An Exchange of Hostages

by Susan R. Matthews

  Andrej was reluctant to call him Curran, though.

  “Sorlie, then. Keep his face well lifted; I want to be able to look at him.” Oddly enough the flush of irritation he’d experienced had not faded away but settled on him somehow, making his extremities tingle not unpleasantly. His hands. His lips. His . . .

  The Nurail’s eyes were tightly shut, his body trembling. Andrej reached out to touch the taut skin across the displaced hinge, delicately. The instant his fingertips made contact, though, the prisoner cried out closemouthed with a high keening note that seemed to find a sympathetic echo of some sort in Andrej’s belly. Or perhaps not his belly, perhaps it was his fish that was responding to that cry, thickening with involuntary interest . . .

  Oh, what was it, what was happening to him?

  He wanted more.

  Laying his hand over the Nurail’s shoulder with deliberate pressure, Andrej cupped the deformation of the hinge beneath his palm. The Nurail’s whimpers of reluctant pain felt like the caress of a lover’s hand to Andrej, arousing him with lust for more of the same music.

  He moved his fingers delicately, warming his palm on the heat of the skin, testing the boundaries of that heat with a mild disinterested pressure of his hand.

  It almost seemed too soon before the Nurail found words and spoke at last.

  “My — name — is — Rab. Luss — man.” Rabirt Lussman, yes. Meant something like Rab-the-small-herbivore-snarer, if Andrej remembered anything of Ingles Chapnier’s dialect aright. “ — I — am — accused — of — ”

  Almost abstractedly, almost dispassionately, Andrej stroked the Nurail’s shoulder as he waited for the man to finish his statement, massaging the inflamed skin over the joint between his thumb and forefinger.

  “ . . . — of — will. Of. Willful. Destruc. Tion. Jurisdict — ion prop. Erty. Pl. Pl. Please.”

  Then in a sickening instant of insight Andrej realized what was happening to his body.

  Quite suddenly Andrej understood that the Nurail’s suffering had aroused him; and the uncertain sensation in his belly twisted into a spasm of ferocious nausea. Spurning his prisoner’s body to one side with a savage gesture of rejection, Andrej pushed himself out of the chair and turned his back, unable to find his balance in time to avoid falling to his knees on the hard cold decking.

  Sick to his stomach.

  He tasted the fluid in his mouth and knew that he was going to vomit in revulsion; but the sensation could not be denied. His fish strained eagerly against the fabric of his trousers as though the Nurail’s pain were the most enticing ocean his fish had ever dreamed of in which to disport itself. Eager to get out. Passionate for more pain.

  “The officer is unwell?”

  Security, careful and reserved, beside him. He could not spew what little he had in his stomach out onto the floor. Such a thing would be disgraceful. Drunk. Yes. Drunk, that was it, he would pretend that he was only drunk, and not so horrified at what he thought he felt that his very vitals rose in protest against the sinful desire that had come on him so suddenly, so strongly. Drunk. Yes. That would do the trick, very well.

  He had to set the Nurail’s shoulder straight.

  “Your pardon, gentlemen, a surfeit of wodac merely.” He could hardly choke the words out, and the strained high pitch of his own voice was nothing he would have recognized as his. They would know he lied. One of them helped him up onto his feet, and for a moment Andrej stood where he was and eyed the door at the far end of the theater longingly. He could just leave . . .

  Yes, and go where?

  He could just leave, but if he did, he would only have to do this over again, and in the meantime the prisoner suffered from a dislocated shoulder, and for no good or necessary reason.

  Reluctantly Andrej turned back to his task.

  The trick with the crozer-hinge was working all too well. Rab Lussman knelt constrained and suffering, waiting for painease. Swallowing hard, Andrej approached his prisoner; it had to be done soon, or the Nurail was going to lose consciousness. Could he touch Lussman’s body, and not be disgraced by his own? Two hands on Lussman’s shoulder, the dislocated joint hot and swollen beneath his hands. Andrej readied himself for what was to come, half-breathless with the conflict between abject horror and frank shameless lust.

  Soon; and cleanly —

  With his fingers tight against the shoulder and his two thumbs pressed against the ball of the joint, Andrej forced the crozer-hinge back under the cap of the shoulder blade into the shoulder-joint, where it belonged. The Nurail shouted aloud with the ferocious shock of it, his body convulsing against the Security who restrained him, his feet kicking out from underneath him in spasms of uncoordinated protest at the pain.

  Andrej fell back heavily into his chair in turn, staring hungrily at his prisoner, savoring the tense drawn lines of agony on Lussman’s face.

  Oh, yes, his body said to him, as clearly as if flesh could speak high Aznir.

  Oh, yes, indeed.

  His prisoner, living flesh, subject to his will, and all in lawful support of the Judicial order. Why - Andrej asked himself - had he been afraid that it would be difficult?

  Or had he in fact been afraid that it was going to be this easy, all along?

  His father had been right to send him here, and he had known from the beginning how wrong it had been for him to try to resist his father’s will. He had been misguided and mistaken, and he could have had this pleasure all along, because it was all his for the taking. Lussman had to confess. It was up to him to see that Lussman confessed, and in good form, and convincingly.

  He had weeks of lost time to make up for.

  Saints, Saints, Saints under Canopy, what was be thinking of? How could he even imagine he was to torture an unarmed man, naked and in the presence of his enemies, and find joy in such savagery?

  Andrej swallowed back the bitterness in his mouth, almost scornful of his own weakness-his pity, and his shame under the influence of the passion that overwhelmed him.

  There was no need to appeal to the imagination.

  As real as Lussman’s pain, as real as agony, as real as blood-that was as real and sharp and quick as the delight that he felt in it.

  Wasted time.

  And no time like the present to claim his native right and enter into his ancestral place. The Church had tried to teach him: Sin merited suffering in atonement. His teachers on Mayon had taught him differently, that suffering was to be avoided and alleviated by every possible means a man could find at his disposal; and he had believed them. He had swallowed the alien philosophy as though it could nourish him throughout all his long years in school.

  He was sick to his stomach with the poison of the alien creed.

  He was thirsty, hungry, starved for the sweet sound of pain in Lussman’s voice, famished for the pleasure that he had in Lussman’s fear of him, desperate with ferocious need for Lussman’s helpless pain to feed upon and pleasure him.

  All of those years.

  How could he have been so blind to the simple truth?

  And what could be more true than honest pain, and the brilliant scintillating sweetness of strict torment?

  Rab Lussman half-lay against the Security troops behind him, with his face turned up to the light and his mouth trembling. Andrej rejoiced to see the signs of awareness returning to the man; because he had plans. And each new concept of atrocity was more beguiling than the last had been.

  “Lussman,” Andrej said.

  The Nurail’s head rolled restlessly against Sorlie Curran’s steadfast grip, but he said nothing.

  Rising unsteadily to his feet, Andrej took a whip up from the array that lay ready on the table for his use. A short, stout black-oiled whip with a heavy butt, the weight of it was welcome to his hand, and every fiber of his being seemed to strain to the utmost in anticipation, eager to be gratified.

  “Come now, we were discussing.” He was not going to vomit and flee. He was going to complete his exercise. And he was goin
g to enjoy it. “Truly I must insist you pay attention, Lussman, answer as I bid you, or I will suspect that you are not listening to me. Yes?”

  No answer.

  Andrej wrapped the striking length of the whip around his fist so that the weighted butt swung free at a short drop. He took the measure of his distance and gauged the angle of approach, eager to test his grasp of the Judicial process against the shaking body of his prisoner.

  “Your name. And the crime for which you were arrested. Answer to me ‘yes, your Excellency,’ else we will have to talk about your manners. Yes?”

  Perhaps Lussman was simply a little dazed.

  The best thing for that would be a sudden shock, to bring him out of it. Andrej swung the cudgel-butt of the whip in a wide, high arc and down across the Nurail’s injured shoulder. He liked the sharp and stifled sound of the Nurail’s cry of pain, the certain knowledge of his own absolute control over the next few measures of his prisoner’s life. There was no sense in lying to himself, not now, not since he finally understood what he had been trying to hide from himself for all those wasted years.

  “N-no, if it p-p-pl — ”

  Lussman started to speak but stopped himself, swallowing his words before Andrej could guess where he had been going with them. Andrej waited. He could afford to allow Lussman a few moments in which to collect himself.

  “That is . . . I mean . . . your Excellency. Rab Lussman. Falsely accused. Your Excellency. S-sir.”

  Had he asked for an evaluation of the Charges? He had not. He had only asked what the Charges were.

  He was all but compelled by this cogent fact to strike Lussman in order that the Nurail would gain from instruction, learning how a man would be well advised to conduct himself in the presence of an Inquiring officer.

  He unwrapped the cruel thin length of the whip’s lash from around his fist and took the cudgel-butt into his hand instead, striking Lussman across the face with the doubled lash so hard that the blood came in the furrow of the welt it raised in passage.

  He was Andrej Koscuisko, before the Holy Mother, before all Saints under Canopy.

  He was Andrej Koscuisko, Surgeon and Inquisitor, and when he left this place he would carry the Writ to Inquire, and uphold the Judicial order by its lawful exercise.

  He was Andrej Ulexeievitch Koscuisko.

  And he was come into his dominion now at last.

  Chapter Five

  Joslire Curran stood in his place behind Tutor Chonis’s chair, dividing his dismayed attention between listening to the Tutor and watching Student Koscuisko. The Record was off-line; Tutor Chonis had apparently made all the official comments he felt might be appropriate. Now there was only Chonis’s musing, half to himself, half for their benefit, watching the two exercises.

  “I think I like that hook for the present,” Student Koscuisko was saying. “Gentlemen, if you please. Yes, both arms, and perhaps you could contrive to see his left shoulder is to bear the most part of his weight.”

  He’d told Robert St. Clare that Koscuisko was a fair-minded man, and would only hurt him enough. Something had gone wrong from the beginning of this exercise, however. Because the pressure that Koscuisko brought to bear on his prisoner-surrogate had been more intense than any Fourth Level Student exercise Joslire had ever seen.

  “Willful destruction of Bench property is a species of treason, friend Rab, we must have details in order to measure out the penalty. I cannot say that you have been very forthcoming. One would almost think you did not feel remorse for what you have done.”

  Koscuisko had not exceeded the Protocols, so in that specifically limited sense Koscuisko had in fact hurt Robert only “enough.” But there was no trace of fair-mindedness in his Student’s behavior. Koscuisko was clearly enjoying the brutal tricks he had contrived to play on his prisoner. There was a confusing dislocation between the officer Joslire had believed Koscuisko to be and the mocking torturer that he’d been watching for these few hours past. Something was happening to Student Koscuisko, and Joslire did not quite understand what it was; but he was certain that he didn’t like it.

  “Once again, from the beginning. I am heartily sick of your refusal to acknowledge your whip-worthiness, there is Evidence enough to convict you a liar. You are not doing yourself any favors by withholding.”

  There had been Students who had liked pain, his pain, their prisoner’s pain, any pain they could get, always excluding their own. There had been Students who had simply been indifferent to pain, or who had actively deplored the use of it. Koscuisko was not a man to be unmoved, from what little Joslire had learned of him. He reacted with genuine and innate compassion to the sufferings of the accused in the paradigm tapes. It made no sense for that resistance to have been superficial; Joslire had been completely convinced of the honesty of Koscuisko’s empathic sympathy. But if Koscuisko’s horror had been real — and this, this sharpening skill with whips and mockery was also convincing — it did not augur well for Student Koscuisko’s future. For his sanity.

  “Noycannir seems to have run out of options, Hanbor, wouldn’t you say?”

  Tutor Chonis’s voice interrupted Joslire’s brooding and brought him back into real time. The Tutor was being charitable, in Joslire’s view; it seemed to him that Noycannir had lost control of her interrogation early on, when her “prisoner” had declined to even start to cooperate. Chonis had wanted to see how she’d handle it. Koscuisko had found a way to encourage Robert to surrender at least his false identification as a start. Noycannir had asked once or twice and then gone directly into beating her partner with the black-stick, apparently content to reproduce the paradigm tapes that she and Student Koscuisko alike had studied blow for blow.

  Joslire knew which index-level tape that particular beating was on, having seen it with each of his previous Students.

  It was a Fifth Level tape, preparation for the next exercise. She’d gotten her Protocols confused.

  “Student Noycannir is apparently trying to pretend that her prisoner has not lost consciousness. She’s unlikely to get anything more out of him today. Sir.”

  There was a perverse sort of professional pride on Orientation staff, a black-humored brand of “my Student is more efficiently cruel than your Student” running joke. Lop Hanbor sounded genuinely disgusted with Noycannir’s overzealous approach, since she’d put her prisoner-surrogate out of the arena for a few hours. Joslire had felt that way before. Given that their Judicial function involved the methodical application of pain, bond-involuntaries tended to evaluate Students based on their ability to use enough to satisfy the requirements and accomplish the task, but no more than that. It was precisely that prejudice that gave their function what little meaning it could be said to have. They were here to support the least-wasted-pain approach to Inquiry.

  “Well, we’ll give her a minute to call the exercise. Wouldn’t want to interrupt young Koscuisko. Speaking of whom — shall we have the sound, Curran?” Tutor Chonis asked, and it was not really a question, needless to say. Joslire didn’t much care for the prospect, but perhaps Chonis only wanted to get a flavor of what Koscuisko was saying.

  Lop did the honors, bringing up the sound from one exercise theater even as he muted the sound from the other.

  Robert had been stretched from the ceiling, and since Student Koscuisko had specified it, Security had given his bad arm less slack so that most of Robert’s weight was on it. Robert kept trying to stretch his other arm up to the anchor-bolt to grasp the hook and take some of the weight off of the injured joint. Koscuisko, however, wasn’t having any of it; and Joslire suffered for the young Nurail.

  “I can tell that this is going to take some practice,” Koscuisko was saying. “For now I can only trust that my lack of craft does not offend you.”

  Robert was already off balance because of the unequal length of the chains that bound him. The impact of the whip was throwing his whole weight upon his injured shoulder, and Robert — it seemed — couldn’t help but cry out against
it.

  “Your feedback will, of course, be critical to the success of this training exercise, although I fear I cannot promise you that it will remain confidential. Unless you would prefer to discuss some of the more interesting details of your crime. What was it, again? Willful destruction of Jurisdiction property?”

  For all his disclaimers, Koscuisko had a natural talent of some sort; his eye-to-hand coordination was obviously more than adequate. Nor did he seem to be afraid to put a bit of muscle into the blows. Whether it was weals or blood there was no question but that Andrej Koscuisko was making his mark on Robert St. Clare.

  Who could not catch his breath, tormented by the whip even as he was distracted by the pain in his shoulder. “I . . . won’t.”

  They weren’t picking up Robert’s voice very well. Chonis frowned, gesturing for Lop to increase the directional on the plait. Even then it wasn’t easy to figure out what Robert was saying. His breath came in fits and starts, his sentences chopped up into disjointed, fragmentary phrases almost devoid of meaning. “Can’t. Won’t. Risk. Not long enough for . . . ”

  Long enough? It didn’t have to mean anything. But he should not have said “not long enough.” Would Koscuisko pick up on the phrase?

  “With respect, Tutor Chonis — ”

  Koscuisko had demonstrated his ability to take an appropriate tool and use it on his prisoner; and that was all that the Administration really required, at this juncture. Whatever else he might be demonstrating was beside the point.

  Lop apparently had a more immediate problem. Student Noycannir had kicked her prisoner as he lay on the decking, in an apparent paroxysm of frustration at his failure to respond.

  “With respect, sir, Student Noycannir has violated the restriction at the Fourth Level, request the Tutor call the exercise?”