Prisoner of Conscience

by Susan R. Matthews

  The prisoner arched his body as if in pain and rose up on the balls of his feet, trying to relieve the pressure on his throat from the leash, turning about slowly to face Andrej where he sat. Andrej adjusted the controller to let some slack into the tether. There was no sense in rushing things.

  He drank a cup of rhyti, thinking about how hard it had been for him — once upon a time — to start an Interrogation. A long time ago; three years, nearly four years, at Fleet Orientation Station Medical.

  The prisoner was watching him, his whole body stiff with apprehension. There was a part of Andrej’s spirit that shared that apprehension; he knew what was going to happen to him — had already begun to happen — and what it would mean for both of them.

  Andrej let some more slack out at the tether, and the prisoner lost his balance, falling down heavily to his knees. Yes, precisely. Andrej took up a length of chain and fastened it around the prisoner’s knees, hooking it to the anchor in the floor. He didn’t want to have to deal with watching out for stray kicks. The prisoner had been decently hobbled, right enough, but a man could not be faulted for striking out on an instinct when he was being tortured. It was best to deal with such potential problems up front.

  “My name is Andrej Koscuisko.” Finally he spoke to his prisoner, who stared tight-lipped and resolute at him. White in the face. “I hold the Writ to which you must answer, by the Bench instruction. And the information I must have from you requires that you betray your friends, and cause, and family.”

  His blunt speech startled the prisoner, a little. Andrej spoke on. “You know you are accused at the Intermediate Levels, and this means that you may win your liberty by resisting all temptation to betray your secrets to me, because the Bench will not accept use of speak-sera under these conditions.”

  Not to coerce confession, no, and it was not quite honest of him to make such an assertion when he was clear to use another drug — by accident, of course — which would betray the prisoner to himself, without Bench invalidation of the evidence. Without reproach or reprimand, even though the Bench would surely know that he had cheated, and condemned the man out of his own mouth by means of a dirty and underhanded trick.

  Bright pain and glittering blood were clean and wholesome, when compared to such despicable ruses —

  “Here we are about to begin, and I can almost promise you that you will submit to me in time. It is nothing to do with you, and everything to do with pain. If you are willing to confess to me right here, right now, I have it in my authority to accept your confession and verify it with a truth-teller, and the Bench will grant you simple execution in consideration of your cooperation.”

  Was he making sense? He was speaking to a prisoner, a Nurail taken captive and locked up in prison waiting for torture. How could he know whether the prisoner understood what he was saying? “Speak now, and die a swift and easy death. Or defy me and be tortured till you speak, because you will not die until you speak, if I can help it.”

  There, that was much better. That made sense. Andrej could see it in the prisoner’s face.

  “I’ll not.”

  The prisoner’s voice was strained and hoarse, but determined. “It may be as you say, torturer. But not if I can help it. And I hope to God and free space to defeat your purpose, you and your Bench with you.”

  It was well said, and honestly. No vainglorious boast of endurance or resistance. The prisoner would know better than to think that endurance and resistance had anything to do with Protocols. If he could, Andrej would deal honestly with his prisoner, and give him a fair chance to go to death without betraying his secrets. There was little indeed that could be called honest or fair about torture. But he would do his best.

  Not even in the black depths of his passion was he so depraved as to cheat on the Protocols.

  He’d never needed to.

  The Protocols themselves provided everything a man could ever want, and more —

  Andrej put his two hands to either side of the prisoner’s face, for emphasis. “I know a great deal more about this than you do.” It was fair warning. “Please be sure of what you choose.”

  No answer.

  No sense wasting energy repeating oneself, Andrej supposed. A prudent choice. He went to the instruments-rack against the wall, and chose a whip. He would need one that he could control in his right hand, his left hand was still healing. The prisoner had made his choice. Somebody had to suffer for the fact that Joslire was gone; and though it couldn’t be said to be the prisoner’s fault, this prisoner was all he had right here, right now.

  He unloosed the bar that clipped the prisoner’s arms behind his neck and drew the chain up to stretch the man’s wrists overhead. Stepped back a pace, and struck from behind, watching the welt start to ooze blood as he gathered the whip back into his hand. The prisoner cried out, when he was struck, but as much startled as hurt; it was all right. There would be time. It would develop.

  Again.

  He was just warming up.

  The prisoner flinched away from the blows; but there was nowhere to flinch to, he was alone in the middle of the room, pinned knee and wrist to floor and ceiling. Nowhere to go. No way out. No escape, except confession.

  It did feel better to be hitting someone.

  Or at least it felt good, and any good was better than the icy agony in Andrej’s heart where his friend Joslire had been.

  ###

  The officer was late to supper, as he had been these two days past since he had started processing his prisoners. That was what the housekeeper said, processing, as though that could cover the fact that people were being put to torture. But they were only Nurail to the housekeeper: not really people.

  The officer did not try to pretend differently.

  He sat slumped on the edge of the bed unfastening his under-blouse while Erish Muat pulled his boots off one by one to take them away. A freshly polished pair of boots was already waiting for the officer’s use in the morning; there were three pairs, they rotated. And carried the Emandisan knives from pair to pair as need should be, because the officer would not be parted from his knives except in bed.

  Erish went out with the boots, and the officer sat in the dim warmth of his bedroom with his clothing half-undone, silent. Ailynn stood at the open door to his washroom and waited. There was clean linen laid out, and warmed toweling, but she dared not speak to urge him to his bathing. She was afraid of him. She couldn’t help it.

  His people were afraid of him, and trusted him at the same time; she didn’t understand it. She didn’t need to understand to know that she was frightened of him, coming up from torture-room with the blood of his work staining his uniform and a serene expression on his face that made her shudder to look at it.

  After a moment the officer ran his fingers through his fine blond hair, and stood up wearily. He had been working all day. It was physical labor. She was sure he would accept a massage; but was it permitted to her to suggest one?

  Or had she not better just keep her mouth shut and mind her own business? Physical labor; yes; but it still meant torture. Perhaps it was more appropriate if his body ached from it.

  “I am not sure that it is good for you to be here, Ailynn,” he said. “Would it not be better for you to sleep in your own place?”

  She didn’t have a place. They hadn’t provided one. She had a pallet behind the screen to go to when the officer was done with her, if he declined to suffer a whore to sleep with him in his bed. Koscuisko had not scorned her from his bed. But he had made no use of her, either.

  “According to his Excellency’s good pleasure.” As in all things. “Would the officer prefer one of the men to help him wash?”

  Raising his head slowly, he looked back over his shoulder at her, eyebrows raised. “I am not sure that I myself express well, Ailynn. I mean that I begin to fear for you. I am so much beguiled, by this work, and it may be that I forget myself. Should you not go?”

  Well, one thing was certain, she could agree. H
e didn’t express himself well, at least not so she could understand him. She could hardly guess at his meaning.

  But there was nowhere for her to go.

  “I have been procured for your comfort, sir. The rate schedule puts no limitation on what form of recreation the patron may wish to elect.” He knew that, surely. “You are the officer. I am under Bond. If I am unacceptable, more suitable entertainment can be provided, as the officer please.”

  Koscuisko put his hand to the back of his neck, arching his spine as though a pulled muscle troubled him. “No, it is not that. And I do not wish it. There would be fault found, and then a beating.”

  He moved as he spoke, so that he stood beside her when he asked, leaning against the doorjamb. Very close. Facing into the washroom. Looking at her. She didn’t know quite how to respond; and he continued.

  “It is only this, Ailynn, I am a man like any other, which means that my fish desires thy ocean.” Whatever that was supposed to mean. “It is in my work force and violence, all through the day. And I do not want to hurt you, should I forget how to respect the privilege of your body.”

  It was hard for her to tell the threads in his weave, but Ailynn thought she began to grasp his pattern. “His Excellency should not concern himself. I have no feeling, sir.” Nor was it “fish” which had damaged her, and left her so badly scarred that they could send her to any given rapist without concern that she would lose her economic value at his hands.

  Koscuisko stared, and she couldn’t read his face, his eyes too pale in the uncertain light for her to even know for certain if he was looking at her. “Oh, is it so indeed, Ailynn?” She couldn’t interpret his tone of voice, whether sorrowful or relieved. “And still the thing is that if you were not here neither of us would have cause for concern. Surely you could share with Kaydence or with Code, Erish is a little stiff yet, or there’s the divan in the front room. Out there.”

  “If his Excellency is pleased to direct me to entertain his Security — ”

  They had called her “cousin.” But that wouldn’t make any difference. They would all do what the officer wanted. If the officer wanted that.

  “No, not at all. Oh, this is going nowhere.” Whatever it was that was on Koscuisko’s mind, she clearly wasn’t catching at his meaning. He wasn’t angry at her for her stupidity, and that helped. She wasn’t stupid. She didn’t understand him. “We will forget I ever raised the thought, Ailynn, I can find no solution to this trap, and you are in it.”

  Chief Samons had said he could be violent, but why would he try to shield her from that? She had been leased to service his desires. She couldn’t imagine that he didn’t understand that.

  “Does his Excellency bathe tonight or shower?”

  If it wouldn’t come together then it wouldn’t, and she was safer to retreat into routine either way.

  “Run the bath, please, Ailynn. I’ll have a soak.” He started to strip slowly, and she slipped past him to run the bath before collecting his soiled clothing for the housekeeper to see to in the morning.

  “Beg for me Cook’s indulgence, and ask for some of his good casserole. I will want cortac and some cards, have you to play the game of relki ever learned?”

  It was his custom in the evenings, so far. He bathed before he ate, and played card games with his Security, drinking quantities of cortac brandy that staggered her — without setting him to staggering. And interfered with her as little as though he had been stinking drunk, which was to say not at all.

  She could deal easily enough with this, if Koscuisko were to turn out to be a mere drunkard; drunk men posed few threats, unless it was a beating.

  All of this concern for her, lest she should suffer violence at his hands — did they think she didn’t know what it was like already?

  But as long as she could avoid it, she would take their care for her and be grateful to be treated like a human being.

  Instead of a Nurail.

  ###

  Bench Lieutenant Plugrath came escorted by Chief Samons, and did not look to be in a happy state of mind. Toska could appreciate that. It had been five days, here at the Domitt Prison, and nobody in a happy state of mind except the Administration, who were coming to understand what the officer could do with captive souls when time and inclination both permitted.

  “Lieutenant Plugrath reports to wait upon his Excellency’s pleasure,” Chief Samons said to him. Chief was bearing up all right. Koscuisko did what he could to insulate them.

  Toska bowed to signal his receipt of her instruction. “Yes, Chief, I’ll just go tell the officer. The Lieutenant may wish to wait here — ”

  No, the door to the torture cell opened, and here was the officer himself. “Toska, I want — ” Two hours into his morning’s work, lost to the appetite within him, Koscuisko was flushed of cheek and glittering of eye. Smoking a lefrol.

  Toska cringed in his heart from the sight and smell of the officer’s lefrol, and not because he objected to the stink of it so much as that he knew Koscuisko’s mind. A smoldering lefrol was an honest stink. The officer was as likely to find a dual use for it, inside.

  “Your Excellency,” Lieutenant Plugrath saluted. Very formally. “You’ve asked for a report. Shall we go to your office, sir?”

  Because Lieutenant Plugrath had never been in torture cell before, so much was clear, Koscuisko only smiled.

  “Not necessary, Lieutenant, come on in. Toska. Come with me, I’ve a small task for you. Lieutenant?”

  There was no graceful way for a junior officer to refuse a senior officer’s instruction. Toska had even less choice in the matter. Reluctantly, as if making up his mind only as he went whether he was going to object or not, Plugrath followed the officer into the torture-room. Toska stepped across the threshold and secured the door.

  “Your Excellency.” Plugrath’s formality was one way of insulating, himself; Toska knew that. Formality was one of his own best defenses. “You’ve asked for a report on our investigation. There’s been a concerted effort on the part of the Port Authority — ”

  But Koscuisko held up his hand. “One moment.” Gloved hands. The officer wore his gloves when he was working to save the tearing of the skin over his knuckles when he struck someone. Toska supposed it protected the bandage on the officer’s left hand as well. “Toska, you are to strip the rest of this clothing, leave the hip-wrap for the present. Then I will have you to set up the wheel. Go to it.”

  Their officer was sensitive to the constraints imposed upon them by the governor. Koscuisko was usually careful to suggest, advise, request, rather than put his orders in so short a form. It helped them preserve some dignity, howsoever artificial, to comply with instruction because they had been asked politely; rather than because the requests were actually orders which they had no choice but to obey.

  In the middle of a torture-room Koscuisko took the opposite approach, but it had its source in the same consideration. Koscuisko gave orders to his Bonds in torture-room, short, blunt, unambiguous. In order to keep clear the understanding that they had between them: None of the Bonds would do any such thing of their own free will, if given the choice. Koscuisko took pains to emphasize the fact that for a Bond there was no choice.

  Toska had wondered why Koscuisko had taken the Writ to Inquire, when the officer had first been assigned; bond-involuntaries had no choice, but Koscuisko was not under Bond. Since then Toska had learned that not all such coercive “bonds” relied upon a governor. Koscuisko was under Bond to his father’s will, and for Koscuisko at least that was enough to hold him to the work he feared and hated.

  Koscuisko had started on this one yesterday at about mid-meal, and there was little difficulty managing the prisoner accordingly. Difficult to handle, yes, because the body had been cruelly marked already, and it hurt the man to move him even as little as was required to strip what was left of the prisoner’s trousers and footgear from off that misused flesh. Toska cut fabric away with a utility knife swiftly, with practiced skill. The offic
er did not like to be kept waiting. And the sooner he was done, the sooner the officer would let him leave the room.

  “You will give me just a moment, Lieutenant, I should not like to lose momentum. Momentum is very important in maintaining interest in a conversation, don’t you think? H’mm?”

  Standing at his prisoner’s head while Toska worked, Koscuisko nudged the man’s cheek with the toe of his boot. The prisoner groaned, but with more fear than pain. Koscuisko smiled.

  “Yes, I think so, too. Continuity. You are only one part finished with your story, and it is interesting, I am eager for more details.”

  Toska bundled the rags of clothing into a wad and set it aside, hastily. The wheel, the officer had said. Slipping the catch, Toska raised the framework from its storage space in the floor-slot, locking the axle into the lifts. The officer preferred the wheel to the more traditional stretcher because the wheel was only chest-high, and could be adjusted. The officer liked to be close to his work. He liked to be able to concentrate on the expression on a prisoner’s face without straining his neck.

  Toska couldn’t spare a moment to look at Lieutenant Plugrath, but the subtle desperation in Plugrath’s voice as he protested was as expressive as anyone could have wished. “Excellency, really, it will take just a moment to update you, shouldn’t we step outside while these — preparations are going forward?”

  The prisoner couldn’t move himself to help or to hinder them. Toska took the man by the naked ankles to move him to the wheel; Koscuisko had clamped his lefrol between his teeth and taken the prisoner by the bleeding shoulders. Helping out.

  It was another of the things Koscuisko was careful about, he didn’t call them in unless he needed them, and when he did Koscuisko did his best to minimize the extent to which they had to do things that would actually hurt.