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The
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Brachi
Stildyne knew fear as an old friend, something so familiar that
it could be ignored completely once it was acknowledged. This fear
was different. This fear was new and fierce, as unsettling as the
first fears he had ever known, and almost as destructive of self-control
and concentration. Fortunately he had the advantage of this fear.
He had some years of experience. He could still carry on. He could
speak to Ship’s Intelligence Officer with a clear voice, and
be confident that his words still did make sense.
“Thank
you for seeing me, your Excellency. I’m hoping that you’ll
be able to help me out on something.”
He
wasn’t “seeing” her at all, not strictly speaking.
He was standing outside of chapel with a set of documents clutched
sternly in one fist, and she was on monitor. Still, he could all
but actually see her rocking gently to and fro from the ceiling
in her office as she spoke.
“There
will be an extra charge, of course, and I take bribes in custard,
as you know. Which you must swear not to speak of to Andrej. What
is the problem?”
It
was her sweet tooth talking. Two was notoriously fond of custard,
and notorious also for the running argument that she had with Chief
Medical on the subject. Custard was hell on her digestive system,
and Koscuisko’s stated opinion was that people who couldn’t
tolerate milk sugars should simply stay away from them rather than
demanding support from his overworked clinical staff every time
they came down with a belly-ache. Stildyne was grateful to Two for
the allusion. The joke helped him to keep a firm grip on his fear. TOP
“Chief
Medical, your Excellency. First Officer has tasked me with bringing
him some documents he needs, urgent, he tells me. But I can’t
find Chief Medical. Can you help me out?”
Not
in his office, not in clinic, where they hadn’t seen him since
firstshift. Not in his quarters, where all was just as Godsalt or
St. Clare or whomever had left it made up after Koscuisko’s
fast-meal this morning. Not in sauna. Not at exercise. Not with
Captain Lowden, or even Ship’s Engineer, or — the last
place he had checked, in desperation — or even in chapel. Mendez
had told him what was going on. And Stildyne was afraid.
“What
did he say to us, he confided that he was returning to his place.
I think that was where he said, but have you looked?”
Mendez
had told him that, too. “I haven’t had any luck. I don’t
know where to look next. Can you ask someone in Section to scan
for him, if he’s on monitor anywhere in the ship.”
It
didn’t sound like the request he had meant it to be; it sounded
more like a demand to Stildyne. Fortunately for him Two didn’t
seem to have noticed. “People who can’t keep track of
their Excellencies don’t deserve to have any. You can find
him very easily, in Secured Medical.”
Secured
Medical?
No,
he hadn’t looked there, he hadn’t even thought of looking
there. Koscuisko never went there unless he had been ordered to.
If that was what Koscuisko had meant by saying that he was going
to “his place” then Koscuisko was in worse shape than
Stildyne had thought, and the fear within him only made it worse.TOP
“Thank
you, your Excellency. Stildyne, away.”
She
was keeping an eye on Koscuisko, then. Because there was not supposed
to be any surveillance of Secured Medical. She would call in an
emergency team, surely, should anything happen, during the time
it would take him to get from where he was to where he needed to
be.
Yes.
But
he was in a hurry to get there, all the same.
It
was a good distance from the corridor outside the chapel to Secured
Medical. Stildyne knew better than to run, but he moved as fast
as he could short of jogging it. The door to the ready-room was
closed, of course it was closed, but it was not secured, and he
squeezed through before it was well open, knowing that he would
have to wait for it to close again before he could go in to theater.
Cursing
the time, the careful interdependence of the doorlocks, Stildyne
waited, his knuckles pressed firmly to the inner admit in order
to be sure that it would engage at the earliest possible moment.
Koscuisko could have locked himself in. He had the authority.
He
had the right to deny anybody entrance to the inner room. Mendez
would have to clear an over-ride, if Koscuisko had locked himself
in. Lowden would have to review and approve an over-ride, even if
after the fact — TOP
Koscuisko
had not locked himself in. Ducking his head anxiously, Stildyne
peered through the door’s first minute gap as soon as there
was a crack there to see through, dreading what he might see.
He
saw nothing.
The
lights were dim, the silent waiting chair in the middle of the room
was empty. Nothing. No blood, which was good, and yet his Excellency
had direct access to restricted pharmacy stores from here, a fact
which had worried Stildyne on and off for years.
It
was awkward, forcing his way through the slowly increasing portal.
But he couldn’t wait a moment longer. He didn’t dare.
It
was quiet and dark in Secured Medical. Nothing remained of its last
victim staining the walls or smeared across the floor. Andrej Koscuisko
stood in front of his chair facing the wall with his hands clasped
behind his bent neck, his feet spread shoulders’-width apart
for balance.
The
image struck too close to Stildyne’s heart for self-control.
Struggling in his mind between reason and denial, Stildyne stood
silent for a long moment, wondering and speculating, full of dread
and horror. Koscuisko’s attitude was too perfect, too damnably
precise to be an accidental echo of a bound prisoner’s stance.
If Koscuisko had lost his footing on the narrow path between his
sadism and his sanity, under the frightful shock of the sudden catastrophe
that had befallen him — he might fall just on such a side of
madness. According to Koscuisko’s peculiar spirituality a man
could look forward to a righting of the balance, when he was dead.
Koscuisko
was not dead yet.TOP
And
Stildyne wasn’t about to let him go, unwilling to let him slide
quietly into the sanctuary space that madness might afford him.
Not after four years of watching Koscuisko fight, day in, day out,
to hold to his self-determination, to maintain his own proper thinking
— feeling — self on his own terms, even between medicine
and murder.
“Excellency,”
Stildyne said, starting forward to approach the dark still figure
at the wall. “There’s documents for you, sir, from First
Officer. Requiring his Excellency’s immediate attention.”
Slowly,
slowly, Koscuisko raised his head, to stare up at the shackle-anchor
high on the wall. “They told me that there would be papers
to sign.” Well, no, not exactly, and it sounded like an incantation
of some sort to Stildyne. “Give me papers to sign. Please.
And I will sign them.”
No.
Seizing
Koscuisko’s wrists with sudden and determined desperation Stildyne
pulled the frozen vise of Koscuisko’s interlocked fingers apart
with savage force, not caring if he bruised or tore the skin. He
would not let Koscuisko get away with this. He would not tolerate
it. “Documents, sir, not papers, and you asked for them this
morning. Damn you. Andrej. Not papers. Documents.”
You’re
not going to do this to yourself.
You’re
not going to do this to usTOP
Koscuisko
staggered forward, set off balance by Stildyne’s fierce assault.
Stildyne caught him from behind with his arms around Koscuisko’s
chest to keep him well away from the wall. He would not let Koscuisko
touch it. Prisoners were stretched there, chained there, beaten
— whipped — and brutalized there. Koscuisko could seek
punishment all he dared, in the dazed sickness of his tormented
mind. Stildyne was not going to let him find it. Not while Stildyne
could stop him.
A
fit of trembling seized Koscuisko, and he struggled frantically
against Stildyne’s hold on him. For a moment Stildyne wondered
if Koscuisko was too deep in the maze of his nightmare to understand
that Stildyne would not harm him.
There
was to be no help for it but to let Koscuisko go, standing between
Koscuisko and the shackle-anchors that waited for fresh meat to
prison and torture. Then with a violent shudder the fit passed;
but if there were to be eight years more, they would come to the
time when the confusion in Koscuisko’s mind could no longer
be set aside so easily.
A
man hated to see so gallant a struggle lost.
At
least Stildyne hated the very idea.
“Well
— yes — documents. Of course. Already? Brachi, I believe
that I mistook you, in some manner. I would like to sit down, now.”
The
twilight place, the shadow-land of confused disorientation, the
“between” hours. Maybe they’d just got him out
of bed too soon after his last interrogation. Maybe that was all
that there had been to it. Maybe Robert St. Clare was a Shulammite
temple-dancer, for that matter. Stildyne willed himself to relax,
guiding Koscuisko the short distance to the chair.TOP
“It’s
been four eights since you spoke to First Officer, your Excellency.
I have the documents —” they were on the floor in the
outer room where he’d dropped them on his way in, as a matter
of fact “— but perhaps his Excellency would be more comfortable
reviewing them, in his office?”
Frowning
in his concentration Koscuisko glanced sidewise toward the prisoner’s
door, his right shoulder hunched against his body as if to protect
himself. “There is not — there, no one waits?”
Stildyne
moved around to stand between Koscuisko and the prisoner’s
door, putting a barrier between his officer and that potentially
all-absorbing distraction. “No one waits, sir. Nothing keeps
you, not this time. Let’s leave, you can have your sauna, you
know you like your sauna. I’ll give you a massage, if it will
help.”
Trembling
a little yet, Koscuisko stood up from his place once more. His place.
Stildyne could have kicked himself for not having guessed. “I
am not sure, exactly. Of where I am.”
It
was marginally better than being convinced that he knew precisely
where he was, given the places that Andrej Koscuisko frequented
in his dreams. And still it was almost more than Stildyne could
tolerate. Stepping closer to Koscuisko, he put a tentative hand
out to his officer’s shoulder.
“Emotional
shock, sir, you’ve had a brutal one, that’s all. There’s
nothing to worry about. You’ll sort yourself out in no time,
once you’ve had a chance to adjust.” TOP
Oh,
he was a liar. He couldn’t afford to tell Koscuisko the truth,
that he was beginning to be afraid that Koscuisko would reach the
point where he could no longer hope to sort himself out at all,
ever. Especially now. Especially if he were to stay with Captain
Lowden, who understood him so well — to such destructive effect.
Koscuisko
raised his head and looked Stildyne in the eye, and as long as four
years with Andrej Koscuisko had been Stildyne had as little hope
of reading the expression on Koscuisko’s face as on the day
he’d met the officer for the first time. “There are no
words for what has come upon me. Kiss me, Mister Stildyne, I am
very depressed.”
Stildyne
knew better than to interpret Koscuisko’s phrase as anything
more than the passionate comradeship Koscuisko extended to his Bonds,
if seldom further. He accepted the invitation as the privilege that
it was, and kissed Koscuisko on his shadowed temples, twice, with
absolute chastity.
Then
he stood away. Koscuisko sighed, and rubbed at the back of his neck
with one hand as if he could not imagine why the muscles there might
have stiffened in the course of the past few eights.
“I’d
best get documents returned to First Officer, hadn’t I?”
Gesturing
for Stildyne to follow him, he started out of the room, his voice
a little louder than usual — as if to make a show of being
on top of things. It seemed to work; Koscuisko’s voice grew
stronger step by step, as he crossed the room. Almost normal, as
he stood before the door. Very nearly his usual self to hear him,
with the door closing behind him. “And thank you for the offer,
Chief, but if it’s midshift already I’ve probably got
more than enough to do, in Section, and you know that if I indulge
myself in massage I will just fall to sleep.”TOP
Who
knew that better than Stildyne?
“I’ll
send Lek to you with your midmeal, if you’d like. Sir. You’ll
want to sit down with these, soonest.”
Koscuisko
accepted the documents Stildyne retrieved from the floor with a
brisk nod, now so close to in control that it probably didn’t
even matter. “Of course. Walk with me to Section, if you would,
Brachi. I should not like to lose much more of this day, I cannot
function like this for very much longer.”
So
close, and even so aware of the danger that he was still in, the
dislocation of his mind and spirit brought on by the sudden shock
Koscuisko had sustained. Or possibly simply aware, even through
his shock, that the drugs with which he had been forced to start
the day were due to metabolize, and when they did there would be
a reckoning.
Yes,
Stildyne would send Lek to Koscuisko with midmeal, and Smath with
third-meal, and Godsalt to escort Koscuisko to quarters when his
sleepshift came, when Shelastan would be there to keep the watch.
Stildyne meant to make quite sure that it would not happen again.
No,
he did not want to wonder what had been in Koscuisko’s mind,
four eights lost locked up in Secured Medical.
“According
to his Excellency’s good pleasure. After you, sir.” TOP
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End —
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