Hour of Judgement (4 page)

Koscuisko shuddered. “I cannot go back to the Domitt, First Officer, I swear it. Not in one lifetime. And to submit to the First Secretary would mean the same, even if the name of the place itself were to be different.”

No need to ask whether Koscuisko had believed the testimony presented to the Bench about poor decisions made by subordinates, errors concealed from the audit branch, abuses not sanctioned.

“But Verlaine’s set up to draft his Writ.” Now that he felt he understood the background maybe Two’s information would benefit both of them. She cocked her head at one corner of her room, listening to the speaker — he assumed, since he couldn’t hear a damned thing. Then she nodded, which always gave him the chuckles, when she was upside down.

“It is confirmed, yes. Very much does Verlaine want Andrej Koscuisko. He has spent many favors which I am not at liberty to divulge, many of them irreplaceable. Once our Andrej leaves this ship — there are several months of accumulated leave, you could go and visit my children, the cave is large. It would perhaps be possible for you to become lost.”

The humor did not appear to penetrate far enough to touch Koscuisko in the state of mind that he was in. “If I could have known. It might have been better to have gone to the Bench in the first place. I did not understand that such a place was even possible, as the Domitt Prison.”

“So tell me, Two, if Andrej is too depressed to ask.” Moral support. “Is there a way out of Verlaine’s draft?”

It was of only abstract interest to him, of course. Koscuisko wasn’t a bad sort as a Chief Medical Officer, once one got past his personal quirks in the Secured Medical area. But Mendez wasn’t sure he really cared one way or the other.

“It is a problem for Andrej. No one can decide it for him.” Two had learned to shrug as an old woman, she had told him, and he was to treat her accomplishment with the respect due to the aged instead of asking her if she needed her back scratched between the shoulder-blades. “If the Combine protested there would be difficulty, and perhaps Verlaine would not be able to accomplish his goal. But the Combine has received many benefits from Chilleau Judiciary. Especially recently.”

“My father wrote to me, after the trials.” Koscuisko’s sudden interruption startled Mendez, since Koscuisko had seemed well sunk in silent gloom a moment ago. “He said that I had done well, that he was proud. That I should also behave with more humility, in future, because when all was said and sung a man should have respect for authority, and it did not present a pleasingly filial appearance for me to have appealed to the First Judge in so public a manner.”

Mendez winced. If Koscuisko’s people could say something like that to him, after those trials, then they simply didn’t live in the same world as that in which the Domitt Prison had existed, and that was all there was to it.

Respect for authority, yes.

Complicity of silence in atrocities of that nature — well, no.

Nai.

Never.

“Well, there.” Two let so long a pause develop that Mendez wondered if her translator had failed; but no. She seemed to be expecting a response of some sort, her beautiful brilliant little black eyes fixed on Koscuisko’s face. Koscuisko made a gesture with his hands of either helplessness or confusion, and that seemed to clue Two in that she hadn’t made her point.

“You are clever, Andrej, you can see. There are four things that you can do, and one of them is to go to work for the very influential First Secretary — who wants you very badly — of the woman who will quite possibly be First Judge someday. You could make your practice in the border worlds, but there are people out there who might recognize you, and you are not much qualified for such a life of crime.”

So Two didn’t think that voluntary self-imposed exile was a viable option. “Of course you could also go to your home, and — what is the phrase — slide on the ice into fruit-butter, because your life has no more astringent seedlings. Is this the Standard? I am not sure I translate the idiom correctly.”

For himself Mendez was almost certain that she hadn’t, but her meaning was clear enough. Still, she’d said four things, and Koscuisko was waiting.

“Or there is only one other thing. I must come down to you for this so as to gauge my effect. It will be one moment.”

Walking across the ceiling like an impossibly large stalking insect, shifting her weight easily between her strong little feet and the steely three-fingered hands at the first joint of her great leathery wings. Reaching the ground with a final hop from her ladder on the wall. Crawling up onto the surface of the table beneath her anchor-perch, sweeping it clear of its litter of bits of document-cubes and the stray container of fruit that had been dropped onto it from the ceiling with a gesture of one wing as she settled herself once more.

“Because it will be a joke, and it is good to share humor with others, it helps one to remember not to harvest from them. The joke is about the shortage of replacements for our Andrej. It is a thin joke, because the shortage is very short.”

“No.” Koscuisko stared at her, his face full of blank horror and disbelief. Two stretched out her wings and put her tertiary flanges over Koscuisko’s shoulders where he sat; a curiously tender gesture, a Desmodontae embrace, of sorts.

“It is of course not funny, as a joke, but such is the way of things. And it could be that there would be a transfer away from here, since you would volunteer, and you would be more useful on an active-duty craft.”

Mendez decided that he didn’t want to look at Koscuisko, just at present. Inspecting his manicure instead, he found the point that Two was making all too obvious, even if written in a scant thumbnail’s space.

Koscuisko had put Fleet between himself and Secretary Verlaine, at the beginning.

Fleet had loaned him out only grudgingly over the years, because a good battle surgeon was almost as hard to find as people who could live with themselves as Inquisitors, if what Koscuisko’s life had come down to could be called living.

And now, just at the point when Koscuisko had thought that he was clear, just at the moment when Koscuisko had believed he could get away — Verlaine blocked his path.

And only Fleet could stand between Andrej Koscuisko and First Secretary Verlaine.

“What must I do?” The voice sounded more than half-strangled, but it was not Two’s voice, so it had to be Koscuisko. “First Officer?”

“You’ll be obliged to write a statement explaining why you changed your mind about renewing.” He still didn’t want to look at the man, because his sympathies were engaged. That annoyed him. Koscuisko was smarter than he was, richer than he was, better educated, even better dressed, within the constraints of uniform.

Koscuisko was also put to it more brutally than any bond-involuntary by this turn. Well, more brutally than any bond-involuntary on the
Ragnarok
since Koscuisko’s arrival, at any rate, Koscuisko being a little odd about his people.

Stildyne was going to need to know about this.

“Oh, holy Mother.”

Now that he had to look — now that the naked despair in Koscuisko’s strangled voice demanded attention — he couldn’t see, because Two had Koscuisko covered over with her wings, sheltered within a matte-black cocoon of rustling skin.

“I will never get away from here.”

A pause, and Koscuisko’s voice strengthened, leveled out. “Thank you, First Officer. I would
. . .
rather
. . .
even whore for Captain Lowden than for the man who should have known about the Domitt Prison.”

Stildyne needed to know because Stildyne wasn’t going to want to leave the
Ragnarok
with Koscuisko still on it. Stildyne needed to know because Koscuisko was clearly in desperate need of moral support, and Mendez was not in a position to provide it. Koscuisko was closer to his Security than anyone else on board of
Ragnarok
.

Though whether or not Stildyne himself had ever been admitted to that intimacy was something that Koscuisko and Stildyne were apparently still negotiating, and none of Mendez’s business either way.

“I’ll send Stildyne with the documentation, Andrej. Soonest. Two, send a stop order on the termination payments, tell Fleet Medical we’re processing a variance in lieu of replacement.”

Koscuisko would get a significant increase in pay for renewing his term. It probably wasn’t a good time to mention that. As if an increase in pay meant anything to a man like Koscuisko, who had once offered the Bench to buy his bond-involuntaries out — all nine of them, two hundred and fifty thousand Standard each.

Too bad, Mendez told himself, with fleeting regret.

Too bad he couldn’t just arrange to have the signing bonus and the longevity increase credited against his own pay records, as long as Koscuisko was not paying attention.

Unfolding her wings slowly, Two kept one delicate little claw on Koscuisko’s shoulder, either following him as he stood up or steadying him. Mendez couldn’t tell which.

“I will go back to my place, then, and wait.”

He’d best be started himself, and call for Stildyne.

He was almost certain that Captain Lowden would be too surprised to even gloat.

###

Garol Vogel pushed his duty cap up off of his forehead irritably, rubbing the little tuft of hair that was all that remained to cover the dome of his balding head. “One more seal on the dead-box, and Burkhayden will be out of our hands. That Lieutenant’s got a dirty reputation.”

Their quarters on the
Lady Gechutrian
were ornate and luxurious in proportion with their Bench status. It annoyed him, all the padding and carving. Jils came out of the washroom in her towel-wrap and sat down on one of the heavy wooden chairs to comb out her hair, cocking an eyebrow at him. “That whole ship. The Lieutenant’s small game. Problem?”

He had claimed the least padded chair as his from the moment they’d joined the Danzilar fleet. He tilted the chair back against the liquor cabinet, now, trying to ignore the clinking of bottles as he did so. Bottles. Glass, actual breakable silica-based crystal for drinking out of. Wooden furniture. Thick napped carpeting made out of animal hair, hand-loomed by virgins dedicate, for all he knew. These people had too much money for their own good, and they disgusted him deeply, in an abstract sort of way.

“No problem. No new problem.” It was an old problem. She was probably as bored with it as he was. “How’d it go on your end?”

Jils declined to look at him, working on a tangle. “He’s unstable. We knew that. But he’s not stupid, and Verlaine’s got him pretty much locked this time.”

“Listen. Jils.” That was another problem, though she didn’t know the extent of it yet. And he had to be careful. “Are you sure it’s all to the good of the Judicial order? Koscuisko, I mean. Uncharacteristically petty of Verlaine.”

They’d known each other too long for him to risk an overt deception. They understood each other too well. Intimately, if not sexually so, but as far as Garol was concerned once you’d been stuck with the same person in a burrow on Sillpogie for a week sex could only be a letdown.

Jils didn’t answer him immediately, concentrating on her plait. She was still getting used to having to deal with the traditional Arakcheek-style working-braid that she’d selected for propriety’s sake. Dolgorukij women of rank wore their hair long, so Jils had gone for a quick forced-patch before she’d reported. The more they looked like Dolgorukij the less notice would be taken of them; and that could be one of the most valuable weapons in the inventory. “Koscuisko’s got the juice, Garol, you know it. One of the few Inquisitors in the inventory you can count on when you have to get actual answers, and not trash.”

She wasn’t answering his question, but he couldn’t push it. He was unhappy about what he thought might be happening at Chilleau Judiciary, but he couldn’t really explain all of the details without compromising his Brief. If it was a Brief. If the Warrant he carried for the life of Andrej Koscuisko was a true Warrant. Things just didn’t add up. Or what they seemed to add up to was not an issue he was willing to face just yet.

“So he’s good.” An argument would cover any hesitation she might detect in his manner. “He should be rewarded, not punished for it. We should let him go home.”

Why would Chilleau Judiciary have issued a Warrant on Koscuisko’s life if the First Secretary was to have what he wanted from the man?

“Personal sacrifices are sometimes required in support of the greater good. You know that.” No, Jils wasn’t quite convinced, but she’d get stubborn if he pushed her.

“And if you think this has anything to do with the Judicial order instead of Verlaine’s pride you’re wrong.”

This was working to distract her — a bit too well. He was picking a fight, again. Why shouldn’t he? Wasn’t conflict just a part of that constant honing of wit and interplay that made Bench intelligence specialists so good at what they did? Yeah. Right.

“One way or the other.” Jils, being charitable, was ignoring his best attempts to be irritating. “We can’t afford to let a resource of that magnitude escape us, Garol.”

Resource his ass. But that was the problem, right there. Koscuisko had the potential to be a resource; and Koscuisko was unquestionably the inheriting son of a very influential family within a respectably powerful bloc in Sant-Dasidar Judiciary.

People like Andrej Koscuisko couldn’t be quietly assassinated without someone noticing; and there was the Malcontent — the secret service of the Aznir church, the slaves of St. Andrej Malcontent — to consider.

“Crazy people, she means. A man with his surgical qualifications, and all Lowden ever uses him for is taking people apart. There’s intelligence out on Lowden. You know it.”

She’d finished dressing, now, and threw his exercise uniform at him from across the room. “Crazy is as crazy does. Four years with Captain Lowden, and he’s still alive, and that’s more than can be said of the last three. Where there’s survival there’s got to be a species of sanity. Come on.”

It was a point, about Lowden. Unfortunately part of the point could as easily be that Koscuisko had opted to survive by forgetting that he’d ever wanted to be a doctor. “You got a mind-sifter on it that you haven’t told me about?”