David Weber - In Enemy Hands

Theisman gave a nod that was half bow but said nothing, and she lowered her hands to run them up and down the chair arms.

"You've given me quite a bit to think about, Citizen Admiral," she said. "I may have been hasty in dismissing the Accords as useless. Mind you, I still see no reason we should consider ourselves bound by obsolete agreements drafted by our class enemies if it's to our advantage to discard them, but you've certainly gotten me to think about the unwisdom of doing so without careful consideration of the consequences."

Theisman nodded again. His stomach was a solid knot as tension combined with too much cheap whiskey, and the strain of keeping it out of his voice and expression made him want to throw up. But it looked as if his effort had been worthwhile, and he tried very hard not to think about all the other ways someone like Ransom could produce disasters... or atrocities.

"At any rate," she said more briskly, pushing up out of her chair, "this is clearly not the time to unilaterally denounce them." The relief Theisman felt at those words made his knees so weak he had trouble standing to match her movement, but she wasn't done. "And for the instances in which violating them is indicated," she added, "we'll have to be careful in our justifications—you're certainly right about that, Citizen Admiral."

It was fortunate for Thomas Theisman that she was turning toward the door as she spoke, for it meant she missed the flash of pure horror which flickered across his face despite all he could do.

"Yes," she went on thoughtfully as he made himself escort her courteously to the door, "this is going to take some thought. Perhaps what we should do is centralize all POW decisions. We could adopt a policy under which the names of captured personnel are provided to the League inspectors only from central HQs. For that matter, we could restrict the inspectors' contacts and unescorted movements to the planets where we put those HQs, couldn't we?" Her voice brightened. "Of course we could! We can take the position that it's a matter of our own military security and that doing things in an orderly, organized fashion will actually make it easier for us to assure our POWs receive proper care. We'll even be telling the truth! Of course," she flashed another of those icy, hungry smiles, "it will also mean we'll never have to admit ever having even seen the... inconvenient prisoners. What a pity we didn't think of all this before! It certainly would have simplified the present situation."

Theisman swallowed bile as the Secretary of Public Information paused at the door to shake his hand warmly.

"Thank you very much, Citizen Admiral!" she said enthusiastically. "You've been a tremendous help to the war effort. If you have any other valuable ideas, please share them with me!"

She gave his hand another squeeze, smiled brightly, and left, and Thomas Theisman barely made it to the head before he vomited.

The guards aboard the shuttle wore the black tunics and red trousers of State Security, not Navy green and gray or the brown and gray of the People's Marines, and there were more of them. In fact, there was as many guards as there were prisoners, each of them with a flechette gun and the expression of someone who would enjoy using it.

Honor sat straight and still, with Nimitz a stiff, motionless weight in her lap, and tried to hide behind an assumed calm as hard, hostile eyes bored into her back. It wasn't easy, and her mask had slipped when the SS guards arrived to replace the naval escort she'd expected. Nor had the prisoners remained together for their trip planet-side, for this shuttle held only her own staffers and the more senior of Prince Adrian 's commissioned personnel. The rest of McKeon's officers and the senior noncoms Tourville had been ordered to deliver to Barnett were in a second shuttle, following behind this one, and a corner of her brain wondered if they would be reunited after landing.

She didn't know, but she almost hoped not, for they would be better off as far as possible from whatever the Peeps planned for her. She knew that now, for the emotions whipping through the shuttle roared and echoed within her, and she understood exactly why Nimitz was such a knot of tension. The anxiety and fear of her fellow prisoners, their helpless ignorance as they waited to discover what their futures were, would have been bad enough, but she also felt the emotions—and anticipation—of the StateSec thugs.

And thugs they were, she thought grimly, fighting to hold onto her stability and maintain her pretense of calm while the fear of others fed her own. Manticore's intelligence agencies had analyzed State Security and its role in maintaining the Committee of Public Safety in power, and Honor had seen ONI's reports. For the most part, Admiral Givens' analysts had been more concerned with StateSec's impact on the operations of the People's Navy than with how it functioned within civilian society, but even ONI's summary reports had noted that the SS had recruited its members not just from the elements which had been the most disaffected under the old regime but from the now defunct Office of Internal Security, as well. InSec's enforcers and executioners had been professionals, not ideologues. They'd been willing enough to shift allegiance to the new regime and teach its minions their trade, and their new colleagues had learned their lessons well. In fact, they'd learned to surpass their instructors, for they'd had lots of practice.

One reason for the Legislaturalists' fall was that their repression had been... uneven. One week they might make dozens of troublemakers disappear; the next, the government might grant a general amnesty to curry favor with the Dolists. But unevenness was a mistake the Committee of Public Safety had no intention of making. Cordelia Ransom herself had proclaimed, "Extremism in the defense of the People is the first responsibility of the State," and not a day passed without StateSec's doing its best to live up to that instruction. Even the official Peep news channels made no bones about State Security's deliberate use of terror against "enemies of the People"—who, after all, deserved whatever they got.

Honor hadn't questioned the accuracy of those ONI reports, yet neither had she thought their implications through. If she had, she would have realized what sort of people were required to embrace that sort of action.

She realized now. She couldn't help it, for their emotions beat in upon her like jeering demons, whispering malevolently in the back of her mind. The red fangs of hunger radiated from some of them, jagged with the need to prove their own power by grinding others under their heels. There was a sickness in that appetite for cruelty, one that turned Honor's stomach, yet there was worse, as well, for some of the guards standing behind her felt no hunger. They felt nothing when they looked at Honor and the other prisoners. She and her people might have been so many insects for all the emotion those guards would feel if the order were given to murder them all, and the deadness of their feelings carried a charnel reek more horrible than the most savage sadism. They were no longer human themselves. They had become automatons, and whether they'd been drawn to State Security because they'd always been sociopaths, or whether they had been dehumanized into sociopaths mattered not at all. When their gazes rested upon her, she felt the chill anticipation coiling behind their eyes. All the shuttle guards knew what had been planned for Honor, and she didn't have to be told what it was to know it had nothing at all to do with the Deneb Accords. The fierce delight of the haters told her that. Yet the other ones, the dead ones, were even more frightening, for they waited with the cold-eyed patience of pythons. There was little eagerness in their emotions, but neither was there any hesitation... and there was no pity at all.