An Exchange of Hostages Read Online Free PDF Page B

furthering your instruction in any way possible.”
    The Bench had created bond-involuntaries specifically to support its Inquisitors. Ordinary Security, no matter how professional, sometimes recoiled from what might be required to support Inquiry. The Bench’s solution had been elegance itself: create Security whose indoctrination ensured that disobedience of lawful and received instruction would be unfailingly, immediately, strictly disciplined by a “governor” that held the pain linkages of the brain in a merciless grip. Thus Joslire Curran and others like him, condemned for crimes against the Judicial order to a thirty-year sentence with a surgically implanted jailer in their brains.
    “It is prudent and proper that you take their Bonds into your hand as Orientation commences in earnest. The troops here assigned will therefore declare their Bond.”
    The signal was clearly flagged out in the orientation material. And still it always took them too long to realize where they were in the program, to turn around, to face their assigned bond-involuntaries and stand ready to receive the Bond. Chonis could hear the shuffling sounds behind him and see the other Tutors’ Students out of the corner of his eye. He heard Noycannir pivot sharply and bring her heel down emphatically, completing the move.
    But there was no sound whatever from Koscuisko.
    “By the Bench instruction,” Clellelan said. That was his signal to turn around and bear witness to the ceremony, in order to be sure that his Students got it right.
    There was a problem, though, wasn’t there?
    He hadn’t heard Koscuisko turn around because Koscuisko hadn’t moved.
    “This tape is the record of my trial.”
    The words were spoken in unison; no problem with Security; they knew their lines. Chonis raised his eyebrow at Koscuisko’s calm, waiting face, suppressing a twitch of a gesture with difficulty. Curran didn’t look concerned. Had Koscuisko taken Curran’s Bond already, then?
    “According to the provisions of Fleet Penal Consideration number eighty-three . . . ”
    Student Koscuisko met Chonis’s eyes with a careful, neutral expression in his own and bowed fractionally, just enough to convey the concept of the salute.
    Most of the bond-involuntary troops preferred the group ceremony, because there was a measure of defensive insulation to be had from the presence of the other troops. After Curran’s last two Students, Chonis would have expected the man to stay as clear as he could from anything that might involve personalizing the relationship.
    “I will accept your Bond. — And hold it for the Day your Term is past.”
    The Students picked up quickly. Their lines were spoken in something close to synchronicity, breaking down into a babble of incoherent noise only at the point where the individual name was given. Tutor Chonis turned back to face the Administrator, dismissing Curran’s anomalous behavior from his mind.
    “You have accepted the Bond from your assigned troops, to be held by you in custody for the duration of the Term. It is just and judicious that it should be so. Welcome to Fleet Orientation Station Medical, Students all. We have every confidence in you, and will do our utmost to see you successfully graduated. Tutors, dismiss.”
    Maybe it was a hopeful sign, and Curran’s Term wouldn’t be like the last ones had been for him.
    With luck.
    They’d all be grateful if Curran got a break that way.

Chapter Two

    The first few days of a class were the same no matter what the course material, Andrej mused, glancing around Tutor Chonis’s office idly. There’d be introductions, though he’d already met Tutor Chonis and Student what-was-her-name Noycannir. There would be the review of the course schedule. And they would have a summary lecture, or else the first of several introductory lectures, depending upon the complexity of the coursework and the relative length of the Term.
    The medical university on Mayon was a compound city