– Here's a look at the new set of laws I'll be distributing this week. – The Mountain handed him a piece of paper on which were handwritten, point by point, the "Rights and Responsibilities of the Self-Governing Territory". – Study it now.
Rights and obligations of the Self-Governing Territory
Everyone is responsible with his life for the life of his boss.
Failure to obey the orders of one's superior is considered an act of sabotage and is punishable at the discretion of the superior up to and including the death penalty, approved only by the prefect
Members of the SMERSH organization shall have the right to search, detain and use any physical restraint, if necessary, against any citizen of the Self-Governing Territory.
The Prefect has the power to reward, pardon and execute any citizen of the Local Government Territory without cause
All efforts and measures taken by the citizens shall be directed solely towards the fulfillment of the will of the prefect
No one has the right to question, even in thought, the correctness of the prefect's actions.
Openly not accepting the will of the prefect is considered an act of sabotage
Tikhomirov continued to hold this piece of paper in his hands, reading it, and didn't even blink an eye when he finished doing so:
– Most of these measures have in fact already been approved by me, Mr. Prefect. There are no superfluous words here, except one. In the last paragraph, the word "open" is still superfluous. If in the previous paragraph we believe that one should not be against it even in thought, then we should also consider sabotage a crime even in thought. Whether we know about it or not, we must consider it a crime.
Gora looked at the paper, then at Tikhomirov, then shook his head slightly affirmatively:
– Yeah. You're right. The word "open" doesn't belong here.
Inquisitor
This cell was even smaller than the one he'd been sitting in a few days ago. This one contained only a bunk and a garbage bucket. It seemed to him that the warders had something special to do with buckets – you couldn't just take them out, or cover them with something, or even fill them with water at first. They are inviolable except when you defecate in them. I guess that's what it looked like in their heads.
It was a punitive isolation cell, where prisoners who violated something flagrantly or repeatedly were sent. The priest had violated several times – he was wearing clothes that were not according to the regulations. He had one button undone on his collar and one on each sleeve, plus his sleeves were rolled up. He was reprimanded the first time, and sent to the detention center the second time.
Of course, he tried to convince them that there was no malice in it. That the button on his collar was undone because otherwise the collar squeezed his throat and it was hard to breathe. And the sleeves don't button up properly at all. And that the whole prison uniform was too small for him. In response, he heard that it was not a problem for him to button up, that he sometimes did so during inspections, that it was the same with the sleeves, and that all these were gross violations of discipline.
And again he tried to say that, indeed, technically he could zip it up, but not for more than a couple of minutes while the inspection was going on. And that he was only doing it so that his actions would not be seen as malicious, which they were not.
