But he didn't wonder much. It was a long voyage from Nouveau Paris, and he was quite sure the Special Investigator had spent the entire time preparing for his duties. Part of which, he was sure, involved studying the layout of the vessel he would be working in.
Duty. The Needs of the State.
He spent more time wondering about something else. He finally remembered that the woman who had been murdered by Jamka had also been attached to Sharon Justice's ship.
That was... odd. Not the fact itself. The fact that Cachat, after throwing Sharon Justice—and Yuri himself—under arrest, would then turn around and use Marine personnel from the same ship for—
For what, exactly? What the hell is he doing?
As soon as they entered the large chamber which was their destination, Yuri understood. Some of it, at least.
The chamber was normally used as a gym for StateSec troopers. In a way, it still was. Insofar as administering a beating could be called "exercise."
He stared, horrified, when he saw the person shackled to a heavy chair in the center of the compartment. It was Citizen Captain Sharon Justice, nude from the waist up except for a brassiere. He could barely recognize her. Sharon's upper body was covered with bruises, and her face was a pulp. Blood was splattered all over her head and chest.
"Sorry, Sir," whispered the Marine. Sharon's groans covered the soft sound of the words. "We'll go as easy as we can. But... it's either this or get what the good doctor got."
Yuri's brain didn't seem to be functioning very well. Despite State Security's reputation, there were plenty of StateSec officers like himself who were no more familiar with casual brutality than anyone else. Radamacher had never found it necessary to enforce discipline with anything more severe than a sharp tone, now and then.
There was a huge pool of blood around the chair Sharon was strapped into. Yuri groped for the answer...
How can she bleed so much?
Finally, the Marine's whispered words registered. Dimly, Radamacher realized that there were a number of other bleeding bodies in the compartment. He hadn't noticed them at first, because they'd been hauled into two of the compartment's corners and there were perhaps twenty other people crowded into the other two corners of the compartment.
"Crowded" was the word, too. They seemed to be pressing themselves against the bulkheads, as if they were trying to get as far away as possible from the proceedings in the center. Or, more likely, as far away as possible from the Special Investigator. That they were all members of State Security, except for the Marine citizen major and three Marine citizen sergeants who had apparently administered the beatings, made the whole situation insanely half-comical to Radamacher. No wonder the Marine noncom had called it "maybe the most interesting four hours of my life." Talk about role reversal!
Then Yuri took a better look at the bodies in the other corner, and any sense of comedy vanished. The bloody and dazed people in the one corner had just been beaten. They were being attended to now by a couple of medics, but despite the bruises and the gauze he recognized all of them. Essentially, that little group constituted most of the top StateSec officers assigned to the naval task force. What Yuri Radamacher thought of as "his people."
The other group of bodies...
He didn't recognize any of them, except one woman he thought was one of the officers from the other superdreadnought. He was pretty sure they were all members of the SD personnel, who'd always kept their distance from "fleet" StateSec.
They were the source of most of the blood pooled around the chair, he realized. They'd all been shot in the head.
Jamka's accomplices, he was sure of it.
Dead, dead, dead. Six of them.
"Well?" demanded Cachat.
The citizen major overseeing the Marines was Khedi Lafitte, the commanding officer of the Veracity's Marine detachment. He shook his head. "I think she's innocent, Sir." He gestured with his head toward the holopic recorder being held by a StateSec guard nearby. "You can study the record yourself, of course. But if she had anything to do with Jamka's killing—ah, murder—we sure couldn't get a trace of it."
Cachat studied the beaten officer in the chair, his jaws tight. "What about her political reliability?"
The citizen major looked a little uneasy. "Well... ah... we were concentrating on the Jamka business... ."
Cachat shook his head impatiently. "Never mind. I'll study the record myself. So will whoever Citizen Chairman Saint-Just assigns to examine my report, once it reaches Nouveau Paris. " He turned his head to the StateSec guard holding the recorder. "You did get a good record, yes?"
The guard nodded his head hastily. He seemed just as nervous around the Special Investigator as everyone else.
Apparently satisfied, Cachat turned back to study Justice again. After a few seconds, he twitched his shoulders. The gesture seemed more one of irritation than an actual shrug.
"Get her out of the chair, then. Put her with the others and see to it she gets medical attention. Thank you, Citizen Major Lafitte. I'll question Citizen Commissioner Radamacher myself. By now I'm almost certain we've cauterized the rot, but it's best to be certain."
Two of the Marine citizen sergeants, moving more gently than you'd expect from two men who had just administered her beating, unshackled Sharon from the chair and helped her toward the medics in the corner. Once the chair was empty, Cachat turned to Yuri.
"Please take a seat, Citizen Commissioner Radamacher. If you're innocent, you have nothing to fear beyond a painful episode which will end soon enough." There was a pulser holstered on his belt. Cachat lifted the weapon and held it casually. "If you're guilty, your pain will end even sooner."
Yuri took some pride in the fact that he made it to the chair and seated himself without trembling. As one of the sergeants fastened the shackles to his wrists and ankles, he stared up at Cachat.
Again, he ignored the Special Investigator's dictum. "Jesus Christ," he hissed softly. "You shot them yourself?"
Again, that irritated little twitch of the shoulders. "We are in time of war, at a moment of supreme crisis for the Republic. The security risk posed by Jamka and his cabal required summary judgement and execution. Their perversions and corruption threatened to undermine the authority of the state here. It did undermine that authority, as a matter of fact, when Jamka's behavior got himself killed."
Yuri had to fight not to let his relief show. Whether he realized it or not, Cachat had just stated that the significance of Jamka's murder was personal, not political—and had done so on the official record.
Cachat spoke his next words a bit more loudly, as if to make sure that all the StateSec officers in the room heard him.
"Citizen Chairman Saint-Just will naturally review the whole matter, and if he disapproves of my actions he'll see to my own punishment. Whatever that might be." His tone was one of sheer indifference. "In the meantime, however"—his eyes left Yuri and swept slowly across the crowd of officers watching in the corners, glittering like two agates—"I believe I have established that Legislaturalist-style cronyism and back-scratching between unfit and corrupt officers will no longer be tolerated in this sector. Indeed, it will be severely punished."
All three citizen sergeants were back. All of them donned gloves to protect their hands.
"Have at it, then," said Yuri firmly. For reasons he could not quite understand, he was suddenly filled with confidence. In fact, he felt better than he had in a long time.
The feeling didn't last, of course. But, as Cachat had stated, it was eventually over. Through one blurry eye—the other was closed completely—Yuri saw the pistol go back into the holster. And through ears that felt like cauliflowers, he dimly heard the Special Investigator pronounce him innocent of all suspicions. True, the words sounded as if they were spoken grudgingly. But, they were spoken. And properly recorded. Yuri heard Cachat enquire as to that also.