Mark gasped out, "The Count . . . took sick . . . in the woods. Can you get . . . his guardsmen . . . up there?"
Her brows drew down in deep suspicion. "Sick? How? He was just fine an hour ago."
"Real sick, pleasedammit, hurry!"
"What did you do—" she began, but his palpable agony overcame her wariness. "There's a comm link in the stable, it's closest. Where did you leave him?"
Mark waved vaguely backward. "Somewhere . . . I don't know what you call it. On the path to your picnic spot. Does that make sense? Don't the bloody ImpSec guards have scanners?" He found he was practically stamping his feet in frustration at her slowness. "You have longer legs. Go!"
She believed at last, and ran, with a blazing look back at him that practically flayed his skin.
I didn't do— He turned and began to leg it back to where he'd left the Count. He wondered if he ought to be running for cover instead. If he stole a lightflyer and made it back to the capital, could he get one of the galactic embassies there to give him political asylum? She thinks I . . . they're all going to think I . . . hell, even he didn't trust himself, why should the Barrayarans? Maybe he ought to save steps and just kill himself right now, here in these stupid woods. But he had no weapon, and rough as the terrain was, there hadn't been any cliffs high and steep enough to fling himself over and be sure of death on impact.
At first Mark thought he'd taken another wrong turn. Surely the Count couldn't have risen and walked on—no. There he was, lying down on his back beside a fallen log. He was breathing in short labored gasps, with too-long pauses in between, arms clutched in, clearly in much greater pain than when Mark had left him. But not dead. Not dead yet.
"Hello. Boy," he huffed in greeting.
"Elena's bringing help," Mark promised anxiously. He looked up and around, and listened. But they're not here yet.
"Good."
"Don't . . . try to talk."
This made the Count snort a laugh, an even more horrible effect against the disrupted breathing. "Only Cordelia . . . has ever succeeded . . . in shutting me up." But he fell silent after that. Mark prudently allowed him the last word, lest he try to go another round.
Live, damn you. Don't leave me here like this.
A familiar whooshing sound made Mark look up. Elena had solved the problem of getting transport through the trees with a float-bike. A green-uniformed ImpSec man rode behind her, clutching her around the waist. Elena swiftly dropped the bike through the thinner branches, which crackled. She ignored the whipping backlash that left red lines across her face. The ImpSec man dismounted while the bike was still half a meter in the air. "Get back," he snarled to Mark. At least he carried a medkit. "What did you do to him?"
Mark retreated to Elena's side. "Is he a doctor?"
"No, just a medic." Elena was out of breath too.
The medic looked up and reported, "It's the heart, but I don't know what or why. Don't have the Prime Minister's doctor come here, have him meet us in Hassadar. Without delay. I think we're going to need the facilities."
"Right." Elena snapped orders into a comm link.
Mark tried to help them get the Count temporarily positioned on the float bike, propped between Elena and the corpsman. The medic glared at Mark. "Don't touch him!"
The Count, whom Mark had thought half-conscious, opened his eyes and whispered, "Hey. The boy's all right, Jasi." Jasi the medic wilted. " 'S all right, Mark."
He's frigging dying, yet he's still thinking ahead. He's trying to clear me of suspicion.
"The aircar's meeting us in the nearest clearing," Elena pointed downslope. "Get there if you want to ride along." The bike rose slowly and carefully.
Mark took the hint and galloped off down the hill, intensely conscious of the moving shadow just above the trees. It left him behind. He slammed faster, using tree trunks to make turns, and arrived at the double trail with palms scraped raw just as the ImpSec medic, Elena, and Armsman Pym finished laying Count Vorkosigan across the backseat of the rear compartment of a sleek black aircar. Mark tumbled in and sat next to Elena on the rear-facing seat as the canopy closed and sealed. Pym took the controls in the front compartment, and they spiraled into the air and shot away. The medic crouched on the floor by his patient and did logical things like attaching oxygen and administering a hypospray of synergine to stabilize against shock.
Mark was puffing louder than the Count, to the point that the absorbed corpsman actually glanced up at him with a medical frown, but unlike the Count, Mark caught his breath after a time. He was sweating, and shaking inside. The last time he'd felt this bad Bharaputran security troops had been firing lethal weapons at him. Are aircars supposed to fly this fast? Mark prayed they wouldn't suck anything bigger than a bug into the thruster intakes.
Despite the synergine the Count's eyes were going shocked and vague. He pawed at the little plastic oxygen mask, batted away the medic's worried attempt to control his hands, and motioned urgently to Mark. He so clearly wanted to say something, it was less traumatic to let him than to try and stop him. Mark slid onto his knees by the Count's head.
The Count whispered to Mark in a tone of earnest confidence, "All . . . true wealth . . . is biological."
The medic glanced wildly at Mark for interpretation; Mark could only shrug helplessly. "I think he's going out of it."
The Count only tried to speak once more, on the hurtling trip; he clawed his mask away to say, "Spit," which the medic held his head to do, a nasty hacking which cleared his throat only temporarily.
The Great Man's last words, thought Mark blackly. All that monstrous, amazing life dwindled down at the end to Spit. Biological indeed. He wrapped his arms around himself and sat in a huddled ball on the floor, gnawing absently on his knuckles.
When they arrived at the landing pad at Hassadar District Hospital, what seemed a small army of medical personnel descended instantly upon them and whisked the Count away. The corpsman and the armsman were swept up; Mark and Elena were shuttled into a private waiting area, where they perforce waited.
At one point a woman with a report panel in her hand popped in to ask Mark, "Are you the next-of-kin?"
Mark's mouth opened, and stopped. He literally could not reply. He was rescued by Elena, who said, "Countess Vorkosigan is flying down from Vorbarr Sultana. She should be here in just a few more minutes." It seemed to satisfy the woman, who popped out again.
Elena had it right. It wasn't another ten minutes before the corridor was enlivened by the clatter of boots. The Countess swung in trailed by two double-timing liveried armsmen. She flashed past, giving Mark and Elena a quick reassuring smile, but blasted on through the double doors without pausing. Some clueless passing doctor on the other side actually tried to stop her: "Excuse me, ma'am, no visitors beyond this point—"
Her voice overrode his: "Don't give me that crap, kid, I own you." His protests ended in an apologetic gurgle as he saw the armsmen's uniforms and made the correct deduction; with a "Right this way, m'lady," their voices faded into the distance.
"She meant that," Elena commented to Mark with a faint sardonic curl to her lip. "The medical network in the Vorkosigan's District has been one of her pet projects. Half the personnel here are oath-sworn to her to serve in exchange for their schooling."
Time ticked by. Mark wandered to the window and stared out over the Vorkosigan's District capital. Hassadar was a New City, heir of destroyed Vorkosigan Vashnoi; almost all its building had taken place after the end of the Time of Isolation, mostly in the last thirty years. Designed around newer methods of transportation than horse carts, it was spread out like a city on any other developed galactic world, accented by a few sky-piercing towers gleaming in the morning sun. Still only morning? It seemed a century since dawn. This hospital was indistinguishable from a similar modest one on, say, Escobar. The Count's official residence here was one of the few entirely modern villas in the Vorkosigans' household inventory. The Countess claimed to like it, yet they used it onl
y when in Hassadar on District business; more of a hotel than a home. Curious.
The shadows of Hassadar's towers had shortened toward noon before the Countess returned to collect them. Mark searched her face anxiously as she entered. Her steps were slow, her eyes tired and strained, but her mouth was not distorted with grief. He knew the Count still lived even before she spoke.
She embraced Elena and nodded to Mark. "Aral is stabilized. They're going to transfer him to the Imperial Military Hospital in Vorbarr Sultana. His heart is badly damaged. Our man says a transplant or a mechanical is definitely indicated."
"Where were you earlier this morning?" Mark asked her.
"ImpSec Headquarters." That was logical. She eyed him. "We divided up the work load. It didn't take the both of us to ride the tight-beam decoding room. Aral did tell you the news, didn't he? He swore to me he would."
"Yes, just before he collapsed."
"What were you doing?"
Slightly better than the usual, What did you do to him? Haltingly, Mark tried to describe his morning.
"Stress, breakfast, running up hills," the Countess mused. "He set the pace, I'll bet."
"Militarily," Mark confirmed.
"Ha," she said darkly.
"Was it an occlusion?" asked Elena. "That's what it looked like."
"No. That's why this took me so by surprise. I knew his arteries were clean—he takes a medication for that, or his awful diet would have killed him years ago. It was an arterial aneurism, within the heart muscle. Burst blood vessel."
"Stress, eh?" said Mark, dry-mouthed. "Was his blood pressure up?"
Her eyes narrowed. "Yes, considerably, but the vessel was weakened. It would have happened sometime soon anyway."
"Was there . . . any more word come in from ImpSec?" he asked timidly. "While you were there."
"No." She paced to the window, and stared unseeing at the web and towers of Hassadar. Mark followed her. "Finding the cryo-chamber that way . . . was pretty shattering to our hopes. At least it finally goaded Aral into trying to connect with you." Pause. "Did he?"
"No . . . I don't know. He took me around, showed me things. He tried. He was trying so hard, it hurt to watch." It hurt still, a knotted ache somewhere behind his solar plexus. The soul dwelt there, according to somebody-or-other's mythology.
"Did it," she breathed.
It was all too much. The window was safely shatterproof, but his hand was not; his soul-driven fist bunched, drew back, and struck.
The Countess caught it with a quick open hand; his self-directed violence smacked into her palm and was deflected.
"Save that," she advised him coolly.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
A large mirror in a hand-carved frame hung on the wall of the antechamber to the library. Mark, nervous, detoured to stand in front of it for one last check before his inspection by the Countess.
The brown and silver Vorkosigan cadet's uniform did little to conceal the shape of his body, old distortions or new, though when he stood up very straight he fancied it lent him a certain blunt blockiness. Unfortunately, when he slumped, so did the tunic. It fit well, which was ominous, as when it had been delivered eight weeks ago it had been a little loose. Had some ImpSec analyst calculated his weight gain against this date? He wouldn't put it past them.
Only eight weeks ago? It felt as if he'd been a prisoner here forever. A gently held prisoner, true, like one of those ancient officers who, upon giving his oath of parole, was allowed the run of the fortress. Though no one had demanded his word on anything. Perhaps his word had no currency. He abandoned his repellent reflection and trudged on into the library.
The Countess was seated on the silk sofa, careful of her long dress, which was a high-necked thing in cloud-soft beige netted with ornate copper and silver embroidery. It echoed the color of her hair, done up in loops on the back of her head. Not a speck of black or gray or anything that could suggest anticipation of mourning anywhere: almost arrogantly elegant. We're just fine here, the ensemble seemed to say, and very Vorkosigan. Her head turned at Mark's entry, and her absorbed look melted into a brief spontaneous smile. It drew an answering smile from him despite himself.
"You look well," she said approvingly.
"So do you," he replied, and then, because it seemed too familiar, added, "ma'am."
Her brow quirked at the addition, but she made no comment. He paced to a nearby chair but, too keyed-up to sit, only leaned on its back. He suppressed a tendency for his right boot to tap on the marble floor. "So how do you think they're going to take this tonight? Your Vor friends."
"Well, you will certainly rivet their attention," she sighed. "You can count on it." She lifted a small brown silk bag with the Vorkosigan logo embroidered in silver on it, and handed it across to Mark. It clinked interestingly from the heavy gold coins it held. "When you present this to Gregor in the taxation ceremony tonight as proxy for Aral, it will serve formal notice to all that we claim you as a legitimate son—and that you accept that claim. Step One. Many others to follow."
And at the end of that path—the countship? Mark frowned deeply.
"Whatever your own feelings—whatever the final outcome of the present crisis—don't let them see you shake," the Countess advised. "It's all in the mind, this Vor system. Conviction is contagious. So is doubt."
"You consider the Vor system an illusion?" Mark asked.
"I used to. Now I would call it a creation, which, like any living thing, must be continually re-created. I've seen the Barrayaran system be awkward, beautiful, corrupt, stupid, honorable, frustrating, insane and breathtaking. Its gets most of the work of government done most of the time, which is about average for any system."
"So . . . do you approve of it, or not?" he asked, puzzled.
"I'm not sure my approval matters. The Imperium is like a very large and disjointed symphony, composed by a committee. Over a three-hundred year period. Played by a gang of amateur volunteers. It has enormous inertia, and is fundamentally fragile. It is neither unchanging nor unchangeable. It can crush you like a blind elephant."
"What a heartening thought."
She smiled. "We aren't plunging you into total strangeness, tonight. Ivan and your Aunt Alys will be there, and young Lord and Lady Vortala. And the others you've met here in the past few weeks."
Fruit of the excruciating private dinner parties. From before the Count's collapse, there had been a select parade of visitors to Vorkosigan House to meet him. Countess Cordelia had determinedly continued the process despite the week-old medical crisis, in preparation for this night.
"I expect everyone will be trolling for inside information on Aral's condition," she added.
"What should I tell 'em?"
"Flat truth is always easiest to keep track of. Aral is at ImpMil awaiting a heart to be grown for transplant, and being a very bad patient. His physician is threatening alternately to tie him to his bed or resign if he doesn't behave. You don't need to go into all the medical details."
Details that would reveal just how badly damaged the Prime Minister was. Quite. " . . . What if they ask me about Miles?"
"Sooner or later," she took a breath, "if ImpSec doesn't find the body, sooner or later there must be a formal declaration of death. While Aral lives, I would rather it be later. No one outside of the highest echelons of ImpSec, Emperor Gregor, and a few government officials knows Miles is anything but an ImpSec courier officer of modest rank. It is a perfectly true statement that he is away on duty. Most who inquire after him will be willing to accept that ImpSec hasn't confided to you where they sent him or for how long."
"Galen once said," Mark began, and stopped.
The Countess gave him a level look. "Is Galen much on your mind, tonight?"
"Somewhat," Mark admitted. "He trained me for this, too. We did all the major ceremonies of the Imperium, because he didn't know in advance just what time of year he'd drop me in. The Emperor's Birthday, the Midsummer Review, Winterfair—all of 'em. I can't
do this and not think of him, and how much he hated the Imperium."
"He had his reasons."
"He said . . . Admiral Vorkosigan was a murderer."
The Countess sighed, and sat back. "Yes?"
"Was he?"
"You've had a chance to observe him for yourself. What do you think?"
"Lady . . . I'm a murderer. And I can't tell."
Her eyes narrowed. "Justly put. Well. His military career was long and complex—and bloody—and a matter of public record. But I imagine Galen's main focus was the Solstice Massacre, in which his sister Rebecca died."
Mark nodded mutely.
"The Barrayaran expedition's Political Officer, not Aral, ordered that atrocious event. Aral executed him for it with his own hands, when he found out. Without the formality of a court martial, unfortunately. So he evades one charge, but not the other. So yes. He is a murderer."
"Galen said it was to cover up the evidence. There'd been a verbal order, and only the Political Officer knew it."
"So how could Galen know it? Aral says otherwise. I believe Aral."
"Galen said he was a torturer."
"No," said the Countess flatly. "That was Ges Vorrutyer, and Prince Serg. Their faction is now extinct." She smiled a thin, sharp smile.
"A madman."
"No one on Barrayar is sane, by Betan standards." She gave him an amused look. "Not even you and me."
Especially not me. He took a small breath. "A sodomite."
She tilted her head. "Does that matter, to you?"
"It was . . . prominent, in Galen's conditioning of me."
"I know."
"You do? Dammit . . ." Was he glass, to these people? A feelie-drama for their amusement? Except the Countess didn't seem amused. "An ImpSec report, no doubt," he said bitterly.
"They fast-penta'd one of Galen's surviving subordinates. A man named Lars, if that means anything to you."
"It does." He gritted his teeth. Not a chance at human dignity, not one shred left to him.
"Aside from Galen, does Aral's private orientation matter? To you?"