Shards of Honor (Vorkosigan Saga)

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  “I fail to see the distinction.”

  “A price is something you get. A cost is something you lose. He lost—much, at Escobar.”

  The talk was drifting onto dangerous ground. Got to change the subject, Cordelia thought drowsily. Or take a nap … Mehta glanced at the time again, and studied Cordelia’s face intently.

  “Escobar,” said Mehta.

  “Aral lost his honor at Escobar, you know. He said he was going to go home and get drunk, afterwards. Escobar broke his heart, I think.”

  “Aral … You call him by his first name?”

  “He calls me ‘dear Captain.’ I always thought that was funny. Very revealing, in a way. He really does think of me as a lady soldier. Vorrutyer was right again—I think I am the solution to a difficulty for him. I’m glad… .” The room was getting warm. She yawned. The wisps of smoke wound tendril-like about her.

  “Soldier.”

  “He loves his soldiers, you know. He really does. He’s stuffed with this peculiar Barrayaran patriotism. All honor to the emperor. The emperor hardly seems worthy of it… .”

  “Emperor.”

  “Poor sod. Tormented as Bothari. May be as mad.”

  “Bothari? Who is Bothari?”

  “He talks to demons. The demons talk back. You’d like Bothari. Aral does. I do. Good guy to have with you on your next trip to hell. He speaks the language.”

  Mehta frowned, twiddled her dials again, and tapped her readout screen with a long fingernail. She backtracked. “Emperor.”

  Cordelia could hardly keep her eyes open. Mehta lit another cigarette and set it beside the stub of the first.

  “Prince,” said Cordelia. Mustn’t talk about the prince… .

  “Prince,” repeated Mehta.

  “Mustn’t talk about the Prince. That mountain of corpses …” Cordelia squinted in the smoke. The smoke—the odd, acrid smoke from cigarettes, once lit, never again lifted to the mouth …

  “You’re—drugging—me… .” Her voice broke in a strangled howl, and she staggered to her feet. The air was like glue. Mehta leaned forward, lips parted in concentration. She then jumped from her chair and back in surprise as Cordelia lurched toward her.

  Cordelia swept the recorder from the table and fell upon it as it smashed to the floor, beating on it with her good hand, her right hand. “Never talk! No more death! You can’t make me! Blew it—you can’t get away with it, I’m sorry, watchdog, remembers every word, I’m sorry, shot him, please, talk to me, please, let me out, please let me out pleaseletmeout …”

  Mehta was trying to lift her from the floor, speaking soothingly. Cordelia caught pieces in the outwash of her own babble. “—not supposed to do that—idiosyncratic reaction—most unusual. Please, Captain Naismith, come lie down… .”

  Something glittered at Mehta’s fingertips. An ampule.

  “No!” screamed Cordelia, rolling on her back and kicking at her. She connected. The ampule arced away to roll under a low table. “No drugs no drugs no no no …”

  Mehta was pale olive. “All right! All right! But come lie down—that’s it, like that …” She darted away to turn up the air conditioning full blast, and stub out the second cigarette. The air cleared quickly.

  Cordelia lay on the couch, regaining her breath and trembling. So close—she had come so close to betraying him—and this was only the first session. Gradually she began to feel cooler and clearer.

  She sat up, her face buried in her hands. “That was a dirty trick,” she observed in a flat voice.

  Mehta smiled, thin as plastic over an underlying excitement. “Well, it was, a little. But it’s been an enormously productive session. Far more than I ever expected.”

  I’ll bet, thought Cordelia. Enjoyed my performance, did you? Mehta was kneeling on the floor, picking up pieces of the recorder.

  “Sorry about your machine. Can’t imagine what came over me. Did I—destroy your results?”

  “Yes, you should have just fallen asleep. Strange. And no.” Rather triumphantly, she pulled a data cartridge from the wreck, and set it carefully on the table. “You won’t have to go through that again. It’s all right here. Very good.”

  “What do you make of it?” asked Cordelia dryly, through her fingers.

  Mehta regarded her with professional fascination. “You are without doubt the most challenging case I’ve ever handled. But this should relieve your mind of any lingering doubts about whether the Barrayarans have, ah, violently rearranged your thinking. Your readouts practically went off the scales.” She nodded firmly.

  “You know,” said Cordelia, “I’m not too crazy about your methods. I have a—particular aversion to being drugged against my will. I thought that sort of thing was illegal.”

  “But necessary, sometimes. The data are much purer if the subject is not aware of the observation. It’s considered sufficiently ethical if permission is obtained post facto.”

  “Post facto permission, eh?” Cordelia purred. Fear and fury wound a double helix up her spine, coiling tighter and tighter. With an effort, she kept her smile straight, not letting it turn into a snarl. “That’s a legal concept I’d never thought of. It sounds—almost Barrayaran. I don’t want you on my case,” she added abruptly.

  Mehta made a note, and looked up, smiling.

  “That’s not a statement of emotion,” Cordelia emphasized. “That’s a legal demand. I refuse any further treatment from you.”

  Mehta nodded understandingly. Was the woman deaf?

  “Enormous progress,” said Mehta happily. “I wouldn’t have expected to uncover the aversion defense for another week yet.”

  “What?”

  “You didn’t expect the Barrayarans would put that much work into you and not plant defenses around it, did you? Of course you feel hostile. Just remember, those are not your own feelings. Tomorrow, we will work on them.”

  “Oh no we won’t!” The muscles up her scalp were tense as wire. Her head ached fiercely. “You’re fired!”

  Mehta looked eager. “Oh, excellent!”

  “Did you hear me?” demanded Cordelia. Where did that shrieky whine in my voice come from? Calm, calm …

  “Captain Naismith, I remind you that we are not civilians. I am not in the ordinary legal physician-patient relationship with you; we are both under military discipline, pursuing, I have reason to believe, a military—never mind. Suffice it to say, you did not hire me and you can’t fire me. Tomorrow, then.”

  Cordelia remained seated for hours after she left, staring at the wall and swinging her leg in absent thumps against the side of the couch, until her mother came home with supper. The next day she left the apartment early in the morning on a random tour of the city, and didn’t return until late at night.

  *

  That night, in her weariness and loneliness, she sat down to write her first letter to Vorkosigan. She threw away her original attempt halfway through, when she realized his mail was probably read by other eyes, perhaps Illyan’s. Her second was more neutrally worded. She made it handwritten, on paper, and being alone kissed it before she sealed it, then smiled wryly at herself for doing so. A paper letter was far more expensive to ship to Barrayar than an electronic one, but he would handle it, as she had. It was as close to a touch as they could come.

  The next morning Mehta called early on the comconsole, to tell Cordelia cheerily she could relax; something had come up, and their session that afternoon was canceled. She did not refer to Cordelia’s absence the previous afternoon.

  Cordelia was relieved at first, until she began thinking about it. Just to be sure, she absented herself from home again. The day might have been pleasant, but for a dust-up with some journalists lurking around the apartment shaft, and the discovery about midafternoon that she was being followed by two men in very inconspicuous civilian sarongs. Sarongs were last year’s fashion; this year it was exotic and whimsical body paint, at least for the brave. Cordelia, wearing her old tan Survey fatigues, lost them by trailing the
m through a pornographic feelie-show. But they turned up again later in the afternoon as she puttered through the Silica Zoo.

  *

  At Mehta’s appointed hour the next afternoon the door chimed. Cordelia slouched reluctantly to answer it. How am I going to handle her today? she wondered. I’m running low on inspiration. So tired …

  Her stomach sank. Now what? Framed in the doorway were Mehta, Commodore Tailor, and a husky medtech. That one, Cordelia thought, staring up at him, looks as if he could handle Bothari. Backing up a bit, she led them into her mother’s living room. Her mother retreated to the kitchen, ostensibly to prepare coffee.

  Commodore Tailor seated himself and cleared his throat nervously. “Cordelia, I have something to say that will be a little painful, I’m afraid.”

  Cordelia perched on the arm of a chair and swung her leg back and forth, baring her teeth in what she hoped was a bland smile. “S-sticking you with the dirty work, eh? One of the joys of command. Go ahead.”

  “We’re going to have to ask you to agree to hospitalization for further therapy.”

  Dear God, here we go. The muscles of her belly trembled beneath her shirt; it was a loose shirt, maybe they wouldn’t notice. “Oh? Why?” she inquired casually.

  “We’re afraid—we’re very much afraid that the Barrayaran mind programming you underwent was a lot more extensive than anyone realized. We think, in fact …” he paused, taking a deep breath, “that they’ve tried to make you an agent.”

  Is that an editorial or an imperial “we,” Bill? “Tried, or succeeded?”

  Tailor’s gaze wavered. Mehta fixed him with a cold stare. “Our opinion is divided on that—”

  Note, class, how sedulously he avoids the “I” of personal responsibility—it suggests the worst “we” of all, the guilty “we”—what the hell are they planning?

  “—but that letter you sent day before yesterday to the Barrayaran admiral, Vorkosigan—we thought you should have a chance to explain it, first.”

  “I s-see.” You dared! “Not an official l-letter. How could it be? You know Vorkosigan’s retired now. But perhaps,” her eye nailed Tailor, “you would care to explain by what right you are intercepting and reading my private mail?”

  “Emergency security. For the war.”

  “War’s over.”

  He looked uncomfortable at that. “But the espionage goes on.”

  Probably true. She had often wondered how Ezar Vorbarra came by the knowledge of the plasma mirrors, until the war the most closely guarded new weapon in the Betan arsenal. Her foot was tapping nervously. She stilled it. “My letter.” My heart, on paper—paper wraps stone… . She kept her voice cool. “And what did you learn from my letter, Bill?”

  “Well, that’s a problem. We’ve had our best cryptographers, our most advanced computer programs, working on it for the better part of two days. Analyzed it right down to the molecular structure of the paper. Frankly,” he glanced rather irritably at Mehta, “I’m not convinced they found anything.”

  No, Cordelia thought, you wouldn’t. The secret was in the kiss. Not subject to molecular analysis. She sighed glumly. “Did you send it on, after you were done?”

  “Well—I’m afraid there wasn’t anything left, by then.”

  Scissors cut paper… . “I’m no agent. I g-give you my word.”

  Mehta looked up, alert.

  “I find it hard to believe, myself,” Tailor said.

  Cordelia tried to hold his eyes; he looked away. You do believe it. “What happens if I refuse to have myself committed?”

  “Then as your commanding officer, I must order you to do so.”

  I’ll see you in hell first—no. Calm. Must stay calm, keep them taking, maybe I can talk my way out of this yet. “Even if it’s against your private judgment?”

  “This is a serious security matter. I’m afraid it doesn’t admit private judgments.”

  “Oh, come on. Even Captain Negri has been known to make a private judgment, they say.”

  She’d said something wrong. The temperature in the room seemed to drop suddenly.

  “How do you know about Captain Negri?” said Tailor frozenly.

  “Everybody knows about Negri.” They were staring at her. “Oh, c-come on! If I were an agent of Negri’s, you’d never know it. He’s not so inept!”

  “On the contrary,” said Mehta in a clipped tone, “we think he’s so good that you’d never know it.”

  “Garbage!” said Cordelia, disgusted. “How do you figure that?”

  Mehta answered literally. “My hypothesis is that you are being controlled—unconsciously, perhaps—by this rather sinister and enigmatic Admiral Vorkosigan. That your programming began during your first captivity and was completed, probably, during the late war. You were destined to be the linchpin of a new Barrayaran intelligence network here, to replace the one that was just rooted out. A mole, perhaps, put in place and not activated for years, until some critical moment—”

  “Sinister?” Cordelia interrupted. “Enigmatic? Aral? I could laugh.” I could weep… .

  “He is obviously your control,” said Mehta complacently. “You have apparently been programmed to obey him unquestioningly.”

  “I am not a computer.” Thump, thump, went her foot. “And Aral is the one person who has never constrained me. A point of honor, I believe.”

  “You see?” said Mehta. To Tailor; she didn’t look at Cordelia. “All the evidence points one way.”

  “Only if you’re s-standing on your head!” cried Cordelia, furious. She glared at Tailor. “That’s not an order I have to take. I can resign my commission.”

  “We need not have your permission,” said Mehta calmly, “even as a civilian. If your next of kin will agree to it.”

  “My mother’d never do that to me!”

  “We’ve already discussed it with her, at length. She’s very concerned for you.”

  “I s-see.” Cordelia subsided abruptly, glancing toward the kitchen. “I wondered why that coffee was taking so long. Guilty conscience, eh?” She hummed a snatch of tune under her breath, then stopped. “You people have really done your homework. Covered all the exits.”

  Tailor summoned up a smile and offered it to her, placatingly. “You don’t have anything to be afraid of, Cordelia. You’ll have our very best people working for—with—”

  On, thought Cordelia.

  “—you. And when you’re done, you’ll be able to return to your old life as if none of this had ever happened.”

  Erase me, will you? Erase him … Analyze me to death, like my poor timid love letter. She smiled back at him, ruefully. “Sorry, Bill. I just have this awful vision of being p-peeled like an onion, looking for the seeds.”

  He grinned. “Onions don’t have seeds, Cordelia.”

  “I stand corrected,” she said dryly.

  “And frankly,” he went on, “if you are right and, uh, we are wrong—the fastest way you can prove it is to come along.” He smiled the smile of reason.

  “Yes, true …” But for that little matter of a civil war on Barrayar—that tiny stumbling block—that stone—paper wraps stone …

  “Sorry, Cordelia.” He really was.

  “It’s all right.”

  “Remarkable ploy of the Barrayarans,” Mehta expounded thoughtfully. “Concealing an espionage ring under the cover of a love affair. I might even have bought it, if the principals had been more likely.”

  “Yes,” Cordelia agreed cordially, writhing within. “One doesn’t expect a thirty-four-year-old to fall in love like an adolescent. Quite an unexpected—gift, at my age. Even more unexpected at forty-four, I gather.”

  “Exactly,” said Mehta, pleased by Cordelia’s ready understanding. “A middle-aged career officer is hardly the stuff of romance.”

  Tailor, behind her, opened his mouth as if to speak, then shut it again. He stared meditatively at his hands.

  “Think you can cure me of it?” asked Cordelia.

  “O
h, yes.”

  “Ah.” Sergeant Bothari, where are you now? Too late. “You leave me no choice. Curious.” Delay, whispered her mind. Look for an opportunity. If you can’t find one, make one. Pretend this is Barrayar, where anything is possible. “Is it all right if I g-get a shower—change clothes, pack? I assume this is going to be a lengthy business.”

  “Of course.” Tailor and Mehta exchanged a relieved look. Cordelia smiled pleasantly.

  Dr. Mehta, without the medtech, accompanied her to her bedroom. Opportunity, thought Cordelia dizzily. “Ah, good,” she said, closing the door behind the doctor. “We can chat while I pack.”

  Sergeant Bothari—there is a time for words, and there is a time when even the very best words fail. You were a man of very few words, but you didn’t fail. I wish I’d understood you better. Too late …

  Mehta seated herself on the bed, watching her specimen, perhaps, as it wriggled on its pin. Her triumph of logical deduction. Are you planning to write a paper on me, Mehta? wondered Cordelia dourly. Paper wraps stone… .

  She puttered around the room, opening drawers, slamming cabinets. There was a belt—two belts—and a chain belt. There were her identity cards, bank cards, money. She pretended not to see them. As she moved, she talked. Her brain seethed. Stone smashes scissors… .

  “You know you remind me a bit of the late Admiral Vorrutyer. You both want to take me apart, see what makes me tick. Vorrutyer was more like a little kid, though. Had no intention of picking up his mess afterwards.

  “You, on the other hand, will take me apart and not even get a giggle out of it. Of course, you fully intend to put the pieces back together afterwards, but from my point of view that scarcely makes any difference. Aral was right about people in green silk rooms… .”

  Mehta looked puzzled. “You’ve stopped stuttering,” she noted.

  “Yes …” Cordelia paused before her aquarium, considering it curiously. “So I have. How strange.” Stone smashes scissors… .

  She removed the top. The old familiar nausea of funk and fear wrung her stomach. She wandered aimlessly behind Mehta, the chain belt and a shirt in her hands. I must choose now. I must choose now. I choose—now!

  She lunged, wrapping the belt around the doctor’s throat, yanking her arms up behind her back, securing them painfully with the other end of the belt. Mehta emitted a strangled squeak.