Mirror Dance

Chapter Fifteen

The Countess kept her promise, or threat, to send Mark touring with Elena. The ensuing few weeks were punctuated by frequent excursions all over Vorbarr Sultana and the neighboring Districts, slanted heavily to the cultural and historical, including a private tour of the Imperial Residence. Gregor was not at home that day, to Mark’s relief. They must have hit every museum in town. Elena, presumably acting under orders, also dragged him over what must have been two dozen colleges, academies, and technical schools. Mark was heartened to learn that not every institution on the planet trained military officers; indeed, the largest and busiest school in the capital was the Vorbarra District Agricultural and Engineering Institute.

Elena remained a formal and impersonal factotum in Mark’s presence. Whatever her own feelings upon seeing her old home for the first time in a decade, they seldom escaped the ivory mask, except for an occasional exclamation of surprise at some unexpected change: new buildings sprouted, old blocks leveled, streets re-routed. Mark suspected that the frenetic pace of the tours was just so she wouldn’t have to actually talk to him; she filled the silences instead with lectures. Mark began to wish he’d buttered up Ivan more. Maybe his cousin could have sneaked him out to go pub-crawling, just for a change.

Change came one evening when the Count returned abruptly to Vorkosigan House and announced that they were all going to Vorkosigan Surleau. Within an hour Mark found himself and his things packed into a lightflyer, along with Elena, Count Vorkosigan, and Armsman Pym, arrowing south in the dark to the Vorkosigans’ summer residence. The Countess did not accompany them. The conversation en route ranged from stilted to non-existent, except for an occasional laconic code between the Count and Pym, all half-sentences. The Dendarii mountain range loomed up at last, a dark blot against cloud shadows and stars. They circled a dimly glimmering lake to land halfway up a hill in front of a rambling stone house, lit up and made welcoming by yet more human servants. The Prime Minister’s ImpSec guards were discreet shapes exiting a second lightflyer in their wake. Since it was nearing midnight, the Count limited himself to giving Mark a brief orienting tour of the interior of the house, and depositing him in a second-floor guest bedroom with a view downslope to the lake. Mark, alone at last, leaned on the windowsill and stared into the darkness. Lights shimmered across the black silken waters, from the village at the end of the lake and from a few isolated estates on the farther shore. Why have you brought me here? he thought to the Count. Vorkosigan Surleau was the most private of the Vorkosigans’ several residences, the guarded emotional heart of the Count’s scattered personal realm. Had he passed some test, to be let in here? Or was Vorkosigan Surleau itself to be a test? He went to bed and fell asleep still wondering.

He woke blinking with morning sun slanting through the window he’d failed to re-shutter the night before. Some servant last night had arranged a selection of his more casual clothing in the room’s closet. He found a bathroom down the hall, washed, dressed, and went in cautious search of humanity. A housekeeper in the kitchen directed him outside to find the Count without, alas, offering to feed him breakfast.

He walked along a path paved with stone chips toward a grove of carefully-planted Earth-import trees, their distinctive green leaves mottled and gilded by the beginnings of autumn color change. Big trees, very old. The Count and Elena were near the grove in a walled garden that served now as the Vorkosigan family cemetery. The stone residence had originally been a guard barracks serving the now-ruined castle at the lake’s foot; its cemetery had once received the guardsmen’s last stand-downs.

Mark’s brows rose. The Count was a violent splash of color in his most formal military uniform, Imperial parade red-and-blues. Elena was equally, if more quietly, decorous in Dendarii dress-grey velvet set off with silver buttons and white piping. She squatted beside a shallow bronze brazier on a tripod. Little pale orange flames flickered in it, and smoke rose to wisp away in the gold-misted morning air. They were burning a death-offering, Mark realized, and paused uncertainly by the wrought-iron gate in the low stone wall. Whose? Nobody had invited him.

Elena rose; she and the Count spoke quietly together while the offering, whatever it was, burned to ash. After a moment Elena folded a cloth into a pad, picked the brazier off its tripod, and tapped out the gray and white flakes over the grave. She wiped out the bronze basin and returned it and its folding tripod to an embroidered brown and silver bag. The Count gazed over the lake, noticed Mark standing by the gate, and gave him an acknowledging nod; it did not exactly invite him in, but neither did it rebuff him.

With another word to the Count, Elena exited the walled garden. The Count saluted her. She favored Mark with a courteous nod in passing. Her face was solemn, but, Mark fancied, less tense and mask-like than he had seen since their coming to Barrayar. Now the Count definitely waved Mark inside. Feeling awkward, but curious, Mark let himself in through the gate and crunched over the gravel walks to his side.

“What’s … up?” Mark finally managed to ask. It came out sounding too flippant, but the Count did not seem to take it in bad part.

Count Vorkosigan nodded to the grave at their feet: Sergeant Constantine Bothari, and the dates, Fidelis. “I found that Elena had never burned a death-offering for her father. He was my armsman for eighteen years, and had served under me in the space forces before that.”

“Miles’s bodyguard. I knew that. But he was killed before Galen started training me. Galen didn’t spend much time on him.”

“He should have. Sergeant Bothari was very important to Miles. And to us all. Bothari was … a difficult man. I don’t think Elena ever was quite reconciled to that. She’s needed to come to some acceptance of him, to be easy with herself.”

“Difficult? Criminal, I’d heard.”

“That is very …” The Count hesitated. Unjust, Mark expected him to add, or untrue, but the word he finally chose was ”… incomplete.”

They walked around among the graves, the Count giving Mark a tour. Relatives and retainers … who was Major Amor Klyeuvi? It reminded Mark of all those museums. The Vorkosigan family history since the Time of Isolation encapsulated the history of Barrayar. The Count pointed out his father, mother, brother, sister, and his Vorkosigan grandparents. Presumably anyone dying prior to their dates had been buried at the old District capital of Vorkosigan Vashnoi, and been melted down along with the city by the Cetagandan invaders.

“I mean to be buried here,” commented the Count, looking over the peaceful lake and the hills beyond. The morning mist was clearing off the surface, sun-sparkle starting to glitter through. “Avoid that crowd at the Imperial Cemetery in Vorbarr Sultana. They wanted to bury my poor father there. I actually had to argue with them over that, despite the declaration of his will.” He nodded to the stone, General Count Piotr Pierre Vorkosigan, and the dates. The Count had won the argument, apparently. The Counts.

“Some of the happiest periods of my life were spent here, when I was small. And later, my wedding and honeymoon.” A twisted smile flitted across his features. “Miles was conceived here. Therefore, in a sense, so were you. Look around. This is where you came from. After breakfast, and I change clothes, I’ll show you more.”

“Ah. So, uh, no one’s eaten yet.”

“You fast, before burning a death-offering. They often tend to be dawn events for just that reason, I suspect.” The Count half-smiled.

The Count could have had no other use for the glorious parade uniform here, nor Elena her Dendarii greys. They’d packed them along for that dedicated purpose. Mark glanced at the dark distorted reflection of himself in the Count’s mirror-polished boots. The convex surface widened him to grotesque proportions. His future self? “Is that what we all came down here for, then? So that Elena could do this ceremony?”

“Among other things.”

Ominous. Mark followed the Count back to the big stone house, feeling obscurely unsettled.

Breakfast was served by the housekeeper on a sunny patio off the end of the house, made private by landscaping and flowering bushes except for a view cut through to the lake. The Count re-appeared wearing old black fatigue trousers and a back-country style tunic, loose-cut and belted. Elena did not join them. “She wanted to take a long walk,” explained the Count briefly. “So shall we.” Prudently, Mark returned a third sweet roll to its covered basket.

He was glad for his restraint very shortly, as the Count led him directly up the hill. They crested it and paused to recover. The view of the long lake, winding between the hills, was very fine and worth the breath. On the other side a little valley flattened out, cradling old stone stables and pastures cultivated to Earth-green grasses. Some unemployed-looking horses idled around the pasture. The Count led Mark down to the fence, and leaned on it, looking pensive.

“That big roan over there is Miles’s horse. He’s been rather neglected, of late years. Miles didn’t always get time to ride even when he was home. He used to come running, when Miles called. It was the damndest thing, to see that big lazy horse get up and come running.” The Count paused. “You might try it.”

“What? Call the horse?”

“I’d be curious to see. If the horse can tell the difference. Your voices are … very like, to my ear.”

“I was drilled on that.”

“His name is, uh, Ninny.” At Mark’s look he added, “A sort of pet or stable name.”

Its name is Fat Ninny. You edited it. Ha. “So what do I do? Stand here and yell ’Here, Ninny, Ninny’?” He felt a fool already.

“Three times.”

“What?”

“Miles always repeated the name three times.”

The horse was standing across the pasture, its ears up, looking at them. Mark took a deep breath, and in his best Barrayaran accent called, “Here, Ninny, Ninny, Ninny. Here, Ninny, Ninny, Ninny!”

The horse snorted, and trotted over to the fence. It didn’t exactly run, though it did kick up its heels once, bouncing, en route. It arrived with a huff that sprayed horse moisture across both Mark and the Count. It leaned against the fence, which groaned and bent. Up close, it was bloody huge. It stuck its big head over the fence. Mark ducked back hastily.

“Hello, old boy.” The Count patted its neck. “Miles always gives him sugar,” he advised Mark over his shoulder.

“No wonder it comes running, then!” said Mark indignantly. And he’d thought it was the I-love-Naismith effect.

“Yes, but Cordelia and I give him sugar too, and he doesn’t come running for us. He just sort of ambles around in his own good time.”

The horse was staring at him in, Mark swore, utter bewilderment. Yet another soul he had betrayed by not being Miles. The other two horses, in some sort of sibling rivalry, now arrived also, a massive jostling crowd determined not to miss out. Intimidated, Mark asked plaintively, “Did you bring any sugar?”

“Well, yes,” said the Count. He drew half a dozen white cubes from his pocket and handed them to Mark. Cautiously, Mark put a couple into his palm and held it out as far as his arm would reach. With a squeal, Ninny laid his ears back and snapped from side to side, driving off his equine rivals, then demurely pricked them forward again and grubbed up the sugar with big rubbery lips, leaving a trail of grass-green slime in Mark’s palm. Mark wiped some of it off on the fence, considered his trouser seam, and wiped the rest off on the horse’s glossy neck. An old ridged scar spoiled the fur, bumpy under his hand. Ninny butted him again, and Mark retreated out of range. The Count restored order in the mob with a couple of shouts and slaps— Ah, just like Barrayaran politics, Mark thought irreverently— and made sure the two laggards received a share of sugar as well. He did wipe his palms on his trouser seams afterward, quite unselfconsciously.

“Would you like to try riding him?” the Count offered. “Though he hasn’t been worked lately, he’s probably a bit fresh.”

“No, thank you,” choked Mark. “Some other time, maybe.”

“Ah.”

They walked along the fence, Ninny trailing them on the other side till its hopes were stopped by the corner. It whinnied as they walked away, a staggeringly mournful noise. Mark’s shoulders hunched as from a blow. The Count smiled, but the attempt must have felt as ghastly as it looked, for the smile fell off again immediately. He looked back over his shoulder. “The old fellow is over twenty, now. Getting up there, for a horse. I’m beginning to identify with him.”

They were heading toward the woods. “There’s a riding trail … it circles around to a spot with a view back toward the house. We used to picnic there. Would you like to see it?”

A hike. Mark had no heart for a hike, but he’d already turned down the Count’s obvious overture about riding the horse. He didn’t dare refuse him twice, the Count would think him … surly. “All right.” No armsmen or ImpSec bodyguards in sight. The Count had gone out of his way to create this private time. Mark cringed in anticipation. Intimate chat, incoming.

When they reached the woods’ edge the first fallen leaves rustled and crackled underfoot, releasing an organic but pleasant tang. But the noise of their feet did not exactly fill the silence. The Count, for all his feigned country-casualness, was stiff and tense. Off-balance. Unnerved by him, Mark blurted, “The Countess is making you do this. Isn’t she.”

“Not really,” said the Count, ”… yes.”

A thoroughly mixed reply and probably true.

“Will you ever forgive the Bharaputrans for shooting the wrong Admiral Naismith?”

“Probably not.” The Count’s tone was equable, unoffended.

“If it had been reversed—if that Bharaputran had aimed one short guy to the left—would ImpSec be hunting my cryo-chamber now?” Would Miles even have dumped Trooper Phillipi, to put Mark in her place?

“Since Miles would in that case be ImpSec in the area—I fancy the answer is yes,” murmured the Count. “As I had never met you, my own interest would probably have been a little … academic. Your mother would have pushed all the same, though,” he added thoughtfully.

“Let us by all means be honest with each other,” Mark said bitterly.

“We cannot possibly build anything that will last on any other basis,” said the Count dryly. Mark flushed, and grunted assent.

The trail ran first along a stream, then cut up over a rise through what was almost a gully or wash, paved with loose and sliding rock. Thankfully it then ran level for a time, branching and re-branching through the trees. A few little horse jumps made of cut logs and brush were set up deliberately here and there; the trails ran around as well as over them, optionally. Why was he certain Miles chose to ride over them? He had to admit, there was something primevally restful about the woods, with its patterns of sun and shade, tall Earth trees and native and imported brush creating an illusion of endless privacy. One could imagine that the whole planet was such a people-less wilderness, if one didn’t know anything about terraforming. They turned onto a wider double track, where they could walk side by side.

The Count moistened his lips. “About that cryo-chamber.”

Mark’s head came up like the horse’s had, sensing sugar. ImpSec wasn’t talking to him, the Count hadn’t been talking to him; driven half-crazy by the information vacuum, he’d finally broken down and badgered the Countess, though it made him feel ill to do so. But even she could only report negatives. ImpSec now knew over four hundred places the cryo-chamber was not. It was a start. Four hundred down, the rest of the universe to go … it was impossible, useless, futile—

“ImpSec has found it.” The Count rubbed his face.

“What!” Mark stopped short. “They got it back? Hot damn! It’s over! Where did they—why didn’t you—” He bit off his words as it came to him that there was probably a very good reason the Count hadn’t told him at once. And he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear it. The Count’s face was bleak.

“It was empty.”

“Oh.” What a stupid thing to say, Oh. Mark felt incredibly stupid, just now. “How—I don’t understand.” Of all the scenarios he’d pictured, he’d never pictured that. Empty? “Where?”

“The ImpSec agent found it in the sales inventory of a medical supply company in the Hegen Hub. Cleaned and re-conditioned.”

“Are they sure it’s the right one?”

“If the identifications Captain Quinn and the Dendarii gave us are correct, it is. The agent, who is one of our brighter boys, simply quietly purchased it. It’s being shipped back by fast courier to ImpSec headquarters on Komarr for a thorough forensic analysis right now. Not that, apparently, there is much to analyze.”

“But it’s a lead, a break at last! The supply company must have records—ImpSec should be able to trace it back to—to—” To what?

“Yes, and no. The record trail breaks one step back from the supply company. The independent carrier they bought it from appears to be guilty of receiving stolen property.”

“From Jackson’s Whole? Surely that narrows down the search area!”

“Mm. One must remember that the Hegen Hub is a hub. The possibility that the cryo-chamber was routed into the Cetagandan Empire from Jackson’s Whole, and back out again via the Hegen Hub, is … remote but real.”

“No. The timing.”

“The timing would be tight, hut possible. Illyan has calculated it. The timing limits the search area to a mere … nine planets, seventeen stations, and all the ships en route between them.” The Count grimaced. “I almost wish I was sure we were dealing with a Cetagandan plot. The Ghem-lords at least I could trust to know or guess the value of the package. The nightmare that makes me despair is that the cryo-chamber somehow fell into the hands of some Jacksonian petty thief, who simply dumped the contents in order to re-sell the equipment. We would have paid a ransom … a dozen times the value of the cryo-chamber for the dead body alone. For Miles preserved and potentially revivable—whatever they asked. It drives me mad to think that Miles is rotting somewhere by mistake.”

Mark pressed his hands to his forehead, which was throbbing. His neck was so tight it felt like a piece of solid wood. “No … it’s crazy, it’s too crazy. We have both ends of the rope now, we’re only missing the middle. It has to be connectable. Norwood—Norwood was loyal to Admiral Naismith. And smart. I met him, briefly. Of course, he hadn’t planned to be killed, but he wouldn’t have sent the cryo-chamber into danger, or off at random.” Was he so sure? Norwood had expected to be able to pick up the cryo-chamber from its destination within a day at most. If it had arrived … wherever … with some sort of cryptic hold-till-called-for note attached, and then no one had called for it … “Was it re-conditioned before or after the Hub supply company purchased it?”

“Before.”

“Then there has to be some sort of medical facility hidden in the gap somewhere. Maybe a cryo-facility. Maybe … maybe Miles was shifted into somebody’s permanent storage banks.” Unidentified, and destitute? On Escobar such a charity might be possible, but on Jackson’s Whole? A most forlorn hope.

“I pray so. There are only a finite number of such facilities. It’s checkable. ImpSec is on it now. Yet only the … frozen dead require that much expertise. The mere mechanics of cleaning an emptied chamber could be done by any ship’s sickbay. Or engineering section. An unmarked grave could be harder to locate. Or maybe no grave, just disintegrated like garbage… .” The Count stared off into the trees.

Mark bet he wasn’t seeing trees. Mark bet he was seeing the same vision Mark was, a frozen little body, chest blown out—you wouldn’t even need a hand-tractor to lift it—shoved carelessly, mindlessly, into some disposal unit. Would they even wonder who the little man had been? Or would it just be a repellent thing to them? Who was them, dammit?

And how long had the Count’s mind been running on this same wheel of thought, and how the devil was it that he could still walk and talk at the same time? “How long have you known this?”

“The report came in yesterday afternoon. So you see … it becomes measurably more important that I know where you stand. In relation to Barrayar.” He started again up the trail, then took a side branch that narrowed and began to rise steeply through an area of taller trees and thinner brush.

Mark toiled on his heels. “Nobody in their right mind would stand in relation to Barrayar. They would run in relation to Barrayar. Away.”

The Count grinned over his shoulder. “You’ve been talking too much to Cordelia, I fear.”

“Yes, well, she’s about the only person here who will talk to me.” He caught up with the Count, who had slowed.

The Count grimaced painfully. “That’s been true.” He paced up the steep stony trail. “I’m sorry.” After a few more steps he added, with a flash of dark humor, “I wonder if the risks I used to take did this to my father. He is nobly avenged, if so.” More darkness than humor, Mark gauged. “But it’s more than ever necessary … to know …”

The Count stopped and sat down abruptly by the side of the trail, his back to a tree. “That’s strange,” he murmured. His face, which had been flushed and moist with the hill-climb and the morning’s growing warmth, was suddenly pale and moist.

“What?” said Mark cautiously, panting. He rested his hands on his knees and stared at the man, so oddly reduced to his eye level. The Count had a distracted, absorbed look on his face.

“I think … I had better rest a moment.”

“Suits me.” Mark sat too, on a nearby rock. The Count did not continue the conversation at once. Extreme unease tightened Mark’s stomach. What’s wrong with him? There’s something wrong with him. Oh, shit… . The sky had grown blue and fine, and a little breeze made the trees sigh, and a few more golden leaves flutter down. The cold chill up Mark’s spine had nothing to do with the weather.

“It is not,” said the Count in a distant, academic tone, “a perforated ulcer. I’ve had one of those, and this isn’t the same.” He crossed his arms over his chest. His breath was becoming shallow and rapid, not recovering its rhythm with sitting as Mark’s was.

Something very wrong. A brave man trying hard not to look scared was, Mark decided, one of the most frightening sights he’d ever seen. Brave, but not stupid: the Count did not, for example, choose to pretend that nothing was the matter and go charging up the trail to prove it.

“You don’t look well.”

“I don’t feel well.”

“What do you feel?”

“Er … chest pain, I’m afraid,” he admitted in obvious embarrassment. “More of an ache, really. A very … odd … sensation. Came up between one step and the next.”

“It couldn’t be indigestion, could it?” Like the kind that was boiling up acidly in Mark’s belly right now?

“I’m afraid not.”

“Maybe you had better call for help on your comm link,” Mark suggested diffidently. There sure as hell wasn’t anything he could do, if this was the medical emergency it looked like.

The Count laughed, a dry wheeze. It was not a comforting sound. “I left it.”

“What? You’re the frigging Prime Minister, you can’t go around without—”

“I wanted to assure an uninterrupted, private conversation. For a change. Unpunctuated by half the under-ministers in Vorbarr Sultana calling up to ask me where they left their agendas. I used to … do that for Miles. Sometimes, when it got too thick. Drove everyone crazy but eventually … they became … reconciled.” His voice went high and light on the last word. He lay back altogether, in the detritus and fallen leaves. “No … that’s no improvement… .” He extended a hand and Mark, his own heart lumping with terror, pulled him back into the sitting position.

A paralyzing toxin … heart failure … I was to get alone with you … I was to wait, in your sight, for twenty minutes while you died… . How had he made this happen? Black magic? Maybe he was programmed, and part of him was doing things the rest of him didn’t know anything about, like one of those split personalities. Did I do this? Oh, God. Oh shit.

The Count managed a pallid grin. “Don’t look so scared, boy,” he whispered. “Just go back to the house and get my guardsmen. It’s not that far. I promise I won’t move.” A hoarse chuckle.

/ wasn’t paying any attention to the paths on the way up. I was following you. Could he possibly carry … ? No. Mark was no med-tech, but he had a clear cold feeling that it would be a very bad idea to try to move this man. Even with his new girth he was heavily outweighed by the Count. “All right.” There hadn’t been that many possible wrong turns, had there? “You … you …” Don’t you dare die on me, godammit. Not now!

Mark turned, and trotted, skidded, and flat ran back down the path. Right or left? Left, down the double track. Where the hell had they turned on to it, though? They’d pushed through some brush—there was brush all along it, and half a dozen openings. There was one of those horse-jumps they’d passed. Or was it? A lot of them looked alike. I’m going to get lost in this frigging woods, and run around in circles for … twenty minutes, till he’s brain-dead and rigor-stiff, andthey’re all going to think I did it on purpose … He tripped, and bounced off a tree, and scrambled for balance and direction. He felt like a dog in a drama, running for help; when he arrived, all he’d be able to do would be bark and whine and roll on his back, and no one would understand… . He clung to a tree, gasping, and staring around. Wasn’t moss supposed to grow on the north side of trees, or was that only on Earth? These were Earth trees, mostly. On Jackson’s Whole a sort of slimy lichen grew on the south sides of everything, including buildings, and you had to scrape it out of the door grooves … ah! there was the creek. But had they walked up or down stream? Stupid, stupid, stupid. A stitch had started in his side. He turned left and ran.

Hallelujah! A tall female shape was striding down the path ahead of him. Elena, heading back to the barn. Not only was he on the right path, he’d found help. He tried to shout. It came out a croak, but it caught her attention; she looked over her shoulder, saw him, and stopped. He staggered up to her.

“What the hell’s got into you?” Her initial coldness and irritation gave way to curiosity and nascent alarm.

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 I7 … 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 only 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.