And there was a significantly powerful prejudice among Nurail against citing both at once. As if it were equivalent to displaying a sexual act in public, more or less. They could be such prudish people, for all the blunt cheerful explicitness of the language.
“Very well.” Vogel’s report had only discussed the worst of her injuries; there was no particular reason for Andrej to suspect that she was badly marked, as well as injured. Except that when bullies like the Ragnarok’s First Lieutenant beat a woman they generally made an horrific mess of her face, and Andrej couldn’t help but feel that no brother could easily bear sight of the evidence to what a sister had suffered from such a brute.
It was hard enough when one was not related, and had the benefit of having seen it all before. One never became inured to brutality. If one was lucky. “Robert, you take Hanner here into the next room for a bit; keep him out of staff security’s way. Don’t worry, we’ll give a shout when fast-meal comes, and if there is fried cold-meal mush you shall sort it out between the two of you.”
He would have a look at the patient’s documents, he would have a look at the patient. He would do the best he could for her, poor woman. Poor anonymous woman, poor slave, with only a thin — dirty — and incautious gardener to take her part against the misfortunes and the injustices that had befallen her.
“Come along, then, Hanner, you heard the officer.” St. Clare’s voice was surprisingly harsh from behind him, and Hanner swallowed nervously, but came meekly enough. Good man; Andrej approved. St. Clare had a sister somewhere, Andrej knew. That was why Robert was so painfully sensitive about the abuse that service bond-involuntaries suffered.
Other bond-involuntaries that Andrej had been privileged to know treated service Bonds as members of one family in token of their mutual slavery, calling them all “cousin.” Robert’s pain was a little more personal and immediate than that. Any given service bond-involuntary could very well be somebody’s sister. But somewhere out there was his.
His sister Megh?
No, Andrej told himself, a little embarrassed at his romanticizing. He was imagining things. It was a common name, whether or not he was misremembering something he’d heard from Robert eight years ago and more. But any coincidence of names would only make St. Clare even moodier. Best to get the two of them out of anybody’s way until the gardener could be sent safely home.
And then he would see whether a public-funded hospital in a Nurail port could find decent healing work for a Dolgorukij torturer: and keep himself too busy to think about his future, about Captain Lowden, about the Fleet that had created G’herm Wyrlann and would protect him for as long as he held rank.
###
Center House, Port Burkhayden. The place was swarming with Danzilar’s advance party, even at this late hour of the evening. The grand foyer looked very much like a theatrical stage in mid-shift, to Jils Ivers. Garol had been in a state ever since he’d first heard about the Lieutenant’s little escapade; and for herself Jils had already decided that Wyrlann deserved everything that Garol was likely to say to him.
The Ragnarok’s First Lieutenant had sent his own Security to meet the courier — a gesture possibly calculated to ingratiate himself with them. It hadn’t worked, Garol’s ingratiation threshold being as high as it was. Now it was time for Wyrlann — waiting for them amid the ladders and the carpet-layers, the glaziers and the technicians — to face that uncomfortable fact.
“Good greeting. Ivers, isn’t it? Right. And Vogel. Welcome to Port Burkhayden. Had a nice transit?”
One thing was immediately obvious from Wyrlann’s self-satisfied expression, his easy — if somewhat condescending — banter. He didn’t think he had anything to apologize for.
“Yeah, well, not too bad. Lieutenant.” Garol even in his foulest moods did try to stay away from provoking confrontation. It wasn’t out of respect or diffidence, no. He just hated to waste energy. “Have you got the survey forms completed? Let’s go, get it out of the way and all that.”
Wyrlann coughed, as if embarrassed. “There’s been a bit of an unexpected problem. A little local unrest.”
She’d just bet there’d been unrest. Garol wasn’t taking the hint, though, which meant that Garol was ignoring it, just to be difficult. “To be expected, when a port’s in transit. Well, we’ll just sign off on the survey, and we can be out of each other’s way.”
There was a third party involved in the transaction, though he hadn’t said anything one way or the other until now: Fleet Liaison Officer Artigen, a well-respected career man, good to have on site in an unsettled environment. “With the Lieutenant’s permission. I felt it best to advise the Lieutenant not to complete the survey until the arrival of additional Security, Specialist Vogel. We’ve had a predictable upswing in anti-Fleet sentiment these last few days.”
“Predictable when ranking officers make like eight-to-the Standard bruisers? That the kind of ‘predictable’ you mean?”
Garol made no effort to keep his voice down, and there was no mistaking the sentiment among the local workmen. Wyrlann evidently felt the hostility as personally directed, for whatever reason.
“Listen, Vogel, I’ll thank you to stick to your agenda, and keep yourself out of things that don’t concern you. ‘Bench intelligence specialist’ is all very well, but I have to tell you, I don’t like your attitude.”
Jils sighed. If she’d had a marker she could have tossed it. Wyrlann had done it, now.
“And I don’t like your face, Lieutenant. Your face, your voice, your behavior, your Captain. You disgust me, you disgust them, and Artigen was right to keep your sorry ass off the street, because you deserve a wire, and the only reason I hope you don’t get one soon is that nobody deserves to have to pay for it, transmit received?”
And all of it in a perfectly reasonable tone of voice, not raised, not lowered, no hint of anger or even much emotion. Of course Garol sounded just as if he was merely stating a few facts. Because that was exactly what he was doing, no more, no less.
“Ah, if I could make a suggestion, Specialist Vogel — ” Fleet Liaison Officer Artigen offered, tactfully. “The Lieutenant had completed the primary surveys prior to the, ah, controversial event. In light of the fact that it was due to my advice that it’s incomplete, I’m sure Captain Lowden will accept your best judgment on the balance.”
Wyrlann had been about to make an issue of Garol’s lack of professional courtesy, so much was obvious. But Artigen had said the magic word. The magic name, rather; as soon as Artigen mentioned Captain Lowden, Wyrlann paled and shut his mouth, transferring his attention to the new parquetry underfoot. Interesting.
“Yeah, I guess. Anybody going to want to shoot at me? What do we have left to do?”
“Perhaps best if we simply went alone, Specialist Vogel. They don’t know who you are, or Specialist Ivers, of course. And I’m expected to make the tour on a regular basis. There’s the hospital, the service facility, the Port Authority, the civil holding facility. That sort.”
“Whattaya say, Jils? Take a walk? Fun-filled excursion to all the attractions, beautiful exotic port like Burkhayden? Naked maidens, dancing boys? Damn. It’s starting to rain again, isn’t it?”
Maybe if he went out in the rain for an hour or two it would take the gain down a couple of notches. Cool things off all around. “No, I’ll just have to stay behind and do the administrative work while you run off to the service house under the transparent pretext of an inspection. Let me know if they’ve got a bone-bender on staff.”
It was a particular weakness of hers. She got her spine worked by a bone-bender every chance she had, whether or not Garol and the Jurisdiction Standard alike believed it did any good. There was plenty for her to do here, though. She needed to inspect the quarters assigned to them.
She needed to trail in to the house-net, to see what it could tell her about the last few days. She needed to assess the snoopers, and make sure that if there were any left that the Danzilar prince’s Security di
dn’t already know about they were hidden well enough that they would never be found.
But as Karol turned to leave with Artigen, Wyrlann raised his voice. “If you see Koscuisko at the hospital.” There was a note of nasty gloating there, as if Wyrlann felt he was paying Karol off on exponential margins. “Tell him there’s been a priority transmit — we received it two eights ago. His extension’s been approved. But Fleet won’t reassign him in the foreseeable future, in light of Captain Lowden’s critical requirement for the resource.”
Extension?
Koscuisko, on extension?
Garol was waiting for her cue, but Jils couldn’t think of anything to say. Wyrlann turned around and sauntered off, smiling, content that he’d brought bad news and enjoying the impact it made. Jils met Garol’s eyes, helpless to respond. What could make Koscuisko desperate enough to extend his contract with the Fleet, even knowing as he must have done that he had no hope of getting clear from Lowden if he did so?
Verlaine.
“Less effort all around if he’d just cut his throat and be done with it.” Garol commented, to cover for her confusion, she guessed. “I’ll tell him, Jils.”
And Garol had to know how hollow the jest really was, the number of times Koscuisko had tried to simply cut his throat and be done with it. Except that he had never quite succeeded; partly because he had been prevented, but also at least partly because he wanted to be free but not to die. Too desperate, in his mind, to be able to accept what he could not change, what he was not permitted to change.
Too clear-eyed and well-grounded to be able to ignore the fact that it was his own actual — permanent — death that he was essaying. Too sane to want to die enough to make it work, not while there was a slim chance or hope of escape, somewhere.
“Thanks, Garol, I’ll be doing.”
An extension was the only thing that could keep him from Verlaine, though it was so extreme a step that she had honestly not thought of it until now.
It was an irrational impulse on her part, an unreasonable conviction.
But suddenly Jils Ivers knew that if Koscuisko finally succeeded in taking the final escape after this news it would be herself that she would blame.
For murder.
###
Andrej stood at the inside of a conference-oval in the hospital surgery’s prep room, looking around him. “Who have we got, then? Gentles, if you would be so kind, bearing in mind that I’m the hired man from out of town.”
It was a short staff, but it would have to do. Half of them were Nurail: That was a plus, if he could rely on them to know how hill-people differed from other folk. Their biggest problem was that it was the middle of the night, well past third-meal. People would be prepared to sleep, not to operate.
And yet the sooner they were started the better chance they had. The woman had been waiting for them too long already. Nobody dared wait a moment longer.
“Orthopedics, your Excellency. Heron Jamoch.” One of the weaves was Heron Black-pelt, Andrej remembered. But he had no right to the knowledge. Though he had not taken it by force it had come to him as the last desperate gasp of a dying man, unwilling to let his mother’s voice be silenced forever.
“Soft tissue displacement. Sonders Connlin.”
Orthopedics had work, but not too much work; soft tissue displacement had the uglier task. “Thank you, Sonders Connlin, you and I have our work cut out for us. Yes?”
“Internal, sir, renal trauma and respiratory malfunction. Aan Jardle. Some experience with smooth muscle tearing, but not enough.”
Wyrlann had kicked the woman when she’d been down. In the belly. There was smooth muscle damage, on top of the gross insult to her womb. The sacred cradle. Andrej shook himself just a bit, to try to get centered.
“We are lucky to have any smooth muscle experience at all, Jardle. I’m a beginner in that field, I’m afraid. We haven’t heard from everyone yet, though. Who is left?” Probably sensory and micromovement. Or perhaps merely gross trauma.
“Gynecological, as the officer please.”
There was more of a surprise there than just the specialty. Andrej hadn’t hoped for gynecology; it would make things much easier on them all — well, easier on him, at any rate. But that wasn’t the sum of it. The phrase was familiar, but underneath it — what did he think he recognized?
“And your name, sir,” Andrej prompted. Gynecology was the oldest person here, quite possibly pushing sixty years Standard to look at him. That meant something. What was it?
“Barit Howe. His Excellency won’t remember me. Administrative staff at Fleet Orientation Station Medical, sir. Pending the dawning of the Day.”
Reborn.
Barit Howe had been a bond-involuntary, and had lived to see the Day dawn at last. It was no wonder that Andrej’s subconscious mind had insisted he knew something quite important about that man —
Bowing, Andrej fumbled for words with which to express the respect due a man who could survive for so long the life to which the Bonds had been condemned. “A very great honor, Master Howe. I am in your presence humbled and silent.” Though of course he couldn’t afford to be, not literally. He was senior in rank; he was expected to coordinate the surgical attack.
“Very good. I have, heard your names; and it may be arrogance on my part, but I believe that you already know who I am. Neurosurgical. Andrej Koscuisko. And a baseline competence in general practice, which we do not for this exercise particularly need. Shall we to the problem at hand turn attention?”
The woman Megh, Wyrlann’s victim. Her injuries had been stabilized, but the hospital had waited to encourage aggressive healing for the arrival of someone who knew how to repair the nerve damage before it scarred over. Four days ago. Not quite five. It could not wait for very much longer.
“If his Excellency will review the material onscreen,” Barit Howe suggested. Respectfully: but Howe was a reborn man. The suggestion was not very far from the mark as an order. “We had taken the liberty of preparing a proposed approach. We didn’t know we were going to get a surgeon with your qualifications. We need to fine-tune this a bit.”
No, they hadn’t expected him. His being here was his cousin Danzilar’s idea, and very sound reasoning on his cousin’s part too, as far as Andrej could tell. “Of course. With the lower body cavity let us be started.”
The sooner they finished review of the problem the sooner they could be started to work.
And there was a good deal of work to be done here.
###
Unfortunately the first tasks fell to Andrej.
It was an offense to approach such a woman in the surgical machine rather than on his knees in reverence. Andrej could only hope that the holy Mother would forgive the impertinence, because there was no other way in which he could approach the injured bond-involuntary, if he hoped to do her any help instead of further injury.
Secure within the all-embracing environment of the surgical machine, safely insulated from the pitiful reality of her damaged body, Andrej began his calibration exercises, a litany from his childhood uninvited — stubborn — in his distracted mind.
Forgive us, Saint Polaka, that was raped with the fencepost of the impious. That was raped by the company of the impious in violation of all decency. That was raped by the member of a horse at the hands of the impious.
Polaka was a Sarvaw saint, and her litany didn’t represent her literal martyrdom — which had actually been a fairly mundane gang-rape if he remembered his religious history correctly.
The litany was more global than just young Saint Polaka, though. Collected into it were all of the atrocities committed against a captive Sarvaw population by its Dolgorukij overlords less than three hundred years ago.
Andrej had learned it in his childhood as part of the observances during the days of contrition, when it was considered to be pious to pretend that one felt guilty for the sins of one’s ancestors while continuing to enjoy the fruits of their crimes.
There had be
en a joke to the litany in the cheerful days of his innocence, an adolescent speculation on what the martyr would look like if represented with all of the purported agents of her glorious death. He had not then believed that such things had been done.
He had not then believed that such things could be done.
He had not then believed that such things were still done, and in the same sweet breathing world that he looked on. He knew better, now, and hoped that the saint would accept this Nurail Megh for her own cherished daughter and grant him grace to salve her wounds in shamed humility.
It was time to begin.
He had no faith. He had so offended the holy Mother over the years that it made no sense to even try to pray any more. Perhaps this once, though, she would listen, because it was not for himself that he petitioned, and there was no understanding of her mercy to be had. Andrej closed his eyes within the waiting stillness of the surgical machine and stood a supplicant in the presence of a deity in whom he no longer quite believed, making his prayer.
Asking for the privilege of being used as the instrument of blessing. Asking for a good exercise without flaw or fault, because there was no room for fault or flaw.
Asking for the holy Mother’s blessing on the work of his hands, and that of the rest of the surgical team. Asking for a good recovery, health of body and of spirit, because nothing that they could do to heal her body would avail them if her spirit would not accept contrition on her behalf. Asking for full functionality for the woman’s sake, for the sake of the thin young gardener who claimed a brother’s right to care what became of her.
Then he put it all out of his mind: Saint Polaka, the sacred cradle, the holy Mother’s mysteries, all. He set his mind to the simple certitudes of blood and sinew, nerve and bone, and dissolved himself into the surgical machine to suspend his very existence for as long as she should need for him to be the mind of the machine and do his surgery.
Hour of Judgement Page 9