Barrayar b-2

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  “But now the situation’s changed,” Cordelia pointed out. “Now you aren’t sharing the same risks. Their relatives have all the time there is. Miles has only six days, minus the time we spend arguing.” She could feel that clock ticking, in her head.

  He said nothing.

  “Aral … in all our time here, what favor have I ever asked of you, of your official powers?”

  A sad half-smile quirked across his lips, and vanished. His eyes were wholly on her, now. “Nothing,” he whispered. They both sat tensely, leaning toward the other, his elbows planted and hands clasped near his chin, her hands out flat before her, controlled.

  “I’m asking now.”

  “Now,” he said after a long hesitation, “is an extremely delicate time, in the overall strategic situation. We are right now engaged in secret negotiations with two of Vordarian’s top commanders to sell him out. The space forces are about to commit. We are on the verge of being able to shut Vordarian down without a major set-battle.”

  Cordelia’s thought was diverted just long enough to wonder how many of Vorkosigan’s commanders were secretly negotiating right now to sell them out. Time would tell. Time.

  Vorkosigan continued, “If—if we bring this negotiation off as I wish, we will be in a position to rescue most of the hostages in one major surprise raid, from a direction Vordarian does not expect.”

  “I’m not asking for a big raid.”

  “No. But I’m telling you that a small raid, particularly if things went wrong, might seriously interfere with the success of the larger, later one.”

  “Might.”

  “Might.” He tilted his head in concession to the uncertainty.

  “Time?”

  “About ten days.”

  “Not good enough.”

  “No. I will try to speed things up. But you understand—if I botch this chance, this timing, several thousand men could pay for my mistakes with their lives.”

  She understood clearly. “All right. Suppose we leave the armies of Barrayar out of this for the moment. Let me go. With maybe a liveried man or two, and pinpoint—downright hypodermic—secrecy. A totally private effort.”

  His hands slapped to the table, and he sputtered, “No! God, Cordelia!”

  “Do you doubt my competence?” she asked dangerously. I sure do. Now was not the moment to admit this, however. “Is that ’Dear Captain’ just a pet name for a pet, or did you mean it?”

  “I have seen you do extraordinary things—”

  You’ve also seen me fall flat on my face, so?

  “—but you are not expendable. God. That really would make me terminally crazy. To wait, not knowing …”

  “You ask that of me. To wait, unknowing. You ask it every day.”

  “You are stronger than I. You are strong beyond reason.”

  “Flattering. Not convincing.”

  His thought circled hers; she could see it in his knife-keen eyes. “No. No haring off on your own. I forbid it, Cordelia. Flat, absolutely. Put it right out of your mind. I cannot risk you both.”

  “You do. In this.”

  His jaw clamped; his head lowered. Message received and understood. Koudelka, sitting worriedly beside him, glanced back and forth between the two of them in consternation. Cordelia could sense the pressure of Drou’s hand, white-tight on the back of her chair.

  Vorkosigan looked like something being ground between two great stones; she had no desire to see him smeared to powder. In a moment, he would demand her word to confine herself to Base, to dare no risk.

  She opened her hand, curving up on the tabletop. “I would choose differently. But no one appointed me Regent of Barrayar.”

  The tension ran out of him with a sigh. “Insufficient imagination. A common failing, among Barrayarans, my love.”

  Returning to Aral’s quarters, Cordelia found Count Piotr in the corridor, just turning away from their door. He was quite changed from the exhausted wild man who’d left her on a mountain trail. Now he was dressed in the sort of quietly upper-class clothes favored by retired Vor lords and senior Imperial ministers; neat trousers, polished half-boots, an elaborate tunic. Bothari loomed at his shoulder, once again costumed in his formal brown-and-silver livery. Bothari carried a thick coat folded over his arm, by which Cordelia deduced Piotr had just blown in from his diplomatic mission to some fellow District count to the wintery north of Vordarian’s holdings. Vorkosigan’s people certainly seemed to be able to move at will now, outside the heartlands held by Vordarian.

  “Ah. Cordelia.” Piotr gave her a formal, cautious nod; not reopening hostilities here. That was fine with Cordelia. She was not sure she had any will to fight left in her gnawed-out heart.

  “Good day, sir. Was your trip a success?”

  “Indeed it was. Where is Aral?”

  “Gone to Sector Intelligence, I believe, to consult with Illyan about the most recent reports from Vorbarr Sultana.”

  “Ah? What’s happening?”

  “Captain Vaagen turned up at our door. He’d been beaten half-senseless, but he still somehow made it from the capital—it seems Vordarian finally woke up to the fact that he had another hostage. His squad looted Miles’s replicator from ImpMil, and took it back to the Imperial Residence. I expect we’ll hear more from him soon about it, but he’s doubtless waited to give us the full pleasure of Captain Vaagen’s tale, first.”

  Piotr threw back his head in a sharp, bitter laugh. “Now there’s an empty threat.”

  Cordelia unclenched her jaw long enough to say, “What do you mean, sir?” She knew perfectly well what he meant, but she wanted to see him run to his limit. All the way, damn you; spit it all out.

  His lips twitched, half frown, half smile. “I mean Vordarian inadvertently offers House Vorkosigan a service. I’m sure he doesn’t realize it.”

  You wouldn’t say that if Aral were standing here, old man. Did you set this up? God, she couldn’t say that to him—”Did you set this up?” Cordelia demanded tightly.

  Piotr’s head jerked back. “I don’t deal with traitors!”

  “He’s of your Old Vor party. Your true allegiance. You always said Aral was too damned progressive.”

  “You dare accuse me—!” His outrage edged into plain rage.

  Her rage was shadowing her vision with red. “I know you are an attempted murderer, why not an attempted traitor, too? I can only hope your incompetence holds good.”

  His voice was breathy with fury. “Too far!”

  “No, old man. Not nearly far enough.”

  Drou looked absolutely terrorized. Bothari’s face was a stony blank. Piotr’s hand twitched, as if he wanted to strike her. Bothari watched that hand, his eyes glittering oddly, shifting.

  “While dumping that mutant out of its can is the best favor Vidal Vordarian could do me, I am hardly likely to let him know it,” Piotr bit out. “It will be far more amusing to watch him try to play a joker as if it were an ace, and then wonder what went wrong. Aral knows—I imagine he’s relieved as hell, to have Vordarian do his job for him. Or have you bewitched him into planning something spectacularly stupid?”

  “Aral’s doing nothing.”

  “Oh, good boy. I was wondering if you’d stolen his spine permanently. He is Barrayaran after all.”

  “So it seems,” she said woodenly. She was shaking. Piotr was not in much better case.

  “This is a side-issue,” he said, as much to himself as her, trying to regain his self-control. “I have major issues to pursue with the Lord Regent. Farewell, Milady.” He tilted his head in ironic effort, and turned away.

  “Have a nice day,” she snarled to his back, and flung herself through the door into Aral’s quarters.

  She paced for twenty minutes, back and forth, before she trusted herself enough to speak even to Drou, who had squeezed into a corner seat as if trying to make herself small.

  “You don’t really think Count Piotr is a traitor, do you, Milady?” Droushnakovi asked, when Cordelia’s ste
ps finally slowed.

  Cordelia shook her head. “No … no. I just wanted to hurt him back. This place is getting to me. Has gotten to me.” Wearily, she sank into a seat and leaned her head back against the padding. After a silence she added, “Aral’s right. I have no right to risk. No, that’s not quite correct. I have no right to failure. And I don’t trust myself anymore. I don’t know what’s happened to my edge. Lost it in a strange land.” I can’t remember. Can’t remember how I did it. She and Bothari were twins, right enough, two personalities separately but equally crippled by an overdose of Barrayar.

  “Milady …” Droushnakovi plucked at her skirts, looking down into her lap. “I was in Imperial Residence Security for three years.”

  “Yes …” Her heart lurched, gulped. As an exercise in self—discipline, Cordelia closed her eyes and did not open them again. “Tell me about that, Drou.”

  “Negri trained me himself. Because I was Kareen’s body servant, he always said I would be the last barrier between Kareen and Gregor and—and anything that was bad enough to get that far. He showed me everything about the Residence. He used to drill me about it. He showed me things I don’t think he showed anybody else. We had five emergency escape routes worked out, in our disaster drills. Two of them were common Security procedure. One of them he showed only to a few top staffers like Illyan. The other two—I don’t know that anybody knew about them but Negri and Emperor Ezar. And I’m thinking …” she moistened her lips, “a secret route out of something ought to be an equally secret route in. Don’t you think?”

  “Your reasoning interests me extremely, Drou. As Aral might say. Go on.” Cordelia still did not open her eyes.

  “That’s about it. If I could somehow get to the Residence, I bet I could get in. If Vordarian’s just taken over all the standard Security arrangements and beefed them up.”

  “And get back out?”

  “Why not?” Cordelia found she had to remember to breathe. “Who do you work for, Drou?”

  “Captain—” she started to answer, but slowed selfconsciously. “Negri. But he’s dead. Commander—Captain Illyan, now, I suppose.”

  “Let me rephrase that.” Cordelia opened her eyes at last. “Who did you put your life on the line for?”

  “Kareen. And Gregor, of course. They were kind of the same thing.”

  “Still are. This mother bets.” She caught Drou’s blue gaze. “And Kareen gave you to me.”

  “To be my mentor. We thought you were a soldier.”

  “Never. But that doesn’t mean I never fought.” Cordelia paused. “What do you want to trade for, Drou? Your life in my hand—I shall not say oath-sworn, that’s for those other idiots—for what?”

  “Kareen,” Droushnakovi answered steadily. “I’ve watched them, here, gradually reclassifying her as expendable. Every day for three years, I put my life on the line because I believed that her life was important. You watch someone that closely for that long, you don’t have too many illusions about her. Now they seem to think I should just switch off my loyalty, like some guard-machine. There’s something wrong with that. I want to—to at least try for Kareen. In exchange for that—whatever you will, Milady.”

  “Ah.” Cordelia rubbed her lips. “That seems … equitable. One expendable life for another. Kareen for Miles.” She sank down in the chair in deep meditation.

  First you see it. Then you do it. “It’s not enough.” Cordelia shook her head at last. “We need … someone who knows the city. Someone with muscle, for backup. A weapons-man, a sleepless eye. I need a friend.” The comers of her lips turned up in a very small smile. “Closer than a brother.” She rose and walked to the comconsole.

  “You asked to see me, Milady?” said Sergeant Bothari.

  “Yes. Please come in.”

  Senior officers’ quarters did not intimidate Bothari, but his brow furrowed nonetheless as Cordelia gestured him to a seat. She took Aral’s usual spot across the low table from him. Drou sat again in the corner, watching in reserved silence.

  Cordelia regarded Bothari, who regarded her in return. He looked all right physically, though his face was grooved with tension. She sensed, as with a third eye, frustrated energies coursing through his body; arcs of rage, nets of control, a tangled electric knot of dangerous sexuality under it all. Reverberating energies, building up and up without release, in desperate need of ordered action lest they break out wildly on their own. She blinked, and refocused on his less terrifying surface; a tired-looking ugly man in an elegant brown uniform.

  To her surprise, Bothari began. “Milady. Have you heard anything new about Elena?”

  Wondering why I called you here? To her shame, she had almost forgotten Elena. “Nothing new, I’m afraid. She is reported being kept along with Mistress Hysopi in that downtown hotel that Vordarian’s Security commandeered when they ran out of cells, with a lot of other second– and third-tier hostages. She hasn’t been moved to the Residence or anything.” Elena was not, unlike Kareen, in the direct line of Cordelia’s secret mission. If he asked, how much dare she promise?

  “I was sorry to hear about your son, Milady.”

  “My mutant, as Piotr would say.” She watched him; she could read his shoulders and spine and gut better than that blank beaky face.

  “About Count Piotr,” he said, and stopped. His hands hooked each other, between his knees, and flexed. “I had thought to speak to the admiral. I hadn’t thought to speak to you. I should have thought of you.”

  “Always.” Now what?

  “Man came up to me yesterday. In the gym. Not in uniform, no rank or nametag. He offered me Elena. Elena’s life, if I would assassinate Count Piotr.”

  “How tempting,” Cordelia choked, before she could stop herself. “What, uh, guarantees did he offer?”

  “That question came to me, pretty shortly. There I would be, in deep shit, maybe executed, and who would care for a, a dead man’s bastard then? I figured it for a cheat, just another cheat. I went back to look for him, been on the lookout, but I never spotted him since.” He sighed. “It almost seems like a hallucination, now.”

  The expression on Drou’s face was a study in the deepest unreassurance, but fortunately Bothari was turned away from her and did not notice. Cordelia shot her a small quelling frown.

  “Have you been having hallucinations?” Cordelia asked.

  “I don’t think so. Just bad dreams. I try not to sleep.”

  “I … have a dilemma of my own,” Cordelia said. “As you heard me tell Piotr.”

  “Yes, Milady.”

  “Had you heard about the time limit?”

  “Time limit?”

  “If it’s not serviced, the replicator will start to fail to support Miles in less than six days. Aral argues that Miles is in no more danger than any of his staffers’ families. I disagree.”

  “Behind his back, I’ve heard some say otherwise.”

  “Ah?”

  “They say it’s a cheat. The admiral’s son is some sort of mutant, non-viable, while they risk whole children.”

  “I don’t think he realizes … anyone says that.”

  “Who would repeat it to his face?”

  “Very few. Maybe not even Illyan.” Though Piotr probably wouldn’t fail to pass it on, if he picked it up. “Dammit! No one, on either side, would hesitate to dump that replicator.” She brooded, and began again. “Sergeant. Who do you work for?”

  “I am oath-sworn Armsman to Count Piotr,” Bothari recited the obvious. He was watching her closely now, a weird smile tugging at one corner of his mouth.

  “Let me rephrase that. I know the official penalties for an armsman going AWOL are fearsome. But suppose—”

  “Milady.” He held up a hand; she paused in mid-breath. “Do you remember, back on the front lawn at Vorkosigan Surleau when we were loading Negri’s body into the lightflyer, when my Lord Regent told me to obey your voice as his own?”

  Cordelias brows went up. “Yes … ?”

  “He n
ever countermanded that order.”

  “Sergeant,” she breathed at last, “I’d never have guessed you for a barracks-lawyer.”

  His smile grew a millimeter tighter. “Your voice is as the voice of the Emperor himself. Technically.”

  “Is it, now,” she whispered in delight. Her nails dug into her palms.

  He leaned forward, his hands now held rock-still between his knees. “So, Milady. What were you saying?”

  The motor pool staging bay was an echoing low vault, its shadows slashed by the lights from a glass-walled office. Cordelia stood waiting in the darkened lift tube portal, Drou at her shoulder, and watched through the distant rectangle of glass as Bothari negotiated with the transport officer. General Vorkosigan’s Armsman was signing out a vehicle for his oath-lord. The passes and IDs Bothari had been issued apparently worked just fine. The motor pool man fed Bothari’s cards to his computer, took Bothari’s palm print on his sensor-pad, and dispatched orders with snap and hustle.

  Would this simple plan work? Cordelia wondered desperately. And if it didn’t, what alternative had they? Their planned route sketched itself in her mind, red light-lines snaking over a map. Not north toward their goal, but due south first, by groundcar into the next loyal District. Ditch the distinctive government vehicle, take the monorail west to yet another District, then northwest to another; then due east into Count Vorinnis’s neutral zone, focus of so much diplomatic attention from both sides. Piotr’s comment echoed in her memory, “I swear, Aral, if Vorinnis doesn’t quit trying to play both ends against the middle, you ought to hang him higher than Vordarian when this is over.” Then into the capital District itself, then, somehow, into the sealed city. A daunting number of kilometers to cover. Three times the distance of the direct route.

  So much time. Her heart swung north like a compass needle.

  The first and last Districts would be the worst. Aral’s forces could be almost more inimical to this excursion than Vordarian’s. Her head spun with the cumulative impossibility of it all.