Prisoner of Conscience

by Susan R. Matthews

  There was more.

  There was something underneath the ointment pot as Joslire passed it to him, something familiar to his touch.

  His master-key.

  “Precisely so.” Over the years Andrej had learned that he could do sometimes quite irregular things in Inquiry without causing his Security distress. The governor that ruled a bond-involuntary’s life apparently recognized that by the Bench instruction only mutiny and treason were forbidden to Inquisitors.

  This was significantly different.

  This was active commission of a near-criminal act, could the fact that Joslire knew what Andrej meant to do truly keep Joslire’s governor at bay?

  It had to wait. Whatever the explanation, it was clear that Joslire was at peace with his governor here and now; Joslire suffered no pain. Unlike this young Nurail, who was due for a sharp discomfort as the manacles came off —

  “Thank you, Joslire.” He kept his voice casual, business-like. “You, there. This may sting a bit. You might want to come and hold your friend still in one place, for me.”

  One of the men came to stand in front of the young Nurail, taking him by the front part of his shoulders carefully. The expression on the man’s face almost gave Andrej pause; this seemed more intense even than the care a man had of a young relation, and if this boy had escaped from Limited Secure, he could be of political importance.

  Almost Andrej wanted to think twice: but no, any man with a cousin or nephew or son would be desperate to see his kinsman safe from torture, free from threat. Andrej saw all of the confusion and wild hope that the young man declined to share with him in his expression, gazing up at his older companion.

  Three small adjustments. Feeling with his fingers in the dim light, Andrej fit the master key to the secure that locked the wrist-pieces of the manacles. The mechanism unlatched, and the shackle’s locks cleared; but as Andrej had feared, they’d been in place for too long. The flesh had swollen around the wrist-pieces and held them in place.

  “This will not be pleasant,” Andrej warned whoever was listening. A quick dose of something generally soothing was what he wanted, but to call for such a dose or to be seen to press one through would be inconsistent with the handling of any given welt, and might raise an unwelcome question in somebody’s mind. If not now, perhaps later. “Joslire, topical anesthetic. Please.”

  He had to expose skin before he could anesthetize it. He peeled one wrist-piece open carefully, first one half-ring, then the other, and the greedy manacles carried bits of torn skin with them as they came away.

  “Not too much longer, now. Try to breathe.” That’s one, he’d almost said. He couldn’t say that. One what?

  Daubing the topical anesthetic around the livid bracelet of scored skin, Andrej waited for the numbing to take effect before he tried the wrist-piece on the other hand. The other wrist was worse, because it had been uppermost of the crossed arms, and had more trauma accordingly. Andrej did what he could to make the prying bearable, but it was hard on the young man to suffer the pulling apart of the manacle’s wrist-piece.

  Andrej salved the wound in silence while the Nurail muffled his cries against the jacket of the older man, who stood and held him, stroking his hair with grim tenderness. Circulation would increase almost immediately, and that could be even more difficult for the young Nurail than the removal of the manacles had been.

  With help from the men who were clustered now around him, Andrej shifted his patient’s arms gently to the front to lay forearm across thigh, careful to keep the blanket folded to conceal the wounded wrists. The wrists would heal. The livid welts would stay hidden by the cuffs of his shirt until they healed. It would be all right.

  “Well, there need be no permanent damage.” Now that that was taken care of, Andrej laid ointment on a sterile pad, which he applied to the rope weal across his patient’s neck with a delicate touch. That had been his excuse, after all. “Sometimes massage can be helpful, improved circulation speeds the healing. Carefully done to avoid breaking the skin open, of course.”

  He couldn’t be too obvious. He didn’t know whether Lieutenant Plugrath had returned yet, and might be waiting outside, listening to what he had to say. “Are there other hurts that I should know about? This is the time to speak, to tell me them.”

  The older Nurail who had been holding Andrej’s patient stepped back a fraction now, unfastening the young man’s shirt to open the garment and uncover his back. Andrej revised his assessment of the young man’s age, studying the bruised shoulders and the muscles that showed beneath the skin. Not yet a man. Not a boy either, but in the borderland between them. Perhaps so many as seventeen years old, Standard, but that was stretching it.

  It had not been a bad beating, Andrej could see that as the fabric fell down from the patient’s shoulders to his waist. The beating was not the problem. The problem was the burns beneath the young man’s arm, long stripes, precisely spaced, in the tender skin at the underside of the upper arm and on the side of the torso beneath the armpit.

  Torture.

  Torture, again, abuse of prisoners outside of Protocol, and Andrej was glad to see it, because it removed any nagging questions in his mind over whether he should not really report this to First Officer.

  “Let me have a burn-dressing, Joslire.” If he spoke quietly enough, no one would hear from outside, or at least not enough to make them think twice. “And some sampers cream.”

  If this ever came out, it would be Joslire to suffer for it, Joslire or another of his Bonds. He was hazarding their pain against his whim. He had no right. Yet Joslire clearly seemed intent on putting the gamble forward.

  Andrej stood up.

  “Shorris ointment, five days, three times a day applied to broken skin with clean hands, carefully.” Holding the salve-pot out to the older Nurail standing beside the sleep-rack, Andrej counted off instructions and indications one by one.

  “Sampers cream for burns, lift the dressing and apply the cream, then lay the dressing back down. I’ll bring a fresh dressing the next time I see you.” If he ever saw them again; and he didn’t expect to. Regardless of whether he was going to reveal their secret, they knew that he knew the secret, now. They would do whatever it took to disappear into the metaphorical woodwork — changing places with other Nurail who would pass during meals or sanitation breaks, perhaps.

  “That’s it, then?” One last chance for any further requirements. He could feel the weight of the manacles in his pocket; he’d transfer them to his case in the next tent. Chief Samons didn’t go into his case, and Security wouldn’t ask questions. If he put them in one of the back-slits, he could always pretend they had been there all the time.

  “If his Excellency would care to give his name,” the man with the scarred face said. “It may be possible to exclude you, from the general curse the Bench has earned.”

  As thanks it was more than gracious, really. “My name is Andrej Koscuisko, and I have earned my share of the blame well and truly.” They would know why. They could read his rank as well as any of the others. “But I am grateful for the thought regardless. Good-greeting to you all.”

  Nodding his head in general salute to the room at large, Andrej quit the tent with Joslire at his back, and paused just outside the doorway. Down one long graveled lane he could see Bench Lieutenant Plugrath, on his way back from his errand to rejoin them and resume his nursemaid duty. Closer to them, but coming from the opposite direction, Toska with rhyti; Andrej moved down to the front of the next tent to wait, just to make it clear the last tent was finished. Nothing interesting there.

  “Joslire. You amaze me.”

  Quietly spoken. And tried to express his confusion, concern, appreciation, anxious inquiry in four short words that would send no message to any casual eavesdropper.

  “I know your mind,” Joslire answered, as quietly. Clearly convinced that they weren’t in danger of being overheard or the conversation remarked upon, for the next few breaths; because Joslire spoke as
a free man, not as a bond-slave. “The officer is the rule of Law to me. My trust in thee is absolute.”

  Now Toska was here with the rhyti-jug. Andrej sat down on the campstool that one of the others brought up for him, finally, covering his confusion with attention to his rhyti. He’d learned that trust could give a bond-involuntary back a measure of freedom; he’d learned that from Joslire, in fact, early on. Joslire’s utter conviction frightened Andrej a bit: what if Andrej should fail, and betray him?

  He could not fail a man who knew him so well — and who trusted him anyway.

  The realization steadied Andrej, and comforted him.

  Handing his empty rhyti flask back to Toska, Andrej nodded to the newly returned Plugrath as though nothing had happened; and turned in serene self-confidence to go into the next tent full of Nurail.

  There was work to do.

  No time like the present to be back at it.

  Chapter Four

  The days passed one like that before and after, and day by day Robis Darmon began to lose hope of ever leaving the Domitt Prison.

  There was no alteration of the schedule, and no lack of bodies to replace those who failed beneath the task. Many failed. It wasn’t that which disheartened Darmon, or Cittrops. He was not losing strength, not too quickly; he was holding his own.

  He saw too much.

  Day after day, as people fell, to be dragged off still twitching to the furnaces.

  People who slipped into the deep trenches being dug for the foundation of the dike, and who were left there, screaming in pain or calling out half-delirious for help, until they stopped crying. To be buried in gravel, whether still or not, as the work of the foundation went forward.

  Gradually day by day he realized that men who saw such things would never be released to speak of them, because it was a crime by Bench precedent to murder men in such an offhand fashion. Even if they were only Nurail. Slave labor could be levied by a prison, there were rules, but work-crews had to be treated like laborers and not like cattle, and when they left the prison they had to be paid off for their work.

  Not killed and replaced, killed and replaced, killed and replaced again day after day.

  The prison administration had no intention of permitting them to live.

  There was no hope, no future, and no sense of time or purpose. He had almost forgotten that he was not Marne Cittrops. He didn’t know who Marne Cittrops was. It didn’t matter.

  All he really remembered was a son.

  He hadn’t seen his child here, not yet; he hadn’t heard the overseers gloat that the only surviving child of the Darmon had been taken or killed. They didn’t know they had the Darmon himself, yet; he had been taken prisoner under an assumed name for self-defense. Now it was even better. There was no connection between Marne Cittrops and Robis Darmon: and no word that would indicate that his child was a prisoner.

  He could keep breathing as long as his child was free.

  He would not leave the Domitt, not alive.

  But Chonniskot was free.

  And there was hope.

  ###

  He labored next to the second man he’d come to know as Shopes Ban. The sun was coming later, leaving sooner; he had no way to tell the time as such, but anyone could see that the sun rose less completely opposed to where it set day by day. Tracking south, by Standard convention, which meant winter, which meant shorter days; but it was still brutally hot and dry work at the bottom of the great ditch, and he was still as grateful for water when it came.

  Five days after the new face had come to be named Shopes Ban, the overseer came with troops in the middle of the day, searching the line, looking for someone. Robis kept his head down, kept his eyes down, looked as stupid as he could. Shopes looked at him out of the corner of his eye, but Robis forced himself to look ahead, sending his warning low-voiced through half-parted lips so that the sound would not betray them.

  “Keep working. You’re nobody. Concentrate.”

  He knew who Shopes had been in a previous life; he thought Shopes had recognized him, though it had been a day or two before he’d noticed that the searching confused gaze Shopes would turn on him had been replaced by despair and fathomless sorrow. Shopes had been a junior officer. His name was Shopes for now, though, and Robis fixed that firmly in his mind.

  He had forgotten everybody’s name.

  He had made it his business to bury all the names he used to know beneath the gravel that came down the slope to line the bottom of the foundation ditch. He buried a name every time a Nurail fell and was kicked beneath the huge stalloy rollers of the loader to be ground into dust with the refuse from the work. The fewer names he could remember, the fewer names he could be made to say if they found him; but they hadn’t found him. They seized Shapes Ban instead, and carried him away to special transport. Up the slope.

  When the overseer came with dippers-full of water, Robis begged the extra from him and was allowed to gain the gift by groveling. He didn’t mind. It was nothing to do with him, and everything to do with just survival. He had to do whatever he could do to get enough to eat, to drink, to survive. No matter how it burned within him to beg of a Pyana what would be granted any dog in simple good husbandry. It was too late to die with honor and go to glory. His duty was to survive as long as possible, because the longer he survived the greater were his chances of somehow getting through. Some way. No matter how hopeless it might seem to be.

  ###

  Twenty-plus days in vector transit from Eild to Rudistal with the Dramissoi Relocation Fleet, with little to do but play cards and accompany Koscuisko and his young shadow Plugrath as he did his rounds through the transports. Koscuisko would much rather be with the rest of the fleet’s medical staff even now.

  Caleigh knew the thought that was in Koscuisko’s mind as he stood at the top of the steps in front of the dock-master’s Administration building, gazing over the river to the relocation camp beyond. But he hadn’t been sent here to help keep the relocation camp healthy. And soon he would no longer be the Dramissoi Relocation Fleet’s concern at all.

  Bench Lieutenant Goslin Plugrath stood one or two steps lower than the more senior officer, with his hands clasped loosely behind his back, looking bored. Taller than Koscuisko, bigger than Koscuisko, dancing attendance on Koscuisko had all too clearly not been Plugrath’s idea of a good time. Caleigh gave him good marks for professionalism all the same: he’d been polite and respectful throughout.

  “That’s done the last of it, Chief,” Toska said, wiping the dust from his hands with his white-square. “Loaded and ready.”

  The Dramissoi Relocation Fleet had put a car at their disposal, and a Security escort under Plugrath’s command. There wasn’t all that much luggage to stow; bond-involuntaries traveled light, partially because they had no personal possessions to account for. Caleigh nodded.

  “Be at ease, then, Toska. Stand by, we should be getting out of here.”

  The sun was setting over the hills west of Port Rudistal, the brilliant glare of its long rays throwing the low tents of the relocation camp into high relief against the lowering clouds to the east. It was cool and damp on the loading field already. Once the sun went down it was going to get cold.

  Lieutenant Plugrath shifted his weight where he stood, turning his head on his short neck to the officer. “I’ll just go send a reconfirm, your Excellency.” Plugrath didn’t believe senior officers should be kept waiting any more than Caleigh did. Koscuisko was willing to wait, in this instance, but unwilling to make a fuss about it; he just nodded gravely.

  As Plugrath turned to go up into the building, however, Caleigh saw something coming from between the towering hulks of the launch-field loaders, weaving its way toward them through the canyons between the close-packed warehouses.

  “Bench Lieutenant.” Calling him down to the loading level with her, Caleigh gestured, pointing with her chin. “Our escort, sir?”

  As the car cleared the maze of warehouses and picked up speed al
ong the launch-field perimeter, Caleigh could see that it was a touring car, luxurious and expensive, with a carload of what was probably Security behind it.

  “So it would seem, Chief. And about time.”

  Once Koscuisko set foot in that transport he would be halfway between the Dramissoi Fleet and the Domitt Prison, properly assigned to neither. Caleigh wondered whether Koscuisko had fantasies of hijacking the transport, and making for — for where?

  There was nowhere for him to go.

  He couldn’t go back to Scylla without clearance from Vopalar and the Domitt.

  She was being silly.

  The touring car and its escort pulled up in front of the landing with a fine flourish of kicked-up gravel; and the Security troops, hurrying out of their transport, formed up to receive the officer. Caleigh was not impressed: but they were merely Bench resources, not Fleet, and only prison security at that. She was privileged to work with bond-involuntaries. The standards could not be compared.

  Now the touring car’s passenger cabin door opened, and a man stepped forth from the open-roofed interior. Looked vaguely familiar, in some way. He shifted his gaze uncertainly between Caleigh and Lieutenant Plugrath, as if not quite sure who he should address; and settled on Plugrath at last. Very properly.

  “His Excellency?”

  He didn’t take Plugrath for Andrej Koscuisko, no, clearly not. He wanted to verify Koscuisko’s identity.

  “Waiting,” Plugrath affirmed, not very helpfully. “And you, sir?”

  “Assistant Administrator Merig Belan, from the Domitt Prison. Come to carry his Excellency’s party to quarters on site. If you’d present me, Bench Lieutenant.”

  So he’d studied the rank-markings, even if he’d had to concentrate on the rank Plugrath wore for a moment before deciding on the appropriate mode of address. Plugrath gestured for Belan to precede him up the stairs to where Koscuisko stood patiently, secure in his knowledge that they’d come for him when he was wanted.