Hour of Judgement

by Susan R. Matthews

  And the fire alarms still worked; or at least Garol had seen no reason why they should not. Maybe it hadn’t even been the Bench; maybe it had been some enterprising Nurail, taking advantage of an opportunity. Fire suppression chemos could be sold. They could be used, too, for fuel if need be, to power an escape across the Baltrune vector.

  Now Garol strolled quietly through the silent halls of the hospital, using the light from the emergency exits to navigate. Koscuisko’s people had set up camp in a ward three corridors removed from what portion of the clinic area was in use — to Lieutenant Wyrlann’s clear if unspoken disgust, and Garol’s own unspoken amusement. Wyrlann was at Center House under guard, for his own protection. Garol wasn’t the least surprised that no one wanted to keep him company.

  And Koscuisko, having claimed hospital duty as his excuse for staying well clear of Center House and Lieutenant Wyrlann, had followed through with a will. Garol needed to have a word with Koscuisko about that. But just at present he was curious about arrangements. He held a Bench warrant. It was second nature to find out about arrangements.

  Garol didn’t know exactly where Koscuisko’s sleeping quarters were. He didn’t need to search long, as it happened. Someone was on watch. And whoever was on watch had company. The sound of voices told Garol where to look.

  “It’s only natural to wonder. And I drew the frayed end.”

  One of the voices was female, coming from within a bay that ran three open doors along the corridor. The voices were at the far end of the bay. Garol had checked into another such bay on his way here; he knew the layout. Cautiously, he angled his body through the door to see what there was to see.

  “I’m not the man to cry you shame for it. But look Chief Stildyne doesn’t catch us gossiping; he’s tender about the officer’s dignity.”

  The Nurail troop. Robert St. Clare. There was an inner bay to this ward, and a long hall that paralleled the corridor; St. Clare sat at the doorway to the inner bay. Quite correctly, too. Controlling access.

  But Garol wanted in.

  “And is it really so simple as that? A man of his nature. One would have thought, surely.”

  The woman’s voice faded as Garol retreated down the hall. The ventilation system on these wards was not quarantined; these had originally, been intended for day-clinic areas. Climbing the service stairs to the floor above Garol found the flue-vent, but he didn’t break the vapor seal. Retracing his steps he counted paces till he was as close to his goal as he needed to be. Then he looked around.

  “ — shoulders.” There was the intake, and once Garol had got well inside the capacious vent he could hear St. Clare’s voice from below. He could even hear that St. Clare was teasing, just a bit. “But it’s his lady to take the lap-seat, maistress. That’s the way of it when they aren’t Dolgorukij women. Elsewise there’s fear of doing an injury, whilst a man isn’t paying the attention that he naturally ought.”

  Wedging himself shoulder and hip in the cross-shaft Garol worked his way down to the room behind St. Clare’s back, where Andrej Koscuisko’s bed was made up. The Security post was through the doorway to Koscuisko’s private room, and the door was only half-open. There was no reason for it to be otherwise. It was no failing on Security’s part; no one could stop a Bench intelligence specialist from getting to where he wanted to go.

  And at the same time Garol had particular reasons for wanting Koscuisko’s Security to be alert.

  He popped the secure on the vent-screen with a click so subtle that it would not carry across the room, let alone through the door and outside into the hall. As far as he could tell St. Clare had as yet heard nothing; listening to the lady, perhaps. Whoever she was.

  “It’s ungallant, surely, to make the woman labor at such work. And still if that is all — there’s nothing to be feared from him, then?”

  Free to move around inside the room, now, Garol found the thing he wanted and flipped the lid. The dose-packet that St. Clare had gotten from the orderly, shortly before they’d finished loading the courier. Garol needed some way to signal to Security to step up their surveillance; and at the same time he was curious.

  What doses?

  Why?

  Why carried separately? Why separately delivered?

  It was a standard dose-pouch, the preloads registering system integrity on display. Garol tipped a handful of the styli out of the pouch and held them up in the palm of his hand to be close to his face so that he would be able to read the encodes in the dim light.

  Not narcotics; and yet under normal circumstances only narcotics or other Controlled List drugs warranted such special handling.

  A hypnotic, yes.

  Specific for Dolgorukij.

  Hypnotics and stimulants and two doses of an antipsychotic psychoactor — the hypnotic was specific, it said so, and if the other drugs were not uniquely prescribed for an Aznir autocrat the dosage levels clearly pointed at some class of hominid whose weight or metabolism exceeded the average index —

  Drugs for a sick man, for a man half-mad with conflict and self-loathing. Garol remembered the scene in the loading bay. Psychoactive drugs for a man who was perhaps insane, if only periodically sociopathic.

  Exercising his Bench warrant would be an act of kindness, then. Euthanasia. Putting Koscuisko out of his evident suffering.

  If only he could be sure about the source —

  Carefully, Garol returned the doses to their pouch, making sure to transpose two doses as he did so. The dust should catch someone’s attention. It didn’t need to be anything as obvious as leaving the ventilator’s grid unsecured. Security would sense a discrepancy, and then they would notice the dust Garol had carried into the room from the vent-shaft. Then they would search, and when they searched they would find that the seal of the vent-shaft had been broken, and that someone had been looking at the dose-pouch.

  This part of Garol’s mission was accomplished. A quick check of the clinic and a stroll through the shabby halls of the less-than-recently-renovated service house, and he would be ready to go to bed.

  To the extent that he’d done what he’d come to do — alert Koscuisko’s security to the potential existence of a hitherto unsuspected problem — he was satisfied.

  But the more he learned about Andrej Koscuisko the less he was inclined to credit his Bench warrant.

  ###

  Well past sunset, and the clinic was finally clearing out – not so much because everything that could be done had been done as that it was three eights past curfew and people could no longer safely travel to arrive. Andrej Koscuisko leaned back against the cool edge of an examining table and folded his arms across his duty-smock with a deep sigh of satisfaction and weariness.

  He wasn’t used to being worked so hard, so long.

  He enjoyed it.

  And with any luck it would be the same for him tomorrow. It seemed clear that his name and his Judicial function was not, after all, enough to prevent pragmatic Nurail souls from taking advantage of the opportunity that an extra physician on duty represented for obtaining free medical care.

  A knock at the door, and through the long high narrow windows of the examining room Andrej could just make out the balding head of Garol Vogel with a Security escort. What was Vogel doing here? The door swung open; well, he’d find out, then. Or he wouldn’t. Vogel was a Bench intelligence specialist. There was no telling about his ilk.

  “Good-greeting, your Excellency, and the evening finds you?”

  Polite. Neutral; Vogel only cared to the extent that any ordinary person would care about the health and welfare of a casual acquaintance. Fine as far as Andrej was concerned.

  “Very well, thank you, Specialist. The same for you, I hope, and where is Specialist Ivers this evening?”

  Vogel stepped into the room and closed the door, leaving it ajar. So that if Andrej was needed he could be got at, Andrej supposed. Good protocol for hospital receiving areas: Bench intelligence specialists were expected to know what the appropriate
behavior was under almost any circumstances. It wasn’t a matter of memorizing rites and practices. It was a simple question of common sense, and the intelligence to grasp what was needful.

  “Center House, sir. The woman will recover? I heard the technical report but I’m not much good at interpreting it. If you’d summarize for me, your Excellency, I’d appreciate it.”

  Fair enough. “The short answer is yes. The long answer is that physical therapy will be required, she may or may not become infertile, and I hope before Heaven that the guesses I had to make about the nature and intensity of her sensory response to sexual stimulus are close to correct. I am favorably impressed with Paval I’shenko, in pulling rank the way that he did. Gardener Hanner for one will be sure to defend my cousin henceforward.”

  Vogel grinned, a gesture which suddenly squared his otherwise somewhat round face. “What I like is that that was only part of his reasoning. The rest of it was good old-fashioned decent moral outrage. There isn’t enough of that around, these days.”

  No indeed. “And speaking of moral outrage. I believe you may wish to re-inventory pharmacy stores before the rest of Fleet arrives, Specialist. Someone has broken into stores and made very free with some quite expensive medication, and I am sure that Paval I’shenko would regret having to make an issue of the discrepancy.”

  Vogel’s expression somehow lacked much of an element of surprise. “I’m shocked, your Excellency. Shocked. This person, you wouldn’t happen to have an idea of who he was or where I might find him, would you?”

  As a matter of fact Andrej was tolerably certain that both he and Vogel knew exactly what was going on. “Quite a good notion, actually. Enough of one to know that regrettably the villain cannot be prosecuted. There is no reason why he should not be identified, however. I hardly know what worse Fleet could do to me than it already has.”

  Because it was he, himself, Andrej Koscuisko, who had forced the secures and issued the stores. Under the Privilege of the Writ he could not be brought to account for misappropriation of Fleet or Bench stores; nor could any of the subordinate physicians to whom Andrej had released the materials be faulted for simply receiving normal stores in personal ignorance of the exact manner in which release had been authorized.

  “Ah,” Vogel said, with an odd little gesture of his chin that was supportive and admonitory at once. “Oddly enough that reminds me. News from Fleet, extension approved, no transfer in the foreseeable.”

  Well. It was only as much as he had expected. There was no sense in noticing the voice in his mind that still raged in protest. He was tired: and Vogel was still talking.

  “Hoping the news isn’t all bad. Good-night, I’ll be on my — oh. Almost forgot.”

  What kind of trick or trap was this, then?

  Andrej waited, deeply suspicious.

  “The Danzilar prince. I was to tell you particularly. He apologizes for, let me see, what was it, for not greeting you prior to departure. And promises that there is to be dancing at Center House.”

  The message was unexpected, and took Andrej by surprise.

  Dancing?

  Had he even thought about dancing, at any time that he could call to mind, over the past eight years?

  And Shiki — his cousin Paval I’shenko — and he had been widely acknowledged as quite good dancers, when they’d been younger. Before Andrej had gone off to school. Paval I’shenko had always been on the lookout for opportunities to test himself against Andrej, and see who would clear the floor in triumph this time.

  He was doomed.

  “I have not danced so much as a miletta since I came to Fleet.” And Paval I’shenko would know that. Andrej could trust his cousin to be thinking, every moment. “Still less anything more strenuous. I have only two chances.”

  One, he had not danced, but he had learned to fight; and perhaps some part of the two skill-sets would prove to be more closely related than he would have thought them.

  Or, two, that his cousin the prince Paval I’shenko Danzilar might sprain his ankle, and it would not be an issue.

  “Sir?” Vogel was waiting, politely. But Andrej was tired. If Vogel wanted to know he could just bring his own special Bench intelligence specialist skill-set to bear on the issue. Though — it suddenly occurred to Andrej — if he could enlist Vogel’s help, might Vogel not find a way to engineer the spraining of an ankle, to the preservation of the dignity of a Judicial officer?

  No.

  Perhaps not.

  “Earthquake or flood, Specialist Vogel, because nothing less will keep my cousin from his darshan. I am going to bed. You will excuse me. I do not invite you, it is nothing personal.”

  He needed to get to bed, because he wanted to be able to open the clinic as soon as curfew lifted in the morning, which was about an eight before sunrise. Vogel bowed.

  “Of course. Good rest, your Excellency. I’ll see you at the party, if not before.”

  There was no reason to suppose otherwise. Was there? There was something in Vogel’s voice, something in Vogel’s bow that half-convinced Andrej of the existence of some secret.

  Well, if it was a secret, then that was what it would have to remain.

  “And you, Specialist. If you would call for my gentlemen on your way out, please.”

  Alone in the room now Andrej unfastened his smock and bundled it into the laundry-drawer. The laundry-drawer already contained a discarded smock; it made Andrej wonder whether the hospital was in a position to be able to afford to keep a decent linen schedule.

  Robert came in with Andrej’s over-blouse and a load of toweling over one arm. If there were towels, didn’t that mean that the laundry was running?

  “Thank you, Robert.” Andrej didn’t need help to get dressed. But accepting help was part of accepting the fact that Robert elected to offer it, since Robert knew that body-service was something Andrej considered strictly optional for bond-involuntaries. “I don’t know if I have the energy to wash. Perhaps I will rather bathe in the morning. Is there of rhyti a flask for me in quarters?”

  Holding the door open for Andrej as he went out Robert shook his head, with great determination. “Na, the officer is mistaken. You want your wash in now, sir. Truly. And quarters are being shifted.”

  Years ago when they had all been much younger, Robert St. Clare had suffered through the ordeal of the prisoner-surrogate exercise at Fleet Orientation Station Medical to win a reduction of his Bond. Robert had not failed; but the trial had failed, and over the space of several days Robert had lived in an agony both physical and spiritual awaiting the formal declaration of the sentence of his punishment — which was clearly understood by all as amounting to a sentence of death by slow torture.

  During that time, the ferocious stress levels Robert had endured bad forced the calibration of his governor to one side in some manner. Robert’s governor had never been quite right in all of the time that Andrej had known him since. But as long as it was wrong in the right direction Andrej didn’t care.

  Now as always Robert spoke to him more freely than any of the other Bonds, quite clearly and distinctly telling him what to do.

  Andrej would comply with Robert’s instructions, of course. Instruction received was instruction implemented, for bond-involuntaries at least, and since it was that way for bond-involuntaries Andrej saw no reason why he should refuse to grant obedience as he was given obedience.

  The obedience he was owed by his Bonds could be said to be a simple question of the fact that the governor forced it, on the face of it. Andrej knew better. The obedience he was granted by his bond-involuntaries was given him as freely as even a man enslaved could choose to make a gift instead of paying a debt.

  “Shifted, Robert? What was wrong with quarters, that we should shift?”

  They were dark and depressing, true. As vacant and empty as any abandoned ward. But wasn’t one abandoned ward much the same as any other?

  Robert sounded serious now — for perhaps so long as three eighths. “Security i
ssue, your Excellency. We think we had a visitor while quarters were empty. The ventilation system can be compromised. Pyotr’s shifting for prudence’s sake — ”

  Robert had led him down a long hall that led into a communal showers. Only a portion of the showers were apparently in use: the majority of the walls and floors and drains were bone-dry, with the powdery fragrance of concrete on a humid day.

  “ — and here’s a sauna for you. I’ve taken the liberty. I’ll take your boots, sir.”

  And rest-dress by implication would be waiting in the warmth of the dry sauna, with clean linen. Capitulating, Andrej sat down on the changing-bench and started to strip. A man was slave to his servants from one end of the Bench to the other, Andrej mused to himself. There was no sense in arguing with people who had gone to such lengths for one’s benefit.

  How had Robert managed a sauna, with Burkhayden so starved for power?

  Perhaps it was just as well if he did not wonder about that.

  A sauna was an intrinsic good, after all, and he would enjoy it just as much as if its warmth had not been thieved from sources unknown.

  ###

  Andrej Koscuisko came into the day-clinic with a flask of rhyti in one hand and a wrap of bread and meat-paste in the other. He was late. He’d been up well past midnight last night, because it was not to be imagined that anyone should be turned away from day-clinic, and some of them had been waiting all day. He’d been up late the night before, for the same reason, and slept past the mark this morning, so that it was already past the lifting of curfew.

  And the clinic’s waiting-room already full. People were lined up all down the corridor, women with children in arms, children with younger siblings, men with aged parents. Andrej bowed to the waiting room, keenly aware of the lack of respect inadvertently implied by greeting his patients with his fast-meal in both hands.

  “Good-greeting, gentles all, I hope that you will forgive my tardiness. But we will turn none of you away, my oath upon it.”