Chonis would find useful. On the other hand, if Hanbor hadn’t been superlatively qualified for Security work, he wouldn’t have been Bonded in the first place.
Safety for bond-involuntaries lay in exceeding the Bench requirements for professionalism. Tutor Chonis was just glad he had a good caliber of support staff to work with. Out on Line in the Lanes, only Ship’s Inquisitors were privileged to receive support from bond-involuntaries.
“Makes sense,” Chonis nodded his thanks, and his agreement. “We’ll need to work on that, before we get much further. Thank you, Hanbor.”
Back into braid. Noycannir had knocked her prisoner-surrogate into a corner, and Security were taking their time dragging him back to the middle of the room — giving him a little space to catch his breath, and not being too obvious about it, either. Koscuisko’s Security had stood away from him, leaving Koscuisko alone in the middle of the theater with his prisoner. Koscuisko didn’t seem to need any help managing; he had a good hold on the prisoner’s arm, twisted up behind the man’s back. Chonis frowned, very slightly. It would be a shame if Koscuisko broke a bone at this point; he’d be forced to call the exercise for violation of the Protocols, and Koscuisko didn’t deserve that kind of embarrassment.
“Student Noycannir puts her issues forward well and strongly.” He had to be careful of what he said on Record. Anyone could review these tapes; anyone with the proper levels of clearance, of course. First Secretary Verlaine, as an example. “Student Koscuisko is relatively quick to gain the advantage but continues to display a certain degree of reluctance to press the advantage once gained.”
As now, for instance, when Koscuisko released the prisoner’s arm with a rough push that sent the prisoner staggering to his knees. He needn’t have worried about the arm, Chonis realized. Koscuisko’s fault lay in reluctance to use as much force as was necessary; Noycannir’s, in a consistent use of more force than was necessary.
“These issues will be discussed individually with the Students after completion of the exercise. Neither Student presents cause for any serious concern at this time.”
Well, not as far as the exercises went, at least.
And that was as far as Tutor Chonis was expected to go.
###
“ . . . very commendable progress.”
Tutor Chonis’s voice was fat and hateful in Mergau’s ears, self-satisfied and oily. She didn’t mind the powerful reverberation of authority that she could hear there. It was the hint of gloating that turned her stomach.
“There is always room for improvement, of course. As an example — very quickly — Student Koscuisko, you still don’t appear to be taking this quite seriously; Student Noycannir, you need to relax, the prisoner cannot strike back at you. These minor details aside, however, the Administrator is very pleased. And he’s empowered me to make a tangible gesture of that appreciation.”
It was a trick, she knew it, her belly was tense and cold with it. A trick like the last one had been, to push them out into unknown territory before they’d really had a chance to master the material. A cheap manipulative trick.
“There will therefore be an extra study-day in which to prepare for the beginning instruction for the Intermediate Levels. After your apt handling of the first three exercises, it is anticipated that you’ll not need extensive preparation . . . ”
Mergau glanced to her left across the table, surreptitiously. Koscuisko was frowning. So he was suspicious, too.
“ . . . therefore there’s no lesson plan for this extra day. Student Koscuisko, you might enjoy a tour of the Infirmary; Curran has been instructed to obtain a copy of the pharmaceutical library for your use.”
Koscuisko’s scowl deepened. For herself she knew better than to display such a reaction in front of her betters — but Koscuisko didn’t seem to think he had any. “We didn’t do much with the Jurisdiction’s Controlled List on Mayon, Tutor Chonis. Few of the drugs have positive medical applications.”
The “pharmaceutical library” confused her, but “the Jurisdiction’s Controlled List” made all plain. Tutor Chonis was talking about the speak-sera, the enforcers, the pain-maintenance drugs. She couldn’t blame Koscuisko for disliking the idea. Where she’d come from, people feared the Controlled List even more than even the Ship’s Inquisitor.
“But your skill, dare I say flair, with psychoactive applications is well documented as your subspecialty, Andrej. Perhaps the Controlled List will be made richer by your investigations.”
Yes, it was gloating in Tutor Chonis’s voice. Very small and very subtle, but none of his mockery and taunts escaped her. Tutor Chonis was almost too pleased with the potential he felt he had identified to conceal his pleasure. Koscuisko glared down at his left hand, which he had closed into the fist he hadn’t dared clench upon the table. For no particular reason, Mergau found herself noticing that there was an odd crease in the skin at the base of his middle finger. “I will browse the library, Tutor, at your instruction. Permit me to observe that I would prefer not to add to a resource that has such potential for being misused, and which is of so little positive benefit to anybody.”
Koscuisko would be damned before he had anything to do with the Controlled List, was what he meant. Noycannir shot a glance of shocked amusement at Tutor Chonis to make it clear that she disapproved of Koscuisko’s near-insolence and disrespect as much as Chonis himself surely did. Tutor Chonis’s face revealed no secrets, though.
“And, Student Noycannir . . . ”
She blinked at Tutor Chonis’s beard, demurely.
“The First Secretary has requested periodic reports from us to be forwarded every three Levels. You and I both understand how much he has invested in your training here.”
She knew how to behave in front of people who outranked her, even if Koscuisko did not. Koscuisko would learn. She’d love to have the opportunity to teach him. For now she would be content to benefit from the contrast between his attitude and hers.
“Am I to be present during review, Tutor Chonis, or shall I merely assist in preparing the report?”
Making her voice meek and submissive, Noycannir projected her understanding of her subordinate position, her earnest desire to please. It wasn’t easy to fawn and cringe before Tutor Chonis, though it had to be done. Tutor Chonis didn’t like her. His charge to Koscuisko had been double-edged, she realized — on the one hand giving her fellow Student his orders but, on the other hand, providing yet another reminder that she had no special medical education. She was ignorant of all but the practical basics of field medicine, and her fellow Student was a neurosurgeon qualified across eighteen of the thirty-seven hominid species and the obligatory exemplar from each of the non-hominid classes of intelligent species with a secondary qualification in the biochemical applications of psychopharmacology, which she wasn’t prepared to swear she could so much as spell correctly. She had no right to be here, as far as Tutor Chonis was concerned. No one would be there to intercede if she should fail, to stand between her and the humiliated wrath of her Patron.
Tutor Chonis’s little smile, half-hid beneath his neatly trimmed mustache, was as hateful to her as his tone of voice had been. “That’s up to you, Student Noycannir, of course.” Tutor Chonis would just as soon leave her out of it. That was the principal reason she would insist on participation, just to be sure that no negative comment went unchallenged. “Report tomorrow morning, and we’ll review your progress to date. All right?”
Fleet wanted her to fail because Fleet’s vested interest was in retaining sole control over the Writ. Fleet was waiting for her to fail. Fleet would be happy to throw her to one of her own fellow Students for the Tenth-Level Command Termination just to express its resentment of First Secretary Verlaine’s power play.
Half-sensing Koscuisko’s sympathetic gaze, she stood, determined to exit with what dignity she had. Koscuisko’s sympathy was intolerably patronizing. He disgusted her, him from his privileged background, money, rank, everything. She was ten times as good as Andrej Koscuisko, Bench medical certifications or no. She had worked for everything she had attained. Nobody had ever dropped an appointment in her lap.
“Very good, Tutor Chonis. Are we dismissed?”
The Tutor waved his hand, still smiling. Mergau bowed stiffly and left the room, struggling to contain the frustration, the fury, the fear that seethed within her.
She would be damned before she would give up her purpose.
Because she would unquestionably be damned if she should fail in it.
###
The serious concerns in life, Andrej felt, could best be pondered in one place and one place alone. One could think in one of the pathetically generic chapels that Jurisdiction Fleet provided for the spiritual welfare of its members under arms; but in chapel, one was expected to be silent, if not reverent, and Andrej had always done what he considered to be his very best thinking out loud.
Sitting on the slatted bench in the sauna that Joslire had located for him, Andrej took a deep breath of the hot, wet air and sighed with the satisfaction of it, coughing slightly as the thick heat caught in his throat. The heavy warmth was relaxing from the inside out. Just what the doctor ordered, he told himself dreamily. And I am the doctor, so I know.
Joslire had posted himself by the door, but whether it was to control access or simply to be closer to a patch of cooler air, Andrej couldn’t tell. The man’s posture was as correct as ever it was, regardless of the fact that he was half-naked; there was something a little unusual about Joslire’s state of undress, what was it?
“Joslire, will you come here for a moment, please?”
Joslire had folded his uniform for him and stowed his clothing carefully away before Joslire had even started to undress, and Andrej had been halfway into the sauna by that time. Obedient to his word, now, Joslire came to stand at attention on the wooden grating that covered the heated floor. Leather straps, that was what it was. Leather straps across Joslire’s narrow slanted shoulders, binding his forearms, tight across his barrel-ribbed torso — leather straps, to anchor the sheathing Joslire wore.
Understanding came with a shock of recognition. Andrej turned his head away, waving Joslire off. He was ashamed of himself for not having considered what he was requiring when he’d decided to have a sauna. Joslire was Emandisan, and wore five-knives. And Emandisan were reputedly so private about their five-knives that you had to be married to one to even know which one went where.
“Go and dress yourself, Joslire, you look cold.” He was the one who’d insisted Joslire strip to his towel; he was the one who’d assumed that Joslire would be uncomfortable in the unaccustomed heat if he tried to accompany Andrej into the sauna fully clothed. “Or will it be a violation, if I am alone for eight minutes?”
A violation. Joslire would not violate his discipline, and part of that clearly meant giving no hint as to his personal preferences one way or the other. As if personal preferences were a privilege of free men, and officers had to be discouraged from considering their bond-involuntaries’ comfort as if it mattered. His insistence that Joslire take off his clothing in order to bear the sauna’s heat more easily had probably generated twice as much discomfort between them as had he simply permitted Joslire to fall flat on his face of heat exhaustion in the lawful pursuit of his duty, and be done with it.
“The officer should not exercise himself.” That was a joke; he hadn’t voluntarily exercised anything except for his drinking arm since he’d got here. Participation in the combat drills that Joslire demonstrated for him so patiently twice a day was certainly not voluntary, or he would happily have done without. “There is no reason for the officer to be concerned on this troop’s behalf.”
It was disgusting. He was supposed to pay more attention than that. He was accountable for what belonged to him. “I don’t believe you, Joslire. But I’ll take your word for it.” Because he was liable to create even more awkwardness if he didn’t. Andrej settled himself against the paneled wall of the sauna, and closed his eyes. “Tell me, if you can, then. To how many Students have you been assigned, prior to this particularly thickheaded one?”
He wasn’t aware of any prohibition against gossiping about former Students. If there was such a prohibition, Joslire would find some way to observe it without letting on, in which case Andrej would learn nothing, in which case he would know.
“There have been five, previous to the officer.” From the sound of Joslire’s voice he was back at his original post by the door. “The first of the Intermediate Levels has been a critical point for each one of them.”
He might as well have said “each one of you,” “all six of you.” “Am I really so obvious? You may neglect to answer that question, Joslire. I actively encourage you to neglect to answer that question.”
Three levels in the Preliminary set, suitable for persons accused or suspected in regards to whom there was not yet enough evidence to make an arrest. Almost they could be said to correspond to basic physical examination, and the taking of patient histories. The invasive techniques came next, here as they had at Mayon; but the focus was all wrong. Andrej could not shake a feeling of unreality, the stubborn suspicion that there had to be something that they weren’t telling him. He was certain of it. They could not — they could not — expect any thinking being to take such Levels seriously, and go forth to beat a shopkeeper on suspicion of having shortchanged a Jurisdiction clerk by an octe’s weight of sallets on a slow day five weeks gone.
That kind of a joke was not so bad, as long as it remained a joke. His thin-blade duels had all been jokes, in the end, a recreation comprised of the hazard of lethal force against the flimsiest pretexts imaginable. It was precisely that tension that had made it so exhilarating — not that their student duels had been lethal; no one had been seriously injured in a duel in all his years of schooling. But there was always the chance. It was for that reason that he treasured the thin white scar underneath his right eye and had steadfastly refused to have it smoothed away. He had earned it fairly in contest against his friend Sourit, who had suddenly decided in the midst of their fifth-year finals that a man who sweetened his cortac brandy could not be permitted to live.
“The Administration expects a crisis. No fault is to be found with the officer on that account. The Administration simply requires that the officer continue with his orientation. Not that the officer find it agreeable.”
No, of course no fault would be found, not as long as he continued to perform as expected. And it was no longer to be enough to simply hurt people; according to the exhaustively defined Protocols of the Intermediate Levels he must proceed to harm them as well.
There was no possibility of a joke of any kind in that.
“Speaking of Administrative requirements, Joslire, I am to take myself to Infirmary to meet the Resident, I understand. Have I mentioned that the Controlled List is an abomination beneath the Canopy?”
Three turnings, and he’d have to face the test and find out if he could bear to do what had to be done and stomach the passing of it. A little distraction in the meantime would not be unwelcome.
“After the officer’s sauna. Laboratory facilities have also been reserved for the officer’s use, during the remainder of the Term.”
Had they indeed? He had no intention of doing any Controlled List research. But it would do no good to tell Joslire that. Joslire would only have to report it.
“Sing out when I am finished in the sauna, then.” Since the appointment had obviously been prearranged, Joslire would obviously not let him miss it. There was something to be said for Curran’s constant shepherding; he couldn’t be misplaced nearly as easily as Andrej usually misplaced his other time-keepers.
“As the officer requires.”
Enough thinking for the moment.
He could feel the sweat run down his face, down his ribs, along his feet.
If he really worked at it, perhaps he could convince himself that he was actually relaxing after all.