The Devil and Deep Space

by Susan R. Matthews

  “Secured,” Stildyne said. “On lawful authority directly received. Not a problem, sir. Next.”

  Good. Stildyne apparently grasped the importance of keeping the Record out of Specialist Ivers’s hands. Not because Ivers was in on any double–dealing; but because Ivers’s duty to the Bench could well be in conflict with what Andrej knew he had to do to see justice done — or more precisely, to avoid an injustice. “Noycannir?”

  It took him longer to get the longer word out, and Stildyne wasn’t so familiar with this one. But Stildyne caught it and shook his head this time, rather than nodding. “Dead as dead, your Excellency. I’ve never seen that catch to slip on you. But it’s a good thing that it did.”

  These things always happened so fast. They were still happening too fast for Andrej; the drugs were clouding over in his mind, moment by moment. He had to concentrate.

  “Thula.” He needed to get back to the Ragnarok as quickly as possible. There might be other elements to Noycannir’s plot of which he was still unaware, elements that could continue to work themselves out on their own momentum even after Noycannir herself was dead.

  That was the way of it with poisonous reptiles, or so Andrej had heard. Had Noycannir been behind the Bench warrant for his death? “Stoshik. Cousin. Stanoczk.”

  Stildyne moved his head to look around him, and Andrej winced at the sudden assault of the light. He needed Stildyne back to block the glare.

  “Ferinc’s gone for him.” It was odd to hear Stildyne call Girag by that name; but perhaps it was only fair, after all. Regardless of who the man had been, he was Cousin Ferinc now. And Andrej was going to have to count on him to comfort his son for a little while, until Andrej could get home again.

  There was just one more thing, then, and Stildyne would make the connection, Stildyne wouldn’t need to hear it all spelled out for him. Stildyne would know.

  “Uniform.” He had to get the Record back to the Ragnarok. So he had to travel in uniform; very few people under Jurisdiction were legally permitted to transfer a Record. But once Ivers logged her documentation and his codes were revoked, he would no longer be technically entitled to wear the uniform of a Ship’s Prime officer on board of the Jurisdiction Fleet Ship Ragnarok, let alone that of a Ship’s Inquisitor.

  Therefore Ivers could not be permitted to transmit the documentation that Andrej had endorsed until he had brought Noycannir’s forged Record safely to the Ragnarok and placed it into evidence in due form, legally, lawfully, uncontrovertibly.

  Maybe they should offer Ivers a ride back to Pesadie Training Command, Andrej thought; and closed his eyes. It was a mistake. He had only enough time to realize the error before he was unconscious once again.

  ###

  Andrej lay with his mind adrift for what seemed to be a long time, half–conscious of what was happening around him, thinking.

  Mergau Noycannir had forged the Record. That was shocking enough on its own, but there was more. She had registered confessed guilt on the part of three of his Security, three people who were not dead and had not confessed. The Record had no tolerance that Andrej knew of for reversing receipt of a confession. Once the identity codes were cross–validated, the confession had legal status; it became its own object in law.

  It would be all too easy for Chilleau Judiciary to turn its back on the forgery of the Record. The woman who was responsible for the crime was dead. It would be simple prudence on the part of the Bench not to introduce the shocking fact that evidence and confession could be so egregiously forged; the Bench had stability concerns enough already.

  And yet Ivers had said that Verlaine questioned the usefulness of torture in upholding the rule of Law. Couldn’t he use this instance as a shocking example of the fact that the Inquisitorial system was no longer entirely in the Bench’s best interest?

  If Andrej did not challenge the legitimacy of the forged Record, he could not reject the confessions it recorded. Smish, Murat, Taller, Lek, they were legally dead in that forged Record; how long would it take for someone to make them really and truly dead, out of the way, silenced, no longer a potential embarrassment and reproach to Jurisdiction?

  People held his body, moved his body, and Andrej paid almost no attention to what they were doing. They’d flushed the wound. Yes. And were restoring fluid, swiftly, to minimize the strain on his circulatory system. Andrej could hear them talking, but the words made no sense, and he had issues of his own to ponder.

  In order to protect his Security he had to get the forged Record into evidence as a forgery, and have its so–called evidence purged. He had no way of telling whether the information had been transmitted to any other Record, as for instance at some local Court.

  He had been hearing the familiar sound of the pumps, but they shut down now. The flush was complete. How much damage had he sustained? How much of it was permanent? Had the neurotoxin destroyed lung tissue or merely muscle? He could open his eyes and find out, but for that he would have to open his eyes, and he wasn’t done thinking.

  He had to get the Record back to the Ragnarok, and that meant as an officer, a Ship’s Inquisitor with possession of a Writ to Inquire. He had to ensure that his people would be safe. And if anyone should somehow force the issue and refer one of them to torture —

  He would not. So long as he was the Ship’s Inquisitor, he was the officer who would perform the interrogation of any assigned resources. And he would not. Drug assist, speak-sera, that he might consent to; but no more, Writ or no Writ.

  The Bench could remove him only by accusing him of treason. Failure to obey lawful and received instruction was mutiny. That would compromise the son of the Koscuisko prince in an environment in which the political stability of the Dolgorukij Combine was needed to stand as a balance against civil unrest during the coming transition of power; maybe that would work in his favor, if it came to that.

  But it didn’t matter any more. They couldn’t make him. He was the only one who could do that. Jils Ivers had offered him freedom, relief of Writ. A chance to come home and be father and husband, to enjoy the power that entailed to the inheriting son of the Koscuisko prince. He had so wanted to come home and meet his son. The offer of escape from Inquiry had been a huge and staggering opportunity, but he could not trade the lives of his people away for wealth and power.

  And it didn’t take relief of Writ to free him from the horrors of Inquiry. It only took a decision on his part. That was all. He had for so long told himself that he had no choice. He had for so long bathed in blood and torture, and done atrocious and obscene violence to helpless souls to rob them even of their last secrets before they died. He had believed that he had had no choice. He had been wrong about that. All of this time he had been wrong. Of course he had a choice.

  It was so simple. He could do as he was bidden, or he could die. Yes, it was rational to be afraid of that death; he knew better than any man alive under Jurisdiction what a Tenth Level Command Termination could mean. But by the same token, he knew what it was not; nobody could do what he could do with pain at such a level. He knew that. It was not vanity. It was only fact.

  Not very long ago he had faced in himself the fact that he had played Captain Lowden’s game and tortured souls in Inquiry beyond the limits of their crime to placate his commanding officer, so that Lowden would leave the bond–involuntaries alone. Not beyond the limits of their guilt — all of Inquiry was beyond the limits of any guilt — that had been part of the problem from the beginning. But beyond even the limits of the Bench’s ferocious list of torments to be invoked per the seriousness of the crime suspected.

  He had done it to protect his people, but he had been wrong to do that. He had no right to beat a prisoner to save a bond–involuntary a beating, he had no right to make such decisions, he had been wrong. And had killed Captain Lowden, not because he had been wrong — there was no help for what crimes he had done, they were done, he could not call them back — but in order to protect his Bonds from imposition.

&nbs
p; All this time he had been guilty of so far greater a confusion of the mind. He had always known that Inquiry was evil, and that he was committing sin each time he implemented the Protocols. He had known that from the beginning. He had believed that he had no choice. Now he could see it. All of this time he had traded torture for his own security, his own pride, his own parochial and misguided set of values.

  How could filial piety require that he sin? Why had he ever thought that his father and his mother would be more honored in a son who committed gross atrocity than in one who refused the obscene torture of sentient souls? In what way could his duty to the Holy Mother require that he mutilate the flesh and bone of souls that were of Her own creation?

  There was the old theological question, of course, of whether hominids who were not Dolgorukij had souls. It didn’t matter. He knew well enough that souls who were not Dolgorukij suffered as horribly as Dolgorukij did when they were tortured. The Holy Mother Herself would cry out in anguish to witness such suffering; and if She did not, how could She be holy?

  If he returned to the Ragnarok he could lose everything, and he had so recently been given everything: his parents’ forgiveness, if not their understanding; the chance to be truly married with Marana; and a beautiful and loving child who was his son. The power of the Koscuisko familial corporation. Freedom from Secured Medical’s horrible requirements, forever after. Everything.

  He could not turn his back on his people. There was nothing that he owned or had enjoyed that was worth the lives of his Security: and it would only begin with the lives of his Security. He knew how Fleet inquiry was executed, after all. He better than most.

  Lek Kerenko was a bond–involuntary. Lek had nothing that was his; even his body belonged to the Fleet, and the Fleet could do whatever it wanted with him, its absolute power moderated only by rational considerations of efficiency and replacement costs.

  Lek had given him the only thing that Lek had left to call his own — his trust, and perhaps even a portion of affection. How could he reject so great a gift as everything from a man who had nothing for the sake of mere fields and houses, money, wealth, and the domestic comforts of a hearth to which he was still yet a stranger?

  Brachi Stildyne had had nothing all his life. Stildyne had no cause to return anything to the world that had given him so little; and yet, Stildyne, who had grown up comfortless, uncomforted, tried to give comfort to a man from so different a background that he might as well have been an alien species.

  Stildyne, to whom nobody had ever extended charitable kindness or sought to understand, had saved Andrej’s life and helped preserve his sanity by exercising charitable kindness, trying to understand, efforts all the more remarkable coming from a man who’d never had the luxury of caring for another soul in his life.

  And when Stildyne had found someone to care for, how had Andrej honored that regard — except by declining to reject it outright? How great a sinner would he be if the best thanks he had for Stildyne’s strength over the years was to turn his back on his own crew and let them fall to torture, one by one?

  The people here on Azanry were his by birth and blood and familial affection. But his people on the Ragnarok were his because they consented to enter into the relationship, and not with the son of the Koscuisko prince, not with their sibling or son or father, but with a mere man, and a more than ordinarily flawed one. He had to go back.

  He’d live if he could but he’d die if he had to, and if he had to, he’d do it defending the people to whom he owed his life and his sanity. Andrej opened his eyes and started to sit up. It didn’t work.

  Stildyne held him as he fell back the few fractions he’d been able to raise himself off the surface of the diagnostic bed, and Andrej’s body knew better than to try to argue with Stildyne. Someone adjusted the shades on the nearest light and raised the level of the bed; Andrej cleared his throat.

  Stildyne was there with a flask of rhyti. The room came back into focus. Medical personnel, looking pale and very severe. Stildyne, more sensed than seen, at his side. Stoshik. Bench specialist Jils Ivers, and his father, leaning up against the wall with his arms folded and reminding Andrej suddenly and incongruously of the First Officer.

  “Can Lek fly the thula?” Andrej asked, looking at Cousin Stanoczk. Cousin Stanoczk looked rather pale himself. Andrej wondered what Stanoczk might know about Noycannir’s scheme that he could not reveal; or could it be that the Malcontent had not anticipated her attempt? That would truly be unnerving.

  “He will have to,” Stanoczk nodded, with grim amusement. “If you are to reach the Ragnarok at Taisheki Station.”

  What?

  Fleet Audit Appeals Authority was at Taisheki Station. Had ap Rhiannon been unable to defend herself against Pesadie on her own? Why else would the Ragnarok go to Taisheki, except to file an appeal? It was a worrying indication. The only people Fleet could lay a claim to this early, without evidence, were here; but Noycannir had produced false evidence. Had ap Rhiannon been forced to surrender collateral witnesses?

  He needed to review the Record; he needed to know exactly what Noycannir had placed into evidence. And then he needed to know if she’d transmitted that so–called evidence anywhere, anywhere at all. He could review the Record once they were in transit.

  “When do we leave?” Andrej asked, to find out what the parameters were. Cousin Stanoczk bowed.

  “At his Excellency’s convenience entirely,” Stanoczk said. “But you have to take my navigator.” And why did Andrej think he knew exactly who that was? Later. Andrej nodded thanks and acceptance at once.

  “Stildyne, I need to get dressed. Meet me at the thula as soon as you can. Specialist Ivers, would you care to accompany me?”

  She was in an interesting position. It all came down to the documents, didn’t it? Ivers nodded, a gesture that was almost a bow. “Delighted, your Excellency.” With rank. So they understood each other. “I may never have a chance to travel on a thula again. They cost money, after all.”

  A note of warning, there. The Bench had evidence in hand of how much money the Malcontent commanded. There would unquestionably be an inquiry, over the coming years, into how deeply the fingers of the Malcontent truly reached. That was the Malcontent’s lookout, though, and the Malcontent was more than adequately qualified to protect its interest. Andrej looked past Ivers for the medical people.

  “Prognosis, Doctor. Status, please.” He himself was a surgeon, not a soft–tissue specialist, and his experience of traumatic wound management was almost completely limited to the care–giving side of the equation. The house physician stepped forward and bowed.

  “Gross physical trauma to the upper right–hand portion of your chest, sir, the muscle beneath the front part of your shoulder. Some of the lymph is damaged, potentially some of the lung. It’s too early to tell. We got the flush–and–neutralize started in good time, but there is danger.”

  Of course there was danger. Every muscle in his back and side and belly on the right side of his body hurt, and a good representative sample of the corresponding elements on the left were protesting in sympathy. There was a huge empty space in his body where the upper portion of his chest was supposed to be — local anesthesia, Andrej presumed — and his mind seemed to be floating at some few measures’ remove from his body in a comforting narcotic haze.

  “Stabilize for transport, please, Doctor. I’ve got to get out of here. My duty absolutely requires that I return to my ship immediately.” He recognized the expression of condescending superiority on the doctor’s face; it was one of his own favorites.

  “I’m sorry, sir, it’s out of the question. I cannot permit it. Your wound absolutely requires immobilization while the neutralysis completes, and a single wrong move could set muscle–regeneration back days. Weeks. No.”

  As a matter of principle Andrej always unfailingly deferred to his general practitioners when he was the patient, whether or not he agreed with them. It was simply good protocol. Just as well that he
was at Chelatring Side, and not on board of the Ragnarok, because he would never have dared pull rank on one of his subordinate physicians. So arrogant a misstep could undo years of careful building of relationships.

  “I hear and comprehend, Doctor, but I insist. It is absolutely necessary that you stabilize for transport immediately. The alternative is not cancellation of transport but transport without stabilization, and we both know that to be a much more dangerous proposition. You are master in your own infirmary, Doctor, but I have a duty to the Bench which must override even your authority.”

  He knew his argument was persuasive, as far as it went, and that it was unlikely to be acceptable. Andrej would have respected the house physician less if he didn’t object strenuously to any such suggestion. The doctor looked across the room to Andrej’s father, scowling.

  “Your Excellency,” the doctor said. “This is an imprudent suggestion. I will not answer for the consequences. Your son faces serious and permanent injury, your Excellency, and possibly a fatal outcome. Relieve me of this requirement.”

  Andrej’s father straightened up, crossing the room to come to Andrej’s side. “He is my son,” Andrej’s father agreed. “I know this man, in a manner of speaking. So I believe what he has said, that his duty requires that he travel. As dangerous as it may be for him to travel with such a wound, it will be much worse if you will not consent to do what can be done.”

  The point exactly. Andrej could have smiled, but he had already annoyed the doctor, and who knew better than he that a physician was not to be challenged in his own infirmary?

  “I therefore lay the blame on his head,” Andrej’s father said kindly, but implacably. The expression on the doctor’s face reflected his clear realization that he had no choice; he would have to comply. “You are to accept no portion of the blame, Doctor. It is my son’s decision. Stabilize for transport, if you please.”