Read Online An Exchange of Hostages by Susan R. Matthews - Free Book Online
Authors: Susan R. Matthews
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The Jurisdiction required punishment before setting the Record to null, and declined to apply any of the agony that could lawfully be invoked to force confession against the penalty to be assessed.
So Student Koscuisko saw a connection there, and seemed to take comfort from it.
Joslire lifted Koscuisko’s head between his two hands to work the neck back to the relaxed range of supple motion that was normal for his Student.
Somehow he could not quite believe that the two parallels were really so simply aligned as that.
###
It’d been harder than mastering any of the technical material, Andrej remembered that very clearly. With the possible exception of some of the more arcane degenerative diseases among category-four hominids, nothing had been as difficult as learning to take a patient history; and he’d been too grateful for his teachers’ praise when he finally began to demonstrate some skill to worry too much about what that struggle had said about him.
All of his life he had asked whichever question he liked, never needing to consider whether the answer would be readily forthcoming — or accurate, when it did come. All of his life, the function of language had been to communicate his desires for the understanding and instruction of others around him. There were exceptions, of course; the language of holy service was humble and petitioning enough. It was also formalized by centuries of devout practice, and no longer really signified.
But in order to take a good and useful medical history from a patient already ill and not in the most conciliatory mood because of it — that required he learn to ask. To submerge any hint of personal frustration beneath a sincere and, yes, humble desire to know. To set the patient at the very center of the Holy Mother’s creation, to listen with every combined power at his disposal, to subordinate everything he was and everything he knew absolutely to whatever unsatisfactory and imperfect responses his patient would condescend to give.
There’d been times when he had despaired of ever attaining the art. There had certainly been times when his teachers had despaired of him. He’d been counseled by the Administration on more than one occasion to consider abandoning his goal in favor of a technical certification that would require no patient contact whatever, and he’d seriously considered doing just that; but he kept on trying. Graduation with full certification from Mayon Surgical College required demonstrated ability to develop a complete and accurate patient history, one-on-one — on an equal, not autocratic, footing with each patient who came under care.
Now Andrej sat in a padded armchair in the middle of the exercise theater, thinking about these things. The theater and the chair that was provided, he’d seen before; if not this precise theater, then others much like it, as Tutor Chonis reviewed paradigmatic exercises with them during their initial study. There was a door to the right through which the prisoner would enter. There was a table at his left, sturdy enough to support the body of an adult of most of the hominid categories, high enough for him to work at without tiring. Only his rhyti stood on that table now; his rhyti, and the Record. They’d add things gradually as they went along — instruments of Inquiry, then Confirmation, finally instruments of Execution, and there would be a side table for the Recorder.
For now the table was still safe for him. He could take his rhyti from it without shuddering, even knowing as he did what role it would play in his further education as a torturer. Security was posted behind him even now, even though it was only the first of the Levels — a free offering of confession, unassisted. Andrej wondered if Security was as apprehensive as he was to be starting this. Surely even Security had feelings about the work ahead of them all, the blood and the torment of it?
Without shifting his posture from the position of relaxed
So Student Koscuisko saw a connection there, and seemed to take comfort from it.
Joslire lifted Koscuisko’s head between his two hands to work the neck back to the relaxed range of supple motion that was normal for his Student.
Somehow he could not quite believe that the two parallels were really so simply aligned as that.
###
It’d been harder than mastering any of the technical material, Andrej remembered that very clearly. With the possible exception of some of the more arcane degenerative diseases among category-four hominids, nothing had been as difficult as learning to take a patient history; and he’d been too grateful for his teachers’ praise when he finally began to demonstrate some skill to worry too much about what that struggle had said about him.
All of his life he had asked whichever question he liked, never needing to consider whether the answer would be readily forthcoming — or accurate, when it did come. All of his life, the function of language had been to communicate his desires for the understanding and instruction of others around him. There were exceptions, of course; the language of holy service was humble and petitioning enough. It was also formalized by centuries of devout practice, and no longer really signified.
But in order to take a good and useful medical history from a patient already ill and not in the most conciliatory mood because of it — that required he learn to ask. To submerge any hint of personal frustration beneath a sincere and, yes, humble desire to know. To set the patient at the very center of the Holy Mother’s creation, to listen with every combined power at his disposal, to subordinate everything he was and everything he knew absolutely to whatever unsatisfactory and imperfect responses his patient would condescend to give.
There’d been times when he had despaired of ever attaining the art. There had certainly been times when his teachers had despaired of him. He’d been counseled by the Administration on more than one occasion to consider abandoning his goal in favor of a technical certification that would require no patient contact whatever, and he’d seriously considered doing just that; but he kept on trying. Graduation with full certification from Mayon Surgical College required demonstrated ability to develop a complete and accurate patient history, one-on-one — on an equal, not autocratic, footing with each patient who came under care.
Now Andrej sat in a padded armchair in the middle of the exercise theater, thinking about these things. The theater and the chair that was provided, he’d seen before; if not this precise theater, then others much like it, as Tutor Chonis reviewed paradigmatic exercises with them during their initial study. There was a door to the right through which the prisoner would enter. There was a table at his left, sturdy enough to support the body of an adult of most of the hominid categories, high enough for him to work at without tiring. Only his rhyti stood on that table now; his rhyti, and the Record. They’d add things gradually as they went along — instruments of Inquiry, then Confirmation, finally instruments of Execution, and there would be a side table for the Recorder.
For now the table was still safe for him. He could take his rhyti from it without shuddering, even knowing as he did what role it would play in his further education as a torturer. Security was posted behind him even now, even though it was only the first of the Levels — a free offering of confession, unassisted. Andrej wondered if Security was as apprehensive as he was to be starting this. Surely even Security had feelings about the work ahead of them all, the blood and the torment of it?
Without shifting his posture from the position of relaxed
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