"I see we've got a comedian aboard," he observed to his gun-toters. They snickered, but his voice was cold as he leaned closer to Montoya. "You don't make the rules here, Manty. We do—and when we say jump, you fucking well jump!"
"Committeewoman Ransom ordered me to keep this 'cat alive," Montoya said, and his voice was even colder than the lieutenant's. "I suggest you find out whether or not she meant that before you drag me away from him."
The lieutenant rocked back on his heels, his expression suddenly thoughtful. He hesitated a moment, then looked at one of the other guards.
"Com the Citizen Captain," he said. "Find out if they want the doctor, or if he should stay here with the animal."
"Yes, Citizen Lieutenant!" The trooper saluted and stepped back out into the passage. He was gone for several minutes that felt like hours, then he returned and saluted again. "The Citizen Captain says to leave the doctor here but bring the rest of them," he reported.
"All right." The lieutenant jerked his head at McKeon and pointed at the hatch. "You heard him, Manty. Get your sorry asses in gear."
The prisoners stood without moving, looking at McKeon. The lieutenant's mouth tightened, and he took a step towards the captain, only to pause as McKeon gave him a contemptuous glance.
"There's a limit to how many times you can butt stroke us before one of us gets his hands on you, Peep." McKeon's deep voice was as cold as his eyes, and the lieutenant hesitated. Then he shook himself with a sneer.
"You're probably right, Manty. So why don't we just start shooting you, instead?"
"Because your balls are even smaller than your brain and you need orders in triplicate before you can take a shit," McKeon said disdainfully, and smiled a thin smile as the lieutenant flushed. But he knew better than to push too far, and he nodded to the others and said, "Let's go, gentlemen. We've been invited to meet with Ms. Ransom."
Warner Caslet wished he were somewhere—anywhere—else as Citizen Lieutenant Janseci led him into Tepes' enlisted gym. Exercise equipment edged the basketball court at one end of the compartment like the stranded bones of long-dead dinosaurs, and a dozen heavily armed State Security troopers stood along the court's other edge. Cordelia Ransom and Citizen Captain Vladovich sat behind a table which had been hastily draped with the PRH's flag, and Ransom's inevitable bodyguards stood behind her. A pair of HD camera teams had been strategically located to ensure that no nuance of the impending drama evaded their lenses, and the entire scene seemed to radiate a ghoulish unreality. He supposed the need for space made the gym's use inevitable—it was one of the few shipboard areas which could provide the amount of room Ransom had evidently decided she required—but the backdrop of exercise machines, racks of basketballs, volleyballs, and all the other cheerful items of play and exercise struck him as incredibly out of place.
Not that anyone cared how it struck Warner Caslet. Janseci ushered him across to the table, and Ransom looked over her shoulder at him for a moment. Her blue eyes were cold, but mindful of the watching cameras, she said nothing and simply pointed at an empty chair set well to one side, away from her and Vladovich. The sense of outraged defiance which had fueled Caslet's confrontation with Janseci was sucked away by the chill in those eyes, for there was a universe of difference between an arrogant junior officer and the woman who stood third—or second—on the Committee of Public Safety.
He sank into the chair and sat silently as the sound of approaching feet warned him the Allied prisoners were approaching. He turned his head towards the sounds, and his jaw clenched as the captives were herded in. There was less use of gun butts this time, but the battered prisoners showed plenty of evidence of earlier mistreatment. A few found it difficult to stand up straight or even walk, and his jaw clamped still tighter as Geraldine Metcalf swayed for balance. The tac officer's left eye was swollen completely shut, the eyebrow above it scabbed with clotted blood where a flechette gun's butt plate had split it, and her right eye blinked in obvious disorientation. Marcia McGinley stood beside her, badly bruised herself but lending an arm to keep her friend upright.
There were others, some of whom Caslet had come to know well aboard HMS Wayfarer. Pain twisted deep within him as he saw Scotty Tremaine, Andrew LaFollet, and James Candless being shoved roughly through the hatch, and pain was joined by the dull burn of shame as the three of them recognized him. He made himself meet their eyes, hoping they would recognize his isolation for what it was, but their expressions revealed nothing and he made himself look at the other prisoners. There were twenty-five of them, including Prince Adrian's five senior surviving bridge officers, five members of Honor Harrington's staff, her three armsmen, two or three officers he couldn't identify, and nine petty officers. He recognized one of the noncoms, as well, for Horace Harkness' battered prizefighter's face was impossible to forget, but he wondered why the petty officers had been singled out for transport to Barnett when commissioned personnel senior to them had been sent to the Navy's Tarragon facility. From their expressions, they wondered the same thing, but they stood motionlessly with their officers to find out.
Silence stretched across the gym as Ransom sat back in her chair to regard the prisoners sternly. Caslet noticed one of the HD crews shifting position to catch her in profile—the better to capture her steely gaze, no doubt—but she seemed unaware of it as the seconds trickled away. Then she cleared her throat.
"You... people," she said with cold disdain, "are our prisoners. The uniforms you wear are sufficient to identify you as enemies of the People, but the People's Republic would have shown you the courtesies due to captured military personnel had you not demonstrated your true character by your conduct on Enki. Since you saw fit to assault our personnel, killing four of them in the process, you have forfeited whatever protections your military status might have earned you. Let that be clearly understood."
She paused, and the silence was different this time. It weighed in with a colder, more ominous pressure, for it was obvious her opening remarks had been intended to set the stage for something, and no one knew what.
"You are currently bound for Camp Charon on the planet Hades," she resumed after a small eternity, and showed an icy smile. "I'm sure all of you have heard stories about Camp Charon, and I assure you that all of them were true. I don't imagine any of you will enjoy your stay there... and it's going to be a very long one."
Her voice was cruel with pleasure, but she had more in mind than merely mocking helpless people, and Caslet wondered what it was.
"The People's Republic, however, recognizes that some of you—perhaps even many of you—have been misled by your own corrupt, elitist rulers. The citizens of plutocratic states are never consulted when their overlords choose to wage war, after all, and as the champion of the People in their struggle against plutocracy, it is one of the Committee of Public Safety's responsibilities to extend the hand of companionship to other victims of imperialist regimes. As the representative of the Committee, it therefore becomes my task to offer you the opportunity to separate yourself from the leaders who have lied to you and used you for their own self-seeking ends."
She stopped speaking for a moment, and the quality of silence had changed yet again. Most of the prisoners stared at her in frank incredulity, unable to believe she could possibly be serious, and Caslet shared their astonishment. Like most citizens of the Republic, he'd seen the confessions of "war crimes" from captured Allied personnel, and he'd never believed a one of them. Most of the self-confessed "war criminals" had come across heavily and woodenly, obviously repeating words someone else had scripted for them. Some had mumbled and stumbled their way through their "confessions" with the muzziness of the drugged, and others had stared into the cameras with terror-cored eyes, babbling anything they thought their captors wanted to hear. True, a few had sounded far more natural than that, but Caslet figured there were probably a few weasels in any body of men and women, and it wouldn't take much of a weasel streak to convince someone that cooperation was infinitely preferable to the things StateSec could do to a person.