Prisoner of Conscience

by Susan R. Matthews

  Geltoi frowned.

  From where he stood, Koscuisko almost looked Nurail.

  A trick of the light, surely, and there was no cause to suspect any such thing. The officer’s brief said his system of origin was the Dolgorukij Combine. There were no Nurail in the Dolgorukij Combine that Geltoi had ever heard of, still less any Nurail contaminating the blood of one of the Combine’s oldest and most influential — if not richest — noble houses. It was an accident of nature, a freak of genetics. Yes.

  The convoy didn’t swing wide at the crossroads to make for the gate outside the prison’s entrance, though. Instead the convoy took the branch that led toward the administration building.

  This was interesting. For Koscuisko to come to him straightaway — and it would be Koscuisko’s own idea, Belan had his instructions — was the behavior appropriate to a subordinate officer; and very gracious of Koscuisko to have made the public gesture. Geltoi smiled.

  Yes.

  Not Nurail at all.

  The convoy cleared the perimeter gate and pulled up in front of the administration building, out of Geltoi’s line of sight beneath the second-story overhang. Geltoi sat down behind his desk-table to wait.

  After a moment’s time Belan signaled. “Administrator. Your pardon, sir. The Judicial officer has asked for a short meeting.”

  Yes, very nice. It was an interesting sensation, to receive such public tokens of respect from a ranking Fleet officer. Making up his mind to forgive Koscuisko in advance for the days he would surely be less than productive, Geltoi keyed his respond.

  “A surprise. Of course. Immediately, Belan.” If he’d been able to foresee this, he might have laid a small welcome out in his office, some pastry, something to drink. But that might indicate that he’d expected Koscuisko’s courtesy as his right, rather than being pleasantly surprised, not at all intending on asserting his technically superior rank as Koscuisko’s administrative commander, and so forth. So perhaps it was just as well this way after all.

  When the door to Geltoi’s office opened it was both wings of the double doors at once, two people opening the door, two people coming through it — and behind them, Andrej Koscuisko. With his surviving Bonds, yes, the green piping on the sleeves of their uniform set them apart as bond-involuntary. The woman behind Koscuisko in turn would logically be the Chief of Security who would accompany a senior officer: and a stunning Chief of Security she was, too.

  Koscuisko stopped four paces in front of Geltoi’s desk-table and bowed with formal and unforced respect. “Administrator.” Well, he could still be taken for Nurail, Geltoi supposed; tear his clothing, soil his face, let his hair grow unkempt and greasy, and perhaps some confusion might exist. But for the rest of it Koscuisko was clearly too intelligent and too well-educated to be taken for Nurail. He had manners.

  “I am Andrej Koscuisko, I present myself with apologies for the delay. We are obliged to you for your kind understanding.” In the matter of a day for mourning, clearly. “That the Domitt Prison has also some loss suffered, our condolences. I have brought the Writ to Inquire to support the Judicial function at the Domitt Prison, Administrator, and to that end I am at your disposal and command.”

  Very prettily done. And sensitive, too, to remark on the loss of the personnel assigned to the Domitt Prison. Two of the dead Security had been Pyana.

  Geltoi raised his hands in a gesture of acceptance and dismissal. “Not at all.” Was he to call Koscuisko by his name? Was he to call him “your Excellency”? He was senior. Perhaps he should use Koscuisko’s professional title, that would do the trick. “We’re off to a rocky start with you, I’m afraid, Doctor. You’re injured. I expect you’ll need — how long? Before you’re fit to work?”

  Koscuisko looked a little confused, frowning slightly, turning his head fractionally to one side as if avoiding an unexpected draft of some sort. “I had not anticipated delaying further, Administrator. I had expected to make the orientation inspection today. And review cases waiting through tomorrow, to be started the day following.”

  This was a surprise. But not an unpleasant one. They were as ready as he could have wanted to be for an inspection; Geltoi had directed that the replacement bodies on standby be moved back into the cellars, just for today, in order to spare Koscuisko the sight of them.

  It was a little odd, though. Everything that he had heard about Koscuisko from Chilleau Judiciary had prepared him for a man who would be taking advantage of any opportunity to put off his duty. Not that anyone could fault an Inquisitor for the quite natural impulse to delay unpleasantness.

  “Excuse me, Doctor. Of course. I had misunderstood. Has the Port Authority any news for us on those who attacked you?”

  The one issue resolved, Geltoi turned his attention to testing Koscuisko’s attitude on the only other issue of concern before them. There was probably some way for Koscuisko to make the assault the Domitt Prison’s fault. The Port Authority was certainly taking a critical approach, and the Port Authority should know better, too, than to scorn the source of good patronage.

  Administrator Geltoi himself would not have gone into Port Rudistal without more Security than they had sent for Koscuisko, but that was exactly the reason fewer Security had seemed called for to escort the officer’s party. Administrator Geltoi needed protection: the locals knew who he was, and didn’t care for his no-nonsense approach to prison management. Koscuisko looked nothing like him. Koscuisko had not been at risk of being mistaken for Administrator Geltoi. It had been sheer vandalism, really.

  “I have this morning spoken with Lieutenant Plugrath from the Dramissoi Relocation Fleet.” Who had made an unflattering report to his superiors about the manner in which Koscuisko had been escorted; but that was by the way. Plugrath was a very junior Lieutenant. And the only reason there was any to-do at all was that a Fleet officer had been inconvenienced by-the-by. Koscuisko was unhurt, for all the fuss the Port Authority was making.

  “He tells me there is not yet anything definite. I have asked him to come and see me from time to time to make report. I hope that he can be cleared to do so, Administrator.”

  Geltoi rather liked the idea of the Lieutenant dancing attendance on Koscuisko until they came up with satisfactory results. Perhaps it would teach Plugrath to amend his attitude and his behavior. Perhaps.

  “And gladly. Doctor. I won’t keep you, you’ll want to get settled in to quarters. I’ve scheduled a small welcome for dinner, how would it be said in Fleet, third-meal. I will anticipate with pleasure making your acquaintance then. In the meantime please pace yourself, Doctor, you are willing to work I see, but you have been wounded. You must not strain yourself.”

  Inquisitors as a class were vulnerable to stress. That was one of the reasons it was important to provide a secure place for Koscuisko, a safe haven, insulated from the sordid environment in which he was required to work.

  “With respect, Administrator, you mistake the situation, to an extent.” Koscuisko bowed with formal grace; it was clear he only wished to clarify an issue. “It is very good of you. But I have no desire to put anything off, quite the contrary. When Lieutenant Plugrath for me finds those who have murdered Joslire I have promised myself a suitable execution. I shall be needing the practice, while I wait.”

  More and more interesting.

  “Commendable, Doctor. And very understandable. Belan will see you settled, and we will meet again for dinner.”

  Hadn’t the report said that Koscuisko himself had actually killed his bond-involuntary?

  But the Nurail who had ambushed them would still be responsible. Yes. Geltoi had no problem with that.

  He had plenty of Nurail for Koscuisko to practice on.

  Chapter Six

  Bored for two days, and now right terrified: Ailynn had heard that to be characteristic of the life that Security bond-involuntaries led, but up till now she’d never had the experience herself.

  Bored for two days: She’d been ordered for the day before yesterday, mi
d-shift, to have her briefing and meet her betters in the place they meant to keep their Inquisitor. Terrified right now: because finally the Inquisitor had arrived. And she to be available to him for his use, whatever that might suit his fancy to be.

  She’d never met an officer with so much rank. She’d never met one of Fleet’s torturers, though she had known her share of Pyana ones. And even the Pyana in this place spoke with respect and fear of an Inquisitor.

  They would enjoy her suffering.

  Or perhaps not enjoy it, the housekeepers had not been aggressively cruel to her these two days past; there was no particular reason to expect they would delight in her bruises. But they were Pyana. Pyana didn’t think Nurail even had souls, not really, though they used the common phrase. “Nurail souls” was just as much to say “Nurail beasts” or “Nurail chattels.”

  Ailynn stood waiting in the front room beside the officer’s bedroom doorway in the gracious roof-house that enslaved Nurail hands had built for him, listening to voices as they approached. The housekeepers had greeted the officer at the loading dock where the main lift came to rest. Cook had waited to be introduced in the kitchen, his proper place. Ailynn had been hired for the officer’s use for relaxation: and had been placed next to the bedroom accordingly, to meet the officer.

  “Belan, this is astonishing.”

  It was a clear voice, a cold voice, and it spoke without much inflection, even though the language was emphatic. Ailynn suppressed a shiver.

  “On the roof. One might as well be in the country. And so extensive a plant, as well, it will be difficult to return to Scylla after such luxury as this.”

  The officer. Ailynn told the data over in her mind, counting the beads in her fretting-cord one by one as she went with her hands decently concealed beneath her apron. Aznir Dolgorukij. An aristocrat, at least in his home system. Surgeon, and Inquisitor, Jurisdiction Fleet Ship Scylla. Five bond-involuntary troops, except that there were only four to come here now, and nobody had bothered with the names. A Chief of Security, a Warrant Officer. Miss Samons.

  Andrej Koscuisko.

  “His Excellency is very kind. We hope you’ll be comfortable here, sir. Your personal quarters are in through the sitting-room, this way.”

  Belan. More Pyana than Nurail, and fed at the enemy’s table rather than be penned with his family. She didn’t think she blamed him for the choices he had made, because it was only common sense to elect to be safe and respectable if such was offered. But he forgot his family and his kind. That was more difficult to decline from blaming.

  Here they were.

  Coming into the beautiful front room, with its great windows and its well-padded furnishings, its polished wooden tables and its bright clear lights. Its Service bond-involuntary.

  She knew the officer by his uniform, the Bonds by the piping on their sleeves, Belan by sight, Chief Samons by her sex.

  Ailynn bowed as the officer scanned the room. He might not even see her. He might not notice her. She was only part of the furniture, as one with the toweling or the linen that had been provided for him to soil as he liked.

  Only when she had made her bow and straightened up she found that the officer was looking right at her. Not tall. Very elegant, in his black uniform; and his black uniform made her afraid, because only senior officers wore that color, and senior officers frightened her. Frowning. And no color in his eyes. Like ice. Like the cold moonlight glittering on the water.

  “And this?” the officer asked Belan.

  Belan seemed to hesitate, almost to blush. He was the one who had come to hire her. The house-master knew that she was scarred, and would suffer less damage if the officer used force. Belan had wanted a Service bond-involuntary rather than another woman, because no one knew what an Inquisitor might like for recreation, and it was not to be considered that he should be answered back. Belan had wanted her particularly, a slave, who could not raise her voice regardless of what Koscuisko might put her to.

  “This woman is from the service house, your Excellency. For your convenience. Though if you’d prefer some other accommodation — you’ve only to state your preference, sir, the Administration means to spare no expense.”

  Koscuisko crossed the floor toward her, and Ailynn watched him come in an agony of humiliation. Would he reject her as below his standard? Or would he accept her, inferior though she was, because the less worth she had in his eyes the more easily he could use her?

  She’d thought that she’d become inured to the degrading treatment to which the Bench had condemned her.

  She was wrong.

  He stopped too close to her. He had no right. She had no right to step away from him. Looking her up and down. Leaning more close yet, to speak into her ear.

  “You would perhaps tell me, if you are from Marleborne?”

  What had he said? She couldn’t grasp his meaning, so different was the question from the suggestive sneer she’d more than half expected. He waited for her answer for a moment, but she could not answer; he explained.

  “Because I could not bear to keep you, if you were from Marleborne. My Robert St. Clare was Bonded there. He once said that his mother’s people held the slippery slope, no, I misspeak myself, he said the Ice Traverse.”

  It still made no sense at all to her. “I have no threads in that weave. Sir. Your Excellency.” She answered to him as low-voiced as he’d spoken, out of involuntary response to his tone. “As it please the officer.”

  “His” Robert St. Clare. As though the man were his possession. None of the Bonds he had brought with him looked Nurail: just as well. This was a fearful place to be Nurail, the Domitt Prison, built on Nurail bones by Pyana slave-masters, a prison for her people with the enemy of their kind to hold the key.

  “We will not dispute with the Administration that they have brought you here like a commodity, in that case. Be at ease. We will try not to make things difficult for you.”

  Koscuisko was still speaking very close to her, but stepped away, raising his voice as though he were just finishing his thought. “And we shall sort well enough together. Very well. Now. Administrator Belan. There must be office space, where I can the briefs of prisoners review. Jurisdiction procedure requires I perform an inspection tour, I understand, and this we could accomplish here and now?”

  They would all assume he had been laying down his law to her. Ailynn felt the heat rush into her face; but it was only what they would expect. Why had he concealed his question, in that way?

  “Office space on the next level down, your Excellency, and the work area as well. A separate lift, though. Shall we get started?”

  There were ways up onto the roof, but few ways down. Did Koscuisko understand yet that he was to be a prisoner, here? Administrator Geltoi controlled traffic within his prison very carefully. It was the only thing that had saved him from the hatred of the prisoners who toiled beneath his damned Pyana oversight: But the less she knew about what had gone on here, she reminded herself, the more easily she would be able to rest.

  If rest at all, in the presence of a torturer.

  A torturer for whose personal satisfaction she had been procured, she, scarred and damaged goods, and Nurail, no loss if she should take an injury, and no one to intervene for her in this man’s sleeping-room.

  “Perhaps Miss Samons will see to settling in. Code, come with me, we will with the Administrator go exploring.”

  The officer drew one of his Security with him and left the room with Administrator Belan.

  Ailynn stood as still as the others. Waiting.

  Once the officer had left, the Chief Warrant Officer broke from her polite position of attention, starting toward Ailynn, beckoning for the Bonds.

  “Right. My name is Caleigh Samons, I’m Chief of Security. These are Kaydence Psimas, Erish Muat — ” the one who limped stiffly, one leg bound straight in a walking-brace — ” and Toska Bederico. The officer has taken Code Pyatte with him, we can introduce you later. And your name?”


  They were strange to her. But they were all bond-involuntaries, the same as she was. Ailynn felt oddly comfortable, surrounded by their friendly curiosity.

  “Called Ailynn.” She all but croaked it, her voice so stiff in her own throat. “Ailynn Stoup, Chief, sorry.”

  “You would prefer to be called which? The officer generally uses first names. By and large.”

  “Ailynn, then, Chief.” The Chief Warrant Officer was as tall as she was, but seemed a little thinner, if more muscular, and the Chief Warrant Officer had rank. They didn’t see too many women with rank in the service house, for one reason or another. Ailynn found the Chief intimidating: it made her a little annoyed, to be so awed. She was only afraid of the officer, and projecting. Yes.

  “Ailynn, we’ll talk. After we’re settled in. You should know some things about the officer. I wish I could tell you not to worry.”

  They were on her side.

  The unspoken message was communicated clearly in the Chief’s reluctant candor. On her side, and with an issue in common, the officer. That wasn’t an issue. That was a man. Ailynn felt a little better all the same.

  “Kay will bring you the officer’s personal luggage, and you and he can get things put away. Come on, Toska, let’s go make sure nothing else gets lost, those boots took me a month to break in. Erish. Sit down. Critique Kaydence’s folding of his Excellency’s boot-stockings.”

  She had been isolated and afraid for two days in this prison place. Now suddenly she was part of a group, accepted without question, gracefully included, one of them. If only in a sense.

  The relief she felt was almost as unnerving as the tension itself had been.

  There would still be the officer to face.

  But she would not be as alone as she had feared.

  “Folding socks is an issue?” she asked the one called Kaydence, timidly. Kaydence was big and broad-shouldered, with a huge grin full of white teeth and dark black glossy curls that fell a little long on the back of his collar. They were all big. Only the officer himself was sized for her.