Fic: It's a long way to Escobar (5/20)
It's a long way to Escobar
by jetta_e_rus aka Georgette
Slash, PG-13. Drama, action, a detective story.
Translated from Russian.
The table of contents is here
Chapter Five,
where the medical treatment is only a pretext for Illyan's thoughts about security.
***
Illyan had already become accustomed to the procedure of monthly neurological testing a few years ago, but he had some doubt of its necessity until now. But it was no more sensible to object to medics than to go up against a force shield or to spit into the wind.
The two officers exchanged greetings: Illyan saluted, Surgeon Zarowski returned a mere nod and pointed him to the examination chair. The lieutenant sat where was directed to. The doctor left his comconsole, rose and pulled out a scanner's lamp on the articulated arm. Illyan settled back and pressed the nape of his neck to the cold metal plate, then turned his head obediently left and right. As usual, the results of the tests were within the limits from "good" to "excellent". The thing which really worried Illyan was in his head but not literally.
Illyan's duty to medicine finished, he stood up, holding one elbow slightly off at a distance. Unfortunately, this detail didn't escape a professional surgeon's sight.
"Have you soiled your sleeve, lieutenant, or is it something more in my line of work?" he asked nodding towards the suspected limb.
Illyan bent his neck contritely, "Injured during a... a fight."
"Let me see," the surgeon ordered.
Illyan took off the uniform tunic, which was carefully hung on the station chair's back, and rolled up the sleeve of his shirt.
Zarowski felt all over his swollen elbow without delicacy, took a portable scanner from the comconsole, passed it over the arm, and snorted with disapproval. "You are not a seventeen-year-old boy breaking your arm in training. Where did this come from?"
"Breaking?" Illyan repeated, surprised.
"I frighten you. In fact, this is only a serious sprain. I'm going to work on it with an electrical stimulator so you will be able to fight again in three days." The surgeon performed all this without interrupting the conversation; he fastened the cuff on Illyan's elbow joint, put contact plates under it and connected the device up. "Who was it?"
"Bothari," the lieutenant informed him. But he preferred to hold back the other details; for example, it hadn't been training at all. But these details were definitely odd.
Since his military school years Illyan had become used to the fact that when his messmates had had drawn up ranks according to size, he had found himself in the middle at best. This had never worried him too much; in his first year he had even regarded his height as an advantage when he had desired to serve aboard a fast courier. But the most important criteria for recruitment of the Crown Prince's personal guards was "large and tall", although they were as well-trained, of course, as they were tall. Because of his slighter physique, Illyan was hopelessly eclipsed by these fellows, even in the same uniform and with the same Horus Eyes on the collar as his own.
But Vorrutyer's new, or more precisely, former, batman stood out even against this background. He was broad-shouldered, stringy, tall, but he always hunched up strangely as if he tried to hide his height. Moreover, Sergeant Bothari had a face so notably ugly that after looking at him Illyan changed his mind and thought that his ID picture rather flattered him. No wonder that Bothari, looking like this, was an unsociable man. Illyan had never seen the sergeant talk with anybody as a friend. Bothari hadn't attended common gym training with the other guards; when he had come to lunch at the non-com mess, he had tried to occupy an empty table, and nobody had taken a seat near him. When the sergeant hadn't been hurrying to carry out the Vice Admiral's instructions, he had mostly hidden either in Vorrutyer's cabin or in his own.
Illyan was wary of conflict with Bothari. It was rubbish that in a fight your opponent's comparative size was not important. Maybe, his height wasn't so essential but his arm's length and his weight determined too much when your training was almost equal. Oh, yes, in a real hand-to-hand fight or in the ring, the one who had more adrenalin boiling in his blood had an advantage. But then Illyan had been in the Admiral's cabin and hadn't waited for a direct attack.
A physical attack, he meant. Illyan hadn't doubted that the Vice Admiral would immediately turn this almost-private talk between him and Vorkosigan into an occasion to shake off the venomous foam from his lips. The Commodore had received a direct order to come in the door of Vorrutyer's indecently luxurious cabin.
As expected, Aral's bitterest friend Ges hadn't failed to say some scurrilous things about everything concerning him, not excepting Illyan himself in his duties as Aral's company. He had hoped to provoke Vorkosigan, but in vain. Vorrutyer's expected dialogue had been reduced a monologue, interrupted from time to time by Vorkosigan's standard remarks of "Yes, sir" only. Finally, he had replied to the last mockery, "Have you finished speaking your mind yet, Commander? I need to go. I have no time," and turned to the door.
Near the oval doorframe Vorrutyer's sergeant had loomed like a single gargoyle, glancing at the visitors silently. The slow-witted batman had blocked Vorkosigan's way, and Illyan had had to nudge him carefully aside...
Contrary to all tales, ImpSec men don't have a sixth sense for danger, but good reflexes, gotten into shape during hundreds of hours of training. There had been reflexes that had saved Illyan's arm from a fracture; the sergeant had applied a painful arm-lock at his full, and enormous, strength. Illyan had hardly kept his balance and felt that his released arm had hung down as if it had just been stunned, and waves of fiercely boiling water had emanated from his elbow to shoulder and to his fingers.
But the pain hadn't been so strong as his astonished bewilderment. The soldier - an excellent soldier, as Vorkosigan had said - had tried to fall on an officer without any cause. This accident had been as incredible as if he had cut himself with a dull ceremonial sword. Or he had fumbled in the bread-basket and his finger had caught there by a mouse trap. Or he had got a poisoned cup of coffee from an ordinary public coffee machine...
"I would not have expected this folly from you," the surgeon muttered, "This guy has his head on backward, but the yours is ok, isn’t it?"
Illyan had already managed to notice that Bothari had some mental troubles, but it would be useful to hear the story from the very outset. The treatment for his injuries wasn't pleasant, and his aching elbow throbbed and stung hotly. It made sense at least to profit from this quarter of an hour and to make a plausible pretext to talk of the treatment.
"And what is wrong with his head? His files are quite silent in this matter."
"Are you curious for keeping up the conversation or asking as an official request, Lieutenant?" the surgeon replied with a counter-question, and this question wasn’t rhetorical.
With all his apparent dislike for the system of seniority, Colonel Zarowski, the chief surgeon of the flagship, was subordinate to the same boss as Illyan himself, although this fact was advertised in no way. Negri's clear and unambiguous orders to Illyan included, among other things, a list of fully trusted persons on this ship's crew. The colonel was at the head of this list. And their disparity in ranks kept the Emperor's spy from over-perseverance, so he yielded a little.
"The official one, sir. How would you describe his psychiatric problem, as a doctor?"
"An aggressive sociopath." Surgeon Zarowski eyed Illyan skeptically as if he doubted of his knowledge about psychiatric terms. But Illyan had seen so many psychiatrists since his chip's installation that all their favorite learned words had been stamped firmly on his indiscriminate electronic memory.
"Let me explain what I'm asking about. Commodore Vorkosigan considers your Bothari to be a good soldier in the hands of a worthless commanding officer. And I regard him as a loony that it would be dangerous to issue a digging tool to, not to mention a plasma arc. Where am I wrong?"
"Bothari's madness is useful here, as his respect for the Regulations".
"Are you calling this as a 'respect for the Regulations'?" Illyan moved his shoulder significantly since his elbow was fixed.
"Bothari thinks straightforwardly. He fulfils orders, one at a time. But he has not a whit of respect for rank, so you shouldn't believe that your lieutenant's tabs would be of importance to him." The medical officer's nail snapped on his own collar tab. "Bear in mind that this judgment about the sergeant isn't my own at all. Our Captain knows better, Illyan, if he thinks that Bothari is in the right place."
Ah. Zarowski was an agent, too, so Security itself -- that is, Negri -- had examined and confirmed the fitness of the deranged non-com to this post.
"As Vorrutyer's batman."
"Indeed. Vorrutyer thinks that he entirely controls his tame madman. We don't prohibit him from thinking that."
"But who does control him? You?"
"Good God, no! I'm only watching for results, the rest is not in my purview... Lieutenant, don't jerk your elbow, you'll disturb it."
Colonel, don't digress, anyway you'll fail to disturb me, Illyan countered in his mind, Although... thank you for the hint.
"Besides, the pharmacology that the Vice Admiral possesses and applies doesn't do his batman good," Zarowski added.
"He treats Bothari? On his own?" Illyan was surprised.
"Quite the contrary," the surgeon corrected dryly. "I suspect an extensive psychedelic assortment."
"Does Vorrutyer really not understand what is he doing?" Illyan almost jumped but he was held in place by the strong surgeon's hand. Yes, he had never thought that Vorrutyer had much good sense, but this news was beyond all boundaries, even the boundaries of the mere instinct of self-preservation.
But the colonel obviously didn't want to continue this talk. "I don't discuss my commander's conduct and recommend you don't do so, either," he snapped out. It looked as if he was well-informed about this entire situation but wasn't going to tell anything. "Don't meddle in matters that don't concern you directly or else you won't get off with a contused elbow. Do your service duties reserve you too much free time for thinking?"
"Indeed, I do no more now than think," Illyan sighed. "'Wait and watch' is our motto, and all the secret meaning of our work. Sometimes I think that those monsters near the main entrance to the Headquarters are an apt illustration of a model ImpSec man. Awesome, silent and not doing anything until real troubles come."
"If they come," said Zarowski sarcastically, "your exemplary watchfulness isn't worth a pin."
This sentence, heavy with warning, paused their talk. Illyan could concentrate either on the sensation in his long-suffering elbow or on his thoughts about what he had just heard. The latter seemed to him more interesting, though it was just as ticklish.
Well. Vorrutyer is sure that he controls Bothari. Negri believes that Bothari respects the Regulations above all else, so... is this his only reason to obey his tormentor and commander? It is interesting. It means that he would carry out any order, if only it... Wait. Who is the fleet Commander-in-Chief subordinated to, according to the Service Regulations? The answer is obvious: to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, that is to say to the Emperor. But the reasons aren't so obvious. Is the mad sergeant a sort of human insurance policy against Vorrutyer’s potential mutiny? Where is his trigger if he is a gun? There is no sense here. Especially as the Crown Prince of the Imperium is the First Commander-in-Chief... or is it just a reason, maybe?
Illyan was so focused that he bit his lip. The surgeon eyed him reproachfully, because this treatment wasn't so painful that he should demonstrate his agony.
The Crown Prince Serg. Of course, it had been impossible for me to get the complete file of the First Commander, but Ezar had told me something peculiar that evening. During the last two years the Prince had attempted to usurp the Emperor's title at least twice. His father overlooked these attempts only because they had been crushing failures. But who knows... Why wouldn't he dare to try a third time, when he has the largest body of troops for a decade under his command? However it's odd to rely in this matter on a drugged psycho who is not aware of reality.
But... why not? This is a redoubling. Insurance. The right hand doesn't know what the left one is doing, as usual. The same principle as in the structure of the Emperor's personal Security service: all the little secret and separate compartments are known only to Negri and Ezar.
Or maybe it's only my delusion. I have eluded schizophrenia produced by the memory chip, but it seemed I have just caught paranoia as an occupational disease...
"Are you so delighted with the electrical stimulation, Illyan, or have you fallen into a trance so as to endure the intolerable pain?" the spiteful voice of Zarowski interrupted his thoughts. The chief surgeon was caustic even in a kindly mood, since his medical cynicism was doubled with the same strain typical for an ImpSec man.
"Delighted, of course," Illyan answered coolly, "But it's enough, I think. I'm afraid of dependence."
"Such a laudable caution." The surgeon turned the device off and uncoiled the cuff from his elbow. "I believe you will keep your caution when you come into contact with Vorrutyer's men."
"I shall not fail to do it, sir," Illyan agreed. Oh, he would be very cautious on the thin ice of assumptions, guesses and secrets, which he couldn't speak aloud, even if he were all alone.
by jetta_e_rus aka Georgette
Slash, PG-13. Drama, action, a detective story.
Translated from Russian.
The table of contents is here
Chapter Five,
where the medical treatment is only a pretext for Illyan's thoughts about security.
***
Illyan had already become accustomed to the procedure of monthly neurological testing a few years ago, but he had some doubt of its necessity until now. But it was no more sensible to object to medics than to go up against a force shield or to spit into the wind.
The two officers exchanged greetings: Illyan saluted, Surgeon Zarowski returned a mere nod and pointed him to the examination chair. The lieutenant sat where was directed to. The doctor left his comconsole, rose and pulled out a scanner's lamp on the articulated arm. Illyan settled back and pressed the nape of his neck to the cold metal plate, then turned his head obediently left and right. As usual, the results of the tests were within the limits from "good" to "excellent". The thing which really worried Illyan was in his head but not literally.
Illyan's duty to medicine finished, he stood up, holding one elbow slightly off at a distance. Unfortunately, this detail didn't escape a professional surgeon's sight.
"Have you soiled your sleeve, lieutenant, or is it something more in my line of work?" he asked nodding towards the suspected limb.
Illyan bent his neck contritely, "Injured during a... a fight."
"Let me see," the surgeon ordered.
Illyan took off the uniform tunic, which was carefully hung on the station chair's back, and rolled up the sleeve of his shirt.
Zarowski felt all over his swollen elbow without delicacy, took a portable scanner from the comconsole, passed it over the arm, and snorted with disapproval. "You are not a seventeen-year-old boy breaking your arm in training. Where did this come from?"
"Breaking?" Illyan repeated, surprised.
"I frighten you. In fact, this is only a serious sprain. I'm going to work on it with an electrical stimulator so you will be able to fight again in three days." The surgeon performed all this without interrupting the conversation; he fastened the cuff on Illyan's elbow joint, put contact plates under it and connected the device up. "Who was it?"
"Bothari," the lieutenant informed him. But he preferred to hold back the other details; for example, it hadn't been training at all. But these details were definitely odd.
Since his military school years Illyan had become used to the fact that when his messmates had had drawn up ranks according to size, he had found himself in the middle at best. This had never worried him too much; in his first year he had even regarded his height as an advantage when he had desired to serve aboard a fast courier. But the most important criteria for recruitment of the Crown Prince's personal guards was "large and tall", although they were as well-trained, of course, as they were tall. Because of his slighter physique, Illyan was hopelessly eclipsed by these fellows, even in the same uniform and with the same Horus Eyes on the collar as his own.
But Vorrutyer's new, or more precisely, former, batman stood out even against this background. He was broad-shouldered, stringy, tall, but he always hunched up strangely as if he tried to hide his height. Moreover, Sergeant Bothari had a face so notably ugly that after looking at him Illyan changed his mind and thought that his ID picture rather flattered him. No wonder that Bothari, looking like this, was an unsociable man. Illyan had never seen the sergeant talk with anybody as a friend. Bothari hadn't attended common gym training with the other guards; when he had come to lunch at the non-com mess, he had tried to occupy an empty table, and nobody had taken a seat near him. When the sergeant hadn't been hurrying to carry out the Vice Admiral's instructions, he had mostly hidden either in Vorrutyer's cabin or in his own.
Illyan was wary of conflict with Bothari. It was rubbish that in a fight your opponent's comparative size was not important. Maybe, his height wasn't so essential but his arm's length and his weight determined too much when your training was almost equal. Oh, yes, in a real hand-to-hand fight or in the ring, the one who had more adrenalin boiling in his blood had an advantage. But then Illyan had been in the Admiral's cabin and hadn't waited for a direct attack.
A physical attack, he meant. Illyan hadn't doubted that the Vice Admiral would immediately turn this almost-private talk between him and Vorkosigan into an occasion to shake off the venomous foam from his lips. The Commodore had received a direct order to come in the door of Vorrutyer's indecently luxurious cabin.
As expected, Aral's bitterest friend Ges hadn't failed to say some scurrilous things about everything concerning him, not excepting Illyan himself in his duties as Aral's company. He had hoped to provoke Vorkosigan, but in vain. Vorrutyer's expected dialogue had been reduced a monologue, interrupted from time to time by Vorkosigan's standard remarks of "Yes, sir" only. Finally, he had replied to the last mockery, "Have you finished speaking your mind yet, Commander? I need to go. I have no time," and turned to the door.
Near the oval doorframe Vorrutyer's sergeant had loomed like a single gargoyle, glancing at the visitors silently. The slow-witted batman had blocked Vorkosigan's way, and Illyan had had to nudge him carefully aside...
Contrary to all tales, ImpSec men don't have a sixth sense for danger, but good reflexes, gotten into shape during hundreds of hours of training. There had been reflexes that had saved Illyan's arm from a fracture; the sergeant had applied a painful arm-lock at his full, and enormous, strength. Illyan had hardly kept his balance and felt that his released arm had hung down as if it had just been stunned, and waves of fiercely boiling water had emanated from his elbow to shoulder and to his fingers.
But the pain hadn't been so strong as his astonished bewilderment. The soldier - an excellent soldier, as Vorkosigan had said - had tried to fall on an officer without any cause. This accident had been as incredible as if he had cut himself with a dull ceremonial sword. Or he had fumbled in the bread-basket and his finger had caught there by a mouse trap. Or he had got a poisoned cup of coffee from an ordinary public coffee machine...
"I would not have expected this folly from you," the surgeon muttered, "This guy has his head on backward, but the yours is ok, isn’t it?"
Illyan had already managed to notice that Bothari had some mental troubles, but it would be useful to hear the story from the very outset. The treatment for his injuries wasn't pleasant, and his aching elbow throbbed and stung hotly. It made sense at least to profit from this quarter of an hour and to make a plausible pretext to talk of the treatment.
"And what is wrong with his head? His files are quite silent in this matter."
"Are you curious for keeping up the conversation or asking as an official request, Lieutenant?" the surgeon replied with a counter-question, and this question wasn’t rhetorical.
With all his apparent dislike for the system of seniority, Colonel Zarowski, the chief surgeon of the flagship, was subordinate to the same boss as Illyan himself, although this fact was advertised in no way. Negri's clear and unambiguous orders to Illyan included, among other things, a list of fully trusted persons on this ship's crew. The colonel was at the head of this list. And their disparity in ranks kept the Emperor's spy from over-perseverance, so he yielded a little.
"The official one, sir. How would you describe his psychiatric problem, as a doctor?"
"An aggressive sociopath." Surgeon Zarowski eyed Illyan skeptically as if he doubted of his knowledge about psychiatric terms. But Illyan had seen so many psychiatrists since his chip's installation that all their favorite learned words had been stamped firmly on his indiscriminate electronic memory.
"Let me explain what I'm asking about. Commodore Vorkosigan considers your Bothari to be a good soldier in the hands of a worthless commanding officer. And I regard him as a loony that it would be dangerous to issue a digging tool to, not to mention a plasma arc. Where am I wrong?"
"Bothari's madness is useful here, as his respect for the Regulations".
"Are you calling this as a 'respect for the Regulations'?" Illyan moved his shoulder significantly since his elbow was fixed.
"Bothari thinks straightforwardly. He fulfils orders, one at a time. But he has not a whit of respect for rank, so you shouldn't believe that your lieutenant's tabs would be of importance to him." The medical officer's nail snapped on his own collar tab. "Bear in mind that this judgment about the sergeant isn't my own at all. Our Captain knows better, Illyan, if he thinks that Bothari is in the right place."
Ah. Zarowski was an agent, too, so Security itself -- that is, Negri -- had examined and confirmed the fitness of the deranged non-com to this post.
"As Vorrutyer's batman."
"Indeed. Vorrutyer thinks that he entirely controls his tame madman. We don't prohibit him from thinking that."
"But who does control him? You?"
"Good God, no! I'm only watching for results, the rest is not in my purview... Lieutenant, don't jerk your elbow, you'll disturb it."
Colonel, don't digress, anyway you'll fail to disturb me, Illyan countered in his mind, Although... thank you for the hint.
"Besides, the pharmacology that the Vice Admiral possesses and applies doesn't do his batman good," Zarowski added.
"He treats Bothari? On his own?" Illyan was surprised.
"Quite the contrary," the surgeon corrected dryly. "I suspect an extensive psychedelic assortment."
"Does Vorrutyer really not understand what is he doing?" Illyan almost jumped but he was held in place by the strong surgeon's hand. Yes, he had never thought that Vorrutyer had much good sense, but this news was beyond all boundaries, even the boundaries of the mere instinct of self-preservation.
But the colonel obviously didn't want to continue this talk. "I don't discuss my commander's conduct and recommend you don't do so, either," he snapped out. It looked as if he was well-informed about this entire situation but wasn't going to tell anything. "Don't meddle in matters that don't concern you directly or else you won't get off with a contused elbow. Do your service duties reserve you too much free time for thinking?"
"Indeed, I do no more now than think," Illyan sighed. "'Wait and watch' is our motto, and all the secret meaning of our work. Sometimes I think that those monsters near the main entrance to the Headquarters are an apt illustration of a model ImpSec man. Awesome, silent and not doing anything until real troubles come."
"If they come," said Zarowski sarcastically, "your exemplary watchfulness isn't worth a pin."
This sentence, heavy with warning, paused their talk. Illyan could concentrate either on the sensation in his long-suffering elbow or on his thoughts about what he had just heard. The latter seemed to him more interesting, though it was just as ticklish.
Well. Vorrutyer is sure that he controls Bothari. Negri believes that Bothari respects the Regulations above all else, so... is this his only reason to obey his tormentor and commander? It is interesting. It means that he would carry out any order, if only it... Wait. Who is the fleet Commander-in-Chief subordinated to, according to the Service Regulations? The answer is obvious: to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, that is to say to the Emperor. But the reasons aren't so obvious. Is the mad sergeant a sort of human insurance policy against Vorrutyer’s potential mutiny? Where is his trigger if he is a gun? There is no sense here. Especially as the Crown Prince of the Imperium is the First Commander-in-Chief... or is it just a reason, maybe?
Illyan was so focused that he bit his lip. The surgeon eyed him reproachfully, because this treatment wasn't so painful that he should demonstrate his agony.
The Crown Prince Serg. Of course, it had been impossible for me to get the complete file of the First Commander, but Ezar had told me something peculiar that evening. During the last two years the Prince had attempted to usurp the Emperor's title at least twice. His father overlooked these attempts only because they had been crushing failures. But who knows... Why wouldn't he dare to try a third time, when he has the largest body of troops for a decade under his command? However it's odd to rely in this matter on a drugged psycho who is not aware of reality.
But... why not? This is a redoubling. Insurance. The right hand doesn't know what the left one is doing, as usual. The same principle as in the structure of the Emperor's personal Security service: all the little secret and separate compartments are known only to Negri and Ezar.
Or maybe it's only my delusion. I have eluded schizophrenia produced by the memory chip, but it seemed I have just caught paranoia as an occupational disease...
"Are you so delighted with the electrical stimulation, Illyan, or have you fallen into a trance so as to endure the intolerable pain?" the spiteful voice of Zarowski interrupted his thoughts. The chief surgeon was caustic even in a kindly mood, since his medical cynicism was doubled with the same strain typical for an ImpSec man.
"Delighted, of course," Illyan answered coolly, "But it's enough, I think. I'm afraid of dependence."
"Such a laudable caution." The surgeon turned the device off and uncoiled the cuff from his elbow. "I believe you will keep your caution when you come into contact with Vorrutyer's men."
"I shall not fail to do it, sir," Illyan agreed. Oh, he would be very cautious on the thin ice of assumptions, guesses and secrets, which he couldn't speak aloud, even if he were all alone.