Prisoner of Conscience

by Susan R. Matthews

  Of course it might. That wasn’t what Koscuisko was asking. Professionals at a Chigan’s level were to be approached as carefully as if they were — well, Ship’s Surgeons, for example. Koscuisko was asking whether Fishweir would condescend to favor Caleigh herself with the skillful medication of his educated hands.

  Fishweir shook his head with polite regret. “Sir, I’m Unreform, I’m sorry. No offense, Chief.” And while most Chigan off-world simply treated women as though they were female men and dealt with Chigan cultural taboos in that manner, “unreformed” Chigan were prohibited by their creed from any form of physical contact with the sex of hominid that carried young in utero. Caleigh didn’t mind Unreform Chigan. It was nothing personal. Fishweir was clearly well intentioned as he spoke on.

  “I’ll tell you both something, though, and you can take it for what you feel it may be worth. The nature of grief is heavy, wet, and cold. It settles in your stomach. You need fire to drive it off or it’ll make you sick.”

  Fishweir had been stroking Koscuisko’s body as he spoke, as if restlessly. Now he stilled his hands, one at the small of Koscuisko’s back, one at the back of Koscuisko’s neck, and rested himself there. Caleigh wondered that Koscuisko would submit to being touched at the back of his neck, when he was so selective about who he would touch in that manner, and when. Perhaps it was to do with surrendering himself into the capable hands of a professional.

  The thought ambushed Caleigh Samons, and took her breath away.

  Surrender herself.

  Into the hands of someone who could take care of her.

  She shook herself to clear her mind. She was a senior Security warrant officer. She could take care of herself. She had been taking care of herself — and her officer, and her troops assigned — for years.

  But the shaking didn’t work to clear her mind and rid her of the alien thought. Someone who could take care of her, even if only for a few hours, even if only in a sense.

  Someone like her officer.

  She knew the strength of his body from combat drill, she knew the strength of his will. She knew the strength of his passion from these few hours past, watching him grieve for Joslire Curran. She knew the quality of his mind from what she had heard of gossip from Infirmary, surprise at his skill level, appreciation for his ability, finally gratitude for the healing in his hands.

  Oh, someone to be responsible for the next few hours, someone to see to her needs —

  The very idea was so foreign that it turned her stomach.

  At least there was a sudden strange sensation there, in her belly. And surely it was revulsion at the very idea.

  Unless it was desire for comfort, after what they had suffered last night?

  “There, now.” Fishweir stroked up the length of Koscuisko’s body one last time and turned away, his voice low and calm and caressing. “You’re to lie still for at least four eighths. Miss Samons, time him. I’ll have the kitchen send up some warming, drying food. Good-greeting, your Excellency.”

  Professional courtesy was all very well.

  But Fishweir was Chigan.

  And Koscuisko was beautiful, in a masculine sense, his body maybe a little white but smooth and sleek with the lithe lines of his Dolgorukij musculature. It wasn’t the bulk of the muscle but how the muscle tied in to the bone that made the difference with Dolgorukij. Koscuisko was much stronger than he looked, and if he took her into his embrace —

  She shouldn’t be having these thoughts. He was her officer. Granted that Koscuisko desired her; most men did. She didn’t want him.

  She only wanted comfort.

  And that desperately.

  All of her life spent taking care of things, seeing to the well-being of her troops —

  “Slow count, Chief,” Fishweir reminded her, on his way out.

  Was it her imagination?

  Or did that damned Chigan know exactly what was going on in her clearly stress-addled mind?

  “Have you made plans, Miss Samons?” Koscuisko asked, casually, after a moment had passed. “They could lay two places. Unless you’ve found something of interest here.”

  Did he mean that he hadn’t?

  “Haven’t had a chance to check, sir. Settling the others.” Hadn’t been particularly interested. She was tired, and she just wanted to sleep. She’d thought. And hiring a man wasn’t the same as surrendering an hour to someone she could trust, and there she went again, and she was going to have to concentrate. And take a nice cold shower. Which would not be relaxing.

  “It is said that grief likes company. But only aggrieved company. I would be glad of your companionship, I do not feel like talking with a stranger.”

  “That would be nice. Thank you.” It was an effort to keep her voice calm and casual; when she was hungry. “I should probably get a wash in before we eat, though.”

  “Plenty of time.” Koscuisko’s voice was muffled against the pillow on the bench-table. “Perhaps so much as an eight, but I hope not. I’m hungry. We didn’t get our third-meals in, last night, and fast-meal gone begging as well. Tell the kitchen, Miss Samons, and we will sit down together. That will be comforting. I will enjoy that.”

  Leaving her officer to lie quietly in the serene calm of the exercise room, Caleigh called the kitchen to arrange for doubled portions. And had them send up a second wrap-robe as well. If Koscuisko thought it was just too odd of her, she could cover for it somehow. But it didn’t need to mean anything. Fatigue could explain it. And she didn’t care. She was reckless with weariness and hunger to be the one taken care of, just this once.

  She went through the officer’s bedroom into the washroom beyond, and stripped, and lay in a tub full of hot water until she knew by the quiet sounds outside the bath-enclosure itself that the house staff had carried away her clothing to be cleaned, and left her a wrap-robe.

  Clean white toweling, sweet with a fragrance of sun. It was probably a perfume. Caleigh didn’t care. The warmth of the robe was comforting, and the silk slippers for her feet were very caressing as well. They had put out a sleep-shift for her, much like the sleep-shirt that had been waiting for Koscuisko in the exercise room, hanging on a hook. Koscuisko had already had his wash. It was the first thing Koscuisko always did when he came to a service house, regardless of whether or not he anticipated seeking entertainment.

  She was as dressed as he was, and had seen him naked, what was there to think twice about? Caleigh tied her long blond hair up in a loose damp knot and went out to find the meal-table.

  Koscuisko would have known she had gone into the wash-room; he would have heard her. He seemed a little surprised at it, but took her reappearance in stride. Maybe he wasn’t taking it in stride. Maybe he was too beaten down by everything they had been through to be surprised at anything.

  Their meal was ready for them, one way or the other, and that took care of having to talk about much of anything for a while. Dinner? Supper? Fast-meal? She’d lost track. It was mid-meal by local reckoning, and she didn’t usually take much of a mid-meal, but she found herself to her surprise accounting for her fair share of the meat-dish.

  Some of the bread.

  Quite a bit of the side-vegetable.

  And one of the two glasses of caraminson wine, no more than two mouthfuls of fluid really, but a powerful soother and muscle relaxant that would ensure they both slept well and deeply, to the effective healing of their bodies — when they slept.

  She couldn’t talk to the officer.

  She kept getting distracted.

  It was not precisely comfortable, but it wasn’t awkward, either; she couldn’t say quite how she felt about it.

  The servers took away the dirty dishes and laid out fruit and cheese and sweets, and went away. Koscuisko crossed his forearms on the table’s edge and leaned forward, regarding her with a very inquiring look in his mirror-silver eyes.

  “Tell me what is in your mind, Chief,” he suggested. “It may be that I should know, and if I have offended I can only ask for
consideration. But I am very stupid just at the moment. And I am not accustomed to the sight of your shoulders — ”

  The sleep-shift was a little loose, and the wrap-robe was not snug. The collar lay open across her shoulders; it might even have slipped to one side or another during the course of the meal without her taking much note of it.

  “ — and it becomes very difficult to remember that you are Chief Warrant Officer Caleigh Samons. Rather than a woman whose body I desire very much.”

  Well, that was nothing new. Was it? He’d never told her, not in so many words. She’d never needed to be told. It had always been obvious enough.

  She was making a mistake.

  She shouldn’t be considering it, only — only she couldn’t shake the thought. One eight, two eights, that was all she would ever ask. Two eights to lie in the arms of a man who could take care of her. She was more than Koscuisko’s match in combat drill; it wasn’t that.

  Joslire had trusted him.

  Joslire was dead.

  “That’s two of us tired, Your Excellency.” To gloss things over and go away would be best. It would be safer. Koscuisko did not have to do with subordinate troops; and had apparently set that between them in his mind from the beginning. She had always appreciated his respect for her professional skill. She didn’t want to lose that. “I should go see about a room. I’m glad to have had company, though. After what’s happened.”

  Stupid Koscuisko might be, and she might be in shock. He looked at her directly, no defenses, no pretense. He was not the Chief Medical Officer, nor the Ship’s Inquisitor. He was Andrej Koscuisko. Just at this moment that was all he was.

  “It is not strictly speaking necessary for you to go out to an empty bed. There is in the next room one which is very suitable, and already made up to welcome you. We will be Caleigh and Andrej just this once, perhaps. I could take comfort from your body, Caleigh. And it could be that you would have some comfort from mine.”

  Oh, yes, precisely. The idea exactly. Yes.

  She didn’t know exactly how to say it, so she didn’t say anything. She only stood up slowly, debating moment by moment about the wisdom of this course of action.

  She walked uncertainly in slippered feet toward the bedroom and stopped in the doorway.

  Now or never. Point of decision. Make or break.

  Koscuisko took her carefully around the waist from behind, and kissed the side of her neck with contemplative deliberation; and she knew that at that moment she was the center of Koscuisko’s universe.

  He had the power of complete absorption, absolute concentration on whatever had caught his interest at the moment.

  Right now he was centered on her; and raised his bandaged hand to stroke the opposite side of her throat as he kissed her.

  She was drunk with arousal, but whether it was the pleasure his caress gave her or her enjoyment of the intensity of his attention — or even the caraminson wine — Caleigh didn’t know.

  She didn’t think it mattered.

  He had said that he admired her shoulders, of all things?

  She shrugged the wrap-robe down around her elbows, and leaned back against Koscuisko’s welcome strength.

  To affirm life honored life, and to honor life was to respect the dead.

  Koscuisko kissed her throat, and Caleigh shivered with the pure pleasure of it, and ceased to think about anything at all in the world except Koscuisko’s touch and Koscuisko’s kisses.

  ###

  Andrej awoke to a restrained bustle of activity in the other room and blinked his eyes at the ceiling, trying to make sense of the confused memories that jumbled in his mind in the disorder of an uncompleted dream. It was not a familiar bed. There was a warmth to it that was more than of his body, and a fragrance that was familiar, but out of place. What was going on?

  Someone was speaking low-voiced in the outer room. Kaydence. “Packed and ready, Chief. There’s word with the housemaster from Lieutenant Plugrath. Wants to inspect the officer’s escort before we’re to leave. Something like that.”

  “I’m not going to ask you how you know, Kay.”

  There, that was Chief Samons’s voice, quiet and serene and even affectionate. Kaydence had an insatiable appetite for information that he was not supposed to have, and was always fraying braids in which he had no business just to see whether it could be done. Within limits. Kaydence’s governor kept him from too much meddling.

  It had been meddling with Bench systems that had gotten Kaydence his Bond in the first place, after all. “Chief.” Kaydence sounded aggrieved. “I came by the information honestly. Courier delivery, voice confirm. You slander me.”

  It was like an addiction of sorts with Kaydence, and in the years Andrej had known him he had fallen foul of his governor more than once when enthusiasm outran prudence. There was something else, though. Andrej frowned, thinking hard.

  “I don’t know if that’s possible, Kay. You’d be twice as offended if I implied you couldn’t find out.”

  Chief Samons.

  It was the fragrance of her body, in the bed.

  Sitting up suddenly, Andrej stared at the still-dimpled pillow to his right.

  Chief Samons?

  It had been Caleigh, and there was one of her long blond hairs on the pillow.

  Caleigh, and she had called him by his name, and he had numbered all the secrets in his mind that he had ever wanted to know about her body and solved them one by one with self-indulgent thoroughness.

  His fish rose up amidst the bedclothes and crested at the very thought of it, but Andrej could not be bothered with the importunities of his masculine gender. Let his fish breach. There were people in the next room. He had to get dressed. It was morning. The clock-panel in the headboard of the bed made that quite clear.

  “How’s the officer?” Kaydence asked.

  Andrej had turned to get up and find his under-linen, but the question froze him in mid-pivot with a handful of bedclothes half-raised in the air.

  “He slept well, I think. There’s a Chigan masseur. And he prescribed caraminson, I’d tip him twice if I could.”

  Nothing.

  No hint of hesitation, no vague suspicion of a concealed truth, no stutter. Nothing. Freed from his paralysis, Andrej set foot to carpeted floor to find his clothing. It was to be their secret, then.

  “I don’t know how well Code slept, Chief, not even with all the help he had.” Kaydence’s voice sounded thoughtful. “What about our Chief, how is she doing?”

  It wasn’t the sort of question a bond-involuntary would normally ask a superior. It was a little too personal; and that could mean impertinent. But Kaydence asked it quite naturally and calmly, taking care of Chief Samons as though she were one of them — one of the Bonds. In a strictly limited sense.

  Kaydence’s artless question brought home the full enormity of Andrej’s loss with renewed force. They had all taken care of each other. Now one of them was dead; and if they weren’t careful, Code might follow where Joslire had gone. A bond-involuntary who couldn’t work his way through survivor’s guilt could force his governor into overload. It was one of the ways in which a bond-involuntary could commit suicide: a particularly self-punitive way, to brood on one’s own failings until one’s governor took over the task of self-flagellation and carried it to its ultimate extreme. Very horrible.

  But not as horrible as what he meant to do to the people who had stolen Joslire away from them. A governor on overload meant death in agony, but without the proper drugs that death could take mere hours to conclude. He would execute a masterpiece, a Tenth Level Command Termination that would last eight days and more before it was concluded. Joslire would be avenged.

  He had to get to the Domitt Prison, because he had experiments to perform before the Port Authority found his prey.

  That meant getting dressed.

  His uniform was waiting in the bedroom for him, but his boots were not; Andrej went out in slippered feet to see how he was to speak to Chief Samons, a
nd get his boots at the same time. Kaydence had gone. Chief Samons sat at the meal-table having some cavene; and stood up as he entered the room, bowing her salute.

  “His Excellency slept well?”

  Only a very subtle hint of the joke, there. And no mockery. But no trace of the woman who had welcomed his embrace, either. Just as well that his fish had got tired of being ignored, and tucked its head back sullenly into his hip-wrap, where it belonged.

  “Thank you, Miss Samons. Excellently well. And you?”

  “Just what the doctor ordered. With respect.”

  No awkwardness, and no denial. This was not so difficult as Andrej had feared. It was not to be necessary to pretend that nothing had happened; it was not to be expected that it would happen again.

  Fair was fair.

  “I’m glad to hear it. Did I hear Kaydence telling you about a word from Plugrath?”

  He was better off without the distraction she would represent, had she hinted that he might again embrace her.

  He wanted nothing to interfere with his vengeance for Joslire.

  ###

  Administrator Geltoi watched the small convoy approach, frowning into the early morning sun. To have waited so long for a Writ, only to be delayed at the last moment by this unfortunate accident — really, he had suffered reversals before, but this was a bitter one.

  That wasn’t even all.

  Koscuisko had injured his hand during the attack, and would doubtless need some days yet of recovery time.

  Couldn’t he just direct his Bonds to the work, wasn’t that what they were for? Yet a wounded man had a right to expect light duty in respect for an injury. Try as he did, Geltoi couldn’t make out the execution of the Writ to be “light duty” no matter how he approached the problem in his mind.

  The little convoy was closer by the moment, and would soon be hidden behind the compound wall that circled the administration building and the prison alike. Geltoi got out his conning-glasses; he could tell which one was Koscuisko from Belan’s description — seated in the senior officer’s place, wearing duty black in token of his station as one of Scylla’s Ship’s Primes, short and fair-headed, no beard.