“If they testify that the treatment will work on a human being, will you permit it?”
“A coward should be free to request the joyless life of a coward.” He snorted a couple of times, then added, “Understand that my patience is at an end. This last delay lasts only as long as it will take you to receive your definitive answer. Once you receive it, Varrick will have two more days for consideration, and no further delays. After that, he will either take the coward’s option or he will die.”
Cort nodded. “I have no problem with that.”
* * *
“You did it,” Kearn said.
They had returned to the skimmer, but had not yet taken off, because Cort had not yet given the pilot their destination. Until then, she greeted the relative warmth and more easily breathable atmosphere of the skimmer like a drowning woman who had just, after long and heroic effort, broken surface to swallow her first breath. She spoke with reluctance. “This settles nothing.”
“But if it does turn out that the treatment works on human beings…”
“First,” Cort said, rubbing fingers that had not been kept sufficiently warm by the presence of thick gloves, “we still don’t know that. Second, even if it does, Varrick doesn’t get to decide whether he’s free to choose the option. I do.”
“It’s his life.”
“True, it is…as little value as he placed on that life, committing his crimes on a world where they would render him subject to execution. But my primary interest is not him. He is only a by-product. My primary interest lies in determining, first, whether this much-vaunted treatment works as advertised…and second, whether we can afford the ramifications of establishing such a precedent.”
Kearn’s eyebrows knit. “But wouldn’t saving his life…”
The impatience Cort often felt for slower or less perceptive minds manifested as harshness, which infected her tone now. “I have no love for capital punishment, bondsman. I’m not against it on principle, but I’m not fond of it either. You may know that I’ve escaped it a couple of times myself. But there are considerations that outweigh the value of even the most noble human life – a distinction that I don’t need to point out is as far from Griff Varrick as it’s possible to get. The problem we’re faced with now is that by bringing this treatment of theirs to the forefront, that moronic little felon has exposed us to variables that affect not just his own ability to keep drawing breath, but also – if the Caiths are willing to share this technology—the course of justice on uncounted human worlds. Do you understand, yet? I’m not certain I’m confident in the ramifications of opening every prison door in human space. I need to know what we’re talking about.”
Kearn was silent for a long time. Then she said: “You’re right. This can be huge.”
“Oh, it’s huge either way. We just don’t know whether it also needs to be contained. Excuse me.” Cort went up front, to talk to the pilot.
Their next destination was the medical facility the Xe had named, not precisely a hospital in the same way that he was not precisely a judge: a small structure a short distance outside the city where they were to meet a redeemer, one of the learned individuals tasked with the medical rehabilitation of murderers. The Xe had explained that the treatment was sufficiently rare for the facility to open only fitfully, when its services were needed; but had also promised that under his order a redeemer would make it his business to rendezvous with them there, for their consultation. It would take longer for the redeemer to get there than it would for them to reach the same location, so Cort told the pilot to take his time.
As they performed a long slow circle over the city, which from the sky looked like a squalid wreck half-shrouded by the fresh snow piling up at street level, Cort returned to her previous seat and Kearn said, “If you don’t mind me asking…”
Cort rolled her eyes. “Oh. Here we go.”
“You know what I’m going to say?”
“In my personal experience,” Cort said, with the weariness that all such discussions left her, “all halting questions that begin with if you don’t mind me asking have to do with my legal status. You’re not the first to bring it up. Your ambassador did, with intense rudeness, the very first time I met her. Varrick did, almost as unpleasantly, only yesterday. It’s a common thing to bother me about. The only thing that ever changes is the intended level of politeness. You’re polite enough, I find, so if we must have this conversation, let’s get on with it.”
“If you’re a convicted murderer yourself…”
“I’m a known killer,” Cort snapped. “Not a convicted murderer. There’s a significant legal distinction between the two descriptions. I see no point in going into my own extenuating circumstances. But they exist. Proceed.”
“But if it has left you less than fully free…”
“We’re both indentured to the Corps. The only difference is, your contract leaves you indentured for, at most, what, twenty years? And mine leaves me indentured for as long as they can still squeeze some use out of me—potentially, until I drop. Professionally, it’s useful, because it places me under an umbrella of diplomatic immunity, and prevents me from being extradited to a couple of worlds that would like to put me in the same noose worn by your Varrick. But right now, neither one of us is fully free. Right now, we’re equally owned. What’s your point?”
Kearn remained silent for a long time, clearly aware that she’d given more offense than Cort admitted to, but unable to drop the question still burning in her. After a long time she shuddered and let it out: “I’m sorry if this was painful for you, Counselor. It just occurred to me that if the Corps does recognize the treatment as an alternative to criminal punishment…you might be able to apply the precedent to your own case and force them to free you.”
Andrea Cort might have been startled by the sting of a venomous insect. She jerked, her eyes widening, her mouth falling open, her mingled terror and understanding cutting through her composed mask to reveal the true face of the damaged soul underneath. This lasted all of a second, and then the moment of vulnerability passed and her harsh mask returned, as cold and now as airless as the stormy landscape visible beyond the skimmer’s shields. “You’re…more formidable than I gave you credit for, bondsman. I honestly hadn’t thought of that. At all. Thank you.”
“And I’m also thinking, if…”
Cort shuddered. “Forgive me. I think I’d prefer it if we didn’t speak again for a while.”
She turned away, losing herself in the storm, and did not speak again until after the skimmer pilot announced that they were landing.
* * *
The Xe had been manic, half-crazed, a constant study in motion that resembled the behavior of an imprisoned animal. Andrea Cort, who had not had any extended conversations with with any Caith until that morning, could not help wondering how much of his demeanor she could attribute to eccentricity enforced by the isolated life he was obliged to live, and how much was true to the psychological baseline of his species.
The redeemer provided the much-needed contrast. He possessed a controlled, almost beatific stillness that rendered him otherworldly in ways that went beyond his furry Caithic physiognomy, and was in his own alien way, almost pleasant. He had introduced himself with a name that to Cort sounded like a four-note melody, interrupted after the third lingering tone by a hard consonant that sounded less like a glottal stop that a harsh clap like the sound of a palm angrily striking a tabletop; it was no sound Cort felt assured of her own ability to make, though Marys Kearn did manage a close approximation of the melody in thanking the creature for his time.
He replied, “Those in my order have nothing but time. We are not often called upon to give cowards their choice of punishment. I believe that I was last summoned to this place a little more than a year ago, and the previous occasion was four years before that.”
Kearn said, “We still thank you for agreeing to meet us.”
“It is no hardship,” the redeemer said, with what the hyt
ex translator interpreted as significant warmth. “I’ve never actually met an off-worlder, of any species, before. I knew you existed, and were disgusting, but have never until this moment met any of you. This is a fascinating experience.”
Cort couldn’t resist the observation, “I’ve heard we smell bad.”
“Who told you that? Your stench could clear rooms, but I would never characterize it as bad. To me you smell more like…a powerful spice we use in some of our cooking. Please don’t take it as a threat to eat you when I report that being this close to you makes me impatient for my next meal.”
“That,” Kearn said, “is the single oddest compliment of my life. Thank you.”
The three of them gathered in a recovery chamber adjacent to the facility where cowards received their treatment. It had been a while since Cort had received medical treatment anywhere other than an automated AIsource facility, but the room’s general contours remained familiar, complete with the raised stone platform that was the Caithiriiin version of a bed (which, Kearn explained, the species rarely used except in cases of illness or disability, as they tended to sleep standing up, for only thirty or forty seconds at a time). Despite the primitiveness of the arrangements provided for patient comfort, the rest of the accoutrements were advanced. There was an overhead vital signs monitor now reading a robust zero, and shelves stocked with liquids of various colors and presumed uses.
Cort had added a second oxygen patch to her arm in the hopes that this would ameliorate the difficulty she had even with the first patch, inhaling the thin local soup, but all that had done was add to her discomfort a not-unpleasant buzz a little like the onset of inebriation. As a result, Kearn had found herself obliged to pick up the conversational slack.
“What do you do with the rest of your time,” Kearn wondered, “if you’re never here?”
The redeemer said, “My professional duties consist of maintaining readiness and hoping that I’m never called upon. I live nearby. I have a family. I breed graiyan for sport. I am honored for my commitment to justice. I have no complaints about my life.”
Kearn said, “You are blessed, then.”
“I like to think so.”
Still reeling under her excessive oxygen-buzz, Cort managed to pull herself together long enough to ask the redeemer what the treatment entailed.
He showed fangs. “There is a saying among our kind: cowards have no secrets. Do you know what this means, Counselor Andrea Cort?”
“I do have my suspicions.”
“In the case of this treatment,” he said, “it is literal truth. The coward who takes this path has no secrets at all. His entire mind is opened, examined, read like a book. Everything, down to his slightest secret, is catalogued and transcribed. Would you allow this indignity for yourself?”
Cort did not offer a direct answer. “How can that prevent someone from committing more crimes?”
“The transcription is stored in a tiny device, which we implant at the base of the the cowardly murderer’s neck. We often add a mark that renders it visible to the naked eye, to maximize the disgrace, but this is not always done and I suppose it will be optional in the case of your murderer.
“Either way,” he continued, “it takes full control over all his actions. It becomes in effect a second mind, a dominant mind, identical to the first except in that it has been programmed with certain behavioral modifications. His soul is not affected. Underneath, he gets to keep his inclinations, his instincts, his memories, his impulses, everything that makes him the objectionable creature he is; but from that moment on it is the transcription, echoing his actual moment-to-moment circumstances, that from now on makes all of his decisions for him. As both versions of his mind are for the most part identical, and both respond to identical stimuli according to the contours of his recorded personality, the difference between what he wants to do and what the transcription permits him to do, will most often be minimal. If he wishes to walk across a room, the transcription – reacting with an identical personality to the identical set of options—will also want to walk across the room, and so he will walk across the room. If he is hungry and wishes to eat a meal, the transcription will also want to eat a meal, and so he will eat the meal. If he has a thought he wishes to express in speech, the transcription will also wish to express that same thought in speech. The only time there will be a noticeable divergence between his thoughts and his actions is when his impulses guide him toward proscribed actions, or when an accepted authority orders him to take actions counter to his preference…at which point the transcription will not permit that behavior and will steer him toward more responsible courses of behavior, until his impulses and his options line up again and are once again congruent.”
Kearn said, “Won’t he be aware he’s being controlled?”
“It will be most obvious to him on those occasions when his actions differ from his impulses. Say, when he wishes to break an innocent’s skull with a sacred figurine, and the transcription says that he should put the figurine down and surrender. The rest of the time, Counselor Andrea Cort: can you even testify, right now, that your actions are your own? That you are not being controlled by artificial means and forced into behaviors that you only believe to be the products of your own free will? Can you say this of Marys Kearn, or any other human being you know?”
Many years later, Andrea Cort would have reason to look back on this conversation and reflect on ironies still hidden to her today. But right now she had no immediate answer. She bit her thumbnail. “Your society still looks down on any convicted killer who chooses this treatment over an extended and painful execution…to the point where most go ahead with the execution anyway. Why?”
The Caith species did not seem to possess a gesture equivalent to the human shrug, but the slight tilt of the redeemer’s head communicated the noncommittal hesitation of a creature who now had leave to speculate on matters he previously might have considered too elementary to contemplate. “Perhaps it is because we all still know what they are like inside. Perhaps we despise interacting with those who behave themselves and obey the rules and in all other ways act according to the laws they once broke, who may treat us with absolute courtesy but who, by the weight of the evidence available to us, might be even at the same moment straining with all their co-opted will to curse our names and wrap their hands around the others. Perhaps it is impossible to look at such a person and not know that, however sane and blameless their current actions might be, they might just as well be raging maniacs, with minds driven but nothing but their old bloodlust. Perhaps murderers resist the option because they are aware that they will no longer be able to defend themselves, regardless of the provocation; or for that matter resort to suicide, the option we all abhor but secretly treasure as an escape route, valuable if only because the value of our lives can be defined by our daily decision to eschew it. Perhaps it is only the knowledge that if we do not possess full control over own actions, we also cannot know ourselves, and cowardly murderers are faced with the prospect of becoming increasingly strangers inside their own heads. For some, it might well be unbearable.” The cock of his head reversed itself and now canted at the opposite angle. “Overall, we feel that it is simpler to endure the execution. Either way, on our world, only cowards or those who will not put down whatever responsibilities they feel they have to their families are willing to endure this option. Most prefer execution.”
In the silence that followed, it fell to Marys Kearn to ask, “And can this be done to a human being?”
Another head-tilt. “There would be some critical differences, but I cannot imagine the problem being insurmountable. In form, the technology is really very simple. If your murderer chooses to be cowardly, I presume we can be ready for the procedure within a matter of minutes, and be done within a few minutes after that.”
“Thank you,” Cort said. “I have one last important question. Can the procedure be rendered reversible?”
The redeemer tilted his head. “Why w
ould you even ask this question, Counselor Andrea Cort? Is it your clever plan to immediately transport your murderer to some other location outside our control, and then defy our justice by removing the device?”
Cort smiled. “I can’t blame you asking. No; I fully expect you to make sure that whatever you to him affects him permanently. It’s only because this is the first time it would have been done to human that I ask if it can be made temporary until after the effects are observed. In case of complications.”
“I see. That is a reasonable concern. Very well. Be assured that the implantation is minimally invasive and that the effects, while immediate, only become permanent over time, as the brain of the prisoner forges new neural pathways. This is enough time for us to confirm that the device is functional and that there are no medical complications that demand its emergency removal. However, healing is swift. By the time the adjustment period is over, which in the case of our people involves no more than about sixteen of our days, the brain of the affected individual has become absolutely dependent on the device and is no longer capable of controlling the body without its input. At that point, removing the device results in permanent dysfunction, sufficiently severe that the patient can no longer see, hear, move or speak. You understand, however, that there are only a very few circumstances even during the adjustment period where reversing the procedure will even be considered…and that I am duty-bound to tell the Xe that you have asked the question. He will no doubt not permit this Varrick to leave our world until we are certain that what we have done to him will govern his actions for the rest of his natural life.”
“Thank you,” said Andrea Cort. “If we go ahead, I’ll make sure we abide by that.”
Later, in the skimmer, as they flew between a sky the color of slate and a city rendered no more beautiful by its growing blanket of now, Andrea Cort shuddered as if touched by a cold skeletal hand and turned to Marys Kearn, who she had been ignoring since their take-off.
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