An Exchange of Hostages Read online

  Joslire merely bowed politely and took the boots over to the sleep-rack in the corner to touch up the polish for tomorrow’s events. Arms cocked up across the arm supports, stockinged feet stretched out in front of him, Andrej glared at his tender feet with a sour mind.

  Unnatural, that was what it was.

  The sacred bond between master and man consisted of respect and reliance, exchanged for self-subordination; to demand Joslire’s obedience without granting him privilege to speak his mind was a perversion. Was Jurisdiction. And that was what this Station was all about, wasn’t it? Jurisdiction perversion?

  When his father had been an officer in Security, the Bench had been less strict, and interrogation less formal. The Judicial process as his father had known it had indeed involved beatings, intimidation, even torture; ugly, sordid, but human in its scale.

  Now it was different.

  Now interrogation had become Inquiry, formalized into Protocols and divided into Levels. Now it required a medical officer to implement the Question, because it was too easy to kill a man too soon unless a torturer knew what to do. What had started as back-alley beatings in search of required information had evolved into systematic brutalization, forcing confessions to predetermined crimes, and all “in support of the Judicial order.”

  It wasn’t as though torment and brutality were unheard of in Andrej’s home system. Far from it. Andrej himself was Aznir Dolgorukij; any Sarvaw had stories to tell of what Dolgorukij were capable of doing when they felt that it served their best interest. It was only that the Bench increased the level of atrocity year by year, as unrest within subject worlds continued to seethe and writhe and challenge the Judicial order. The public’s desire to see crimes punished in proportion to their severity could serve as a rationalization for atrocity; but only as long as such measures worked as deterrent.

  And there was no way the Protocols could be described as punishment in proportion to the crime’s severity.

  Andrej straightened up in his chair, weary with the familiar futility of it all. It did no good to worry that old dry bone. The Station was on Standard time, and Tutor Chonis had told them that they were to be on first-shift for the duration of the Term; so it was coming up on sleep-shift, which meant it was time to go to bed.

  ###

  Student Koscuisko sighed and stood up. Joslire waited patiently to be noticed. It wouldn’t matter if he spoke first, not so early in Term; Koscuisko wouldn’t know it was a violation — but the governor would. It was best not to risk it.

  “I’m sorry, Joslire,” Koscuisko said. “I am brooding. There is something?”

  “As it please the officer.” Koscuisko’s dialect seemed to include more apology than Joslire was accustomed to hearing; this was the third time, surely. It meant nothing. “The officer may wish to review the material pertaining to the Administrator’s briefing?”

  The information was on-screen on the study set; Koscuisko hadn’t noticed, sunk deep in thought. Now the Student leaned over the desktop, scrolling through the data, a mild frown of concentration on his broad flat face. “Presentation of the Bond, yes, Joslire. I rehearsed it in the mirror, in fact. On my way here.”

  Just as well. The public presentation was humiliating enough in its own right. When the Students hadn’t bothered to learn their lines, Joslire felt the depth of his degradation more keenly than ever.

  Student Koscuisko tagged the view off and met his eyes squarely. “There was a note in the briefing, Joslire; the option to receive the Bond now or tomorrow. Which do you prefer?”

  Confused for a moment, Joslire recovered as quickly as he could. It was true. He was only required to surrender his Bond in good form. He didn’t have to do it tomorrow. If Student Koscuisko would receive his Bond here in private, they’d still stand at briefing, but he’d not be forced to repeat the bitter lie of his condemnation in public this time.

  “With respect. It is the officer’s preference that prevails. As the Student please.” He had to say it; it was his duty to try to teach Koscuisko how to use him.

  “Thank you, Joslire, but I desire to consult your preference. I solicit your preference. I ask you to tell me which you would rather.”

  It wouldn’t last.

  It never did.

  Koscuisko would learn soon enough to treat him as an object for use, and not as a person. But as long as Koscuisko had made the demand, he was clear to reveal it; he only hoped that his voice was professionally neutral, as it should be, and not dripping over with gratitude. It was a small thing to be asked for his preference. It was a great thing to a bond-involuntary to be asked anything, rather than told.

  Koscuisko was an aristocrat; for Koscuisko asking and demanding were probably the same things. He would concentrate on that. “As it please the officer. To be permitted to present the Bond would be a privilege.”

  Koscuisko nodded. “We will the transfer accomplish here and now, then.” Easier for Koscuisko as well, perhaps, since he need not expose himself to ridicule before the Tutor if he missed a word. “Bring me back my boots, if you would. I will just go adjust my attitude.”

  What did a man’s boots have to do with his attitude?

  Koscuisko took the boots from Joslire’s hand, but he didn’t want any help getting into them. Joslire had nothing to do but stand and stare at him as Koscuisko tucked in his trouser cuffs, fastening his uniform blouse smooth and straight.

  Koscuisko went into the washroom with careful steps, his feet tender from wearing new footgear. He washed his hands and combed his hair — for all the world as if he were a schoolboy on his way to sit among his elders. As if he was preparing for a formal occasion. As if he felt the Bond and what it stood for was something worthy of his respect.

  Then Koscuisko was ready.

  “I will receive your Bond now, Joslire Curran.”

  Joslire opened his blouse, pulling at the fine chain around his neck to find its metal pendant. Koscuisko confused him; he was taking as many pains as it would have cost to do this tomorrow.

  “This tape is the record of my trial.” Not precisely true, perhaps; it had not been Joslire Curran’s trial. But it was close enough. And the formula had been established by the Bench, and could not be materially amended. Requiring that he use personal language — “my trial,” “I” — was all part of the ritual, personalizing his enslavement. “Here the officer will find details of the offense for which I have been justly condemned, by the solemn adjudication of the Jurisdiction’s Bench.”

  All of this time, and he still could hardly say “justly.” He had been betrayed to Jurisdiction, condemned to this shame by the cunning and hatred of an ancestral enemy. He would survive to revenge himself. If he failed to revenge himself he would be dishonored in fact, as well as in the eyes of the Bench. He would not fail.

  “According to the provisions of Fleet Penal Consideration number eighty-three, sub-heading twenty, article nine, my life belongs to the Jurisdiction’s Bench, which has deeded it to the Fleet for thirty years.”

  Betrayed by an enemy. Bonded by the Bench, because he’d satisfied all the requirements they had for bond-involuntaries: youth, fitness, intelligence, psychological resilience . . . lucky him. He got to carry a governor for thirty years, and in return the Bench waived all charges. If he lived out his Term, they granted full retirement along with the pay that would have accrued had he been a free man; as if that could make up for it.

  “The officer is respectfully requested to accept the custody of my Bond.”

  In two hands he offered it, the prescribed gesture of submission.

  With two hands outstretched, the officer received it. With real respect, as if understanding that it was Joslire’s life — and not some piece of jewelry, some dull trinket — that he was to hold for the Bench in the Fleet’s name.

  Koscuisko had a solemn face, a grave expression even at rest — as far as Joslire had seen of him thus far. Joslire told himself it was just weariness that made Koscuisko look so

&nbs
p; serious now. Otherwise it was too tempting to believe that Koscuisko understood; too tempting to imagine that the Bench formality could actually become the contract-of-honor that it mocked just this one time.

  “I will accept your Bond, Joslire Curran. And hold it for the Day your Term is past.”

  It was just ritual, Joslire told himself. The words were only words, the same as those spoken by his other officers before Student Koscuisko; the same words that would be spoken by the next Student once Koscuisko was graduated and gone.

  Except the promise was real this time; the hope for that distant Day was sharp and poignant, because something in Koscuisko’s tone of voice utterly convinced Joslire that Koscuisko meant it.

  On board a cruiser-killer, the Ship’s First — the Security Officer — would husband all the Bonds for safekeeping. Here at Fleet Orientation Station Medical, the Students were required to carry the Bonds on their own person, to increase their sense of ownership and authority. Koscuisko put the chain over his neck, slipping the flat gray record-tape into his tunic.

  It was over, for yet another Term.

  “And now, not that it follows, Joslire, I’m tired. I should like to go to bed.”

  And yet he felt less enslaved — and more personally sworn — than ever he had since the terrible day that the Bench had first condemned him to the Bond.

  ###

  “Attention to the Administrator,” Tutor Foliate called. Chonis winced internally at the ragged shuffling sound of twenty ill-prepared Students trying their hand at Fleet drill and ceremony for the first time. Twenty bond-involuntaries and ten Tutors — the sound of their feet moving across the floor was as one sound, crisp and complete. Twenty Students, and it might as well have been two hundred from the time it took them to come to attention.

  Clellelan was halfway to the Captain’s Bar before the noise quieted down. Tutor Chonis could see the repressed smile of amused disgust on the Administrator’s face as he passed.

  Students. They ought to bring them in as cadets for the first half of Term. Really they ought.

  Chonis had heard Clellelan declaim on the subject often enough. As it was, Fleet simply handed them rank and bond-involuntaries, pretending they knew how to manage both — simply because they were Bench-certified medical practitioners. But it was hard enough already to find even the marginally qualified volunteers they usually got with a Chief Medical billet and Ship’s Prime status placed enticingly at the far end of the course. They couldn’t afford to make recruiting more difficult than it already was.

  Clellelan was posted, now, glancing briefly at the Record on the table at his left. Matching names to Students, perhaps. Trying to guess whether they’d all graduate this time.

  “This is Fleet Orientation Station Medical. I am Administrator Rorin Clellelan, Directing. By the Bench instruction. The Term opens with the following Students in attendance, answer to your name when called. Molt. Angouleme. Yurgenhauen. V’ciha.”

  One by one he called out their names; one by one Students answered to him-nervous, diffident, confident, bored. Too much personal feeling by half, Chonis felt. They’d learn. Discipline was the best defense, as the bond-involuntaries demonstrated. Retreat into formality could help provide the insulation that these Students were going to need.

  “Wyadd. Sansoper. Noycannir. Koscuisko.”

  Noycannir sounded bored and amused, above it all. Not obviously enough to give offense, no. But Noycannir was a Clerk of Court and a member of First Secretary Verlaine’s personal staff. She clearly meant to give the impression that she was completely comfortable in this environment.

  And Koscuisko?

  There was no particular emotion of any kind in Koscuisko’s voice, and Chonis wondered about that for a moment. Koscuisko had seemed clearly unhappy to be here during their meal last night. For Koscuisko to be suppressing emotional cues so absolutely meant he was more frightened than Tutor Chonis had guessed.

  “Shiwaj. And Bilale.” The Administrator came to the end of his list, and Chonis focused his attention to the fore. “Students, you are welcome. You represent a vital resource for the Fleet, as you know. And in these increasingly troubled times, you will be called upon to serve the Judicial order as never before in the history of the Bench.” Because never before in the history of the Bench had civil disorder been so pervasive, so corrosive, and above all so persistent.

  “Let there be no doubt in your minds, the task for which you have volunteered is a difficult one. And you will be more personally involved in the Judicial process than any of our Line officers, even those in Command Branch itself.” Clellelan had to be careful with that one, Chonis knew. It was all to the good to encourage the Students to see themselves as uniquely valuable to the Bench. But if Clellelan put too much emphasis on their critical role, they might start thinking about why Line officers wouldn’t have anything to do with it.

  “Please be assured that I personally, as well as your assigned Tutors and all of our Staff, will render every assistance in ensuring successful completion of your Orientation. Each of the bond-involuntaries here assigned has been dedicated by the Bench to furthering your instruction in any way possible.”

  The Bench had created bond-involuntaries specifically to support its Inquisitors. Ordinary Security, no matter how professional, sometimes recoiled from what might be required to support Inquiry. The Bench’s solution had been elegance itself: create Security whose indoctrination ensured that disobedience of lawful and received instruction would be unfailingly, immediately, strictly disciplined by a “governor” that held the pain linkages of the brain in a merciless grip. Thus Joslire Curran and others like him, condemned for crimes against the Judicial order to a thirty-year sentence with a surgically implanted jailer in their brains.

  “It is prudent and proper that you take their Bonds into your hand as Orientation commences in earnest. The troops here assigned will therefore declare their Bond.”

  The signal was clearly flagged out in the orientation material. And still it always took them too long to realize where they were in the program, to turn around, to face their assigned bond-involuntaries and stand ready to receive the Bond. Chonis could hear the shuffling sounds behind him and see the other Tutors’ Students out of the corner of his eye. He heard Noycannir pivot sharply and bring her heel down emphatically, completing the move.

  But there was no sound whatever from Koscuisko.

  “By the Bench instruction,” Clellelan said. That was his signal to turn around and bear witness to the ceremony, in order to be sure that his Students got it right.

  There was a problem, though, wasn’t there?

  He hadn’t heard Koscuisko turn around because Koscuisko hadn’t moved.

  “This tape is the record of my trial.”

  The words were spoken in unison; no problem with Security; they knew their lines. Chonis raised his eyebrow at Koscuisko’s calm, waiting face, suppressing a twitch of a gesture with difficulty. Curran didn’t look concerned. Had Koscuisko taken Curran’s Bond already, then?

  “According to the provisions of Fleet Penal Consideration number eighty-three . . . ”

  Student Koscuisko met Chonis’s eyes with a careful, neutral expression in his own and bowed fractionally, just enough to convey the concept of the salute.

  Most of the bond-involuntary troops preferred the group ceremony, because there was a measure of defensive insulation to be had from the presence of the other troops. After Curran’s last two Students, Chonis would have expected the man to stay as clear as he could from anything that might involve personalizing the relationship.

  “I will accept your Bond. — And hold it for the Day your Term is past.”

  The Students picked up quickly. Their lines were spoken in something close to synchronicity, breaking down into a babble of incoherent noise only at the point where the individual name was given. Tutor Chonis turned back to face the Administrator, dismissing Curran’s anomalous behavior from his mind.

  “You have
accepted the Bond from your assigned troops, to be held by you in custody for the duration of the Term. It is just and judicious that it should be so. Welcome to Fleet Orientation Station Medical, Students all. We have every confidence in you, and will do our utmost to see you successfully graduated. Tutors, dismiss.”

  Maybe it was a hopeful sign, and Curran’s Term wouldn’t be like the last ones had been for him.

  With luck.

  They’d all be grateful if Curran got a break that way.

  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.