An Exchange of Hostages (27 page)

“Let me have six eighths of the neural block. Immediately, if you please.”

He held his breath, trying to understand who was crying. And he felt pressure, again, but only for a moment, and there was no more crying. The pressure that he felt was like a caress, now, soothing and comforting.

“There, now, that’s better, isn’t it? Thank you, technician, I will apply the ointment, if I may. You may be dismissed, if you like.”

There was nothing to worry about, forever. Or until he was sober again, which amounted to the same thing.

He smiled and drifted off, content.

###

“I am not sure we should be unconcerned about this,” Clellelan said, thoughtfully tapping his stylus against the stack of report-cubes. “I’m not rejecting your reasoning, Adifer. But there must have been half the Security on Station down in Infirmary last night.”

“Perhaps an augmented third,” Chonis demurred politely. The chairs in the Administrator’s office were too comfortable for him to bother with becoming exercised over his superior’s displeasure. “There’ve been no reports of duty stations left unattended, after all. Have there been?”

Chaymalt snorted from her position of repose at Chonis’s right. “Only because there wasn’t anyone left at duty stations to report anybody. What I’d like to know is how the word got out so quickly. What is it with these Bonds — do the governors lock into serial transmit when there are too many of them in one place? What? It was unnerving, is all I’ve got to say.”

Clellelan set his stylus down, sighing in resignation. “Can’t say that I blame them. ‘The one is the many and the many are as one,’ I’ve heard them say. Infirmary staff would have appreciated his surgery on Idarec, so I can understand them joining in, but I’m not sure why Station Security decided to open the clinic area to the Bonds the way they did.”

Nor did Chonis, come to that. But nobody had expected anything like a mass demonstration, or they’d have taken steps, so much went without saying. Bond-involuntary troops were easily managed as long as they were surrounded by the un-Bonded, but when there were too many of them in one place and emotion started to run high — as high as it had run on this Station last night — conditioning could fail. Unpredictable things had been known to happen.

“It’ll get out, of course.” He was thinking out loud, since neither Clellelan nor Chaymalt seemed to have much to say. “Wrap a reputation around that boy before he so much as clears Orientation. Could be good for his old age, in the long run.” Could be helpful in ensuring that Koscuisko would live to see his old age. Fleet Medical Officers could be very unpopular people under Jurisdiction. If there was going to be an attempt made on the life of any given Ship’s Prime officer, it was good odds that it would be the Ship’s Surgeon who would be targeted.

“Good for more than that.” Chaymalt had been relatively subdued all through the late morning’s informal staff review. Hadn’t made a single insensitive comment about bond-involuntaries for, oh, eighths now. Chonis wondered what had set her off angle. “Good for that man Idarec’s old age. Did I mention the diagnostic is calling for consciousness in three days? He was dead meat, Rorin, this time yesterday, I’d have told you to cancel his Bond and forget about it.”

She more or less had told
him
that, Chonis remembered. More than a day ago. Was that what was on her mind? She certainly sounded emphatic enough.

“Compared to the talent we’ve seen come through here the past eight Terms, Student Koscuisko is all the way out to Gissen, all by himself. All right, we already know he’s not your usual run of volunteer. I hate to think of him wasting his time with the Protocols, Rorin, I really do.”

She sounded as if she meant it, which was unusual. Ligrose didn’t get excited about much of anything, not that he had ever noticed. Color in her cheeks, fire in her eye — he was going to have to review the surgical record, he decided, just to see if he could figure out what had gotten through to her like this.

Clellelan was scowling at her in evident consternation. “What bit your elbow? He’s a good surgeon, he’s going to
Scylla,
he’s got eight years to mark. Eight years isn’t even all that long for Aznir. You know you can’t have him.”

In the general, rather than the specific sense, of course. Yes, of course. Chaymalt looked a little sulky, all the same. “I just don’t like to see the waste, that’s all. You wouldn’t send a Tutor to teach the tweeners, would you?”

“No, and I wouldn’t release restricted narcotics for a bond-involuntary on a Fifth Level, either. Let alone ad lib. And what kind of a limit is that? Four hundred thousand, Standard? Do you know what we could do with an extra four hundred thousand, Standard?”

Chaymalt actually blushed. Whether in embarrassment or vexation, however, Chonis did not care to guess. “I don’t have to justify it. Any basic cost-benefit analysis would endorse the action.”

Clellelan was clearly more up to date on what was happening in Ligrose’s area than Chonis had realized. Chaymalt didn’t seem inclined to let the issue rest, however.

“I’m having a hard time understanding why I can’t have this one, while we’re on the subject. It isn’t as if he’d be likely to object — ”

“If you declined to pass him?” Clellelan sat back in his chair. “Doctor Chaymalt. If you have any reservations to express about Student Koscuisko’s medical qualifications, we should restrict them to a more formal hearing. It would seem to contradict your earlier statements, however.”

This was ridiculous. Chaymalt had never seriously challenged graduation on the grounds of insufficient qualifications, no matter how sarcastic she got; and the whole point was that Koscuisko was good. There was no precedent . . . but that was what the last two days had been like, wasn’t it?

“I cannot object to the Student’s medical qualifications.” Chaymalt sounded subdued, but still resisting. “Quite the contrary. I simply cannot understand how a qualified neurosurgeon with his ratings could be adequately utilized at the Ship’s Surgeon level. There would seem to be an unusually extreme degree of difference between the two required roles.”

Whereas indifferent surgeons made adequate Inquisitors, superlative surgeons made inadequate Inquisitors? Was that her point? Because if it was, all he would have to do would be to show her Koscuisko’s Fourth and Fifth Levels. Koscuisko clearly had the makings of a superlative Inquisitor, whether or not Koscuisko was interested in hearing about it.

“How does the schedule look, Adifer?” Clellelan turned his attention toward Chonis, clearly determined to turn away from the potentially sticky hole that Chaymalt seemed bent on wedging herself into. Chonis put his glass down, clearing his throat. If he’d realized that Chaymalt was going to get emotionally involved, he’d have approached Clellelan privately; yet there was no help for it, he supposed, but to go forward bravely.

“It depends on Doctor Chaymalt, to an extent.” He hadn’t anticipated any problem, but it was always the unexpected issues that really fouled things up for one. “I’ve told him to take half-days in the lab, pending the speak-serum trial and his Sixth Level. I had assumed that Doctor Chaymalt would not object to waiving the clinical evaluation phase.”

They usually sent Students to Infirmary for a week or so between Intermediate and Advanced Levels. The Fleet requirement for on-site evaluation of Students’ medical qualifications was a little outdated, perhaps, since their ability to perform as Ship’s Inquisitor was what counted. Nobody expected leadership from Chief Medical Officers anymore, and they had staff to support them. Koscuisko might well prove a throwback of sorts; Chonis wondered how
Scylla
was going to react to the anomalous presence of a Chief Medical Officer who was clearly capable of growing into the job. For once.

Chaymalt was frowning, but Clellelan beat her to the mark. “I dare say our good Doctor has already done as much, even just this morning. What do you say, Ligrose? Any reservations signing his sheet?”

They would ignore the potential threat that she had half-made, then. Well, that was one way to handle it.

“I’ll sign the sheet on instruction either way, Administrator. And no, there’s no doubt in my mind about his fitness, not his technical qualifications, at any rate. I’d been looking forward to having him on Wards for a week. What’s the problem?”

“We need him in his lab, Doctor.” Chonis figured he’d better pick up the argument, since he hadn’t filled the Administrator in quite yet. “As good as he may be on the floor, he’s possibly even better in the lab. I told him he could be responsible for his St. Clare, but if we’re to keep his course on schedule and make good use of his second rating at the same time, we need you to free up that referral block.”

She chewed on her lip for a moment, drumming her fingers against the arm of the chair. She could insist on the week’s referral; it would be within her rights to do so. They could — hypothetically — hold Koscuisko over, pretend he needed to be recycled for the next Term, use him that way. There were potential political problems with that approach, of course. Koscuisko was the Prince Inheritor of a very old, rather influential family in the Dolgorukij Combine, one that had family ties to the Autocrat’s family itself — in the illegitimate female line, but they were there. The Autocrat’s Proxy might well take an interest in why Koscuisko had been kept back, and no one was going to want to try to tell the Autocrat’s Proxy that Andrej Ulexeievitch Koscuisko was a dunce.

Chaymalt shrugged, and Chonis knew he could relax. “To hell with Koscuisko. Who cares, anyway? I mean, really. Take all the lab time you want, Rorin. I won’t bother the boy.”

“Thank you, Ligrose.” Chonis knew that Clellelan was genuinely relieved, from the tone of his voice. “It’s a prudent decision, and I appreciate your flexibility. Adifer, what about Noycannir, where do we stand?”

Noycannir would still be a challenge.

But with Koscuisko’s help they’d get her through with flying colors. Then Verlaine would find out for himself why it was a mistake to send a Clerk of Court without Bench medical certification to try to learn an Inquisitor’s craft.

###

There were four classes of drugs comprising the Controlled List, and Mergau felt as if she had tried to read them all in the past day. Four classes, each with three basic subdivisions, and a bewildering array of suggested uses and contraindications associated with each individual preparation. How did they expect her to keep them all in mind?

How could she ever hope to keep them all in mind?

Summoned to Tutor Chonis’s office toward the middle of second, Mergau paused to compose herself carefully as Hanbor signaled for admittance. Koscuisko’s slave was here, she noted with interest. Perhaps she’d find out what Koscuisko’s role in this new paradigm was to be, since Koscuisko was obviously also with Tutor Chonis.

“Step through.”

Koscuisko sat at the far side of the Tutor’s long study table, half-rising from his place to nod a polite bow in acknowledgment of her presence. There was something in his face, at the back of his pale eyes, that she found strangely familiar. What? But she had to concentrate on Tutor Chonis. Koscuisko was to be subordinate to the Tutor’s course of instruction for her, according to Chonis’s proposal. So Koscuisko could wait.

“I present myself in obedience to my Tutor’S instruction. I hope the day has found my Tutor well.” She took her place beside the beverage-set that had been arranged on her side of the table. Warmer, again, by the smell. All right, she didn’t mind taking a nice drink of warmer. If Tutor Chonis felt he needed to woo her so obviously to his plan, it could only mean that she had him at a disadvantage, and she liked that.

“You’ll recall the conversation we had yesterday,” Chonis replied. “For Student Koscuisko’s benefit, let me just recap briefly. You are to learn a specially tailored group of Controlled List drugs with which Student Koscuisko is to provide us. This will ensure that you can successfully carry out the functions most necessary for Secretary Verlaine — those of Inquiry and Confirmation.”

She waved the warmer jug in Koscuisko’s direction, to catch his eye. He looked at her only briefly, then shook his head in a gesture that declined the unspoken offer. She already knew he didn’t drink warmer. Chonis always set out rhyti. She would drink rhyti when she felt there was a political point to be made by doing so. The provision of warmer, however, was a very intriguing development in terms of the balance of power.

“You have been hard at work since yesterday, studying the Controlled List. What do you remember, offhand, about a primary series drug from the speak-sera class?”

She’d only skimmed the speak-sera, more anxious about drugs her Patron would be most interested in — wake-keepers, pain-maintenance drugs, psychogens. Enforcers. There were many names for them, but one transcendent reality. We can keep you from sleep, we can keep you from unconsciousness, we can keep the pain from fading off its first bright agony, we can turn the unknown horrors of your own mind against you until you tell us what we want to know. A man at Verlaine’s level of responsibility wouldn’t want to be bothered with speak-sera, surely. Why restrict oneself to such single purpose medications when the others were so much more terrible?

“A primary series speak-serum is authorized at the Preliminary Levels. And higher, of course.” Still, the rationale behind the three subdivisions in each class was constant across the entire Controlled List. She could fake it. “To be employed at the Inquisitor’s discretion as substitute for, or in addition to, the established Protocols. Therefore also restricted to disabling the internal editor somewhat, rather than depriving the prisoner of any freedom of choice in the matter of confession.” It got easier as she continued, although she wasn’t really certain whether she was remembering what she’d read or was making it up as she went along. “At the secondary level, speak-sera are employed that deny any conscious selection of response, although the prisoner may still decline to speak if determined enough. At the tertiary level there is an additional element of compulsion.”