Free Downbelow Station by C. J. Cherryh

largest station on a ship.
    “—or condition which would cause you unusual duress. Don’t you have kin, relatives, someone who would try to talk you out of this if they heard about it?”
    The eyes reacted to that, ever so slightly.
    “Do you have someone?” Damon asked, hoping he had found a handhold, some reason to apply against this, “Who?”
    “Dead,” Talley said.
    “If this request is in reaction to that—”
    “A long time ago,” Talley said, cutting that off. Nothing more.   An angel’s face. Humanity without flaw. Birth labs? The thought came to him unbidden. It had always been abhorrent to him, Union’s engineered soldiers. His own possible prejudice worried at him. “I haven’t read your file in full,” he admitted. “This has been handled at other levels. They thought they had this settled. It bounced back to me. You had family, Mr. Talley?” “Yes,” Talley said faintly, defiantly, making him ashamed of himself.
    “Born where?”
    “Cyteen.” The same small, flat voice, “I’ve given you all that. I had parents. I was born, Mr. Konstantin. Is that really pertinent?”
    “I’m sorry. I’m very sorry. I want you to understand this: it’s not final. You can change your mind, right up to the moment the treatment begins. All you have to say is stop, I don’t want this. But after it goes so far, you’re not competent. You understand… you’re no longer able. You’ve seen Adjusted men?” “They recover.”
    “They do recover. I’ll follow the case, Mr. Talley… Lt Talley… so much as I can.   You see to it,” he said to the supervisor, “that any time he sends a message, at any stage of the process, it gets to me on an emergency basis, day or night You see that the attendants understand that too, down to the orderlies. I don’t think he’ll abuse the privilege.” He looked at Jacoby. “Are you satisfied about your client?”
    “It’s his right to do what he’s doing. I’m not pleased with it. But I’ll witness it. I’ll agree it solves things… maybe for the best.”
    The comp printout arrived. Damon handed the papers to Jacoby for scrutiny.   Jacoby marked the lines for signature and passed the folder to Talley. Talley folded it to him like something precious.
    “Mr. Talley,” Damon said, rising, and on impulse offered his hand, against all the distaste he felt The young armscomper rose and took it, and the look of gratitude in his suddenly brimming eyes cancelled all certainties. “Is it possible,” Damon asked, “is it remotely possible that you have information you want wiped? That that’s why you’re doing this? I warn you it’s more likely to come out in the process than not. And we’re not interested in it, do you understand that? We have no military interests.”
    That was not it. He much doubted that it could be. This was no high officer, no one like himself, who knew comp signals, access codes, the sort of thing an enemy must not have. No one had discovered the like in this man… nothing of value, not here, not at Russell’s.
    “No,” Talley said. “I don’t know anything.”
    Damon hesitated, still nagged by conscience, the feeling that Talley’s counsel, if no one else, ought to be protesting, doing something more vigorous, using all the delays of the law on Talley’s behalf. But that got him prison; got him… no hope. They were bringing Q outlaws into detention, far more dangerous; men who might know him, if Talley was right. Adjustment saved him, got him out of there; gave him the chance for a job, for freedom, a life. There was no one sane who would carry out revenge on someone after a mind-wipe. And the process was humane. It was always meant to be.
    “Talley… have you complaint against Mallory or the personnel of Norway?”
    “No.”
    “Your counsel is present. It would be put on record… if you wanted to make such a complaint.”
    “No.”
    So that trick would not work. No delaying it for investigation. Damon nodded,