Brain Ships - Anne McCaffrey [247]
While Micaya and Forister put on the suits provided for guests, Micaya commented innocently that the cost of suiting up an entire production line of prisoners must be prohibitive, and that she didn't see how they maintained the dexterity necessary for the assembly process while working from inside the bulky silvercloth gloves.
Polyon chuckled and agreed that the difficulties posed were enormous.
* * *
On board, Sev and Fassa were talking again; Nancia discreetly tuned in to their conversation, but there wasn't much in it to require her attention. Fassa was gloomy about the prospect of years in prison. Sev wasn't any too cheerful about it himself, but he assured Fassa that he'd wait for her.
"I don't think they let murderers out," Fassa said. "Unless they decide to mindwipe me."
"Fassa, you are not a murderer. Caleb isn't dead."
Fassa's slender body became quite still. "He isn't?"
"You were right," Sev said. "Nobody tells you anything. He isn't dead. He isn't even seriously ill; he was in therapy for nerve damage when I left Bahati."
"Latest bulletins from Summerlands say that he should recover full function quite soon and will probably be restored to active brawn status within the next few weeks," Nancia confirmed.
Sev and Fassa broke apart and looked up at the overhead speaker.
"Nancia!" Sev exclaimed. "I didn't know you were listening."
"You gave me the orders yourself," Nancia reminded him.
"Oh. Well." Sev thought. "Can I cancel the orders? Will you obey me if I do?"
"I really shouldn't."
"Lock the door on us both," Sev suggested. "I don't mind. But please, could we have some privacy now? This voyage back to Central is likely to be my last chance to be alone with my girl for a long, long time."
Fassa looked ridiculously happy for someone facing trial and a stiff prison sentence. Nancia left them to it.
* * *
She didn't have much to occupy her on Shemali, either. Micaya and Forister hadn't waited to take the full tour of the hyperchip assembly line; a few images of prisoners working unshielded with skin-destroying acids, in rooms that leaked poisonous gas, were all the evidence they needed to bolster Sev's detailed eyewitness testimony. The datacordings were particularly damning when accompanied, as they were, by Polyon's pleasant, cultured voice explaining just how he had cut costs and speeded up production by condemning the prisoners in his care to lingering, painful deaths by industrial poisoning. By the time Nancia had scanned those images, Micaya had already slapped tanglewires around Polyon's wrists, ankles, and even his neck. With the ankle field activated, she read him the formal statement of arrest.
"You can't do this!" Polyon protested. "Do you know who I am? I'm a de Gras-Waldheim. And I have Governor Lyautey's approval for everything I've done here!"
"My brainship has already transmitted a request for drug testing on Lyautey and all other civilian personnel," Forister told him. "I suspected Blissto when I heard your spaceport controller talking. What did you do, make addicts of anybody who could blow the whistle on you?"
"You can't arrest me," Polyon repeated as though he hadn't understood a word.
Micaya Questar-Benn had a smile that would have chilled steel to the snapping point. "Want to bet, son? Walk in front of me. Slowly, now. Wouldn't want the tanglefield to think you're trying to escape and cut off your feet; it's too quick and easy a death for your sort." And when Polyon opened his mouth again, she activated the extended tanglefield from the neck wire to keep him from flapping his tongue about any more.
As they left the assembly lines, a ragged cheer went up from the prisoners behind them.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
To Polyon's shock and amazement, the cyborg freak and her partner actually managed to convince Governor Lyautey that they were entitled to arrest a de Gras-Waldheim