Prisoner of Conscience

by Susan R. Matthews

  When they were taken back down to the cellar, Darmon concentrated on getting as much to drink as he could. There was enough food. Their jailers didn’t seem to be too bothered by the existence of extra portions, but they got restless before there was time to eat all that there was, so Darmon and the others stuffed what they could into their clothing surreptitiously.

  Back into the cell.

  There was room to lie down, now, and Darmon even slept. When he woke up, the extra portion of bread he had hidden away was gone; but he didn’t mind so much. Someone had been hungrier than he was. That was all.

  He was to blame for all of this.

  He had been the war-leader.

  If he hadn’t failed his people they would still be free to herd the grazing animals on home slopes, and argue about weaves. Free to kill each other over squabbles that ran uncounted generations back, without the interference of Pyana. It was his fault, and their right to demand whatever surplus he might have to offer any of them here.

  But next time he would eat the food himself, before he slept.

  ###

  On the second or third day, they came to him as he stood in formation and made him get into the transport with two others. So now at least he’d find out what had happened to the rest of the people who had been taken away.

  He wasn’t entirely certain that he wanted to know, but he was too tired to really care about what might be about to happen to him.

  The transport took him out to a great earthwork; he was prodded into a line, to pick up a tool that lay where it had been dropped. By one of the bodies in the back of the transport?

  They were packing dirt into buckets to be carried up the slope, and further along the earthwork he could see the foundation of a dike taking form in the ditch below them. The dirt was heavy with moisture, at the bottom of the ditch, and he could smell the river from time to time. Land reclamation. Some Pyana would profit from slave labor, clearly enough; but he couldn’t spare the energy to think about it.

  It took all the strength he could command to fill his bucket before it was jerked up and away by the conveyer and an empty one moved up to fill its place. People were beaten for not filling their buckets, he could see examples enough. But the overseers brought water.

  No food, no, but water, and Darmon was grateful enough for the water after however many days of being kept dry that he was almost eager to work for a water reward. Survival meant doing whatever it took to conserve strength, to avoid punishment, to get as much to eat and drink as possible.

  He filled bucket upon bucket with damp heavy earth as the sun crossed the sky and his hands blistered.

  But when they were driven back to the prison, he didn’t go back into the cellar. He stood in work formation instead, and the overseer called off names one by one, and people went forward into the mess building as their names were called.

  Shelps. Finnie. Allo. Burice. Ettuck. Ban.

  One by one the people to his right turned away and hurried to the mess building. When Darmon was next in line the overseer called a name, and Darmon went; and the overseer nodded at him with what might have been approval of the cleverness of an otherwise dumb animal.

  From that time forward, Darmon was Marne Cittrops to the Domitt Prison.

  And he understood.

  He would be Marne Cittrops till it was his turn to drop his shovel in exhaustion and be hauled back to the furnaces, dead or alive.

  Then the next in line from the cellar would become Marne Cittrops.

  How many Marne Cittropses had there been?

  Whoever Cittrops was, he had a sleep-rack in a cell with his workmates assigned, and better rations, and enough to drink.

  He would be Marne Cittrops.

  Maybe he’d survive.

  He could be grateful to Marne Cittrops for dying, for failing at his work, because this was a better chance at life than he had had shut up in the cellar, constantly short of food and sleeping with one eye open on the floor.

  He slept better that night than he had since he’d been brought to the Domitt Prison.

  In the morning they were roused well before dawn, but they were fed and watered, and a guard went down the line as they waited for transport with ointment that seemed to numb yesterday’s blisters — toughening gel, perhaps. When the overseer called Marne Cittrops, Darmon ran meekly to his place in transport; and it was a long day, but he lived through it. He could do hard labor. He could beat this prison. He could survive this.

  If he could only have word of his child, he could hope.

  ###

  Now that he had finally gotten through all of the prisoners that the Dramissoi Relocation Fleet held in its displacement camp, Andrej Koscuisko walked standard rounds like any of the Fleet’s assigned physicians. It had been three weeks since the Doxtap Fleet had destroyed the artillery platforms above Eild, and taken the world for the Jurisdiction. Some of these people were only now being seen.

  Doctor Clontosh’s staff had been double-shifting, triple-shifting, robbing themselves of rest and sleep to see that the minimum standards of patient care at least could be upheld; the Dramissoi took its responsibilities to its deportees with admirable seriousness.

  Tent after tent-full of tense and resentful, desperate, or resigned and always suspicious people — was it because it had been this long before they’d had access to a physician? Or was it because they knew him by his uniform and his bond-involuntaries for an Inquisitor, and would as soon spit on as speak to him?

  “Joslire, bring the satchel, please.” The Bench Lieutenant, young Goslin Plugrath, had excused himself to see to an administrative problem that had surfaced in Andrej’s tour of the last tent. Plugrath would be back: but not in a hurry. Andrej couldn’t blame Plugrath for finding this tedious, still less for resenting being leashed to the heels of a senior officer like a watchdog.

  “Gentles, stand by. And someone go for rhyti?” Toska would go; but the point was that he and Joslire would go into the next tent alone.

  There were five people in the next tent, all adult males, oddly enough. Or four adult males and one adolescent, but that was by the way. All of them very suspicious to see him. Oh, very tedious. With any luck, their mutual understanding of the fact that he was outnumbered would settle their nerves. It did nothing for his: but life was imperfect.

  Two men seated, three on their feet, watching him warily. One with a soiled wound-dressing on his face, clearly more than a few days old; the best place to begin, clearly. Andrej beckoned for Joslire to bring his travel-kit.

  “You, friend. If you would sit down here, where the light is better. I would like to change your dressing.” There was no sense in asking what wound it was, where he had gotten it, how old it was. The fewer questions he asked, the more chance he had of gaining grudging cooperation. And it seemed clear enough to Andrej; something had sliced the man across the face possibly as long ago as would be consistent with Eild’s last desperate struggle to retain its freedom. Carefully but crudely dressed, as though by persons with time but no resources — like persons in a displacement camp, sensibly reluctant to draw any attention to themselves if it could be avoided.

  Working in silence, Andrej dressed the wound. It had been kept clean. There would be scarring, but there were no obvious signs of infection; and though it was quite obviously very painful, the Nurail bore his ministrations with quiet patience, unflinchingly. Clear across his face from above his right temple across the space between his eyes at the top of his nose, traveling the full distance of his cheek to terminate at the jawline — almost too precise to be accidental or inflicted in the heat of battle.

  But that was none of Andrej’s business.

  “It’s healing well.” Two of the other Nurail had come to stand to one side where they could watch, being commendably careful not to alarm the Security outside by stepping between Andrej and the open door. “I do not envy you the sting of it. Are you able to sleep? No matter, here. Accept these, to be taken if the wound should begin to tr
ouble you, three at a time but only twice a day. You have access to drinking water? Good. And if your temperature should start to rise, present yourself on emergency report. Any infection in tissue so close to your brain must be treated with absolute seriousness.”

  If Robert were here there would be an unspoken joke on this issue, communicated in its entirety with one quick glance — how could it be that there should be an issue, when he had been so many times instructed that there was not enough Nurail brain to begin with for damage to be detectable? It would be a joke, if it were Robert, but Robert was not here. Andrej missed him.

  It had been Robert St. Clare at Fleet Orientation Station Medical, all that time gone, who had shown him how he was to carry himself to survive the use to which Fleet meant to put him; Robert, and Joslire, of course. And Robert had been sent with him to Scylla as part of the bargain that he had made with the Station Administration for Robert’s life. But Joslire had elected to follow him of his own free will.

  Joslire —

  As Andrej’s thought traveled from Nurail to Robert to Joslire he glanced around to find Joslire, just to see him there. Joslire stood at the ready with the travel-kit; but something was a little peculiar, almost wrong.

  Joslire was upset about — what?

  “Thank you, sir.” The wounded Nurail’s voice startled Andrej back into focus. “It has been a little wearing. But all’s well here aside.”

  It had to be painful to speak, with his face cut in that manner. Andrej appreciated the courtesy all the more; thanks were something he almost never got to hear, any more, not since he’d been seconded to Dramissoi. Andrej nodded, smiling in appreciation but unable to quite take one man’s word for it even so. “That is good to learn. All is well with you, then?” he asked the nearest Nurail, a short and stocky bearded man who seemed to be frowning, by the lines of his forehead.

  “As well as can be hoped for, in such a state as you find us — ”

  Then he bit the phrase off short, leaving Andrej to wonder if it had been all he’d meant to say. But it wasn’t up to him to press it. If the Nurail said he was all right, he was all right. Andrej had no brief to force examination upon these people without good and evident reason to do so.

  Therefore he merely took the statement as complete, and did a quick scan of the other faces in the tent. The second Nurail beside the bearded one, also bearded, but tall and well built like Robert rather than being short and more or less square in shape. Two others sitting on a sleep-rack together, the younger wearing a blanket across his shoulders as if he were cold, meeting his eyes gravely as Andrej looked at him.

  Something . . .

  The younger man had unusual eyes. Andrej couldn’t decide what it was he noticed, from where he stood, but if he went over to look — to satisfy his curiosity — he would probably give the wrong idea. Something peculiar. The blanket across the young man’s shoulders was lapped over his knees, falling in concealing folds over arms clearly folded across his chest —

  Joslire.

  Joslire had noticed something.

  And suddenly Andrej knew exactly what it had been.

  His mind racing, Andrej stared at the young Nurail on the sleep-rack, trying to consider – judge – evaluate — balance, and decide as many of the questions in his mind as he could manage in an instant. Joslire had noticed, but Joslire had said nothing. Joslire said nothing now, only bowing in acknowledgment when Andrej looked back over his shoulder at Joslire standing by the door.

  Lieutenant Plugrath was off with the quartermaster and did not care to pay too much attention one way or the other. But he had his clear duty, how could he not cry this to the First Officer at once?

  Because the blanket folded so carefully across that young Nurail’s shoulders and across his knees did not conceal arms that were folded across his chest.

  The angle of the curve of the upper arm was wrong; it was a little thing, and he never would have snagged on it but for his unusually rich experience — especially recently — of dealing with people whose arms had been shackled behind their backs.

  He had been quiet for too long. The Nurail had all noticed; and although Andrej was careful not to notice in turn, there was a savagely repressed sense of desperation in the eyes of the Nurail in the tent, all fixed on him. All except the youngest, who had turned his face away with a fine air of casual unconcern. It was very well done. It was valiantly done. It was a splendid effort.

  It didn’t work.

  “That is a nasty scrape, across your throat,” Andrej said to the young man. “If you don’t mind, I mean to have a look at it.” And there truly was a scrape, visible now that the Nurail had turned his head. Had there not been one Andrej would have been forced to invent it.

  “It’s nothing to trouble the officer’s self over, really, no need — ”

  “There is no use in arguing with physicians.” The tension levels within the tent were mounting moment by moment; and he had to have control of the situation, for Joslire’s sake as well as for his own. Uncomfortably aware that the odds of being jumped out of sheer helpless rage and frustration were increasing to a dangerous degree, Andrej forged ahead.

  He couldn’t walk out on this now. One way or the other he had to resolve it. “Especially not physicians with rank, we expect to be allowed to make up our own minds about things, regardless of appearances. Howsoever obvious they might seem.” Maybe that would be a hint. Maybe.

  Andrej crossed the small space in the tent past the seated Nurail with the wounded face, willing himself to display in his posture and his pace a confidence that he did not feel.

  A rope burn, that was what Andrej had seen on the young man’s neck, and it only convinced Andrej that he did in fact know what was going on. What had happened.

  “If you would shift,” he suggested to the Nurail who sat on the sleep-rack next to the younger man, glaring up at him with affront and savage hatred. “I’d like to sit down and look at this welt.”

  What should he do?

  Clearly the young man had been somebody’s prisoner.

  Clearly it was his duty to report it.

  Yet he had heard First Officer say that there were no prisoners unaccounted for, and that Nurail who had been half-flayed with the peony had also been somebody’s prisoner — and unlawfully misused by them. What did he care if somebody had meant to send the young man to the torture, so long as the Dramissoi Relocation Fleet had overlooked him?

  There were so many prisoners already.

  He was tired and angry, tired of tent after tent full of frightened people held in straitened circumstances, angry at the casual abuse so many of them had suffered prior to their arrival here.

  Could he rationalize taking the Law into his own hands, to aid and abet a fugitive from justice?

  That was the point exactly, though, at least in a sense.

  This young man was not a fugitive from justice.

  He was a fugitive from a vengeful Bench, and that was something else entirely.

  Slowly, as if almost despite himself, the Nurail shifted to one side, making room for Andrej to sit down. The young Nurail himself was watching Andrej carefully, and the expression on his face looked to Andrej to be at least as much challenge and curiosity as fear.

  Andrej sat down beside him and lifted the blanket carefully from behind the young man’s back, draping it to the front over the young man’s shoulders to preserve the illusion. Yes, chained at the wrists behind his back, and the hands themselves swollen — it had been days, perhaps, with no way to get to a tool intelligent enough to decipher the Bench-standard manacles or sturdy enough to hammer the bonds through by main force.

  Just as well.

  Hammering through the bonds would have damaged the wrists badly. The Bench was very careful about its security encoders; the likelihood of finding a key sophisticated enough to do the job was not good. Keys for manacles were restricted issue, much more tightly controlled all in all than the manacles themselves.

  These Nu
rail probably would not be able to find a key at all, still less before the damning fact of the matter would be revealed — as it would surely be during in-processing at Rudistal, if not before.

  Few Judicial officers were assigned master keys.

  But he had one in his travel-kit.

  He was Andrej Ulexeievitch Koscuisko, Ship’s Inquisitor, Jurisdiction Fleet Ship Scylla.

  He was expected to have lawful need to loose a prisoner’s manacles, even if it was only to be in order to bind them over into some other form of restraint.

  “I’ll want a salve, Joslire.” It was dim at the side of the tent where he sat, but Andrej didn’t need more light to know what he was looking at. The skin would have suffered the effect of those manacles, especially over a period of days. But that wasn’t so much the point as that his salves were in his travel-kit. “Bring me my bag, if you would, it’s the shorris ointment, I’m not certain how to tell you exactly where to find it.”

  Shorris ointment would go for the welt at the young man’s throat as well. Someone had dragged the young man by a halter, perhaps. There were marks from a beating, blood soaked through clothing and dried, but that would wait. First things first. The Nurail were confused, and anxiety could make a man irrational.

  He had to keep talking. “Have you other hurts, that I should be told of?” Joslire brought his kit, but had not handed it to him; Joslire knelt down in front of where Andrej sat, instead, searching through the contents of the kit he opened on the floor. Andrej noted that Joslire had his back to the door. No one standing in the brighter light of day outside the tent would be able to see quite what Joslire was doing.

  “Shorris ointment,” Joslire said, pulling something out of the bag at last to pass it to Andrej in both hands. “I think that this was what his Excellency wanted?”

  The right ointment, too, all of these years of fifth-week duty in Infirmary had served Joslire well. He knew what he was doing.