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The
Text
In
the early eights of second shift Lek Kerenko stood on watch in the
doorway between the officer’s bedroom and the outer room, dozing
as he stood. Koscuisko was as deep in drink as only Koscuisko could
get; Dolgorukij and Sarvaw alike shared the voracious metabolism
that enabled a man to drink other hominids into a blind stupor,
but Lek had never seen a Dolgorukij or Sarvaw either who could drink
like Andrej Koscuisko. Practice. Practice, and the hatred and
the horror that Koscuisko had of himself.
It
could not last.
Koscuisko
had survived four years on the Ragnarok. Koscuisko was going
home, and Lek knew that he would miss the officer. They would all
miss him. Whoever was assigned in Koscuisko’s stead once Koscuisko
was gone was not likely to treat the bond-involuntaries assigned
like human souls; none of Koscuisko’s predecessors had.
It
would be worst for Robert St. Clare.
Robert
St. Clare had been for eight years with Andrej Koscuisko. He didn’t
even know what it was like to be used for a hand-tool, let alone
a toilet-rag. Oh, Robert wasn’t stupid, and he listened and he
learned when his fellows talked or more often declined to talk amongst
themselves. But Robert had only worked for Andrej Koscuisko, in
all this time. And Robert’s governor had apparently gone off calibration
very early on, so that Robert didn’t even have that much protection
to stand between him and what people did with bond-involuntaries:
so it was all too depressingly likely to be ugly.  TOP
And
no help for it.
Take
it all one shift at a time, and don’t think too hard about what’s
going to happen, and so long as you concentrate on here and now
you can get a nap in from time to time—
It
was the sound of a shriek that woke Lek completely, shaking him
out of his drowsy reverie. The officer. Lek pivoted where he stood
to face into the room even as he woke.
“Sir.
Your Excellency. What is the matter. Sir.”
The
odds that Koscuisko could hear him were not strong, and there was
even less of a chance that Koscuisko would understand what Lek was
saying even if he did hear. Koscuisko had plumbed the bottom of
a flask of overproof wodac not three eights gone. Koscuisko was
seeing things.
Koscuisko
stared up across the room into Lek’s face from where he lay on his
sleeprack with his head where his feet should be. The whites of
his eyes glittered dangerously in the dim indirect light from in
front of the icon-screen in the corner. Lek started into the room,
moving slowly, speaking as soothingly as he knew how; and Koscuisko
reached out one trembling hand for him, pleading with him. In High
Aznir, fortunately. Lek didn’t speak the language.
“If
you’d care to wake up, sir. Do you need help to the washroom.
Perhaps a glass of wodac.” TOP
There
was no telling whether the hand that Koscuisko held out to him was
a signal of rejection or a petition. Koscuisko’s whole body was
shaking too badly. It didn’t do to stand over Koscuisko at times
like these, because if he’d been dreaming it frequently had something
to do with Secured Medical; and when that was the case Koscuisko
interpreted people standing over him in sympathy with what Koscuisko’s
victims felt about seeing him, knowing he was there. It provoked
him.
Therefore
Lek knelt down as he neared the sleeprack, making himself as small
and unthreatening as he could. That was always a challenge for
Koscuisko’s security. They were all much bigger than Koscuisko:
though Koscuisko was perhaps paradoxically a much more dangerous
man than any of them. Koscuisko held the Writ.
“Sir.
His Excellency is dreaming. Is there anything I can get for you.
Sir.”
He
could laugh at himself to hear his own tone of voice, soft and gentle.
But he had good excuses for himself. He had personal reasons to
know that Koscuisko needed careful handling.
Trembling
and shaking, Koscuisko fought free of the bedclothes that tangled
him, falling heavily to the bedsurface as he did so. Losing his
balance. Lek reached for him to keep Koscuisko’s head from fetching
up too hard against something unforgiving; and Koscuisko struggled
against it, but not against him. Lek knew the difference, though
he could not say what it was.
Something
was on Koscuisko’s mind, and no telling what it might be from the
half-frantic stream of blessedly unintelligible words that came
from him—half-called, half-cried. Koscuisko clawed at the throat
of Lek’s blouse desperately, and Lek suffered Koscuisko to have
his will.
He
was beginning to understand. TOP
Koscuisko
broke the tabs at Lek’s throat and pulled his blouse wide open,
talking in what seemed to be terror as he tried to unfasten the
ties that held Lek’s underblouse decently closed. Tried, and failed,
and tore the fabric in his desperation; but now that Lek was certain
of Koscuisko’s need he could with confidence unloose his shirt himself,
and shrug his shoulders free of overblouse and underblouse alike.
Koscuisko
turned his head and closed his eyes. Afraid to look.
Yes.
Lek
knew exactly what was on Koscuisko’s mind. He could still hear
the officer’s voice, clear and glacially cold in his memory. Mister
Stildyne. What is the meaning of this, why is this man on duty.
Koscuisko
held desperately to the collar of Lek’s underblouse; it took a moment
for Lek to work Koscuisko’s clenched fingers loose.
Stildyne
hadn’t shrugged, not exactly. Stildyne hadn’t ever gone out of
his way to make things difficult, no; even before Koscuisko had
happened to him Stildyne had taken good care of his equipment.
But bond-involuntaries had been just that, equipment, tools issued
to be used to do a job. Little more. The Captain had assessed
two-and-twenty, but Lieutenant Mupitar had made the complaint, and
Mupitar isn’t much good at this. Still, two-and-twenty, your Excellency,
Infirmary care not authorized on standard for two-and-twenty.
The point being— TOP
Finally
Koscuisko’s iron grip relaxed so far as to permit Lek to flatten
Koscuisko’s hand and carry it to the back of his bare shoulders.
Koscuisko resisted him, of course, but Koscuisko permitted it nonetheless,
staring now in horror and in hope. The point being that since Mupitar
had never been any good with a whip the two-and-twenty that Captain
Lowden had assessed as punishment for whatever fault it had been
had compounded rapidly.
Ending
up at something rather worse than two-and-twenty, but rules were
rules, and if blood was not let the stroke was not counted as good
until the third repetition. Captain Lowden’s count was meticulous
as it was precise.
“There,
sir.” Koscuisko had quieted now, but could Koscuisko hear him?
“See for yourself. No wounds. You’re dreaming, sir.”
And
ever after when Koscuisko dreamed he sometimes came to Lek in horror,
seeing it all over again. Koscuisko had ordered him to stasis-incline
on ward in Infirmary, and kept him there for seven days, and given
him good drugs for pain on top of it. Koscuisko never remembered
that part. Koscuisko only ever remembered his shocked horror at
the wounds he’d seen that once on Lek’s back and shoulders, and
his desperate attempts to keep them all out of the Captain’s sight
when the Captain was bored.
Trembling,
Koscuisko lifted his hand somewhat away, shifting his weight to
sit on the edge of the bed. Lek half-turned with his back toward
the light. “It was all over years ago, sir. Years. No one’s so
much as laid a hand on me since then.” TOP
Not
precisely true, perhaps, because when Koscuisko mistook them in
the delirium of drunkenness Koscuisko struck out at them. Since
Koscuisko was Dolgorukij when he struck out it counted. But the
important thing was true: that none of them had come beneath the
whip since Andrej Koscuisko had made peace with Captain Lowden.
Four years. Koscuisko was an intelligent man. It hadn’t taken
him very long to figure it out.
Koscuisko
touched Lek’s back so carefully that Lek could not tell whether
Koscuisko was seeing wounds still there or not.
Then,
reaching out for the back of Lek’s underblouse where it lay against
the middle of his back, Koscuisko raised Lek’s undergarment to his
shoulders with fastidious care, trying to set Lek’s clothing to
rights with trembling fingers. Talking to him in a low voice, in
fits and starts, with words that Lek did not understand.
Sarvaw
and Dolgorukij spoke a similar dialect, that was true enough. But
Lek Kerenko had been working-class Sarvaw, and Andrej Koscuisko
was top-of-the-midden Aznir Dolgorukij. There was no use trying
to puzzle out his accent, even if his syntax had not been too unfamiliar
to be parsed without a stylus and some paper.
Lek
gathered his overblouse loosely across his chest and settled the
collar. “It’s all right then, sir. You see. Nothing to worry
about.”
Koscuisko
met his gaze dead on, and there was no reading what thought might
be at the back of Koscuisko’s mirror-silver eyes. TOP
But
Koscuisko was drunk. And wracked in his body with the drink, his
sleepshirt damp with sweat and clinging, his hair plastered against
his head in sweat-dark threads, his face dead-white and his lips
the color of clay. Whatever fit of horror and memory had come upon
Koscuisko in his sleep had fallen away, exorcised at last by evidence
of unbroken skin, unbruised flesh.
And
left Koscuisko prey to the poison in his body.
Pushing
aside the bedclothes Koscuisko rose, staggering; and did not make
it, falling to his knees on the only thinly padded carpeting of
the floor. He didn’t let that minor setback deter him, no, Koscuisko
had his mind set too firmly on his goal, and struggled forward on
his hands and knees toward the washroom.
The
basin was within reach, cleaned and dried and set out carefully
so as to be ready when it was wanted. Lek was very glad of that,
now. Taking the basin up on one hand, he helped his officer forward
with the other. Koscuisko wanted the basin in the washroom. But
if he didn’t make it to the washroom this time the basin in the
bedroom was infinitely to be preferred to no basin at all.
Yes.
Koscuisko
clutched for the basin desperately, and Lek knew by that token that
it would be safe to fetch a damp cloth out of the washroom. Koscuisko
wasn’t going anywhere. And would want to clean his face, once he
had emptied his stomach.
Not
that there was anything there to empty.
Then
Koscuisko would want liquor, and unless Chief Stildyne gave instructions
to the contrary Koscuisko would have it. As long as he truly wanted
it. TOP
Koscuisko’s
Bond was in Koscuisko’s mind, whether or not Koscuisko was to be
going home. The Day would never dawn for Andrej Koscuisko.
Once
Lek had but realized that fact he’d understood, about his officer.
And would not deny him liquor, though it sickened Koscuisko to drink
it and sickened Lek to see what it did to him.
They
were all under Bond.
Whatever
it took to make life bearable, that Koscuisko would have, as long
as his Bonds could provide for him.
Slowly
the dark deeps of his dreaming ebbed from the bed in which he lay.
Andrej Koscuisko felt pain as a stinging at his throat, at the base
of his neck, and knew there was a message for him there—but what
could it be?
Something
told him he knew.
He
set his mind to the puzzling of the problem, fretful and frightened
by the uncertainty. Pain, like the prick of a knife, like the sting
of an insect disturbed at its feeding and angry about it. It was
a wonder he felt anything, as wracked as he was with an excess of
drink. TOP
The
solution exactly, Andrej realized.
The
surfeit of wodac.
He
should be blind drunk yet, and if he was sober he should be in agony
body and soul in the aftermath of having consumed so much poison.
So why wasn’t he? How did it come that he could feel a stabbing
of pain, small though it was, through the larger ache of his body
from alcohol?
What
time was it?
People
were holding him. That made him nervous. They weren’t hurting
him, but he couldn’t move, pinned elbow and wrist in a firm grasp
on either side. This wasn’t good, Andrej told himself. This was
the way one’s prisoners might be restrained, while one put through
a dose.
Someone
laid hands on him, put the palm of a hand underneath his chin to
stretch his neck and move his head to one side. Pressing his face
against something warm, with a fragrance of newly laundered fabric—someone’s
uniform.
He
felt the cool touch of an osmo-stylus against his throat, on the
other side this time.
Andrej
panicked.
It
was the Controlled List, there could be no other reasonable explanation.
Restrained. And compelled by whatever drug, to do—what? TOP
What
did it matter? He knew what was happening, hadn’t he invoked a
wakekeeper himself, often enough? He couldn’t lie here and let
himself meekly be poisoned and drugged, regardless of the reason.
Andrej struggled against the strong hands that restrained him, twisting
his head to evade the osmo-stylus that held the drug. The effort
exhausted him, and it was no good. There were too many hands.
They just held him more firmly, and there were more of them; but
that wasn’t all.
They
were talking to him.
“Sir.
Your Excellency. It’s all right, no one’s going to hurt you. Don’t
make this any harder for you than it has to be. Sir.”
Polite
language, right enough. Andrej wasn’t convinced. The words meant
nothing; it was action that counted, and for all the calm soothing
petition he heard in whomever’s voice that hand turned his chin
once again, being careful, stretching the skin of his throat. For
a good dosing. The nub-end of the stylus was cold against his skin,
and Andrej heard the hissing as it discharged its dose of whatever
drug it would turn out to be and wept in uttermost desolation.
Oh,
holy Mother. He was lost.
What
were they going to do to him?
What
did he not all-too-richly deserve, for his sins? TOP
The
restraining force of the hands that held to him lessened. His captors
laid him down gently on his bed, and supported his head with anxious
care as they arranged the pillows for it to rest on.
What
information could he possibly have, in order for such measures to
be taken?
Because—as
frightened as he was of drugs and osmos, knowing what he knew—nobody
seemed to wish him harm or intend ill. Andrej could sense it.
A
cozy warmth of secure well-being rose in Andrej’s breast; and he
relaxed, despite himself. The drugs. Of course. But because he
was drugged he couldn’t quite manage to be worried about it.
People
were talking amongst themselves, now.
Andrej
tried hard to make sense of what they were saying, frowning with
the effort. He could find out why he’d been drugged, perhaps.
“You’re
not going to expect him to put on those boots, surely.” Security
Chief Stildyne; there was no mistaking the voice. Quiet and deep,
and rough around the edges, subtly breathy with the hissing of air
through a vocal apparatus that had been so compromised by so many
blows it no longer quite worked. Chief Stildyne had come out of
mean streets and up through the ranks, and his face showed it.
“Sorry,
Chief, I’ll get right on it. Everything else in order? Right.”
TOP
Female
voice. That was odd. No, that was Miss Smath, that’s who that
was. She wasn’t Bonded; less than half of the twenty-five souls
in Security 5 were. But she had her fifth-day for orderly duty
Bonded or no, the same as all the others. Well. That made sense.
Things
started to come together in Andrej’s mind, increasingly alert even
while he was drugged. Had one of the drugs been a stimulant? He
wasn’t in a cell. He was in quarters. This was his bed. The voices
belonged to his Security.
Oh,
they had had a wearying time of it, then, if he’d been drunk.
Frowning,
Andrej concentrated.
Feet,
knees, and groin.
Belly
and wrists.
Throat.
He
couldn’t detect any hints of fresh bandaging, nothing seemed to
hurt. All to the good. A man took strange notions into his mind
when he was drunk. Andrej hated waking up to find that he’d made
a scene. It never did any good. And only upset people.
“I’m
sorry, sir.” TOP
Stildyne’s
voice, again. Standing at the bedside, from the sound of it. Stildyne
was very tall. His voice seemed to come from a long way off. “You’ve
got appointments, your Excellency. Captain’s cleared them to your
scheduler.”
This
would start to make sense in a minute, Andrej was sure of it. Stildyne
had always been a practical man. Andrej had had no complaints to
make about Stildyne’s performance, not in all these years—not once
they’d resolved one or two points of interpretation. And that had
been years ago.
“Bench
intelligence specialist, your Excellency, name of Jils Ivers. As
a matter of fact I was on mission with her once, years ago.” Stildyne
had hunkered down to squat on his heels by the side of the bed.
His voice was much closer. “So I’m sorry. But there’s no help
for it. You’ve got to wake up, sir. You’re meeting with Ivers
in four eights, Captain’s orders.”
What
could Stildyne be saying? He was awake. But, Andrej realized,
he hadn’t moved; how would Stildyne know?
At
least he understood what was happening, now.
The
drugs had come from his Chief of Pharmacy. Stildyne had done this
to him once before, when Lowden had wanted him. Never again: Lowden
had left him alone, over the years, once Lowden had gotten what
Lowden wanted.
The
prisoner, in Secured Medical— TOP
Andrej
was there, he was in Secured Medical. He saw the suffering body
of his prisoner and fell to his knees on the decking once again,
overwhelmed with pleasure in Ndisi’s pain.
He
turned his mind away from the image with a stern effort.
Ndisi
was dead.
Captain
Lowden had the Record.
And
Stildyne had little choice but to rouse him, one way or the other,
if the Captain had cleared an appointment with anyone. There were
no Fleet precedents for indulging drunken Inquisitors as they wallowed
in self-pity and alcohol. Fleet discipline had to be maintained.
“Mister
Stildyne.” He meant to speak it; but it came out of his mouth a
cry, or an anguished gasp. Someone fed him tepid rhyti to drink,
and it caught in his throat so that he coughed and had to force
himself to swallow, but he got it down. The metallic taste in his
throat told him everything he needed to know about why he was wracked
with thirst. It was drink that rasped a man’s throat raw like that,
the sharp bite of alcohol as it went down, the cyanide tang of liquor
mixed with gastric fluid as it came up again.
Andrej
put his hand up to his face, worried that a cough might go astray;
and someone tucked a whitesquare into his grasp. Probably Stildyne.
“I
am.” His voice sounded a little stronger in his own ears. Where
was rhyti? Yes. Good. “—I am going to sit. Up. Mister Stildyne.”
TOP
There
were familiar arms to help him, but he could not hold his peace
against the agony in his belly when he sat up. Andrej bit off his
shout of pain, concentrating on balancing himself carefully enough
that the muscles that would have to move were kept to an absolute
minimum. There was an osmo, again; but Andrej was resigned to it
now.
Pain
receded into the background of his consciousness, and then from
consciousness altogether. Andrej floated within his body in a gauzy
cocoon of euphoria induced by simple anodyne. He was going to pay
for this later, when the drug wore off; because he would be awake
and hung over, alert and hung over, in full possession of all his
faculties and cataclysmically sick with ethanol poisoning. But
it wasn’t Stildyne’s fault. Speaking of whom—
Opening
his eyes at last in a careful squint Andrej faced the light, dim
though it was. It hurt to open up his eyes and look at things.
How much more to face the white light outside quarters, when the
friendly muted amber from his icon-screen seemed so harsh and piercing?
“Stildyne.
Your father had no children of his body, and for a long time I have
suspected that your parents were not quite married.” He dared not
look at Stildyne; such a sight as Stildyne’s face was not lightly
to be met with, on a drunk. He concentrated on swallowing some
more rhyti instead, grateful for the increasing hold the drugs took
over him even while he knew they’d be revenged upon him later.
“Have I ever mentioned this to you? It has often been on my mind.”
He
had to be careful, swearing at Stildyne. He was never quite sure
when something he said was going to strike unintendedly deep. Stildyne
was a very odd sort. For now—fortunately—Stildyne seemed only amused
to be sworn at. TOP
“Something
of the sort is frequently on your mind about this hour of the morning,
sir. Are you up for walking yet, or do we wait another few moments?
Another dose?”
No,
Andrej didn’t think he needed a few moments to steel himself to
walk to the washroom, and he was quite certain he didn’t want another
dose. He didn’t need another dose. He could walk to the washroom
with the best of them. He could levitate. He could fly.
He
felt wonderful.
He
wanted to shriek, but that would only split his skull, and there
was no percentage in forcing Miss Smath to clean up the mess on
the carpet that the writhing nest of rotting vipers in his brain
would make on the floor if he did that.
“Let’s
give it a try. All right. Standing up. Yes.” He had no balance
to speak of, but his arms and legs all worked. Stildyne walked
with him across the room, holding him carefully, and Andrej gained
new control over his body with ever step he took.
“Bench
specialist,” Andrej repeated, to make conversation. Hadn’t Stildyne
said something about a Bench specialist? “What time is it? What
day is it? Why a Bench specialist?”
Not
that any of it really mattered. What time it was, what day it was
was meaningless. And whatever Stildyne might be able to tell him
about any given Bench specialist was hardly less so. “Never mind.
Tell me later. If I’m not out in a week send a search party.” TOP
Andrej
stumbled into his washroom, and Stildyne declined to prevent him
from closing the door. Maybe—Andrej thought—maybe he sounded that
much better than he felt. If Stildyne knew how uncertain he felt
about his condition yet Stildyne would not have permitted him to
so much as spit by himself. It wasn’t that Stildyne didn’t respect
a man’s privacy, just that washroom walls were tiled and tiles were
hard, so that if one knocked one’s head up against them while one
wasn’t looking one tended to lose a good deal of blood in a regrettable
hurry.
Concentrate.
The
drugs were in his system, whether or not he had consented to consume
them. It was done. Stildyne wouldn’t have done it if Stildyne
had thought there was any other way.
Best
to get whatever over with: then he could crawl back into quarters
and suffer the waning of the support the drugs provided.
—
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