The Devil and Deep Space

by Susan R. Matthews

  Right now there were only four people at the Matredonat who knew what Ivers had brought: himself, and Jils Ivers, Marana, and almost certainly his cousin Stanoczk. But Stoshik hadn’t been at dinner last night, though he’d said that he and Andrej needed to meet. Andrej wasn’t sure Stoshik was on the grounds at all; Malcontents were like that. They came and went on their own schedule, taking and asking leave of nobody.

  One of the house–master’s people was waiting, well clear of the mouth of the maze itself. Not one of Andrej’s own Security. That was odd.

  “Prosper all Saints,” Andrej said, giving the man leave to speak to him.

  “To his Excellency’s purpose and the profit of his House. Your outland Security are anxious to speak with you, your Excellency, in the library in the master’s quarters.”

  “Is something wrong?” Andrej had intended to look in on the schoolroom, but that was in another part of the house altogether.

  “It’s not for me to say, your Excellency. It’s the Malcontent’s business.”

  Andrej frowned. Was Stoshik returned? What would Stoshik be doing with Stildyne in the library? Well, there was the obvious, of course, since Stildyne and he held a sexual preference in common, and Stoshi’s sacred duty was to offer reconciliation to unhappy souls. But if it were so simple as that it was unlikely that Stildyne would welcome company. Stildyne might not know about Malcontents, who could be much more aggressive on their home ground than outside of Combine territory; there was only so much Lek was likely to have explained.

  Taller and Murat were at the door to the library, which meant that Lek and Smish were within. Nodding at them to keep to their post Andrej went through into the master’s library, closing the doors behind him. What was going on?

  Stildyne had a man seated in front of Andrej’s great desk that fronted the tall windows overlooking the garden. Smish and Lek were there.

  The Malcontent was not Stanoczk.

  The Malcontent was some tall, slender creature with green–tinted eyes and dark hair, whose long–fingered hands lay still and calm on the arms of the chair in which he sat, but whose fingertips were white with tension. Andrej spared only a quick look at the Malcontent on his way past to confront Stildyne, who stood beside the desk. “There is a problem, Chief?”

  The Malcontent had given a start when Andrej entered the room. Was it the man Stildyne had called to his attention at exercise several days ago, on the morning after his arrival at the Matredonat?

  “I’m not sure if it’s a problem, your Excellency.” Stildyne sounded more uncertain than he usually did. Andrej wasn’t sure he liked the implications. “This man has been keeping an eye on you ever since we got here, and we caught him trying to observe you in the maze. Lek says he’s Malcontent. I say he’s a deserter from Chambers at Gotrane. I used to know this man. There’s a discrepancy here that concerns me.”

  Lek was in the room, but he didn’t look distressed to Andrej. He looked a little dusty, yes. Andrej beckoned Lek to him; Stildyne stepped away. “You say Malcontent?” Andrej asked. Lek nodded, very confidently.

  “He wears the braid, your Excellency. And gave me peace.”

  Both convincing from the worldview of a Dolgorukij who had never been off–world; but not conclusive proof, particularly where Security warrants were concerned. Stildyne was a suspicious man. It was his job. “What is his name?”

  “He says Ferinc, your Excellency, Cousin Ferinc. Chief says differently.”

  Lek and Andrej both knew that what a man’s name had been before he elected the Malcontent had no particular relation to what he would answer to once he came to be called “Cousin.” But if this was Cousin Ferinc, of whom Anton spoke . . .

  “Really,” Andrej said with interest, pitching his voice to carry to where the Malcontent sat under Smish’s observing eye. “ ‘Cousin Ferinc’? The man my child loves. You were to be at — where was it?”

  The Malcontent didn’t want to speak, it seemed. Andrej could be patient. There was something odd going on here; he would call for Stanoczk if he had to. This was his house. He had a right to know what Malcontents were coming and going, and for what reason, at least approximately. “You can tell me, Cousin, or I will ask my Cousin Stanoczk. It is all the same to me. You have distressed my Chief of Security.”

  The Malcontent raised his face, so that the light caught his profile. Rather fine features, but not particularly Dolgorukij. Very strange. Some outlander’s bastard, hounded into the Malcontent by his exotic looks?

  “Dubrovnije,” the Malcontent said. “I promised to bring him a wheat–fish. Your Excellency.”

  Dubrovnije was the right answer; Andrej started to turn back to Stildyne and the next question, before his mind quite caught up with his senses. “A man may desert and throw himself upon the Malcontent for protection, Chief. It is the right of every child — ”

  Under Canopy. Stildyne knew that. Stildyne had been newly assigned, he to Andrej, Andrej to the Ragnarok, when some Sarvaw mercantile pilot had elected the Malcontent to evade prosecution for piracy. Years ago. But suddenly Andrej was convinced that he recognized Cousin Ferinc’s voice, and it had been even longer ago than the incident with the Sarvaw mercantile pilot.

  “He’s not Dolgorukij, your Excellency,” Stildyne said, watching Andrej’s face. Stildyne would know that Andrej had realized there was a problem. “I think he may have been Amorilic. Maybe. Petty warrant officer.”

  “Girag,” Andrej confirmed. Stildyne’s eyes widened marginally in surprise; Stildyne hadn’t expected Andrej to recognize him. And yet Andrej knew who he was, now. “Petty Warrant Officer, Haster Girag, wasn’t it? Cousin?”

  That was the man. The Malcontent shifted uneasily in his chair, as if to hide himself from Andrej, turning his face away.

  “You know this person, sir?” Stildyne asked. Carefully. There was a layer of inquiry in Stildyne’s voice that Andrej could not quite interpret, but it would keep.

  “Haster Girag,” Andrej repeated, and closed the distance between him and the Malcontent to stare down into the man’s pale face implacably. “You. A deserter. And you come into my house? You endear yourself to my child? Why should I tolerate this obscenity, ‘Cousin’?”

  He knew who it was. He remembered. Girag had taken liberties with prisoners in his custody, liberties outside the Protocols, unsanctioned and unlawful. Andrej had punished him. It had been at least seven years. Possibly longer.

  Cousin Ferinc stood up, finally, but it was only by way of putting some distance between Andrej and himself. “It wasn’t meant to go that way, your Excellency.” He made Cousin Ferinc nervous, Andrej noted, and followed Cousin Ferinc step for step across the room, stalking his prey without mercy. “And I don’t blame you for having questions. But I don’t have to explain myself to you. I’m under direction from my reconciler. And if you don’t mind I’ll be going. I’ve promised to bring Anton Andreievitch a wheat–fish. From Dubrovnije.”

  This was intolerable cheek. Haster Girag had been a bully. An abuser of prisoners. A sexual deviant, or if not a sexual deviant, then at least a man who found amusement in sexual perversion. It was beyond imagining that the Malcontent knew this man’s history and still tolerated his cultivation of a friendship with a child, any child. No. Not any child. His child. Anton Andreievitch Koscuisko.

  “You will not give any such thing to my child, Cousin Ferinc — not until I have had a chance to be sure that your reconciler knows just what you are. Who is it to whom I must appeal? Name this man, Ferinc, if you please.”

  Cousin Ferinc had his back up against the library bookshelves and stood there trembling, with the stink of the fear–sweat upon him. There wasn’t any place farther for him to go. He was afraid of Andrej; Andrej could tell. He had good reason to be afraid of Andrej. It was prudent and proper, just and judicious that it should be so.

  But Andrej was not going to threaten Cousin Ferinc.

  Cousin Ferinc wore the halter of the Malcontent, and Andrej knew as well as
Lek how much genuine immunity hung by that red ribbon around the neck of the slaves of the Saint. “It is his Excellency’s cousin Stanoczk,” Cousin Ferinc replied, in a voice that spoke volumes of shame and of humility.

  Andrej saw it all in a sudden flash of insight, and closed his eyes. Of course. He had turned Girag’s perversion back on the man, as suitable punishment for Girag’s misuse of prisoners. Now Girag enjoyed reconciliation in like form from Cousin Stanoczk. Andrej’s own cousin Stoshik. The obscenity of it was almost too much to be borne.

  “I understand.” He wished he didn’t. “Give my good Lek peace, Cousin Ferinc, and go. Do not let me see your face again. And have no contact with my child until I have had a chance to explain to Stoshik why your hands should be taken off at the wrists before you should be allowed to so much as touch such innocence.”

  Girag’s offense had not been against children, no. Not against women either. It had been the constraint of people otherwise his match or more that had seduced Girag. Grown men. But it was bad enough at that.

  Ferinc bowed his head. “By your command, your Excellency, under your roof.” He seemed to master himself moment by moment as he spoke, and gave Lek peace very prettily. “The peace of the Malcontent is with you, Lek, be easy.”

  There was finger–code passing between Stildyne and Ferinc, but Andrej ignored it. It wasn’t any of his business. He didn’t even want to know. When Ferinc had left, Andrej turned back to the room from staring at the backs of the books on the shelves of the library. “Chief. I need to talk to you. Gentles, if you would leave us, for a moment.”

  Lek was apparently secure, though quite possibly confused by the crosscurrents raised within this room by a Malcontent who was not Malcontent at all. Or who was not Dolgorukij. It was all right for Lek to be confused, so long as he was not in conflict within himself. It was with internal conflict that Lek became vulnerable to his governor.

  Stildyne seemed confused as well, but determined on something. Once the doors had closed behind Lek and Smish, Stildyne spoke, to have the initiative. “You also knew this man, your Excellency?”

  That was right. He was someone Stildyne had recognized. Girag and Stildyne had had history together of some sort.

  No, Andrej thought suddenly, with a spasm of apprehensive fear. Not that sort of a history. Surely not.

  Yet why not? Was it impossible that Girag and Stildyne had been lovers? It was still a far cry from abuse of prisoners outside of Protocol — “He was senior man on a detachment at a holding facility in Richeyne.” He would simply have to lay the whole thing out, and let Stildyne say what he would about it. What did it matter? He meant to break the bond that was between them; he would leave Fleet.

  No.

  He would leave Fleet, but that would not break the bond between them. He owed Stildyne honesty. “My Captain had been forced to second me to some Judicial investigation there. That man liked to play with prisoners, Stildyne. It was his practice to demand sexual favors in exchange for food and water. It is abuse of prisoners outside of Protocol.”

  Any Inquisitor could demand sexual favors, on pain of torment. It was recognized, if not codified, as useful in eroding the self–respect, and contributing to a good outcome accordingly. That wasn’t the point. The point was that even an Inquisitor was expected to observe the Protocols. Rape wasn’t part of accepted protocol until the sixth level of Inquiry; and any demand for sexual services was a species of rape, so far as Andrej was concerned, regardless of whether or not an assault went with it.

  What Girag had done was perhaps not so unusual a thing for a man with power over prisoners to demand. Andrej had not been naive then; he was not naive now. But whenever Andrej stepped into a prison, he expected to have absolute control over what abuse his prisoners were to be required to endure, and Girag had violated the sole right of an Inquisitor to inflict atrocity under cover of Law.

  “I very much wanted to deliver him to those same prisoners, Mister Stildyne, but it would have been inappropriate. I found willing recruits among station Security instead. I am ashamed to explain what I did to him, Chief, but I don’t think I’m ashamed of having done it.”

  Certainly compared to other things that he had done, his afternoon’s sport with Haster Girag paled into all but absolute insignificance. Except for Haster Girag, perhaps. Perhaps he was ashamed.

  Perhaps the imposition had been excessive. Something had clearly shattered Girag’s life; perhaps confronting his own hunger and being forced to admit it for what it was had been too much for him. It had been too much for Andrej, after all, if the specific nature of the thirst was not the same. He had never recovered from the realization that he was a monster.

  After a moment’s thoughtful silence Stildyne spoke.

  “Well. You should know, though.” There was an unusually grave note of deliberation in Stildyne’s voice, as though he faced the Court. “My previous acquaintance. We used to have parties. We used bond–involuntaries for entertainment. You would not have approved of my own conduct. Sir.”

  Andrej stared up into Chief Stildyne’s ruined face with shock and horror. He knew perfectly well that prior to his arrival on the Ragnarok Stildyne had been in the occasional habit of exploiting his access to bond–involuntary troops for sexual purposes. He couldn’t change any of what Stildyne had done; only what Stildyne did ever after, as long as he was responsible to Andrej for the welfare of those troops. It was unthinkable that Stildyne would revert to previous abusive behavior once Andrej was gone. So why was Stildyne telling him this?

  “To you I would trust my child in a heartbeat, Chief.” He knew perfectly well why Stildyne was telling him such things. And he had no cause to scorn Girag as diseased. His own hands were far more deeply soiled than Girag’s had been, though his sin was sanctioned by the Bench in support of the Judicial order. What were the games of pain and sexual dominance that Girag had played, compared to gross and unjustifiable murder? “But Girag has cause to bear a grudge. I cannot risk him next to my child.”

  Stildyne looked skeptical. “I see. Thank you, your Excellency. But if you did. Trust me with your son, I mean. What would he call me? Chief? Or Mister?”

  The question made no sense. Too much had happened today, and it was still short of mid–meal. Andrej needed to go into a dark quiet room, and think. It was the wrong time to tell Stildyne that Andrej was not going back to the Ragnarok.

  “He might very well mistake your worth, and call you Brachi,” Andrej admitted. “Being a child. And not understanding the respect due to a man in your position.”

  There was a flicker of surprise in Stildyne’s eyes, but it went very quickly. Stildyne bowed. “I’ll see about Lek, your Excellency. And ask the house–master to send your cousin Stanoczk, when he can be found.”

  Yes, that would be good. Andrej sat down at the great desk in the library and buried his face between his hands. This had been unexpected. Unnecessary. And he had not told his people. He would have to tell them. Soon. Not now. It would raise too many issues of judgment and abandonment if he told Stildyne now, in the face of Stildyne’s painful revelation about his past.

  “Thank you, Mister Stildyne. I will sort myself out between now and mid–meal.” It was going to take him much longer than that; so there was no time like the present to be started.

  What could have possessed Haster Girag to elect the Malcontent? What could have possessed the Malcontent to accept him? Who had made the decision to permit Haster Girag to come to the Matredonat and cultivate Anton Andreievitch, and who was Andrej Ulexeievitch to judge?

  But Anton was his child. And the thought that Anton should admire such a man as Andrej knew Girag to be was more than he could rationalize, even him.

  ###

  Ferinc bent his head and made for the escape of the library doors with all deliberate speed, struggling to maintain control of himself. Koscuisko was furious with him; Koscuisko had a right to be.

  But Ferinc was Malcontent. He could not be threatened; the degr
adation of his status as a slave of the Saint gave him immunity. No casual punishment assessed by any layman could compare to the humiliation of the red halter.

  He was not even legally a person, but an object. Slavery was illegal under Jurisdiction, but there were exceptions for religious observance, and the Malcontent was one of them. Koscuisko could not touch him. He was an object belonging to the Saint.

  And yet it was his doom — as Stanoczk had regretfully suggested — to remain outland and fundamentally un-Reconciled in his heart of hearts, because one black day years and years ago Andrej Koscuisko had mastered him, and he had been a slave ever since. Not to the Malcontent.

  I can explain, Ferinc signaled to Stildyne, as he forced himself to walk across the room rather than running. He had not used the finger–code for years, but he was confident that Stildyne could still understand his accent. No threat to the officer. Truth, Stildyne.

  Stildyne need not be angry at him for being here — he was no threat to Koscuisko or to anything that was Koscuisko’s, and among the things that were Koscuisko’s were the woman and the child that he had grown to love for their own sakes, and no taint of Koscuisko about them. Koscuisko himself had disappeared from Ferinc’s mind here, years ago. He had been almost at peace, and now he was damned.

  Cousin Stanoczk would be disgraced in Chapter. Ferinc had been disobedient, undisciplined, but worse than that had revealed by his behavior that despite the most concerted efforts Stanoczk had made on his behalf he was still fundamentally un-Reconciled. What would become of him?

  He cleared the threshold and gained the outer hallway, but Koscuisko’s Security were not stepping away. The bond–involuntary Lek Kerenko had one hand to his elbow, but very gently, as if to give support; the woman cocked her head at him, gesturing down the hall.

  “Chief’s room down this way, Cousin,” she said, and she used a Standard word for cousin that sounded oddly in Ferinc’s ears. “Come on. You can have a drink. You look as though you might not mind one, if I can say so without giving offense.”