She changed her tone and her demeanor the moment she noticed him coming down the hall. “Is everything arranged to your satisfaction, Chief? The men decently put away for the evening?”
“No complaints.” The assistant house-master had a document in her hand that looked vaguely familiar to Stildyne for some reason that he couldn’t quite identify at first. It was just a document. A legal document. A medical record; yes, a doctor’s order. A prescription. “May I see that?”
He’d surprised them, and they hadn’t been very comfortable with whatever it was in the first place. It was the most natural thing in the world for Stildyne to reach out and pluck the doctor’s order from the assistant’s apparently sweaty grasp.
“Ah, no, Chief, if it’s all the same, private document — really, I protest — ”
Yes, it was a private document. Not as if he was going to say anything to anybody about it. He was leaving in the morning; he was going far far away and he wasn’t coming back ever again. Of what possible interest was a doctor’s order to him? It was a Fleet document, that was interesting. It was executed and authorized by Koscuisko’s own Chief of Psychiatric, that was even more interesting.
One word, and Stildyne passed the document back. He understood. He understood more than he really wanted to, but that was his own fault. “Well, well. Caught with two cruiser-killers standing off, and your pain-worker’s on vacation.”
“Had to go home very suddenly, we haven’t had time to find a back-up, it’s not like it’s a common specialty. And you know how strict the licensing authority can be — ” the assistant started, a little crossly. The house-master trod on her assistant’s foot with passion, and the assistant shut up.
“Medical requirement,” the house-master said firmly. “These things aren’t passed out like port freedoms, Chief, you know that. It’s got to be hard enough for her to come here with something like this. I really don’t want to contemplate the grief it’ll give her to have come here hoping, and have to go away again — without.”
There and then Stildyne decided that he wasn’t going to say good-bye, in case it turned out that Koscuisko had been assuming he’d be going all along. It was a small risk, a slim chance, but the potential reassurance was not much greater than the possibility for disaster. Since he was going, he’d go with his illusions intact. And he wouldn’t meet the Bonds in the morning as they left, either — that could intimidate them. Give them second thoughts, make them wary about whether they were being set up. Paranoia was an occupational hazard for a bond-involuntary.
He’d meet them on the field, on board the ship, where it would be obvious that he was going and everybody who had decided to come would have made that decision as freely as possible beforehand, without any spoken or unspoken influence from him.
For that he had to find the ship. This was a respectable port, but by no means a major mercantile hub; there was only the one launch-field. Koscuisko had said that it was a Khabardi freighter; he had all night, he could do it. What he needed was to find the ship with the Dolgorukij accent, and if it was wearing a red halter around its neck he would not be in the least surprised. There was the chance that Koscuisko’s cousin Stanoczk would be coming with them to consider.
“Good luck trying,” Stildyne said, sincerely. “I’d lean on the soul-in-need angle, if I were you. You’ll be lucky if he doesn’t throw you bodily out.”
“But there’s a chance?” the assistant asked eagerly, being apparently recovered from her trodden toe.
Stildyne nodded. “He’s been approached before, but in different contexts. Twice as awkward that she’s on the same ship, could be construed as fraternization, Captain frowns on that.” So did Koscuisko. Koscuisko was prickly about relations between ranks, because of the power inequities that existed.
Koscuisko had explained it to Stildyne as proof that no man could exploit a bond-involuntary for selfish gratification and call himself a man — long before Stildyne had confessed to Koscuisko that he had done just that, in his past. A bond-involuntary was not in a position to give consent because a bond-involuntary could not refuse a superior officer anything. That was the reason they were exploited, though, of course — Stildyne had thought at the time that that should have been staggering clear to Koscuisko.
When Stildyne had told Koscuisko, when circumstances had made it necessary to make it plain to Koscuisko what Stildyne himself had done, Koscuisko had replied that Stildyne’s previous abuse of bond-involuntaries was not as important as his current abstention from abuse. It was a nice thought. Stildyne believed that Koscuisko meant it.
Now he was going to find out whether it was true, now. He was going to Gonebeyond with people he’d had parties with for his personal amusement, before Koscuisko’s time, when Lowden had expected it. Almost required it. He’d find out whether having stopped was important enough to make amends for having done in the first place when they got to Gonebeyond and those men came to realize that they were free and Stildyne was outnumbered.
“We must try,” the house-master said. “We’ve a duty.”
Stildyne nodded again. Yes. She did have a duty. Service houses were to maintain adequate staff to provide services as needed on request. A doctor’s order was a particularly important request.
“Remember that he’s a doctor, and you may be able to make it work,” Stildyne said. “A woman is in pain. He won’t like that. I’ve got things to attend to.”
If he couldn’t find the right ship on his own he would have no choice but to come back here and wait with the others. And he didn’t know how much time he had, before someone came for the others, so if he didn’t intend to be left behind he had better get started. He didn’t have time to talk to Koscuisko anyway. Yes. That was right.
The house-master stepped up to the door to signal for admittance, and Stildyne slipped back into the service corridor and away before Koscuisko could catch him mooning about in the halls and ask him what he thought he was doing.
###
Andrej Koscuisko stood at the viewing-wall looking out across the low-roofed city of Jeltaria, toward the launch-field. He couldn’t see individual craft, not from here; and he didn’t want to take the chance of calling up a detail. It might seem suspicious, later.
There was no telling how long it would be possible to keep knowledge of the bond-involuntaries’ departure from interested parties — or from parties that would interest themselves, parties that would become interested once they found out. If that happened too soon, they might track the craft, and intercept it before it reached the vector. It was four hours between Emandis Station and the dar-Nevan vector. He had checked. A fraction of a day, starting tomorrow morning; sighing, Andrej turned from the wall and touched off the view.
There were no actual windows in the officer’s suite of most public-houses, for two reasons; one of them being the requirement to be able to get around, to get at the various rooms in the suite from all angles, and the other being the need for security. Not that it had done Lowden the least bit of good. Threat was anticipated from outside; that an assassin would approach through the public accesses, come to the front door — that was not included in the planning process.
To be fair there were no instances of officers being murdered by subordinate officers in service houses that Andrej had ever heard of. Now his gentlemen had all heard of it, though, and Stildyne as well. Where was Stildyne? Andrej wanted to talk to him; to beg his pardon for not having included him in planning at a much earlier stage, among other things. He could have used Stildyne’s help. Even now there were probably things that Stildyne could think about that were beyond Andrej.
On the other hand they were at a service house and Stildyne had his appetites, just as any man might. Much less opportunity than some of the bond-involuntaries to find appropriate avenues on board ship, however. If Stildyne thought of something suddenly in the middle of the night, he would come and tell him. Andrej could be confident of that. He decided not to bother him. Among the staff here
at the service house, Stildyne might have already found a genial young man of the general type that he preferred.
There was a signal at the door. His dinner, perhaps; without Stildyne to play cards with him, the evening was likely to drag a bit, but Andrej couldn’t see calling for companionship. He had visited with Joslire in the graveyard, and sent his gentles away. He was going to be no kind of company at all.
“Step through,” he called, because the door hadn’t opened as it might if it was just house-staff with his meal or more towels or something of the sort. House staff would come through the service corridors anyway, wouldn’t they? Was there a problem?
It was the house-master and her assistant. Andrej had been greeted by the house-master upon his arrival; now the house-master bowed very properly and took a deep breath and shot a glance at her assistant and spoke.
“Very sorry to disturb his Excellency, who has made his preference for solitude very clear. We have an unusual situation, sir, a problem. May we trouble his Excellency to entertain a situation report?”
They were already troubling him, as far as that went. But his dinner wasn’t here. That they wanted him to do something for them was obvious; they would not have come to see him just to tell him about their lives and difficulties. “I will sit down,” he said, and turned his back to go into the little sitting-room to the left of the suite’s reception and dining area. “Yes, come.”
Neither woman would cross the threshold into the sitting area, however, which rather amused him although it kept him on his feet out of baseline politeness. In his experience, women with red hair had not been characterized by reserve and shyness. The house-master was a red-head with a very pale complexion, and her teeth were not to the Jurisdiction standard — some cosmetic defect that she’d never bothered to address, clearly enough. Her teeth were a bit crowded at the front of her mouth, and put him in mind of a river-wolf, somehow.
“His Excellency is not the only soul from the Ragnarok to honor us this afternoon,” the house-master said, from the doorway where she stood. “The port authority notified us, of course, and we’ve taken the usual measures to prepare to accommodate a cruiser-killer class warship. Two.”
Scylla and Ragnarok, she meant, Andrej assumed. And she was probably not talking about the bond-involuntaries or Stildyne when she spoke of other Ragnarok crew. “And this has to do with me what, please?”
“With respect, sir, believe us, profound and sincere, and not wishing to give offense in the slightest. Your Excellency. There’s a prescription here to be filled. And we can’t provide. The only pain-worker we have on staff has had to take an emergency personal leave.”
Pain-worker? They wanted him to beat somebody for them. There was something in him that leapt at the offered opportunity with savage delight, but Andrej had no intention of acknowledging that appetite.
“I’m on holiday, and I’m not interested. I give you the benefit of the doubt and trust that you do not mean to insult me. Good-greeting.”
Get out. The house-master looked to her assistant; her assistant bit her lip, but seemed to think of something, all of a sudden.
“Yes, sir, of course, your Excellency. But it is a doctor’s order, sir, and us unable to oblige. The patron is clearly in significant distress. Could you not consider it, your Excellency? Doctor?”
As if a doctor were required to inflict recreational beatings in a brothel. No. Services houses had pain-workers for that — trained professionals who had studied the careful management of intense physical sensation to elicit a pleasurable or ecstatic response, people as far removed from the genuine practice of Inquiry as an actor was from a murderer. As he was, from an honest man.
“Let me be blunt.” Since they weren’t taking the hint. “I have no experience in whatever is required. My expertise lies in far more destructive fields than any appropriate to a service house. I cannot oblige you. Good-greeting.”
The house-master shook her head, her close-cropped hair catching the light as she did so. “The patron is fearfully nervous, sir. We understand completely if you don’t care to become involved, it’s an extreme imposition on our part to so much as suggest it, sir. But she’s gotten this far, and if we turn her away, who knows when she’ll have the opportunity? Or the nerve to take advantage of it? If you could just look at the order, your Excellency. It’s more than awkward for us, a woman is suffering, and craves relief.”
With a sigh of resignation Andrej put out his hand for the scrip that the house-master had in her own, and carried it over to sit down with it at the table and have a look. This entire interchange was offensive in the highest degree, but it was unquestionably a distraction.
The patient’s name he did not recognize, but the authorizing physician was his own Chief of Psychiatric. “After careful evaluation a therapeutic exposure to traditional stimuli in a controlled atmosphere is recommended in order to confirm diagnosis by treatment. Appropriate access to a licensed pain-worker is therefore prescribed the named patient under the provisions of, billing code thus-and-such. By direction, Somerstrand Farilk, Chief of Psychiatric, Jurisdiction Fleet Ship Ragnarok.”
No, it was not possible that Farilk had sent a patient here in order to encourage Andrej to consider the proposal that Farilk had made. If Farilk said that one of Two’s under-technicians suffered from some psychological deficit that might be usefully addressed by a pain-worker, then it was so. Andrej had worked with his clinical staff for too long not to have an informed respect for each and every one of them.
They weren’t on the Ragnarok because their professional qualifications were wanting. Fleet could, and did, integrate mediocrities successfully at every level of operation. They were on the Ragnarok because they wanted to be there, or couldn’t fit in to the political environment of the Commands in which they had found themselves prior to their frequently involuntary transfer.
The house-master was right. A woman was suffering. How could they suggest that he venture into territory that lay well outside his area of actual expertise?
If he did not, they would send her back to the ship depressed and desperate, without comfort, as though unworthy of consideration because her need was outside the normal parameters of the Jurisdiction standard.
He’d taken extreme measures to relieve suffering before. She was not a bond-involuntary; but did she deserve less of his consideration because of that? Officers did not consort intimately with lower ranks, not on Jennet ap Rhiannon’s Ragnarok. And yet he was not long for the Ragnarok one way or the other. Either the Selection would be decided, the Ragnarok’s appeal resolved, and he would be free to go home a civilian; or ap Rhiannon could just as easily refuse to let him back on board of his own ship, and solve in that way the problem she apparently had believing his commitment to the Command.
If he stayed here he would brood. He would pace, and struggle with a selfish instinct to seek out Stildyne for companionship and conversation, which could only embarrass Brachi if he were in bed with some blond. “I make no promises,” he said. “And it is highly irregular. Show me to the place and I will see what I can do.”
If it was true that he had accidentally been bound to St. Andrej Malcontent, rather than Filial Piety, at his naming, then he should consider the teaching of the Malcontent. The Malcontent had never cared whether a person’s need was odd or unusual, acceptable or unacceptable. The Malcontent only cared whether people were fed and clothed, and had a dry place to sleep, and got whatever it was that they needed to understand the mystery of the Holy Mother’s plan for them in this world.
He would try to do his duty to the Saint. He owed the Malcontent for many favors already; for the freedom of the bond-involuntary troops he loved, as just the latest example. He would go and talk to the patient, they would negotiate, and if the Holy Mother used him to bring peace to another soul — whether or not it was a Dolgorukij soul — it would be a small start on the very long journey that lay ahead of him, if he ever hoped to make reparation for crimes that could not be
undone.
###
The signal came at the door very early in the morning, but nobody had slept. “Good-greeting,” the floor manager said. “Your car is waiting.”
Robert looked around him one last time: walls, benches, beds in rooms on one side or the other, littered with the remains of two large meals. Little drink. A man wanted to be sure he knew what he was doing, when he left the world as he knew it.
“Very good.” In Chief Stildyne’s absence Pyotr acted as their Chief. Pyotr had more years of service than Chief Stildyne did, and it was no particular secret that if he had not been a Security slave he would have made Chief Warrant years ago; First Officer had certainly never taken exception to anybody’s tendency to treat Pyotr as though he were one. “Formation, gentlemen. Let’s go.”
It wouldn’t do to keep the officer waiting. The officer wanted them out; he’d made that painfully clear. No last words or parting embrace, and still it was a wrench. He had followed Andrej Koscuisko all the way from Fleet Orientation Station Medical, and lucky for him, too.
It hadn’t been his doing. Koscuisko had happened on a secret that Koscuisko hadn’t been supposed to have, and it would have meant the end of young Robert had Koscuisko not got stubborn about it. All of these years. Nobody here knew what Koscuisko had done to save Robert’s life.
Nobody alive knew Koscuisko better than he did, which was why he knew that there was no help for it, no help at all. Koscuisko wanted them gone. They’d go. It was the last time they’d ever do what Koscuisko wanted.
There hadn’t been much left to discuss, last night — they’d got most of the chewing done before, as the implications of Koscuisko’s surgeries became more and more clear. Koscuisko had always wanted rid of them, for their own sakes. He never would give himself the credit he’d earned honestly for doing what he could to protect them from the bullies of the world, and shield them from the horrors to which they’d been condemned.
Warring States Page 31
