Barrayar

  Sircoj looked thoughtful. "That might be all right. A cross-check on our identification, and we can record. Very well."

  He took her into another room, and keyed up a monitor viewer. Her breath blew out with a small moan.

  Vaagen was alone in a holding room, pacing from wall to wall. He wore green uniform trousers and a brown-stained white shirt. He was terribly changed from the trim and energetic scientist she'd last seen in his lab at ImpMil. Both his eyes were ringed with red-purple blotches, one lid swollen nearly shut; the slit glowed a frightening blood-scarlet. He moved bent-over. Bathless, sleepless, swollen lips . . .

  "You get a medtech for that man!" Cordelia realized she'd yelled when Sircoj jumped.

  "He's been triaged. His condition is not life-threatening. We can start treating him just as soon as he's security-cleared," said Sircoj doggedly.

  "Then you put him on-line with me," Cordelia said through set teeth. "Drou, go back to the office, call Aral. Tell him what's going on."

  Sircoj looked worried at this, but stuck valiantly to his procedures. More endless seconds, while someone went back to the prison-area and took Vaagen to a comconsole.

  His face came up over the plate at last; Cordelia could see her own face reflected in the passionate intensity in his. Connected at last.

  "Vaagen! What happened?"

  "Milady!" His hands clenched, trembling, as he leaned on them toward the vid pickup. "The idiots, the morons, the ignorant, stupid—" he sputtered into helpless obscenities, then caught his breath and began again, quickly, concisely, as if her image might be snatched away again at any moment.

  "We thought we might be all right at first, after the first two days' fighting trailed off. We hid the replicator at ImpMil, but nobody came. We lay low, and took turns sleeping in the lab. Then Henri managed to smuggle his wife out of town, and we both stayed. We tried to continue the treatments in secret. Thought we might wait it out, wait till rescue. Things had to break, one way or another. . . .

  "We'd almost stopped expecting them, but they came. Last—yesterday." He rubbed a hand through his hair as if seeking some connection between real-time and nightmare-time, where clocks ran crazy. "Vordarian's squad. Came looking for the replicator. We locked the lab, they broke in. Demanded it. We refused, refused to talk, they couldn't fast-penta either of us. So they beat us up. Beat him to death, like street scum, like he was nobody, all that intelligence, all that education, all that promise wasted, dropped by some mumbling moron swinging a gun butt. . . ." Tears were running down his face.

  Cordelia stood white and stricken; bad, bad attack of defective deja vu. She'd played the lab scene in her head already a thousand times, but she'd never seen Dr. Henri dead on the floor, nor Vaagen beaten senseless.

  "Then they ripped into the lab. Everything, all the treatment records. All Henri's work on burns, gone. They didn't have to do that. All gone for nothing!" His voice cracked, hoarse with fury.

  "Did they . . . find the replicator? Dump it out?" She could see it; she had seen it over and over, spilling. . . .

  "They found it, finally. But then they took it. And then let me go." He shook his head from side to side.

  "Took it," she repeated stupidly. Why? What sense, to take the technology and not the techs? "And let you go. To run to us, I suppose. To give us the word."

  "You have it, Milady."

  "Where, do you suppose? Where did they take it?"

  Vorkosigan's voice spoke beside her. "The Imperial Residence, most likely. All the best hostages are being kept there. I'll put Intelligence right on it." He stood, feet planted, grey-faced. "It seems we're not the only side turning up the pressure."

  Chapter Fifteen

  Within two minutes of Vorkosigan's arrival at main portal Security, Captain Vaagen was flat on a float pallet and on his way to the infirmary, with the top trauma doctor on the base being paged for rendezvous. Cordelia reflected bitterly on the nature of chain of command; all truth and reason and urgent need were not enough, apparently, to lend causal power to one outside that chain.

  Further interrogation of the scientist had to wait on his medical treatment. Vorkosigan used the time to put Illyan and his department on the new problem. Cordelia used the time to pace in circles in the infirmary's waiting area. Droushnakovi watched her in silent worry, not so foolish as to offer up reassurances they both knew to be empty.

  At last the trauma man emerged from surgery to announce Vaagen conscious and oriented enough for a brief—he emphasized the brief—questioning. Aral came, trailing Koudelka and Illyan, and they all trooped in to find Vaagen in an infirmary bed, with his eye patched and an IV running fluids and meds.

  Vaagen's hoarse and weary voice added a few horrific details, but nothing to change the word-picture he'd first given Cordelia.

  Illyan listened with steady attention. "Our people at the Residence confirm," he reported when Vaagen ran down, depressed whisper trailing to silence. "The replicator was apparently brought in yesterday, and has been placed in the most heavily guarded wing, near Princess Kareen's quarters. Our loyalists don't know what it is, they think it's some kind of a device, maybe a bomb to take out the Residence and everyone in it in the final battle."

  Vaagen snorted, coughed, and winced.

  "Do they have anyone tending it?" Cordelia asked the question no one else had, so far. "A doctor, a medtech, anyone?"

  Illyan frowned. "I don't know, Milady. I can try to find out, but every extra communication endangers our people up there."

  "Mm."

  "The treatment's interrupted anyway," Vaagen muttered. His hand fiddled with the edge of his sheet. "Bitched to hell."

  "I realize you've lost your notes, but could you . . . reconstruct your work?" Cordelia asked diffidently. "If you got the replicator back, that is. Take up where you left off."

  "It wouldn't be where we left off, by the time we got it back. And it wasn't all in my head. Some of it was in Henri's."

  Cordelia took a deep breath. "As I recall, these Escobaran portable replicators run on a two-week service cycle. When did you last recharge the power, and change the filters and add nutrients?"

  "Power cell's good for months," Vaagen corrected. "Filters are more of a problem. But the nutrient solution will be the first limiting factor it'll hit. At its hyped-up metabolic rate, the fetus would starve a couple of days before the system choked on its waste. Breakdown products might overload the filters pretty soon after lean-tissue metabolism began, though."

  She avoided Aral's gaze and looked straight at Vaagen, who looked straight back with his one good eye, more than physical pain in his face. "And when did you and Henri last service the replicator?"

  "The fourteenth."

  "Less than six days left," Cordelia whispered, appalled.

  "About . . . about that. What day is this?" Vaagen looked around in an uncharacteristic uncertainty that hurt Cordelia's heart to watch.

  "The time limit applies only if it's not being properly taken care of," Aral put in. "The Residence physician, Kareen and Gregor's man—wouldn't he realize something was needed?"

  "Sir," Illyan said, "the Princess's physician was reported killed in the first day's fighting at the Residence. Two cross-confirmations—I have to consider it certain."

  "They could let Miles die out of sheer ignorance up there," Cordelia realized in dismay. "As well as on purpose." Even one of their own secret loyalists, under the heroic impression he was defusing a bomb, could be a menace to her child.

  Vaagen twisted in his sheets. Aral caught Cordelia's eye, and jerked his head toward the door. "Thank you, Captain Vaagen. You have done us extraordinary service. Beyond duty."

  "Screw duty," Vaagen muttered. "Bitched to hell . . . damned ignorant goons . . ."

  They withdrew, to leave Vaagen to his unrestful recovery. Vorkosigan dispatched Illyan to his multiplied duties.

  Cordelia faced Aral. "Now what?"

  His lips were a flat, hard line, his eyes half-absent with calculat
ion, the same calculations she was running, Cordelia guessed, complicated by a thousand added factors she could only imagine. He said slowly, "Nothing's changed, really. From before."

  "It is changed. Whatever the difference there is between being in hiding, and being a prisoner. But why did Vordarian wait till now for this capture? If he was ignorant of Miles's existence before this, who told him of it? Kareen, maybe, when she decided to cooperate?"

  Droushnakovi looked sick at this suggestion.

  Aral said, "Maybe Vordarian's playing with us. Maybe he was always keeping the replicator in reserve, till he most needed a new lever."

  "Our son. In reserve," Cordelia corrected. She stared into those half-there grey eyes, willing See me, Aral! "We have to talk about this." She towed him down the corridor to the nearest private room, a doctors' conference chamber, and turned up the lights. Obediently, he seated himself at the table, Kou at his elbow, and waited for her. She sat down opposite him. We've always sat on the same side, before. . . . Drou stood behind her.

  Aral watched her warily. "Yes, Cordelia?"

  "What's going on in your head?" she demanded. "Where are we, in this?"

  "I . . . regret. In hindsight. Regret not sending a raid earlier. The Residence is a far more difficult fortress to penetrate right now than the military hospital, dangerous as a raid on ImpMil would have been. And yet . . . I could not change that choice. When men on my own staff were asked to wait and sweat, I could not risk men and expend resources for my private benefit. Miles's . . . position, gave me the power to demand their loyalty in the face of Vordarian's pressure. They knew I asked no risk of them and theirs I was unwilling to share myself."

  "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 ma
n. 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 steps 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."