Jonathan Howard - Katya's War

“If you mean, was I taken to see her, yes. I was told not to say anything to anyone.” She returned her attention to her broth.

“She just sometimes pulls people out of general population to practise on,” said the Traitor. “Is that what she did with you? You looked pretty ill when they brought you back.”

Katya paused, her spoon almost at her mouth. She was getting irritated with these two, and showed it by emptying her spoon back into her bowl. “How would you know?”

The Traitor grinned and tapped her arm, where she wore a red band with “TRUSTEE” printed upon it. “I help out there. In the sickbay. I saw you.”

Katya looked at the pair of them and said, “You want to know what happened? Fine, I’ll tell you. They took me down, she played some music, she pumped me full of drugs, I don’t remember much else.” It was a true account as far as it went; the patriotic novel had been so blandly predictable that Katya had already forgotten almost everything about it. She returned to shovelling the reconstituted protein shapes in stock that it pleased the kitchen to call “broth” into her mouth.

“You didn’t tell her nothing, though, did you?”

Katya had had enough. She put her spoon down and said, “There’s nothing else to tell. They had it all from me in Atlantis. She didn’t ask me anything. Not a single question. She just said she hated traitors and she was going to shred the minds of every single traitor in the Deeps to pieces using sensory deprivation, psychotomimetic drugs, RNA stripping, the usual. And when she’d destroyed them, the drooling mess that was left would be going out of the airlock.” She picked up her spoon again and used it to point at the conviction flash on the Traitor’s uniform. “ Every traitor.” She went back to eating her broth.

They left her alone after that.

Katya was called for further “interrogation” five more times over the next sixteen days. Neither Oksana nor Alina accompanied her on any of these occasions, which was just as well. Katya had felt guilty at Oksana’s concern for her after the first session; it felt like lying when she couldn’t reassure her that it was all just a charade. Not that she could have, not with the White Death’s parting gift of a dose of debilitating drug washing around in her bloodstream. She was always pale and nervous when she was taken down, and this was an honest reaction. Katya hated that drug.

On her third visit she made the mistake of telling Durova that.

“You should have told me earlier,” Durova said, sorting amongst the phials in her case. “I’ll use something different this time.” And she did; a drug used as part of a sensory deprivation torture cocktail. The syringe was hardly away from her skin before Katya went blind. “There,” said Durova, “that’s better, isn’t it?”

It wore off after four hours, but next time Katya said she appreciated the thought and all, but could she go back to the previous debilitating drug? Please?

Tasya found all this very amusing when they talked again at the next “Freedom Day.”

“Yes, Durova is one of ours. She enacted Secor protocols to get me in and to arrange it so I wasn’t identified.”

“Do you trust her?”

“Not really, but I can read her instincts. Those are all going our way. She’s intelligent, and she can see this war isn’t a winning proposition for anyone. She isn’t very loyal to the FMA, either. May have been once, but after what they’ve had her doing, I don’t think she’s got much idealism left in her. Where’s your friend Netrebko today?”

“Dominika? She went to visit her friend in her wing this time around.” Katya looked at Tasya. “She definitely knows who you are.”

“Oh, yes. But she’s smart enough to keep that to herself. Informers don’t do very well in places like this. So, anyway, what’s the escape plan?”

Katya looked at her with astonishment. “What? You don’t have one?”

“Of course I don’t,” said Tasya, unabashed. Finally understanding Katya’s concern, she added, “And I don’t expect you to come up with one, either. The good Dr Durova is supposed to be doing that. She’s the one who’s been here for years and has all the pass codes. Hasn’t she told you what she’s come up with?”

“No. She told me I shouldn’t trust her until you’d confirmed I should.”

“That’s wise, I suppose. What have you been talking about in your interrogation sessions, then?”

“Nothing. I read a bad book, she listens to music. Usually Poliakov, although she listened to some Kapitsa last time. Then she doses me with something to make it look I’ve been undergoing chemical questioning and calls the guards. If I’m lucky, I don’t throw up in the lift.”

“You have all the fun.”

“Want to swap?”

Tasya smiled wryly, and shook her head. “Sorry about that. I wasn’t expecting her to use interrogations as a way of communicating with you. It makes sense, but I thought she’d use intermediates. I can see why she didn’t. Her way’s far more secure. Anyway, next time you’re in with her, find out what the plan is. The sooner we’re out of here, the better. The Vodyanoi ’s waiting in the Enclaves for word. She’ll need at least three days’ notice if she’s going to be here to pick us up.”

“How are we going to tell them?”

“We’ve got a senior Secor agent aboard this dump on our side and you’re wondering how we can get a message out? Come on, Kuriakova. Use your imagination.”

Katya accepted the logic of that, but something else was bothering her. “If the White Death is supposed to be planning all this, why are you here, Tasya?”

“Two reasons. One, because you’d never have accepted a Secor interrogator’s word without some assurance that she was telling the truth.”

“I might have.”

“No, you wouldn’t. Two, I’m here to expedite things once the plan gets under way.”

Katya knew Tasya too well to see “expedite” as anything other than a euphemism for “kill anyone who gets in the way.”

“I really hope you don’t have to do any of that.”

“Expediting?”

“You know what I mean.”

Tasya looked at her, all levity gone. “That very much depends on how good Durova’s plan is.”

Katya nodded. Then she asked, “Is she really a doctor?”

Tasya’s grim smile returned. “With specialities in psychology and pharmacology. Kane tells me that on Earth, doctors have to make an oath. Starts with, ‘First, do no harm.’ Maybe we should have something like that on Russalka, too.”

The next interrogation session involved the reading of no further adventures of firm-chinned heroes of the FMA seeing off enemies of the state, and not nearly so much music either. Once she had confirmed that Tasya had spoken to Katya about her, Dr Durova said, “Good, because I’ve already sent the message to bring the Vodyanoi on station.” Then she set her recorder to play some keyboard pieces by Poliakov.

“You’ve done what?” said Katya. Tasya had said it would only take the Vodyanoi three days to reach them. Surely the escape couldn’t be happening so soon?

“We need to move ahead as soon as possible. The governor is behaving oddly. I think he is suffering from stress.” She steepled her fingers, every centimetre the psychiatrist. “I offered to talk to him. He declined.”

Katya couldn’t help but look at the medical case, full of things specifically intended to make the patient feel a great deal worse. She could sympathise with the governor’s decision.

“I detect growing paranoia in Governor Senyavin. He has become withdrawn, stays in his office throughout the day, and rarely speaks to his subordinates, just handing down increasingly petty edicts. At the least, I would expect him to impose changes on the prison’s routine. At worst, he may decide he does not trust his senior staff and change them. It would be difficult for him to displace me — he has no direct authority with Secor — but it isn’t impossible.”