The Service of the Sword

If they found out. Yuri tried to find some comfort in the very good possibility that they wouldn't. The communications had always been verbal, of course, transmitted by one of McQueen's couriers. And always the same one—a woman named Jessica Hackett, who had been one of the officers on McQueen's staff. True, StateSec was superb at forcing information out of its prisoners. But there was at least a fifty/fifty chance that Hackett had been one of the many officers on McQueen's staff who had died when Saint-Just destroyed McQueen's command post with a hidden nuclear device. Not even a State Security interrogator could squeeze information out of radioactive debris.

Still, that was small comfort. Yuri knew perfectly well that StateSec would be on a rampage after McQueen's coup attempt. Heads were going to fall, right and left, and lots of them. The only reason Saint-Just had been relatively restrained thus far was simply because the critical state of the war with the Star Kingdom made it necessary for him to keep the disruption of the Navy to a minimum. But, as with everything else, Oscar Saint-Just's definition of "relatively restrained" was what you'd expect to find in a psychopath's dictionary.

Yuri sighed, wondering for the millionth time how the revolution had gone so completely sour. As a longtime oppositionist to the Legislaturalist regime—which had landed him for three years in an Internal Security prison, from which he'd only been freed by Rob Pierre's overthrow of the government—he'd greeted the new regime with enthusiasm.

Enough enthusiasm, even, to have volunteered for State Security. He chuckled drily, remembering the difficulty with which an inveterate dissident in his forties had struggled through the newly established StateSec academy, surrounded by other cadets most of whom were fiery young zealots like Victor Cachat.

Victor Cachat. What a piece of work. Radamacher tried to imagine how any man that young could be that self-assured, that confident in his own righteousness. So much so that in less than a day Cachat had succeeded in intimidating the naval officers of an entire task force and the officers of two StateSec superdreadnoughts.

Had Yuri himself ever been like that? He didn't think so, even in his rebellious youth. But he really couldn't remember anymore. The long years which had followed Pierre's coup d'etat, as he slowly came to understand the horror and brutality lurking under the new regime's promise, had leached most of his idealism away. For a long time now, Yuri had simply been trying to survive—that, and, as much as possible, bury himself in the challenges posed by his assignment in La Martine Sector. Other, more ambitious StateSec officers might have been frustrated by being posted for so long in what was a political backwater, from the standpoint of career advancement. But Yuri had found La Martine a refuge, especially as he came to realize that the two naval officers he worked most closely with were kindred spirits. And, slowly, La Martine began to attract and keep other StateSec officers of his temperament.

They had done a good job in La Martine, damnation. And Yuri had found satisfaction in the doing. It had been one way—perhaps the only way—he could salvage what was left of his youthful spirit. Whether the Committee of Public Safety appreciated it or not, he and Chin and Ogilve had turned La Martine into a source of strength for the Republic. Despite its remote location, for the past several years La Martine had been one of the half-dozen most economically productive sectors for the People's Republic of Haven.

He wiped his face. And so what? Radamacher knew full well that Saint-Just and his ilk considered competence a feather, measured against the stone of political reliability.

Victor Cachat. It would be his decision, now. The powers of a StateSec Special Investigator, in a distant provincial sector like La Martine, were well-nigh limitless in practice. The only person who could have served as a check against Cachat would have been Robert Jamka, the senior People's Commissioner in the sector.

But Jamka was dead, and Radamacher was fairly certain that Saint-Just would be in no hurry to name a replacement for him. La Martine was not high on Saint-Just's priority list, being so far away from the war front. So long as Saint-Just was satisfied that Cachat was conducting the investigation with sufficient zeal and rigor, he'd let the young maniac have his way.

There was something ludicrous anyway about the idea of Robert Jamka serving as a "check" to anyone. Jamka had been a sadist and a sexual pervert. As well ask Beelzebub to rein in Belial.

And so the day wore on, as Yuri Radamacher sank deeper and deeper into despondency. By the time he finally dragged himself to his bed and fell asleep, the only thing he was wondering any longer was whether Cachat would offer him the honorable alternative of suicide to execution.

He wouldn't, of course. That had been the tradition of the Legislaturalist regime's Internal Security. Part of the "elitist privilege" which StateSec and its minions were determined to root out. None more so than men like Victor Cachat. Cachat's diction couldn't be faulted, but Yuri had had no difficulty detecting the traces of a Dolist accent in his speech. A man from Havenite society's lowest layers, now risen to power, filled with slum bitterness and rancor.

4

He was roused by Cachat himself, some hours later. The Special Investigator came into the cabin in the middle of the night, accompanied by a guard, and shook Radamacher out of his sleep.

"Get up," he commanded. "Take a quick shower, if need be. We have things to discuss."

The tone of voice was cold, the words curt; so much Yuri took for granted. But he was well nigh astonished by Cachat's offer to allow him time to shower. And he found himself wondering, as he did so, why Cachat was accompanied by a Marine guard instead of one from State Security.

For that matter, where had Cachat even found a Marine on a StateSec SD? Except for the rare instances when suppressing a widespread rebellion was required, State Security normally provided its own contingent of ground troops for duty aboard its ships. Saint-Just didn't trust the Marines any more than he did the Navy, and he wasn't about to allow large bodies of men armed and trained in the use of hand weapons aboard his precious StateSec superdreadnoughts.

He found out as soon as he stepped out of the shower stall, his hair still damp, and quickly got dressed.

Cachat was now sitting in Yuri's armchair. A pile of record chips was spread out on the small table next to him. Not official chips, but the kind used for personal records.

"Were you aware of Jamka's perversions?" demanded Cachat. His hand gestured toward the chips. "I spent two of the most unpleasant hours of my life examining these."

Yuri hesitated. Cachat's tone of voice was always cold, but now it was positively icy. As if the man was trying to restrain a boiling fury by layering it with an official glacier. Instinctively, Yuri understood he was standing on the edge of a crevasse. One false step . . . 

"Of course," he said abruptly. "Everybody was."

"Why was it not reported to headquarters on Nouveau Paris?"

Can he be that much of a babe in the woods? 

Something of his puzzlement must have shown. For only the second time since he'd met Cachat, the young man's face was filled with anger.

"Don't bother using the excuse of Tresca, damnation. I'm well aware that sadists and perverts have been tolerated—whether I approve of it or not, and I don't—on prison detail. But this is a task force of the People's Republic! Officially, on armed duty in time of war. The behavior of a deviant like Jamka posed an obvious security risk! Especially one who was also a sheer madman!"