An Exchange of Hostages

by Susan R. Matthews

  “Confession is a deadly serious legal action. And the penance voluntarily accepted by the transgressor is serious, too, Koscuisko, remember that.” In order to provide the correct exemplary deterrent. “It isn’t the sort of risk you ever took. That is, if you’re religious.”

  Confession and penance. Koscuisko had nerved himself up to his ordeal by drawing the analogy himself. Koscuisko had been thoroughly scolded now, and Noycannir put on notice as to what sort of reception her first stumble would earn her. Perhaps one final pious admonition . . .

  “After all, whatever penance you might have risked could hardly be said to equate with the just outrage of the Judicial Bench.”

  Koscuisko stared him in the face once more, and this time his gaze was frank and honest — no trace of resentment or rebellion.

  “You never had to confess to Uncle Radu after an anniversary party,” Koscuisko said.

  Humor.

  Koscuisko’s ability to find humor in the current situation only indicated that there would be more problems yet down the time-stream.

  “Very well. We will speak no more about it.” But the Administration would watch and wait, record, and meditate.

  “As you will have noted, the next practical exercise is scheduled for five days from now. We will be defining the Second Level of the Preliminary Levels. Please direct your attention to your screens.”

  Humor and a sense of proportion were both unpredictable traits, not subject to reliable manipulation. Koscuisko’s unpredictability had to be explored, detailed, and controlled.

  Because an unpredictable Inquisitor with a sense of the ridiculous and an imperfectly submerged sense of proportion was potentially more disruptive of the Judicial order than even the Writ in Noycannir’s ignorant hand could be.

  ###

  Standing in the lavatory, Andrej stared at himself in the reflector. He could hear Joslire in the outer room; it was a familiar set of sounds, easily ignored. His face did not much please Andrej this morning. It was too pale; and it had always seemed to him that some proportion or other had been neglected when the issue of his likeness had been controverted among his genes in utero. To be fair, his pallor was perhaps his own fault. He had taken a good deal of wodac with his third-meal, yet again, last night.

  Still, a man needed more emphatic a nose if he were to go through life with such wide flat cheekbones — or at least eyebrows with dash and flair, or eyes that made some sort of an impact to draw a person’s attention away from the crude materiality of his skull. Too much cheekbone and too deep a jaw; there was no help there. A plank of wood with a chip of nothing for his eyes, which were of no particular color; a splinter for a nose; and his mouth would never carry a debate against his cheek — there was too much distance there from ear to front. No color, no drama; he might as well not have a face at all. There was paint, of course, but not even the best of that had made his brother Iosev any less unpleasant to look at, so there was no help to be found in that direction.

  He was only trying to put off the morning, and he knew it. Sighing to himself at his own transparent motive, Andrej dried his damp face briskly with the towel and combed his hair back from his face with the fingers of his left hand. His brother Mikhel had all the face in the family, and all of the beard as well. Mikhel, and perhaps Nikolij, too. But, then, Nikolij was such an elf-faced child. There was hope for Nikolij. And even Lo — as blond and as bland of face and feature as Andrej himself — Lo had some of Meeka’s height. There was no justice in the world. Where was the benefit of being the eldest of his father’s sons if all he could hope to inherit was all of the land, and all of the property, and all of the authority, and all of the estate?

  Joslire would be getting nervous, and it wasn’t fair of him to make Joslire wait when none of it was Joslire’s fault. Andrej set his mind to silence, stubbornly determined to not think of the morning’s work until he was well into it.

  Successfully distracted by the simple pleasures of the fast-meal table, Andrej found himself sitting in the Student Interrogator’s chair once more without a very clear idea as to how he had got there. It wasn’t how he’d come back to this room that needed his attention, though. Not really. It was how he was to get out of it again that posed the more immediate problem. The Second Level of the Question — and there was every chance that Tutor Chonis would take any deviation from form as a personal insult, after his reaction to the First Level — would be more difficult.

  The First Level had been Inquiry pure and simple. The Second was Supported Inquiry — a little pressure was to be brought to bear. That was what Fleet called it, Supported Inquiry. Mayon would have called it patient abuse, and summarily stripped any Student who so much as threatened a patient with physical violence of any chance for patient contact ever again in any Bench-certified facility — which also meant, realistically speaking, losing any chance of graduating with the prestigious Mayon certifications. But these weren’t patients in any usual sense of the word, so what did it matter?

  Except that in Andrej’s home dialect, the word for the Standard “patient,” someone seeking medical care, came from the same root as the verb that signified suffering, or to bear physical pain. Andrej did not care to mull over the double meaning. It was too unfortunately apt for his comfort.

  He wouldn’t have thought that he would mind simply hitting people so much, not really, and that was all today’s exercise should entail — hitting someone. Hitting them frequently, perhaps, and the fact that they were not to be permitted to hit back was certainly distasteful, but they need suffer no permanent ill effect from the blows. He certainly hadn’t come all the way through his medical training without ever hitting anybody. There was a difference, of course, when it was strictly after class hours, outside the patient environment, usually in a tavern of some sort, and never without either having been hit or being immediately hit back. He had done his share of recreational brawling, with a little thin-blade dueling thrown in. Violent physical exercise could be a great reliever of stress, and as far as Andrej could remember, he’d enjoyed it — not the residual bruises, no, but the energy surge had been a tremendous mood enhancer.

  Though conservative of traditional Aznir ways, in many respects Andrej’s father was a progressive man who didn’t think children or servants should ever be beaten for their misdeeds, and who refused to tolerate any such behavior within his Household. Therefore it had come to pass that Andrej had never struck anybody in his life who had not been in a position to retaliate, without hesitation or restriction. Andrej supposed it was a handicap, of sorts.

  He heard the signal at the prisoner’s door. Well, soonest started was soonest sung. “Step through.” Still, there was something he’d wanted to remember. Something his teachers on Mayon had said about hurting people. What had it been? “State your identification, and the crime of which you have been accused.”

  This prisoner was a Bigelblu, his legs almost as long as Andrej was tall. He sauntered into the room insolently before sinking into cross-legged repose in front of Andrej where he sat.

  “You c’n call me Cari.” He had a deep voice, the prisoner had. Nearly as deep as Meeka’s singing voice, which was so low that the saint’s-windows shook in sympathetic vibration when he sang “Holy Mother.” “I dunno, Soyan, s’a mystery to me.”

  Deep, and insolent. For a moment Andrej sat torn between reacting and thinking out his own approach to this problem. He knew how he was expected to react. And he didn’t want to have to think about it.

  Much of the medical process did involve hurting people, as a necessary part of helping them heal. Surprise was as unpleasant as pain, apprehension as noxious. When one was required to do something that would hurt — remove dried-out field dressings or palpate a sprain, or any number of contacts with wounded or painful tissue — one minimized apprehension and surprise by building up to the bad part slowly. Starting with small, impersonal contact at safe body sites, always remembering species-specific or cultural taboos. When one approached
the painful thing in neutral graduated steps of that sort, patient apprehension could be significantly reduced, helping to ensure that the pain involved would be kept to its lowest level.

  Now Andrej was expected to strike a man who was to be restrained from striking back, and the very idea was morally repugnant on its deepest level.

  He would try to sneak up on it. That was it. That was what he could do to get through, for today.

  “Stand up.” Andrej rose to his feet and took the prisoner by the shoulder, giving him a little push. He was horribly reluctant to so much as touch the man; and yet he would be expected to hit him, and hard enough to at least bruise. “I said stand up, what are you waiting for?”

  Security came to his rescue; Andrej imagined they had experience helping uncertain Students through the paces. They had the Bigelblu on his feet in short order, their efficient handling quite unimpaired by “Cari’s” grumbled protests.

  “Easy, you guys, where’s your sense of humor? ‘Vent I been standing all day, waiting for this . . . little . . . ”

  Andrej never got a chance to hear what Cari meant to call him; no, the Security were too efficient for that. One of them had the prisoner’s arm behind his back, and apparently did something unpleasant to it; at least to judge from the expression it produced.

  “One is expected to use his Excellency’s dignity with appropriate respect,” the Security troop said. With a straight face; truly, Andrej admired his control. Surely such a clumsy start as he’d made could only make him ridiculous in front of these people, and no “appropriate respect” about it.

  “If he’s tired of standing, let him kneel. But sitting on the floor gives one an unpleasant feeling that one is not being taken quite seriously . . . ” No, he was better off staying away from that line of thought. Tutor Chonis would think that he was being insolent again.

  “ . . . which is surely not what you meant to do. On your knees, then. No, here.”

  Working with his hands, pushing a bit, pulling a bit, moving the prisoner from side to side. Getting used to the warmth of the prisoner’s body beneath his hand. Doing what he could to nerve himself to the shameful test, taking the edge off his reluctance to hit the man by pushing the prisoner around. He didn’t like it, but it seemed to work. Andrej felt he could manage the next step, if only he could avoid being distracted by the fact that he meant to strike someone he wasn’t even angry at.

  He had a clear field now, even had a modest advantage of height as he stood before the kneeling prisoner. Andrej repeated the question in a sterner voice, trying to convince himself he was determined by speaking harshly.

  “State your identification, and the crime of which you are accused.”

  “Now, Soyan, didn’t I just tell you that? My name’s Cari, and . . . ”

  The tension within him was not shame and reluctance, Andrej told himself, knowing he lied. The tension within him was irritation at being sworn at, and irritation could be relieved by directing it at its natural object. Andrej moved on his target with a smoothness born of thin-blade dueling, giving his prisoner a backhanded slap across the face which surprised all of them: Security, because they had to compensate for the force of the blow, and they had not apparently anticipated his movement; Andrej, because he was wearing his great-grandfather’s ring on his left hand, and one test was all that was required to demonstrate the sense of using his right hand for the remainder of the exercise. He was going to have to remove the ring next time.

  “Be so kind as to answer the question.” He had done the thing, now, with never a Mayon monitor to report his lapse of professional conduct to the Administration. He had successfully raised his hand against a man restrained and defenseless. He had passed the filthy test of indecency. Now all he had to worry about was the next blow; and the one after that.

  “Ah, well, Cari is short for Kerrimarghdilen. My family name is Pok.” Last but not least, Cari had apparently been surprised into sensibility. At least for the moment. “I was picked up for vagrancy at Merridig, but I had some timmer on me — personal use only, really, I swear- — so I’m here in front of his Excellency for illegal trafficking.”

  At least timmer was a little less mundane than flour. There was still a problem with this, of course. Why should he himself have unlimited access to the intoxicants traditional to his culture — every bit as destructive when abused, and without sanction as a sacrament — at the same time that an otherwise honest Bigelblu could be prosecuted by the Bench for trading in a culturally traditional and sacramentally essential hallucinogen? A problem, yes, and not the less so because the answer was so obviously a matter of whether Bigelblu or Aznir had economic clout.

  But the distance between what the prisoner had done and what the Bench meant to do in reprisal was not as extreme as the first had been. That was a relief.

  “You have stated your personal name, but have failed to provide your identification. Full identification is required to complete the Record. State your identification, and the crime of which you have been accused.”

  Apart from the general problem of double standards — and the immediate ache of his knuckles beneath the weight of his great-grandfather’s ring — Andrej was not as sickened at himself for having struck the man as he had expected to be. The Bigelblu was a prisoner, and for the striking. Andrej was required to strike him. And it wasn’t as if this man had come to him for healing; he had been brought here to make confession.

  Andrej had no false conviction that these rationalizations made it morally correct to strike a prisoner, or that he should feel no guilt for having done so. But just for the moment to feel little enough guilt that he could fulfill the specific requirements of a Second Level interrogation was all that Andrej asked of his life.

  “What a dullump, Soyan. Nobody told me that I was going to have to put up with so much damn natter-tattering — ” Andrej hit him again, with his right hand this time.

  “What’d you do that for? I’ve got a right to — ”

  Andrej responded almost easily, as if there was no barrier of decency and shame between a man in power and one in chains to stay his hand and moderate his temper.

  “No . . . ” — it was only a short stoop to glare down at this Cari nose-to-nose, with a hand at his throat to discourage any sudden movements — “No, you’ve no particular right to anything, just at the moment, and you and I both will find ourselves considerably less exercised at the end of our discussion if you can persuade yourself to accept that concept now. Answer as you’re bidden, I am in no mood for insolence.”

  The language came out of the preparatory material, with its model interrogations and its examples from the previous students’ taped practica.

  Andrej cultivated what irritation he could find to help him forward.

  “Answer the question. Or must I repeat myself?”

  If yielding to irritation would get him through this — then yield he would.

  And willingly.

  ###

  Tutor Chonis settled his shoulders back against the chair, folding his hands in front of him as he spoke.

  “For the Record.”

  Third of three Preliminary Level exercises, third of three evaluation and observation sessions. Curran behind him, to his right — Student Koscuisko. Hanbor behind him, to his left — Student Noycannir. Third of three, last of three, and life was due to become interesting for all concerned within a matter of days. For now there was only the Record to complete, while preparations continued to be made for rougher exercises.

  “Preliminary Levels, the Third Level, assisted inquiry. Tutor Adifer Chonis, for the Record. Students Noycannir and Koscuisko in the theater.”

  Student Noycannir had taken her place with the careful stiffness that characterized her when she was more aware than usual of being watched. Straight-backed and straight-faced she sat, her gaze apparently fixed on some point of interest midway between the prisoner’s door and infinity. It was an interesting meditation to try to imagine how Noycannir would
characterize infinity, when her birth and upbringing had been so sordid and so crushingly constrained. There was no hope of discussing it with her, however. From all indications, Mergau still felt that everything her Tutor did or said was first and foremost something to react against; and the conversations he had with her had been a little strained accordingly.

  There was no stiff artificiality to Koscuisko this morning, however. Quite the opposite. Student Koscuisko occupied space with a sort of unthinking presence, a sense of self that was as much a part of him as Noycannir’s apparently inbred defensiveness. There was no disguising the quality of Koscuisko’s blood, or of his upbringing, at least. Nor any getting around the fact that Koscuisko was drunk, no matter how perfect — relaxed, confident, and apparently secure — his posture might be said to be.

  Chonis sighed, and set the pause interrupt on his audio string. “Curran, he’s been drinking? Again?”

  Curran’s grave bow managed to communicate a little of the confusion he seemed to feel. “As regularly as if scheduled, with the Tutor’s permission. There does not seem to be any adverse impact on the Student’s health.”

  Yet. Koscuisko was young; his body could still take it. What should it matter to him if Koscuisko drank? Except that Koscuisko hadn’t on Mayon, not like this. Not so consistently as every night, for as long as they’d been practicing on the Preliminary Levels — every night for four weeks. Students who drank like that didn’t earn Koscuisko’s ratings. On the other hand, Fleet didn’t expect much by way of actual medicine out of its Ship’s Inquisitors once they were on Line. It was sentiment on his part, pure and simple, Chonis told himself with disgust. There was no other explanation for the fact that he could not help caring about what became of Koscuisko’s medical skills if Koscuisko continued to respond to the stress by self-medicating with overproof wodac.