Mirror Dance

Chapter Eighteen

The level light of dawn turned the night’s lingering mist to gold, a smoky autumnal haze that gave the city of Vorbarr Sultana an almost magical air. The Imperial Security Headquarters building stood windowless, foursquare against the light, a vast utilitarian concrete block with enormous gates and doors certainly designed to diminish any human supplicant fool enough to approach it. In his case, a redundant effect, Mark decided.

“What awful architecture,” he said to Pym, beside him, chauffeuring him in the Count’s ground car.

“Ugliest building in town,” the armsman agreed cheerfully. “It dates back to Mad Emperor Yuri’s Imperial architect, Lord Dono Vorrutyer. An uncle to the later vice-admiral. He managed to get up five major structures before Yuri was killed, and they stopped him. The Municipal Stadium runs this a close second, but we’ve never been able to afford to tear it down. Still stuck with it, sixty years later.”

“It looks like the sort of place that has dungeons in the basement. Painted institutional green. Run by ethics-free physicians.”

“It did,” said Pym. The Armsman negotiated their way past the gate guards and slowed in front of a vast flight of steps.

“Pym … aren’t those steps a bit oversized?”

“Yep,” grinned the Armsman. “You’d have a cramp in your leg by the time you reached the top, if you tried to take it in one go.” Pym eased the ground car forward, and stopped to let Mark off “But if you go around the left end, here, you’ll find a little door at ground level, and a lift tube foyer. That’s where everybody actually goes in.”

“Thank you.” Pym popped the front canopy, and Mark climbed out. “Whatever happened to Lord Dono, after Mad Yuri’s reign? Assassinated by the Architectural Defense League, I hope?”

“No, he retired to the country, lived off his daughter and son-in-law, and died stark mad. There’s a bizarre set of towers he built on their estate, that they charge admission to see, now.” With a wave, Pym lowered the canopy and pulled away.

Mark trod around to the left, as directed. So here he was, bright and early … or at least, early. He’d taken a long shower, donned comfortable dark civilian clothes, and tanked himself on enough painkillers, vitamins, hangover remedies, and stimulants to leave him feeling artificially normal. More artificial than normal, but he was determined not to let Illyan bully him out of his chance.

He presented himself to the ImpSec guards in the foyer. “I’m Lord Mark Vorkosigan. I’m expected.”

“Hardly that,” growled a voice from the lift tube. Illyan himself swung out. The guards braced; Illyan put them back at ease with an unmilitary wave. Illyan too had showered, and changed back into his usual undress greens. Mark suspected Illyan had eaten pills for breakfast too. “Thank you, Sergeant, I’ll take him up.”

“What a depressing building to work in,” Mark commented, as he rose in the lift tube beside the ImpSec chief.

“Yes,” sighed Illyan. “I visited the Investigatif Federate building on Escobar, once. Forty-five stories, all glass … I was never closer to emigrating. Dono Vorrutyer should have been strangled at birth. But … it’s mine now.” Illyan glanced around with a dubious possessiveness.

Illyan led him deep into the—yes, this building definitely had bowels, Mark decided. The bowels of ImpSec. Their footsteps echoed down a bare corridor lined with tiny, cubicle-like rooms. Mark glanced through a few half-open doors at highly-secured corn-consoles manned by green-uniformed men. One man at least had a bank of non-regulation full spectrum lights blazing away, aimed at his station chair. There was a large coffee dispenser at the end of the corridor. He didn’t think it was random chance that Illyan led him to the cubicle numbered thirteen.

“This comconsole has been loaded with every report I’ve received pertaining to the search for Lieutenant Vorkosigan,” said Illyan coolly. “If you think you can do better with it than my trained analysts have, I invite you to try.”

“Thank you, sir.” Mark slid into the station chair, and powered up the vid plate. “This is unexpectedly generous.”

“You should have no complaint, my lord,” Illyan stated, in the tone of a directive. Gregor must have lit quite a fire under him, earlier this morning, Mark reflected, as Illyan bowed himself out with a distinctly ironic nod. Hostile? No. That was unjust. Illyan was not nearly as hostile as he had a right to be. It’s not only obedience to his Emperor, Mark realized with a shiver. Illyan could have stood up to Gregor on a security issue like this if he’d really wanted to. He’s getting desperate.

He took a deep breath and plunged into the files, reading, listening, and viewing. Illyan hadn’t been joking about the everything part. There were literally hundreds of reports, generated by fifty or sixty different agents scattered throughout the near wormhole nexus. Some were brief and negative. Others were long and negative. But somebody seemed to have visited, at least once, every possible cryo-facility on Jackson’s Whole, its orbital and jump point stations, and several adjoining local space systems. There were even recently-received reports tracing as far away as Escobar.

What was missing, Mark realized after quite a while, were any synopses or finished analyses. He had received raw data only, in all its mass. On the whole, he decided he preferred it that way.

Mark read till his eyes were dry and aching, and his stomach gurgled with festering coffee. Time to break for lunch, he thought, when a guard knocked at his door.

“Lord Mark, your driver is here,” the guard informed him politely.

Hell—it was time to break for dinner. The guard escorted him back through the building and delivered him to Pym. It was dark outside. My head hurts.

Doggedly, Mark returned the next morning and started again. And the next. And the next. More reports arrived. In fact, they were arriving faster than he could read them. The harder he worked, the more he was falling behind. Halfway through the fifth day he leaned back in his station chair and thought, This is crazy. Illyan was burying him. From the paralysis of ignorance, he had segued with surprising speed to the paralysis of information-glut. I’ve got to triage this crap, or I’ll never get out of this repulsive building.

“Lies, lies, all lies,” he muttered wildly to his comconsole. It seemed to blink and hum back at him, sly and demure.

With a decisive punch, he turned off the comconsole with its endless babble of voices and fountains of data, and sat for a while in darkness and silence, till his ears stopped ringing.

ImpSec hasn’t. Hasn’t found Miles. He didn’t need all this data. Nobody did. He just needed one piece. Let’s cut this down to size.

Start with a few explicit assumptions. One. Miles is recoverable.

Let ImpSec look for a rotted body, unmarked grave, or disintegration record all they wanted. Such a search was no use to him, even if successful. Especially if successful.

Only cryo-chambers, whether permanent storage banks or other portables, were of interest. Or—less likely, and notably less common—cryo-revival facilities. But logic put an upper cap on his optimism. If Miles had been successfully revived by friendly hands, the first thing he would do would be to report in. He hadn’t, ergo: he was still frozen. Or, if revived, in too bad a shape to function. Or not in friendly hands. So. Where?

The Dendarii cryo-chamber had been found in the Hegen Hub. Well … so what? It had been sent there after it was emptied. Sinking down into his station chair with slitted eyes, Mark thought instead about the opposite end of the trail. Were his particular obsessions luring him into believing what he wanted to believe? No, dammit. To hell with the Hegen Hub. Miles never got off the planet. In one stroke, that eliminated over three-fourths of the trash-data clogging his view.

We look at Jackson’s Whole reports only, then. Good. Then what?

How had ImpSec checked all the remaining possible destinations? Places without known motivations or connections with House Bharaputra? For the most part, ImpSec had simply asked, concealing their own identity but offering a substantial reward. All at least four weeks after the raid. A cold trail, so to speak. Quite a lot of time for someone to think about their surprise package. Time to hide it, if they were so inclined. So that, in those cases where ImpSec did a second and more complete pass, they were even more likely to come up empty.

Miles is in a place that ImpSec has already checked off, in the hands of someone with hidden motivations to be interested in him.

There were still hundreds of possibilities.

I need a connection. There has to be a connection.

ImpSec had torn apart Norwood’s available Dendarii records down to the level of a word-by-word analysis. Nothing. But Norwood was medically trained. And he hadn’t sent his beloved Admiral’s cryo-chamber off at random. He’d sent it someplace to someone.

If there’s a hell, Norwood, I hope you’re roasting in it right now.

Mark sighed, leaned forward, and turned the comconsole back on.

A couple of hours later, Illyan stopped by Mark’s cubicle, closing the soundproof door behind him. He leaned, falsely casual, on the wall and remarked, “How is it going?”

Mark ran his hands through his hair. “Despite your amiable attempt to bury me, I think I’m actually making some progress.”

“Oh? What kind?” Illyan did not deny the charge, Mark noticed.

“I am absolutely convinced Miles never left Jackson’s Whole.”

“So how do you explain our finding the cryo-chamber in the Hegen Hub?”

“I don’t. It’s a diversion.”

“Hm,” said Illyan, non-committally.

“And it worked,” Mark added cruelly.

Illyan’s lips thinned.

Diplomacy, Mark reminded himself. Diplomacy, or he’d never get what he needed. “I accept that your resources are finite, sir. So put them to the point. Everything that you do have available for this, you ought to send to Jackson’s Whole.”

The sardonic expression on Illyan’s face said it all. The man had been running ImpSec for nearly thirty years. It was going to take a lot more than diplomacy for him to accept Mark telling him how to do his job.

“What did you find out about Captain Vorventa?” Mark tried another line.

“The link was short, and not too sinister. His younger brother was my Galactic Operations supervisor’s adjutant. These are not disloyal men, you understand.”

“So … what have you done?”

“About Captain Edwin, nothing. It’s too late. The information about Miles is now out on the Vorish net, as whispers and gossip. Beyond damage control. Young Vorventa has been transferred and demoted. Leaving an ugly hole in my staffing. He was good at his job.” Illyan did not sound very grateful to Mark.

“Oh.” Mark paused. “Vorventa thought I did something to the Count. Is that out on the gossip net too?”

“Yes.”

Mark winced. “Well … at least you know better,” he sighed. He glanced up at Illyan’s stony face, and felt a nauseated alarm. “Don’t you, sir?”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not.”

“How not?! You have the medical reports!”

“Mm. The cardiac rupture certainly appeared natural. But it could have been artificially created, using a surgical hand-tractor. The subsequent damage to the cardiac region would have masked its traces.”

Mark shuddered in helpless outrage. “Tricky work,” he choked. “Extremely precise. How did I make the Count hold still, and not notice, while I was doing this?”

“That is one problem with the scenario,” Illyan agreed.

“And what did I do with the hand tractor? And the medical scanner, I’d have needed one of those, too. Two or three kilos of equipment.”

“Ditched them in the woods. Or somewhere.”

“Have you found them?”

“No.”

“Have you looked?”

“Yes.”

Mark rubbed his face, hard, and clenched and unclenched his teeth. “So. You have all the men you need to quarter and re-quarter several square kilometers of woods looking for a hand tractor that isn’t there, but not enough to send to Jackson’s Whole to look for Miles, who is. I see.” No. He had to keep his temper, or he’d lose everything. He wanted to howl. He wanted to beat Illyan’s face in.

“A galactic operative is a highly-trained specialist with rare personal qualities,” said Illyan stiffly. “Area-searches for known objects can be conducted by low-level troopers, who are more abundant.”

“Yes. I’m sorry.” He was apologizing? Your goals. Remember your goals. He thought of the Countess, and drew a deep, calming breath. He drew several.

“I do not hold this as a conviction,” Illyan said, watching his face. “I hold it merely as a doubt.”

“Thank-you-I-think,” Mark snarled.

He sat for a full minute, trying to marshall his scattered thoughts, his best arguments. “Look,” he said at last. “You are wasting your resources, and one of the resources you are wasting is me. Send me back to Jackson’s Whole. I know more about the entire situation than any other agent you have. I have some training, an assassin’s training only maybe, but some. Enough to lose your spies three or four times on Earth! Enough to get this far. I know Jackson’s Whole, visceral stuff you can only acquire growing up there. And you wouldn’t even have to pay me!” He waited, holding his breath in the courage of his terror. Go back? Blood sprayed through his memory. Going to give the Bharaputrans a chance to correct their aim?

Illyan’s cool expression did not change. “Your track record so far in covert ops is not notably impressive for its successes, Lord Mark.”

“So, I’m not a brilliant combat field commander. I am not Miles. We all know that by now. How many of your other agents are?”

“If you are as, ah, incompetent as you have appeared, sending you would be a further waste. But suppose you are more sly than even I think. All your thrashing around here, a mere smokescreen.” Illyan could deliver the veiled insults too. Stiletto-sharp, right between the ribs. “And suppose you get to Miles before we do. What happens then?”

“What do you mean, what happens then?”

“If you return him to us as a room-temperature corpse, fit only for burying, instead of a cryo-stat hopeful—how will we know that was the way you found him? And you will inherit his name, his rank, his wealth, and his future. Tempting, Mark, to a man without an identity. Very tempting.”

Mark buried his face in his hands. He sat crushed, infuriated, and wildly frustrated. “Look,” he said through his fingers, “look. Either I’m the man who, by your theory, succeeded in half-assassinating Aral Vorkosigan and was so good I left no trace of proof—or I’m not. You can argue that I’m not competent enough to send. Or you can argue that I’m not trustworthy enough to send. But you can’t use both arguments at once. Pick one!”

“I await more evidence.” Illyan’s eyes were like stones.

“I swear,” Mark whispered, “excess suspicion makes us bigger fools than excess trust does.” It had certainly been true in his case. He sat up suddenly. “So fast-penta me.”

Illyan raised his brows. “Mm?”

“Fast-penta me. You never have. Relieve your suspicions.” Fast-penta interrogations could be excruciatingly humiliating experiences, by all reports. So what. What was one more humiliation in his life? Warm and familiar, that was what.

“I have longed to, Lord Mark,” Illyan admitted, “but your, ah, progenitor has a known idiosyncratic response to fast-penta that I assume you share. Not the usual allergy, exactly. It creates an appalling hyperactivity, a great deal of babble, but alas, no overwhelming compulsion to tell the truth. It is useless.”

“In Miles.” Mark seized the hope. “You assume? You don’t know! My metabolism is demonstrably not like Miles’s. Can’t you at least check?”

“Yes,” said Illyan slowly, “I can do that.” He pushed himself off from the wall, and exited the cubicle, saying, “Carry on. I’ll be back shortly.”

Tense, Mark rose and paced the little room, two steps each way. Fear and desire pulsed in his brain. The memory of the inhuman chill of Baron Bharaputra’s eyes clashed with hot rage in his throat. If you want to find something, look where you lost it. He’d lost it all on Jackson’s Whole.

Illyan returned at last. “Sit down and roll up your left sleeve.”

Mark did so. “What’s that?”

“Patch test.”

Mark felt a burr-like prickle, as Illyan pressed the tiny med-pad onto the underside of his forearm, then peeled it away. Illyan glanced at his chrono, and leaned on the comconsole, watching Mark’s arm.

Within a minute, there was a pink spot. Within two, it was a hive. Within five, it had grown to a hard white welt surrounded by angry red streaks that ran from his wrist to his elbow.

Illyan sighed disappointment. “Lord Mark. I highly recommend that you avoid fast-penta at all costs, in your future.”

“That was an allergic reaction?”

“That was a highly allergic reaction.”

“Shit.” Mark sat and brooded. And scratched. He rolled down his sleeve before he drew blood. “If Miles had been sitting here, reading these files, making these same arguments, would you have listened to him?”

“Lieutenant Vorkosigan has a sustained record of successes that compels my attention. Results speak for themselves. And, as you yourself have repeatedly pointed out, you are not Miles. You can’t use both arguments at once,” he added icily. “Pick one.”

“Why did you even bother letting me in here, if nothing I say or do can make any difference?” Mark exploded.

Illyan shrugged. “Aside from Gregor’s direct order—at least I know where you are and what you are doing.”

“Like a detention cell, except that I enter it voluntarily. If you could lock me in a cell without a comconsole, you’d be even happier.” “Frankly, yes.”

“Just. So.” Blackly, Mark switched the comconsole back on. Illyan left him to it.

Mark jumped out of his chair, stumbled to the door, and stuck his head out. Illyan’s retreating back was halfway down the corridor. “I have my own name now, Illyan!” Mark shouted furiously. Illyan glanced back over his shoulder, raised his brows, and walked on.

Mark tried reading another report, but it seemed to turn to gibberish somewhere between his eyes and his brain. He was too rattled to continue his analysis today. He gave up at last, and called Pym for a pick-up. It was still light out. He stared into the sunset, glimpsed between the buildings on the way home to Vorkosigan House, till his eyes burned.

It was the first time that week he had returned from ImpSec in time to join the Countess for dinner. He found her and Bothari-Jesek dining casually in a ground-floor nook that looked onto a sheltered corner of the garden, densely arranged with autumn flowers and plants. Spot lighting kept the display colorful in the gathering dusk. The Countess wore a fancy green jacket and long skirt, a Vor matron’s town wear; Bothari-Jesek wore a similar costume in blue obviously borrowed from the Countess’s wardrobe. A place was set for him at the table despite the fact that he hadn’t shown up for the meal for four straight days. Obscurely touched, he slid into his seat.

“How was the Count today?” he asked diffidently.

“Unchanged,” the Countess sighed.

As was the Countess’s custom, there was a minute of silence before they plowed in, which the Countess used for an inward prayer that Mark suspected involved more this day than calling blessings upon the bread. Bothari-Jesek and he waited politely, Bothari-Jesek meditating God-knew-what, Mark rerunning his conversation with Illyan in his head and evolving all the smarter things he should have said, too late. A servant brought food in covered dishes and departed to leave them in privacy, which was the way the Countess preferred it when not dining formally with official guests. Family style. Huh.

In truth, Bothari-Jesek had been lending the Countess the support of a daughter in the days since the Count’s collapse, accompanying her on her frequent trips to the Imperial Military Hospital, running personal errands, acting as confidant; Mark suspected the Countess had revealed more of her real thoughts to Bothari-Jesek than to anyone else, and felt a little inexplicable envy. As their favorite Armsman’s only child, Elena Bothari had been practically the Vorkosigans’ foster-daughter; Vorkosigan House had been the home in which she had grown up. So if he was really Miles’s brother, did that make Elena his foster-sister too? He would have to try the idea on her. And prepare to duck. Some other time.

“Captain Bothari-Jesek,” Mark began, after he’d swallowed the first couple of bites, “what’s going on with the Dendarii at Komarr? Or does Illyan keep you in the dark too?”

“He’d better not,” said Bothari-Jesek. To be sure, Elena had allies that outranked even the ImpSec commander. “We’ve done a little reshuffling. Quinn retained the chief eyewitnesses to your, um, raid—” land of her, not to use some more forthright term, like debacle, “Green Squad, part of Orange and Blue Squads. She’s sent everyone else off in the Peregrine under my second, to rejoin the fleet. People were getting itchy, cooped up in orbit with no downside leave and no duties.” She looked distinctly unhappy at this temporary loss of her command.

“Is the Ariel still at Komarr, then?”

“Yes.”

“Quinn of course … Captain Thorne? Sergeant Taura?”

“All still waiting.”

“They must be pretty itchy themselves, by now.”

“Yes,” said Bothari-Jesek, and stabbed her fork so hard into a chunk of vat protein that it skittered across her plate. Itchy. Yes.

“So what have you learned this week, Mark?” the Countess asked him.

“Nothing you don’t already know, I’m afraid. Doesn’t Illyan pass you reports?”

“Yes, but due to the press of events I’ve only had time to glance at his analysts’ synopses. In any case, there’s only one piece of news I really want to hear.”

Right. Encouraged, Mark began to detail his survey to her, including his data-triage and his growing convictions.

“You seem to have been quite thorough,” she remarked.

He shrugged. “I now know roughly what ImpSec knows, if Illyan has been honest with me. But since ImpSec frankly doesn’t know where Miles is, it’s all futile. I swear …”

“Yes?” said the Countess.

“I swear Miles is still on Jackson’s Whole. But I can’t get Illyan to focus down. His attention is spread all over hell and gone. He has Cetagandans on the brain.”

“There are sound historical reasons for that,” said the Countess. “And current ones too, I’m afraid, though I’m sure Illyan has been cagey about confiding to you any of ImpSec’s troubles not directly connected to Miles’s situation. To say he’s had a bad month would be a gross understatement.” She hesitated too, for rather a long time. “Mark … you are, after all, Miles’s clone-twin. As close as one human being can be to another. This conviction of yours has a passionate edge. You seem to know. Do you suppose … you really do know? On some level?”

“Do you mean, like, a psychic link?” he said. What an awful idea.

She nodded, faintly flushed. Bothari-Jesek looked appalled, and gave him a strange beseeching look, Don’t you dare mess with her mind, you—!

This is the true measure of her desperation. “I’m sorry. I’m not psychic. Only psychotic.” Bothari-Jesek relaxed. He slumped, then brightened slightly with an idea. “Though it might not hurt to let Illyan think that you think so.”

“Illyan is too sturdy a rationalist.” The Countess smiled sadly.

“The passion is only frustration, ma’am. No one will let me do anything.”

“What is it that you wish to do?”

I want to run away to Beta Colony. The Countess would probably help him to… No. I am never running away again.

He took a breath, in place of a courage he did not feel. “I want to go back to Jackson’s Whole and look for him. I could do as good a job as Illyan’s other agents, I know I could! I tried the idea on him. He wouldn’t bite. If he could, he’d like to lock me in a security cell.”

“It’s days like these poor Simon would sell his soul to make the world hold still for a while,” the Countess admitted. “His attention isn’t just spread right now, it’s splintered. I have a certain sympathy for him.”

“I don’t. I wouldn’t ask Simon Illyan for the time of day. Nor would he give it to me.” Mark brooded. “Gregor would hint obliquely where I might look for a chrono. You …” his metaphor extended itself, unbidden, “would give me a clock.”

“If I had one, son, I’d give you a clock factory,” the Countess sighed.

Mark chewed, swallowed, stopped, looked up. “Really?”

“R—” she began positively, then caution caught up with her. “Really what?”

“Is Lord Mark a free man? I mean, I’ve committed no crime within the Barrayaran Empire, have I? There being no law against stupidity. I’m not under arrest.”

“No …”

“I could go to Jackson’s Whole myself! Screw Illyan and his precious resources. If—” ah, the catch—he deflated slightly, “if I had a ticket,” he ran down. His whole wealth, as far as he knew, was seventeen Imperial marks left from a twenty-five note the Countess had given him for spending money earlier in the week, now wadded up in his trouser pocket.

The Countess pushed her plate away and sat back, her face drained. “This does not strike me as a very safe idea. Speaking of stupidity.”

“Bharaputra’s probably got an execution contract out on you now, after what you did,” Bothari-Jesek put in helpfully.

“No—it’s on Admiral Naismith,” Mark argued. “And I wouldn’t be going back to Bharaputra’s.” Not that he didn’t agree with the Countess. The spot on his forehead where Baron Bharaputra had counted coup burned in secret. He stared urgently at her. “Ma’am …”

“Are you seriously asking me to finance your risking your life?” she said.

“No—my saving it! I can’t”—he waved around helplessly, at Vorkosigan House, at his whole situation—”go on like this. I’m all out of balance here, I’m all wrong.”

“Balance will come to you, in time. It’s just too soon,” she said earnestly. “You’re still very new.”

“I have to go back. I have to try to undo what I did. If I can.”

“And if you can’t, what will you do then?” asked Bothari-Jesek coldly. “Take off, with a nice head start?”

Had the woman read his mind? Mark’s shoulders bowed with the weight of her scorn. And his doubt. “I,” he breathed, “don’t …” know. He could not finish the sentence aloud.

The Countess laced her long fingers. “I don’t doubt your heart,” she said, looking at him steadily.

Hell, and she could break that heart more thoroughly with her trust than Illyan ever could with his suspicion. He crouched in his seat.

“But—you are my second chance. My new hope, all unlooked-for. I never thought I could have another child, on Barrayar. Now Jackson’s Whole has eaten Miles, and you want to go down there after him? You, too?”

“Ma’am,” he said desperately, “Mother—I cannot be your consolation prize.”

She crossed her arms, and rested her chin in one hand, cupped over her mouth. Her eyes were grey as a winter sea.

“You of all people, have to see,” Mark pleaded, “how important a second chance can he.”

She pushed back her chair, and stood up. “I’ll … have to think about this.” She exited the little dining room. She’d left half her meal on her plate, Mark saw with dismay.

Bothari-Jesek saw it too. “Good job,” she snarled.

I’m sorry, I’m sorry… .

She rose to run after the Countess.

Mark sat, abandoned and alone. And, blindly and half-consciously, proceeded to eat himself sick. He stumbled up to his room’s level by the lift tube, afterward, and lay wishing for sleep more than for breath. Neither came to him.

After an interminable time his stunned headache and hot abdominal pain were just starting to recede, when there came a knock on his door. He rolled over with a muffled groan. “Who is it?”

“Elena.”

He keyed on the light, and sat up in bed against the carved headboard, stuffing a pillow under his spine against some killer solid walnut acanthus leaves in high relief. He didn’t want to talk to Bothari-Jesek. Or to any other human being. He refastened his shirt as loosely as it would go. “Enter,” he muttered.

She came cautiously around the doorframe, her face serious and pale. “Hello. Are you feeling all right?”

“No,” he admitted.

“I came to apologize,” she said.

“You? Apologize to me? Why?”

“The Countess told me … something of what was going on with you. I’m sorry. I didn’t understand.”

He’d been dissected again, in absentia. He could tell by the horrified way Bothari-Jesek was looking at him, as if his swollen belly was laid open and spread wide in an autopsy with a cut from here to there. “Aw, hell. What did she say now?” He struggled, with difficulty, to sit up straighter.

“Miles had talked around it. But I hadn’t understood how bad it really was. The Countess told me exactly. What Galen did to you. The shock-stick rape, and the, um, eating disorders. And the other disorder.” She kept her eyes away from his body, onto his face, a dead give-away of the unwelcome depth of her new knowledge. She and the Countess must have been talking for two hours. “And it was all so deliberately calculated. That was the most diabolical part.”

“I’m not so sure about the shock-stick incident being calculated,” Mark said carefully. “Galen seemed out of his head, to me. Over the top. Nobody’s that good an actor. Or maybe it started out calculated, and got out of hand.” And then burst out, helplessly, “Dammit!” Bothari-Jesek jumped a foot in the air. “She has no right to talk about that with you! Or with anybody! What the hell am I, the best show in town?”

“No, no,” Bothari-Jesek opened her hands. “You have to understand. I told her about Maree, that little blonde clone we found you with. What I thought was going on. I accused you to the Countess.”

He froze, flushed with shame, and a new dismay. “I didn’t realize you hadn’t told her at the first.” Was everything he thought he’d built with the Countess on a rotten foundation, collapsing now in ruins?

“She wanted you for a son so badly, I couldn’t bring myself to. But I was so furious with you tonight, I blurted it all out.”

“And then what happened?”

Bothari-Jesek shook her head in wonderment. “She’s so Betan. She’s so strange. She’s never where you think she is, mentally. She wasn’t the least surprised. And then she explained it all to me—I felt like my head was being turned inside out, and given a good wash-and-brush.”

He almost laughed. “That sounds like a typical conversation with the Countess.” His choking fear began to recede. She doesn’t despise me … ?

“I was wrong about you,” Bothari-Jesek said sturdily.

His hands spread in exasperation. “It’s nice to know I have such a defender, but you weren’t wrong. What you thought was exactly what was going on. I would have if I could have,” he said bitterly. “It wasn’t my virtue that stopped me, it was my high-voltage conditioning.”

“Oh, I don’t mean wrong about the facts. But I was projecting a lot of my own anger, into the way I was explaining you to myself. I had no idea how much you were a product of systematic torture. And how incredibly you resisted. I think I would have gone catatonic, in your place.”

“It wasn’t that bad all the time,” he said uncomfortably.

“But you have to understand,” she repeated doggedly, “what was going on with me. About my father.”

“Huh?” He felt as if his head had just been given a sharp half-twist to the left. “I know what my father has to do with this, why the hell is yours in on it?”

She walked around the room. Working up to something. When she did speak, it came out all in a rush. “My father raped my mother. That’s where I came from, during the Barrayaran invasion of Escobar. I’ve known for some years. It’s made me allergically sensitive on the subject. I can’t stand it,” her hands clenched, “yet it’s in me. I can’t escape it. It made it very hard for me to see you clearly. I feel like I’ve been looking at you through a fog for the last ten weeks. The Countess has dispelled it.” Indeed, her eyes did not freeze him any more. “The Count helped me too, more than I can say.”

“Oh.” What was he to say? So, it hadn’t been just him they’d been talking about for the past two hours. There was clearly more to her story, but he sure wasn’t going to ask. For once, it wasn’t his place to apologize. “I’m … not sorry you exist. However you got here.”

She smiled, crookedly. “Actually, neither am I.”

He felt very strange. His fury at the violation of his privacy was fading, to be replaced by a light-heartedness that astonished him. He was greatly relieved, to be unburdened of his secrets. His dread was shrunken, as if giving it away had literally diminished it. I swear if I tell four more people, I’ll be altogether free.

He swung his legs out of the bed, grabbed her by the hand, led her to a wooden chair beside his window, climbed up and stood on it, and kissed her. “Thank you!”

She looked quite startled. “What for?” she asked on the breath of a laugh. Firmly, she repossessed her hand.

“For existing. For letting me live. I don’t know.” He grinned, exhilarated, but the grin faded in dizziness, and he climbed down more carefully, and sat.

She stared down at him, and bit her lip. “Why do you do that to yourself?”

No use to pretend he didn’t know what that was, the physical manifestations of his compulsive gorge were obvious enough. He felt monstrous. He swiped a hand over his sweaty face. “I don’t know. I do think, half of what we call madness is just some poor slob dealing with pain by a strategy that annoys the people around him.”

“How is it dealing with pain to give yourself more pain?” she asked plaintively.

He half-smiled, hands on his knees, staring at the floor. “There is a kind of riveting fascination to it. Takes your mind off the real thing. Consider what a toothache does to your attention span.”

She shook her head. “I’d rather not, thank you.”

“Galen was only trying to screw up my relation with my father,” he sighed, “but he managed to screw up my relation with everything. He knew he wouldn’t be able to control me directly once he turned me loose on Barrayar, so he had to build in motivations that would last.” He added lowly, “It ricocheted back on him. Because in a sense, Galen was my father too. My foster-father. First one I ever had.” The Count had been alive to that one. “I was so hungry for identity, when the Komarrans picked me up on Jackson’s Whole. I think I must have been like one of those baby birds that imprints on a watering pot or something, because it’s the first parent-bird-sized thing it sees.”

“You have a surprising talent for information analysis,” she remarked. “I noticed it even back at Jackson’s Whole.”

“Me?” he blinked. “Certainly not!” Not a talent, surely, or he’d be getting better results. But despite all his frustrations, he had felt a kind of contentment, in his little cubicle at ImpSec this past week, the serenity of a monk’s cell, combined with the absorbing challenge of that universe of data … in an odd way it reminded him of the peaceful times with the virtual learning programs, in his childhood back at the clone-creche. The times when no one had been hurting him.

“The Countess thinks so too. She wants to see you.”

“What, now?”

“She sent me to get you. But I had to get my word in first. Before it got any later, and I lost my chance. Or my nerve.”

“All right. Let me pull myself together.” He was intensely grateful wine had not been served tonight. He retreated to his bathroom, washed his face in the coldest water, forced down a couple of painkiller tabs, and combed his hair. He slipped one of the back-country-style vests over his dark shirt, and followed Bothari-Jesek into the hall.

She took him to the Countess’s own study, which was a serene and austere chamber overlooking the back garden, just off her bedroom. Her and her husband’s bedroom. Mark glimpsed the dark interior, down a step and through an archway. The Count’s absence seemed an almost palpable thing.

The Countess was at her comconsole, not a secured government model, just a very expensive commercial one. Shell flowers inlaid on black wood framed the vid plate, which was generating the image of a harried-looking man. The Countess was saying sharply, “Well, find out the arrangements, then! Yes, tonight, now. And then get back to me. Thank you.” She batted the off-key, and swung around to face Mark and Bothari-Jesek.

“Are you checking on a ticket to Jackson’s Whole?” he asked tremulously, hoping against hope.

“No.”

“Oh.” Of course not. How could she let him go? He was a fool. It was useless to suppose—

“I was checking on getting you a ship. If you’re going, you’ll need a lot more independent mobility than scheduled commercial transport will allow.”

“Buy a ship?” he said, stunned. And he’d thought that line about the clock factory had been a joke. “Isn’t that pretty expensive?”

“Lease, if I can. Buy if I have to. There seem to be three or four possibilities, in Barrayar or Komarr orbit.”

“Still—how?” He didn’t think even the Vorkosigans could buy a jump-ship out of pocket change.

“I can mortgage something,” the Countess said rather vaguely, looking around.

“Since synthetics came in, you can’t hock the family jewels any more.” He followed her gaze. “Not Vorkosigan House!”

“No, it’s entailed. Same problem with the District Residence at Hassadar. I can pledge Vorkosigan Surleau on my bare word, though.”

The heart of the realm, oh shit …

“All these houses and history are all very well,” she complained, raising her eyebrows at his dismayed expression, “but a bloody museum doesn’t make a very liquid asset. In any case, the finances are my problem. You’ll have your own worries.”

“A crew?” was the first thought that popped into his head, and out of his mouth.

“A jump-pilot and engineer will come with the ship, at a minimum. As for supercargo, well, there are all those idle Dendarii, hanging in Komarr orbit. I imagine you could find a volunteer or two among them. It’s obvious they can’t take the Ariel back into Jacksonian local space.”

“Quinnie has bleeding fingers by now, from scratching at the doors,” Bothari-Jesek said. “Even Illyan won’t be able to hold her much longer, if ImpSec doesn’t get a break soon.”

“Will Illyan try to hold me?” asked Mark anxiously.

“If it weren’t for Aral, I’d be going myself,” said the Countess. “And I sure as hell wouldn’t let Illyan stop me. You are my proxy. I’ll deal with ImpSec.”

Mark bet she would. “The Dendarii I’m thinking of are highly motivated, but—I foresee problems, getting them to follow my orders. Who will be in command of this little private excursion?”

“It’s the golden rule, boy. He who has the gold, makes the rules. The ship will be yours. The choice of companions will be yours. If they want a ride, they have to cooperate.”

“That would last past the first wormhole jump. Then Quinn would lock me in a closet.”

The Countess puffed a laugh despite herself. “Hm. That is a point.” She leaned back in her station chair, and steepled her fingers together, her eyes half-closed for a minute or two. They opened wide again. “Elena,” she said. “Will you take oath to Lord Vorkosigan?” The fingers of her right hand fanned at Mark.

“I’m already sworn to Lord Vorkosigan,” Elena said stiffly. Meaning, to Miles.

The grey eyes went flinty. “Death releases all vows.” And then glinted. “The Vor system never has been very good at catching the curve balls thrown at it by galactic technologies. Do you know, I don’t think there has ever been a ruling as to the status of a voice-oath when one of the respondents is in cryo-stasis? Your word can’t be your breath when you don’t have any breath, after all. We shall just have to set our own precedent.”

Elena paced to the window, and stared out into nothing. The reflecting lights of the room obscured any view of the night. At last, she turned decisively on her heel, went down on both knees in front of Mark, and raised her hands pressed palm to palm. Automatically, Mark enclosed her hands with his own.

“My lord,” she said, “I pledge you the obedience of a liegewoman.”

“Um …” said Mark. “Urn … I think I may need more than that. Try this one. ’I, Elena Bothari-Jesek, do testify I am a freewoman of the District Vorkosigan. I hereby take service under Lord Mark Pierre Vorkosigan, as an Armsman—Armswoman?—simple, and will hold him as my liege commander until my death or he releases me.’ “

Shocked, Bothari-Jesek stared up at him. Not very far up, true. “You can’t do that! Can you?”

“Well,” said the Countess, watching this playlet with her eyes alight, “there isn’t actually a law saying a Count’s heir can’t take a female Armsman. It’s just never been done. You know— tradition.”

Elena and the Countess exchanged a long look. Hesitantly, as if half-hypnotized, Bothari-Jesek repeated the oath.

Mark said, “I, Lord Mark Pierre Vorkosigan, vassal secundus to Emperor Gregor Vorbarra, do accept your oath, and pledge you the protection of a liege commander; this by my word as Vorkosigan.” He paused. “Actually,” he said aside to the Countess, “I haven’t made my oath to Gregor yet, either. Would that invalidate this?”

“Details,” said the Countess, waving her fingers. “You can work out the details later.”

Bothari-Jesek stood up again. She looked at him like a woman waking up in bed with a hangover and a strange partner she didn’t remember meeting the night before. She rubbed the backs of her hands where his skin had touched hers.

Power. Just how much Vor-power did this little charade give him? Just as much as Bothari-Jesek allowed, Mark decided, eyeing her athletic frame and shrewd face. No danger she would permit him to abuse his position. The uncertainty in her face was giving way to a suppressed pleasure that delighted his eye. Yes. That was the right move. No question but that he had pleased the Countess, who was grinning outright at her subversive son.

“Now,” said the Countess, “how fast can we pull this together? How soon can you be ready to travel?”

“Immediately,” said Bothari-Jesek.

“At your command, ma’am,” said Mark. “I do feel—it’s nothing psychic, you understand. It’s not even the general itch. It’s only logic. But I do think we could be running out of time.”

“How so?” asked Bothari-Jesek. “There’s nothing more static than cryo-stasis. We’re all going crazy from uncertainty, sure, but that’s our problem. Miles may have more time than we do.”

Mark shook his head. “If Miles had fallen frozen into friendly or even neutral hands, they ought to have responded to the rumors of reward by now. But if … someone … wanted to revive him, they’d have to do the prep first. We’re all very conscious right now of how long it takes to grow organs for transplant.”

The Countess nodded wryly.

“If—wherever Miles is—committed to the project soon after they got him, they could be nearly ready to attempt a revival by now.”

“They might botch it,” said the Countess. “They might not be careful enough.” Her fingers drummed on the pretty shell inlay.

“I don’t follow that,” objected Bothari-Jesek. “Why would an enemy bother to revive him? What fate could be worse than death?”

“I don’t know,” sighed Mark. But if there is one, I bet the Jacksoninans can arrange it.