Prisoner of Conscience (10 page)

A bond-involuntary with sufficiently serious an injury sustained in the line of duty may elect to terminate his Bond under honorable circumstances rather than incur the expense to the Bench required to return him to duty status. Termination of Bond under such circumstances is equivalent to successful completion of the full Term for purposes of nullification of Bench issues outstanding.

Joslire meant to claim the Day.

He meant to die.

The Bench was willing to forgive the balance of Joslire’s debt as a matter of economic practicality. If it would cost more to heal than to replace him, the Bench was willing to let Joslire die: and that was the question that Joslire was asking him.

Furious denial rose up into Andrej’s throat; he swallowed back angry words of rebuke with difficulty. Claim the Day? Whoever heard of such a thing? What could Joslire mean by trying to do this to him?

“Oh, no,”
Andrej murmured, almost to himself, horrorstricken. “Oh, please, Joslire, thou can’st not — ”

He heard himself speaking, and choked his words back down into his heart, where they burned horribly. It wasn’t fair for him to try to keep Joslire, not if Joslire wanted to go. He had no right to so much as ask it.

Joslire was waiting for him to continue, watching him, as though all of Joslire’s soul were focused in his eyes on Andrej’s face. Joslire was in pain. But Joslire was not worried. Shouldn’t he be worried? It was a bond-involuntary’s right to claim the Day, but Andrej held the Writ. He could do anything to his bond-involuntaries he wanted. He could deny Joslire the Day; it was for him to decide whether Joslire was to be permitted to go.

Joslire could be healed, with time.

But to live on as a bond-slave would be torture.

And after all that Joslire had given him, and done for him, and taught him, to betray Joslire would be worse than simple ingratitude; because for Joslire to live enslaved — and betrayed as well, by a man in whom he had placed his trust — would be ceaseless anguish upon torment.

As much as Andrej wished, he could not do it.

“It is true.” It was Joslire’s right: Joslire had earned his freedom too many times to count, and could not be challenged on the manner in which he chose to elect it. There was nothing left. Andrej looked around, Erish, Kaydence, Code, Toska; Chief Samons. Cradling Joslire in his arms, Andrej laid his cheek against Joslire’s forehead, speaking the words in dread and misery.

“It is true, Joslire, the Day is yours, to claim as you wish it.” The faith, the trust that Joslire had in him, how could he grudge it to Joslire to find his freedom here and now — when Andrej would leave Fleet at the end of eight years, while Joslire would be bound for twice as long yet?

“Oh.” Joslire had closed his eyes, apparently overcome with emotion or with pain, there was no telling. “It is well come. You’ll give me my pass, then, your Excellency.”

He should not hold Joslire so close to him. It could not make breathing easier. And breathing was hard already, and would only get more and more difficult, where was his kit, where were the drugs that would ease Joslire’s dying?

Joslire didn’t want any painease.

Joslire only wanted to die, and embraced his pain as the glad proof that he was to be free.

“Stand all apart.” If this was Joslire’s will, it would be so. But Andrej couldn’t help but try one last thing; Joslire had a right to the information, so he could make his decision in full knowledge of all of the facts that Andrej had at his command. “Joslire. Our Captain has petitioned to revoke thy bond. It may be that thou art to be free, and yet alive. Oh, reconsider.”

Reconsider, Joslire. For my sake, if for no other reason
.

But Andrej knew he had no right to say it.

He knew Joslire had heard him; he could tell that Joslire understood. It made no difference. “No better way for me to die than here and now. And by thy hand.” Shock was steadying Joslire’s words; there was to be no chance of pretending that Joslire was not in full command of all his faculties. “Even if. I’ve waited for this. Whether or not.”

No mercy.

No yielding; and no hope.

“Come, then.” Andrej raised his voice and beckoned to Code, who stood nearest to him at a few paces remove. “We must all say good-bye to Joslire whom we love, because he is to leave our company very soon. It is your moment, gentlemen, only someone must kiss Joslire for Robert, who will be sure to fault me that he was not here to cheer Joslire’s parting.”

Pain made a man selfish. Andrej could hardly stand the thought of Joslire dead, but there were others here, and who was to say they did not love Joslire as much or more than he did? They had been closer to Joslire, in a sense. They had lived together, trained together, worked together, fought together — and even taken comfort in one another, when comfort was needed.

Stumbling awkwardly to his feet, Andrej struggled over the chunks of street and pavement to find a place where he could be alone, to try to gain some mastery over himself. He knew what Joslire meant for him to do. He could think of no token that would show more love and gratitude.

And at the same time Andrej could not believe that he could do it, that he would be able to do it, that he would not falter and fail at the last.

Standing in a daze like a man about to crumple, Andrej stared out into the street without comprehending the scene he saw there. Support had arrived; the street was full of people, ambulance crews, Security. Wreckers. The Port Authority. Lieutenant Plugrath came up behind Andrej where he stood and spoke to him, but it was a moment before Andrej began to understand what Plugrath was saying.

“They’ll take Curran to hospital, sir. There’s the life-litter just now coming up, had to clear the wreckage on the other side. If we’re not too late, sir. It’ll only be — ”

Once he could grasp Plugrath’s meaning Andrej started to shake his head, struggling to keep his voice steady while he wept in desperate sorrow. “No. Lieutenant. Joslire is not to go to hospital. Erish, but in a moment or so, not before.”

He hadn’t said the important words. Plugrath was confused, and Andrej didn’t blame him. “Sir, surely it’s Curran worse wounded, we’ll get him to hospital, there’s time for your other man once the emergency is safely in transit.”

No.

The emergency was safely in transit now, to a refuge more secure than any hospital. Plugrath could not know that.

“Joslire will not be with us much longer, Lieutenant, he has claimed the Day, as is his right. I would have you keep these people clear of us. It is bad enough that he elects to die in the street in this manner without there being arguments in his last breaths over whether he is to be allowed to go.”

Yes, Andrej told himself, sternly.

No arguments.

No matter how bitterly Andrej wished to dispute Joslire’s decision.

“Sir.” Plugrath had been startled into silence, more or less; but at least Andrej had made his point. “I beg your pardon, sir. No idea. Excuse me. I’ll see to it directly.”

Plugrath went away; and the noise and bustle seemed to abate, somewhat, but whether it was because the cordon of Security that formed between them and the world shut out the noise — or whether he was in shock, and could no longer quite hear — Andrej didn’t know.

Too soon, too soon, here was Code at his back, tear-streaked of face but resolute of voice. “Sir. We’re ready for you, sir. We’re all ready. Joslire most of all.”

He couldn’t face it. He needed more time. But every moment more was another anguished breath in Joslire’s ruined lungs, another gross insult to Joslire’s shattered body. Andrej went back, and knelt down at Joslire’s side once more, taking Joslire’s hand into his own.

Joslire was smiling, and it wasn’t a grimace of pain, it wasn’t a rictus of agony, it wasn’t the hysteria of shock. Joslire was smiling because Joslire was free, or as good as, and the pain Joslire was in was as nothing to Joslire compared to his honor, and the reclamation of his name.

The sound of Joslire’s breathing hurt to listen to, because Andrej knew how much each ragged breath hurt Joslire, and the smell of raw flesh and drying blood was heavy and oppressive in the chill air.

“Joslire.” He knew what Joslire meant to have, of him. He wanted it to be soon for Joslire’s sake, even while he wanted it never for his own. Desperate to deny Joslire his freedom in order to have the comfort of his company, Andrej only asked one final question, knowing that he would not betray his man. His friend. The support of long black hours, and his unfailing bulwark in the adversity that was his life. “Joslire. Thy knives. What is to become of them, when thou art dead.”

Emandisan five-knives had profound religious meaning to Emandisan, though the knives themselves looked almost exactly like Fleet-issue to Andrej. Once Joslire was dead, there would be no one to drill him in his technique in throwing-knives, technique Joslire had taught him; and yet the knives Joslire had taught him were a part of him, now, how could he put a part of him aside?

Joslire’s smile widened, even as his hand tightened in Andrej’s grasp. The pain. Joslire reached up his free hand to the back of Andrej’s neck; what did Joslire want? A kiss to speed his parting? That was the Dolgorukij way of it, when taking leave. Andrej bent his neck to Joslire’s purpose, but Joslire did not want a caress, Joslire wanted the knife sheathed at the back of Andrej’s neck between his shoulder blades, the mother-knife that had been the very first Joslire had taught him to wear.

“They have been here all along,”
Joslire said. It became difficult to understand him; it was harder work for Joslire to catch his breath moment by moment, and the fluid in his lungs followed his breath up into his throat to garble his voice horribly. Joslire spoke slowly. “Since the first. That I came. To understand your nature.”

Joslire could not hold the knife at eye level, his hand sinking slowly to his chest. Twitching his hand impatiently for pain, Joslire settled the knife that he held loosely in his grasp so that the point of it pricked at the back of Andrej’s hand as he held to Joslire. Joslire’s hand in Andrej’s grip tightened yet again, with a sharp spasm of pain crossing Joslire’s face.
Who was holding whom
? Andrej wondered.

“Thy knives,”
Joslire said, and his body convulsed in ferocious agony, his grip like iron. The knife Joslire held bit deep into the back of Andrej’s hand, and with an effort almost superhuman in its terrific concentration, Joslire drove the knife clear through between the bones, pinning his hand and Andrej’s hand together.

The pain was very sharp, very surprising.

But Andrej was too startled to cry out.

“Thy knives and my knives. One and the same. Give those on my body back to Fleet, they’re nothing to do with me. My knives are thy knives, now and forever. To the end with thee, my master. And beyond.”

Pinned together, palm to palm, blood flowed and mingled. Joslire was staring at him with uttermost intensity, as if to will him to understand something Joslire had no words to communicate.

Oh, had it indeed been so, for all this time?

How could he have been so blind, as not to see?

“Give me my life. And let me go, Andrej.”

But whether Joslire actually spoke the words — or Andrej only imagined that he had — Andrej could not begin to say.

Joslire lost his grip on the hilt of the mother-knife, his hand falling like a dead weight to one side.

“Chief.” He could not move. He was tied to Joslire, pinned to Joslire, sewn into Joslire’s life. “If you would, please. I require some assistance.”

She hardly knew quite how to approach it; Andrej could imagine she felt awkward. She pulled the knife out through the back of Andrej’s hand, and the blood ran hot down his forearm. Andrej cherished his pain to himself to fix his last moments with Joslire in memory.

“Thank you.” He held his bleeding hand out for the return of the blade, and she reversed the knife to pass it to him hilt-first, out of habit. It was time. It was almost too late. Joslire meant to die by his own blade. It would be cheating him, to let him die of loss of blood or dry-land drowning. No matter how much it hurt, both physically and emotionally. In a way, the physical pain was bracing to him; it helped to deaden the agony in his heart, and see him through to do right by Joslire.

Andrej put the point to Joslire’s throat.

“It is the Day.” Joslire’s gaze was unwavering; and grateful. “Thou hast been good to me, Joslire, and I have loved thee. Go now, and may the holy Mother grant thy spirit easy passage to thy place.”

He knew how hard to push, and at what angle, and to what exact depth.

One final breath, as Joslire gasped, as if in surprise or in ecstatic pleasure.

Andrej kissed Joslire’s staring eyes for love, and Joslire’s mouth for parting.

But even as Andrej kissed him, Joslire died.

Vanished from his body; dissolved into the air.

Even as Andrej kissed him Joslire’s spirit fled; and it was only a dead body, now, only an abandoned piece of damaged flesh, only something inanimate and unimportant that had once housed a man that he had loved.

Andrej rocked the empty shell in his arms and cried aloud to the uncaring night, blind with grief and deaf to any sound in the reverberation of the emptiness in his heart. Alone. Joslire had gone away. He was alone.

Never to have the comfort of Joslire’s companionship, ever again —

Chapter Five

He was alone, abandoned, and bereft; but he was still Andrej Koscuisko. He had responsibilities that he had to see to.

It was cold in the street. The icy air caught in his throat, rough as it was with weeping. Every bone in Andrej’s body seemed to ache, but whether it was because he had been kneeling for too long on rocks and gravel holding to a corpse as though there was some trace of Joslire there, Andrej didn’t know.

It was only a corpse.

There was no one there.

But other Bonds were with him still, and though he took no comfort in their presence he could not in fairness overlook them. He was still responsible for them. He had been selfish in his grief for Joslire. They had loved Joslire, too.

And — what was more to the point — not only would they grieve, but they might fear that he would be resentful of them for being here when Joslire was dead. Erish had to go to hospital. Someone should probably see to the new wound in his hand. There was a body to be disposed of. The Domitt Prison was still waiting for his Writ.

He had to get a hold over himself, and be an officer, not some ordinary bereft soul who had the freedom and the luxury to grieve for his dead without a thought for what effect his behavior had on those around him.

“Miss Samons. If I could see you for a moment. Please.”

There was a good deal of activity around him, as it seemed. The sounds of movement and of people talking seemed to increase gradually in volume, as though the information they contained was coming into focus, in some way.

Chief Samons knelt opposite him, wiping her face. “Sir.”

“Erish and our others, how do they go?”

He had got stiff, holding the stiffening corpse. Frowning, Chief Samons reached out for his hand to help him to his feet. “They’ve given Erish good drugs. Code’s in pieces. Kaydence is with him. So far, so good.”

“Call Plugrath to me, then.” He must have been holding Joslire very tightly, from how his muscles ached. “What’s happening?”

“Plugrath’s got the street locked down. The Port Authority would like to murder that administrator, Belan.” Raising her voice, Chief Samons called back over her shoulder. “Bench Lieutenant. His Excellency is asking for you, sir.”

He wanted to go see his Security, but he had to get this out of the way first. Lieutenant Plugrath had brought Belan with him; Belan was very pale. Plugrath hardly less so.

Lieutenant Plugrath spoke. “What’s to be done, sir?”

Yes, with the body. People who died on duty were cremated, the remains returned to point of origin by special courier. That was the common fate for anyone who died in service; Fleet could not afford to handle bodies, still less concern itself with the myriad different rituals and rites required by all the souls under Jurisdiction. They would need facilities to burn the body. Hospitals would have them. Erish had to go to hospital, because even if Andrej had not taken a cut through his palm he was not an orthopedic specialist. Erish needed to be seen by bones-and-joints, not neurosurgery. It all fell into place.

“We’ll go to hospital, Lieutenant.” There could well be a wake-room at the hospital. It was Standard procedure to provide one. “There is a rated facility in Rudistal? There must be. Administrator, I am sure you can for us your senior’s pardon obtain, and say that we will be a little late.”

They were already late. How late were they? He had no idea what time it was. He didn’t care.

“Yes, sir. Of course, sir.” Belan almost stuttered in his nervousness. Andrej could empathize; it was a hard thing to be shot at in the first place, and a senior officer’s being ambushed while in one’s company was probably the stuff of nightmare from an Administrative point of view. “There is Infirmary at the prison, sir. Shouldn’t your party rather proceed now to your station, rather than make a side trip to the civil facility?”

“No, we should not.” Prison infirmaries were not hospitals. Erish needed a hospital. He deserved a specialist. And more than that, the body was to burn, but it was not to be considered for a moment that Joslire’s corpse should be put to the fire in a prison — as though still the Bench’s prisoner, a slave, a bond-involuntary. Joslire was free. He would be decently cremated with all due respect. And at a hospital, since as far as Andrej knew there were no Emandisan churches.

It was too much to hope that Belan would understand, and so Andrej didn’t try to explain it at all. “Take us to emergency receiving, if you please. At hospital. We will once the sun has risen see to the body. Lieutenant, you must arrange for handling after that.” They had not been at the Domitt Prison when the attack had taken place; formally they were still the Dramissoi Fleet’s concern. Perhaps. One thing was for certain; they were bound to go to the Domitt Prison, but what remained in the world of Joslire Curran should not.

“As you say, sir. I’ll tell the Administrator.” Belan was confused and a little resentful; he hadn’t given Belan any good reasons for his apparently high-handed behavior, Andrej realized. His insistence must seem arbitrary to Belan. He didn’t care. He didn’t have the energy.

“Tell also your service house. I will want a suite. And sufficient professional assistance, for my gentlemen. For tomorrow morning. I am sure the Domitt Prison will not grudge us a day for mourning. We have lost somebody that we loved.”

As had some of Plugrath’s Security, but it was different. None of them were Bonds. Or perhaps it was the same, but his own people were all Andrej could be expected to keep in his mind, surely.

Belan nodded, unhappily, but went away.

Andrej hoped he wasn’t in trouble with the prison administration even before he’d gotten to the prison. But if he was there was no help for it.

“They’re ready to load you for the hospital, sir. You can all ride together, if you’d like.”

All ride together?

Did Plugrath mean with Joslire in the car?

The street had been swept clean, debris cleared away. Far above in the black sky Andrej could see the brightest of the stars over Port Rudistal shining in the night. This was the street that had taken Joslire away; Andrej took one final look at it, convinced that he would remember every detail for as long as he should live.

But Erish had to go to hospital.

Turning away, Andrej climbed into the transport-cabin to go to hospital, and put the street behind him.

###

Their baggage had been packed in the rearmost car, recovered more or less undamaged after the firefight. Once they got to the hospital’s wake-room, the first thing that the officer did was wash and change his uniform. The one he had been wearing was soaked with Joslire’s life’s-blood, clear through to the skin; and while they’d dealt with such issues with their officer before — on other assignments, mostly — it had always been the blood of someone else, someone they didn’t know.

Code almost thought Koscuisko didn’t want to wash the blood away, because it was Joslire’s blood, and rinsing himself clean of it was letting go of some small piece of Joslire. But it couldn’t be helped. Joslire was dead. The officer had to change, because he couldn’t go into treatment rooms with his uniform so heavily contaminated with blood and dust.

Once he had changed, it seemed to Code that the attitudes of the hospital staff changed, as well. As if they only just realized that Andrej Koscuisko was a ranking officer, rather than just one step up from Bench Lieutenant Plugrath.

They’d all trooped up to check on Erish, and by that time the bone man was just finishing glazing the last chips of patella back into place preparatory to closing up Erish’s knee. Koscuisko lectured Erish about the brace he had to wear, too, which was a joke on their officer, because the bone man noticed the field bandage wrapped around the officer’s hand while he was gesturing to make his point, and called a soft-tissue specialist.

Having just made so strong a point to Erish about obeying medical instruction, their officer had no choice at all but to sit and let them do things to his hand. It was funny. Almost it was funny. If it hadn’t been for what had happened to them it would have been funny.

Then it was two hours before sunrise, and they had all gone back down to the wake-room adjacent to the body-mill. Joslire’s body was there, and Joslire’s kit. The officer claimed it was important that the body be dressed in clean clothing when it was burned, and Code didn’t see where that made any sense at all, but as long as it made the officer feel better they would all go along with it.

It wasn’t as if they’d never lost a member of a team before, though this was the first time it had happened to Code since Koscuisko had been assigned to
Scylla
. With Joslire and Robert St. Clare, who was bound to be hard hit by this event; Robert was sentimental.

So they all took off their duty-blouses and rolled back the sleeves of their under-blouses and undressed the body that had been Joslire, and washed the wound that had once been his chest as best they could, and dressed him once again in clean undamaged clothing. Code wondered whether Koscuisko wasn’t right in some sense about it being important.

Handling the body helped to separate his sense of sorrow from his here-and-now, in some way. There was so clearly nothing left of Joslire there, not even when he knew it was Joslire’s body, and Joslire’s clothing.

One thing was more than obvious: Joslire was gone from there. There was no sense in grieving for Joslire. Joslire was feeling no pain. For himself, yes. But later.

The officer took away the knives and gave them to Chief Samons. The knife that had killed Joslire had been cleaned, and Koscuisko was wearing it once more in its harness between his shoulder blades. To think that Koscuisko’s knives had been Emandisan, and all this time they’d all assumed that they were so much better than Fleet-issue because Fleet issued better to officers. To think. All of this time. Emandisan steel. Joslire’s own five-knives.

Erish could not do much, because he was drunk on the drugs they’d given him; but Erish cut the braid away from Joslire’s sleeves once he was dressed in his clean uniform. Joslire was free. He should not wear a slave-uniform, not even to be burned in.

Code could envy Joslire, being dead, because though he was dead Joslire was free.

It was almost time.

The sun would rise within the eighth.

It was important to the officer that the body not go into the fire before the sun came up. It made no sense to Code, and there was a question in his mind about whether the officer had a reason or was simply carrying a childhood pattern forward because he was in shock.

Scant moments before sunrise. Koscuisko had called for the precise time from the Port Authority and marked it by the clock in local reckoning. The furnace was ready: square and white and featureless, the door standing open, the interior gleaming in reflected light.

The corpse for burning on a narrow gurney, ready to wheel up to the mouth of the furnace, when the body would be slipped onto the high gridded floor of the furnace on a plank.

The officer, waiting, and the rest of them with him, exhausted and addle-headed with grief and the medication that they had all been made to take, and waiting for the next part to be done.

Now the time had come.

The sun cleared Port Rudistal’s horizon, though there was no telling from inside this room. It would be sending its first long feelers across the relocation camp, across the black cold sullen river, into the Port, up to the foot of the Domitt Prison that had caused them all so much grief already — and before they’d so much as even arrived there yet.

Koscuisko spoke.

“Oh, holy Mother,”
the officer said, and just for once it wasn’t an oath or a profanity. Code realized that the officer was praying; and it sent a shudder through him to hear it.

“This is Joslire, your child, the child of your body, who you love. Whom we have loved. Now it has pleased you to take him back, and we bitterly regret it, though I am grateful that you took only one of their lives.”

Koscuisko was not religious, though he kept the icon with its ever-burning lamp tucked into the corner of his sleeping-room. So much was merely habit; Koscuisko had never paid the slightest bit of attention to his patron saint — of Filial Piety, as he’d once told Code — in all this time.

“Send therefore guides and adequate equipage, and see your child safety home to shelter beneath the Canopy. And extend your hand over me and mine, Chief Samons not excluded, for you have bereft us all to your own purpose, which we are not empowered to understand. Holy Mother. So prays to you with all his heart your child Andrej, unfilial and unreconciled, but your child yet.”

A gesture of his hand for them to move the body into the furnace let them know that he had said what he felt needful.

Koscuisko stood and watched while they put Joslire in the furnace. Chief Samons secured the door.

She touched the switch, and the safeties engaged, and then the telltales on the wall began to move as the temperature within the furnace started rising.

Long moments, and Koscuisko watched the telltales, and Koscuisko wept, but to himself this time — not like before.

Code wept as well. He didn’t notice what the others were doing. He and Joslire had had a rocky start in the beginning, because of some forgotten issue with Robert, and Joslire trying to keep Code out of trouble with Koscuisko while Code had thought Joslire was trying to cover for Robert. Who had annoyed him.

The index on unreduced organic matter within the furnace started to fall off, first bit by bit, then in a smooth slow curve. Flesh did not long remain in such temperatures. Bone was more resistant: but the furnace had been built to serve the dead.

When the index fell below its breakpoint, the officer straightened his shoulders and wiped his face with his white-square.

“It’s done,”
Koscuisko said. “As done as done.” Though it would be a while before the furnace could be opened. It took time, to vent such heat. “And we have nothing left. Oh, holy Mother. Gentles, let us go away from here.”

Nothing except each other.

Kaydence in the lead, and Erish limping, they left the room.