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Rosemont's burial in the cold black fog, "but it is the only truth I can offer
you. The responsibility is no less mine for that. As I am sure someone in the
high command will point out when this arrives." He smiled sourly and continued
typing.
"Well, I can't say I'm sorry to have messed up their invasion plans," she said
daringly. There, let's see what that stirs up ...
"What invasion?" asked Vorkalloner, waking up.
"I was afraid you'd figure that out, once you saw the cache caverns," said
Vorkosigan to her. "It was still being hotly debated when we left, and the
expansionists were waving the advantage of surprise as a big stick to beat the
peace party. Speaking as a private person-well, I have not that right while in
uniform. Let it go."
"What invasion?" probed Vorkalloner hopefully.
"With luck, none," answered Vorkosigan, allowing himself to be persuaded to
partial frankness. "One of those was enough for a lifetime." He seemed to look
inward on private, unpleasant memories.
Vorkalloner plainly found this a baffling attitude from the Hero of Komarr.
"It was a great victory, sir. With very little loss of life."
"On our side." Vorkosigan finished typing his report and signed it off, then
entered a request for another form and began fencing at it with the light pen.
"That's the idea, isn't it?"
"It depends on whether you mean to stay or are just passing through. A very
messy political legacy was left at Komarr. Not the sort of thing I care to
leave in trust for the next generation. How did we get onto this subject?" He
finished the last form.
"Who were they thinking of invading?" asked Cordelia doggedly.
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"Why haven't I heard anything about it?" asked Vorkalloner.
"In order, that is classified information, and it is not being discussed below
the level of the General Staff, the central committee of the two Councils, and
the Emperor. That means this conversation is to go no farther, Aristede."
Vorkalloner glanced at Cordelia pointedly. "She's not on the General Staff.
Come to think of it-"
"Neither am I, anymore," Vorkosigan conceded. "As for our guest, I've told her
nothing she couldn't deduce for herself. As for myself, my opinion was
requested on-certain aspects. They didn't like it, once they'd got it, but
they did ask for it." His smile was not at all nice.
"Is that why you were shipped out of town?" asked Cordelia perceptively,
feeling she was beginning to get the hang of how things were done on Barrayar.
"So Lieutenant Commander Vorkalloner was right about pulling guard duty. Was
your opinion requested by, uh, a certain old friend of your fathers?"
"It certainly wasn't requested by the Council of Ministers," said Vorkosigan,
but refused to be drawn any further, and changed the subject firmly. "Have my
men been treating you properly?"
"Quite well, yes."
"My surgeon swears he will release me this afternoon, if I am good and stay in
bed this morning. May I stop by your cabin to speak with you privately later?
There are some things I need to make clear."
"Sure," she responded, thinking the request was phrased rather ominously.
The surgeon came in, aggrieved. "You're supposed to be resting, sir." He
glared pointedly at Cordelia and Vorkalloner.
"Oh, very well. Send these off with the next courier, Aristede," he pointed to
the screen, "along with the verbals and the formal charges."
The doctor herded them out, as Vorkosigan began typing again.
She wandered around the ship for the rest of the morning, exploring the limits
of her parole. Vorkosigan's ship was a confusing warren of corridors, sealable
levels, tubes, and narrow doors designed, she realized at last, to be
defensible from boarding parties in hand-to-hand combat. Sergeant Bothari kept
pace with slow strides, looming silently as the shadow of death at her
shoulder, except when she would begin to make a turn into some forbidden door
or corridor, when he would halt abruptly and say, "No, ma'am." She was not
permitted to touch anything, though, as she found when she ran a hand casually
over a control panel, eliciting another monotonous "No, ma'am," from Bothari.
It made her feel like a two-year-old being taken on a toddle.
She made one attempt to draw him out.
"Have you served Captain Vorkosigan long?" she inquired brightly.
"Yes, ma'am."
Silence. She tried again. "Do you like him?"
"No, ma'am."
Silence.
"Why not?" This at least could not have a yes-or-no answer. For a while she
thought he wasn't going to answer at all, but he finally came up with, "He's a
Vor."
"Class conflict?" she hazarded.
"I don't like Vors."
"I'm not a Vor," she suggested.
He stared through her glumly. "You're like a Vor. Ma'am."
Unnerved, she gave up.
That afternoon she made herself comfortable on her narrow bunk and began to
explore the menu the library computer had to offer her. She picked out a vid
with the unalarming grade school title of "People and Places of Barrayar" and
punched it up.
Its narration was as banal as the title had promised, but the pictures were
utterly fascinating. It seemed a green, delicious, sunlit world to her Betan
eyes. People went about without nose filters or rebreathers, or heat shields
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in the summer. The climate and terrain were immensely varied, and it had real
oceans, with moon-raised tides, in contrast to the flat saline puddles that
passed for lakes at home.
A knock sounded at her door. "Enter," she called, and Vorkosigan appeared
around it, greeting her with a nod. Odd hour of the day for him to be in dress
uniform, she thought-but my word, he cleans up good. Nice, very nice. Sergeant
Bothari accompanied him; he remained standing stolidly outside the half-opened
door. Vorkosigan walked around the room for a moment as if searching for
something. He finally emptied her lunch tray and used it to prop the door open
a narrow crack. Cordelia raised her eyebrows at this.
"Is that really necessary?"
"I think so. At the current rate of gossip I'm bound to encounter some joke
soon about the privileges of rank that I can't pretend not to hear, and I'll
have to quash the unlucky, er, humorist. I have an aversion to closed doors
anyway. You never know what's on the other side."
Cordelia laughed outright. "It reminds me of that old joke, where the girl
says, 'Let's not, and tell everybody we have.'" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]