"I apologize for interrupting such intense study, Captain Cortin, but I have been trying to attract your attention for several minutes." The tall, attractive man in Enforcement gray, with St. Dmitri collar insignia and major's leaf, bowed. "Major Ivan Petrovich Illyanov. Your instructor—and delighted to have such an attentive student. How far have you gotten?"
When Cortin told him, he smiled. "Excellent progress. Now we see how well you have absorbed what you have read." He began questioning her—without any of the memory-enhancing techniques, Cortin noted—nodding or frowning occasionally at her responses. He made her work, and she did so enthusiastically, disappointed when he finally called a halt.
"You cannot learn a year's course material in one night," he said drily. "Though at this rate you may well do so in a month. The classroom material, at any rate." He touched a bandaged hand. "May I see?"
"Of course. Uh …"
"'Uh' what?" Illyanov asked, gently unwrapping the bandage.
"Mike—Captain Odeon—told you why I want to learn this?"
"He did indeed." Illyanov paused, smiled at her. "I doubt there is an officer in any Enforcement service on this world of ours, perhaps anywhere in the entire Systems, who does not know of Captain Joan Cortin and her ordeal. It should please you to learn that anti-Brotherhood operations are currently overwhelmed with volunteers sworn to avenge you. Although that has driven the Brotherhood to ground, so I fear I must tell you we are having no more real success than before."
"I am pleased—and flattered," Cortin said. "It never occurred to me that there'd be that much of a reaction."
"But you are also pleased there will be some left to hunt when you recover." Illyanov finished undoing the bandage, nodded approvingly at the burn. "A good move, keeping these. You did it on instinct?"
"Yes. They're obscene, disgusting—a worse violation than the rape, by far—but it didn't seem right getting rid of them. Though I probably will, eventually."