In Enemy Hands

with her sense of Nimitz's presence so faint, was she reading Timmons through the 'cat at all... or on her own?

The moment of discovery distracted her, breaking her cocoon of expressionless calm ever so briefly, but Timmons didn't notice. His attention was on the memo board he'd accepted from de Sangro. He punched the page key several times, scanning the screens of data for at least five minutes. Then he looked up with another white- toothed smile, and Honor hid an inner shiver. Sphinxian life forms were immune to the Old Earth disease of hydrophobia, but if a hexapuma could have contracted that sickness, it might have smiled like that.

'We've got us a special prisoner here, boys and girls,' he told his detail. 'This here is Honor Harrington. I'm sure you've heard of her?' Unpleasant laughter answered, and he chuckled. 'Thought you might have. 'Course, she's come down in the world a mite. Says here they're taking her to Camp Charon to stretch her neck a little. Pity.'

The blood stink of his emotions was stronger now, and Honor's stomach churned, but she had her expression back under control, and her eyes looked straight through him. He didn't like that. She could feel it in him, the anger fusing with a sadism worse than anything she'd sensed from de Sangro, and knew her lack of response was dangerous. But there was nothing she could do that wasn't dangerous.

She waited for his fuming emotions to spill over, but they didn't, and she felt an even deeper shiver of fear as she realized that underneath that calm, smiling exterior Timmons actually enjoyed the boil of fury. The anger and taste for cruelty which filled him were like drugs, something which put an edge on his life, and the need to restrain them only made that edge sharper. It was as if the denial of immediate gratification refined or distilled them, making the anticipation of loosing them almost sweeter than the actual moment when he did.

'According to this,' he went on in a voice whose calm drawl fooled neither him nor Honor, 'some of her friends are coming along for the ride, but they're military. They'll be riding topside, and she'll be all alone down here. Kinda makes you feel sorry for her, doesn't it?'

The others sniggered again, and a corner of Honor's mind wondered distantly if this was part of an orchestrated game plan to break down a prisoner's resistance or if Timmons simply enjoyed playing to the gallery. It didn't really matter which, of course. The practical consequences would be the same either way.

'How come they're military and she isn't?' a guard with the single chevron of a corporal asked. 'The uniforms look the same to me.'

'Anybody can wear a uniform, dummy,' Timmons said with an air of enormous patience. 'But according to this...' he waved the memo board '...this particular enemy of the People is a mass murderer. We've got us a civil criminal here, people, and as we all know, the Deneb Accords don't apply to criminals sentenced by civilian courts. That means all that shit about treatment of military prisoners goes right out the lock.'

'Well, hot damn,' the corporal said.

'Get your mind out of the gutter, Hayman,' Timmons scolded with a smile. 'I'm shocked by the very suggestion that anyone in my detachment would take liberties with a prisoner in our custody! This may not be a military prisoner, but proper procedure will be observed at all times. Is that clear?'

'If you say so, Sir,' Hayman replied, 'but it sure seems like a waste.'

'You never can tell,' Timmons said soothingly. 'She may get lonely and want a little company after she's been down here a while, and what happens between consenting adults...' He broke off with a shrug, and fresh, ugly amusement gusted about Honor.

'In the meantime, though,' Timmons went on more briskly, 'let's get her processed. You're in charge of that, Bergren.' He handed the memo board to a short, powerfully built sergeant. 'It says here she's got an artificial eye, and you know the rules on implants. Get Wade in here to shut it down; if he can't do that, call the surgeon.'

'Yes, Sir. And the rest of it?'

'She's a condemned murderer, Citizen Sergeant, not a paying guest,' Timmons half-sighed. 'Standard procedures. Strip search, cavity search, haircut, disease check, you know the drill. And since the Committeewoman wants to be sure she arrives intact, better put her on suicide watch, too. In fact,' he gave another of those bright smiles, 'we'd better take full precautions. I want her searched, completely, if you get my meaning, every time her cell's opened. And that includes meals.'

'Yes, Sir. I'll get right on it,' Bergren promised, and reached up to grab the collar of Honor's tunic. 'Come on, cell bait,' he grunted, and jerked. He was short enough that his grip dragged her awkwardly downward, bending her forward and making her stagger after him. It was a humiliating experience, but she knew it was supposed to be... and that the humiliation was only beginning.

'Just a minute, Bergren,' Timmons said.

The sergeant turned back to face the lieutenant, and his grip gave Honor no choice but to turn with him. He didn't release her or let her straighten, but Timmons walked over, put two fingers under her chin, and tipped her face up to his. It was a contemptuous gesture, as if she were a child, but she made herself move with the gentle pressure and caught his flash of disappointment as her lack of resistance deprived him of the opportunity to force her head up against Bergren’s grip.

'One thing, cell bait,' he told her. 'Every so often, we get someone in here who figures, what the hell, he's got nothing to lose, and tries to get rowdy, and that memo board says you're from a heavy-grav planet. It also says you're some kind of fancy-assed fighter, and I guess you heard Citizen Captain de Sangro tell me they want you at Camp Charon intact. I s'pose you might think that means you can get frisky with us 'cause we can't kick your ass without upsetting Committeewoman Ransom. Well, if you're thinking that way, you go right ahead, but remember this. There's another twenty, thirty friends of yours topside, and every time you give anybody trouble, we'll just have to take it out on one of them, since we can't take it out on you.'

He smiled again, gave her chin a mocking flick, and nodded to Bergren.

'Take her away and get to know her,' he said.

'Well? Can you help him?'

Fritz Montoya looked up from the treecat on the bunk in front of him. He, McKeon, Venizelos, LaFollet, and Anson Lethridge, as the senior male officers, had been shoved into a single large, bare compartment. Aside from the half-dozen bunks and the bare-bones head facilities in one corner it could have been a cargo bay, and its barrenness felt makeshift and coldly impersonal. It wasn't much, but at least the extra bunk was a place to put Nimitz... for whatever good it was going to do. The rise and fall of the 'cat's ribs was barely perceptible, and his eyes were slits, with no sign of intelligence in them. Unconsciousness probably wasn't a good sign, Montoya thought, but at least it had let him handle the 'cat without twisting him with those hoarse, near-screams of pain.

'I don't know,' the doctor admitted. 'I don't know enough about treecats. As far as I know, no one off Sphinx does.'

'But you have to know something' LaFollet half begged. The armsman knelt beside the bunk, one hand resting ever so gently on Nimitz's flank. His own cheek was brutally discolored and swollen where a gun butt had split it, he'd walked with a painful limp on their way to their present quarters, and Montoya suspected his left shoulder was at least dislocated, but the anguish in his voice was for the treecat, not himself.

'I know his right midribs are broken,' Montoya said heavily, 'and as nearly as I can tell, so are his right midshoulder and upper arm. The gun butt caught him from above, striking downward, and I'm pretty sure it broke both the scapula and the joint itself. I don't think it caught him squarely enough to damage his spine, but I can't be sure about that, and I don't know enough about treecat skeletons to be sure I could set the bones I do know are broken even under optimum conditions. From what I can tell, or guess, though, that shoulder socket's going to need surgical reconstruction, and I don't begin to have the facilities for that.'

'Is...' LaFollet swallowed. 'Are you saying he's going to die?' he asked in a steadier tone, and Montoya sighed.

'I'm saying I don't know, Andrew,' he said much more gently. 'There are some good signs. The biggest one is that there's no bleeding from the nose or mouth. Coupled with the fact that his breathing may be slow and