Mirror Dance

Chapter Twenty

Mark, Bothari-Jesek, and the Countess were in the library of Vorkosigan House going over ship specs the day before the scheduled departure.

“Do you think I would have time to stop and see my clones on Komarr?” Mark asked the Countess a little wistfully. “Would Illyan let me?”

ImpSec had settled on a Komarran private boarding school as the clones’ initial depository, after consultation with the Countess, who had in turn kept Mark informed. ImpSec liked it because it meant they had only one location to guard. The clones liked it because they were together with their friends, the only familiarity in their sudden new situation. The teachers liked it because the clones could all be treated as one remedial class, and brought up to academic speed together. At the same time the young refugees had a chance to mingle with youths from normal, if mostly upper-class, families, and begin to get a handle on socialization. Later, when it was safer, the Countess was pushing for placement in foster-families despite the clones’ awkward age and size. How will they learn to form families themselves, later, if they have no models? she’d argued with Illyan. Mark had listened in on that conversation with the most intense imaginable fascination, and kept his mouth tightly shut.

“Certainly, if you wish,” the Countess now said to Mark. “Illyan will kick, but that’s pure reflex. Except … I can think of one proper complaint he might have, because of your destination. If you encounter House Bharaputra again, God forbid, it might be better if you don’t know everything about ImpSec’s arrangements. Stopping on your way back might be more prudent.” The Countess looked as if she didn’t care for the flavor of her own words, but years of living with security concerns made her reasoning automatic.

If I encounter Vasa Luigi again, the clones will be the least of my worries, Mark thought wryly. What did he want of a personal visit anyway? Was he still trying to pass himself off as a hero? A hero should be more self-contained and austere. Not so desperate for praise as to pursue his—victims—begging for it. Surely he’d played the fool enough. “No,” he sighed at last. “If any of them ever want to talk to me, they can find me, I guess.” No heroine was going to kiss him anyway.

The Countess raised her brows at his tone, but shrugged agreement.

Led by Bothari-Jesek, they turned to more practical matters involving fuel costs and life-support system repairs. Bothari-Jesek and the Countess—who, Mark was reminded, had been a ship captain herself once—were deep into a startlingly technical discussion involving Necklin rod adjustments, when the comconsole image split, and Simon Illyan’s face appeared.

“Hello, Elena.” He nodded to her, in the comconsole’s station chair. “I wish to speak with Cordelia, please.”

Bothari-Jesek smiled, nodded, muted the outgoing audio, and slid aside. She beckoned urgently to the Countess, whispering, “Do we have trouble?”

“He’s going to block us,” worried Mark, agitated, as the Countess settled into the comconsole’s station chair. “He’s going to nail me to the floor, I know he is.”

“Hush,” reproved the Countess, smiling slightly. “Both of you sit over there and resist the temptation to talk. Simon is my meat.” She re-opened her audio transmission mode. “Yes, Simon, what can I do for you?”

“Milady,” Illyan gave her a short nod, “in a word, you can desist. This scheme you are putting forward is unacceptable.”

“To whom, Simon? Not to me. Who else gets a vote?”

“Security,” Illyan growled.

“You are Security. I’ll thank you to take responsibility for your own emotional responses, and not try to shift them onto some vague abstraction. Or get off the line and let me talk to Captain Security, then.”

“All right. It’s unacceptable to me.”

“In a word—tough.”

“I request you to desist.”

“I refuse. If you want to stop me, ultimately, you’ll have to generate an order for Mark’s and my arrest.”

“I will speak to the Count,” said Illyan stiffly, with the air of a man driven to a last resort.

“He’s much too ill. And I’ve spoken with him already.”

Illyan swallowed his bluff without gagging, much. “I don’t know what you think this unauthorized venture can do, besides muddy the waters, maybe risk lives, and cost you a small fortune.”

“Well, that’s just the point, Simon. I don’t know what Mark will be able to do. And neither do you. The trouble with ImpSec is that you’ve had no competition lately. You take your monopoly for granted. A bit of hustle will be good for you.”

Illyan sat with his teeth clenched for a short time. “You put House Vorkosigan at triple risk, with this,” he said at last. “You are endangering your last possible back-up.”

“I am aware. And I choose the risk.”

“Do you have that right?”

“I have more right than you.”

“The government is in the biggest uproar behind closed doors that I’ve seen in years,” said Illyan. “The Centrist Coalition is scrambling to find a man to replace Aral. And so are three other parties.”

“Excellent. I hope one of them may succeed before Aral gets back on his feet, or I’ll never get him to retire.”

“Is that what you see in this?” Illyan demanded. “A chance to end your husband’s career? Is this loyal, milady?”

“I see a chance to get him out of Vorbarr Sultana alive,” she said icily, “an end I have often despaired of, over the years. You pick your loyalties, I’ll pick mine.”

“Who is capable of succeeding him?” asked Illyan plaintively.

“A number of men. Racozy, Vorhalas, or Sendorf, to name three. If not, there was something terribly wrong with Aral’s leadership. One mark of a great man is the legacy of men he leaves behind him, to whom he’s passed on his skills. If you think Aral so small as to have stifled all possible others around him, spreading smallness like a plague, then perhaps Barrayar is better off without him.”

“You know I don’t think that!”

“Good. Then your argument annihilates itself.”

“You tie me in knots.” Illyan rubbed his neck. “Milady,” he said at last, “I didn’t want to have to say this to you. But have you considered the possible dangers of letting Lord Mark get to Lord Miles before anyone else?”

She leaned back in her chair, smiling, her fingers lightly drumming. “No, Simon. What dangers are you thinking of?”

“The temptation to promote himself,” Illyan bit out.

“Murder Miles. Say what you damn mean.” Her eyes glinted dangerously. “So you’ll just have to make sure your people get to Miles first. Won’t you. I’ve no objection.”

“Damn it, Cordelia,” he cried, harried, “you realize, that if they get into trouble, the first thing they’re going to do is cry to ImpSec for rescue!”

The Countess grinned. “You live to serve, I believe you fellows say in your oath. Don’t you?”

“We’ll see,” snapped Illyan, and cut the comm.

“What’s he going to do?” asked Mark anxiously.

“At a guess, go over my head. Since I’ve already cut him out with Aral, that leaves only one choice. I don’t think I’ll bother getting up. I expect I’ll get another call here shortly.”

Distracted, Mark and Bothari-Jesek attempted to carry on with the ship specs. Mark jumped when the comm chimed again.

An anonymous young man appeared, nodded to the Countess, stated, “Lady Vorkosigan. Emperor Gregor,” and vanished. Gregor’s face appeared in his place, looking bemused.

“Good morning, Lady Cordelia. You really ought not to stir up poor Simon that way, you know.”

“He deserved it,” she said equably. “I admit, he has far too much on his mind at the moment. Suppressed panic turns him into a prick every time, it’s what he does instead of running in circles screaming. A way of coping, I suppose.”

“While others of us cope by becoming over-analytical,” Gregor murmured. The Countess’s lip twitched, and Mark suddenly thought he knew who might shave the barber.

“His security concerns are legitimate,” Gregor continued. “Is this Jackson’s Whole venture wise?”

“A question that can only be answered by empirical testing. So to speak. I grant you, Simon argues sincerely. But—how do you consider Barrayar’s concerns will best be served, Sire? That’s the question you must answer.”

“I’m divided in mind.”

“Are you divided in heart?” Her question was a challenge. She opened her hands, half-placation, half-pleading. “One way or another, you’re going to be dealing with Lord Mark Vorkosigan for a long time to come. This excursion, if it does nothing else, will test the validity of all doubts. If they are not tested, they will always remain with you, an unanswered itch. And that’s not fair to Mark.”

“How very scientific,” he breathed. They regarded each other with equal dryness.

“I thought it might appeal to you.”

“Is Lord Mark with you?”

“Yes,” the Countess gestured him to her side.

Mark entered the range of the vid pick-up. “Sire.”

“So, Lord Mark.” Gregor studied him gravely. “It seems your mother wants me to give you enough rope to hang yourself.”

Mark swallowed. “Yes, Sire.”

“Or save yourself …” Gregor nodded. “So be it. Good luck and good hunting.”

“Thank you, Sire.”

Gregor smiled and cut the comm.

They did not hear from Illyan again.

In the afternoon, the Countess took Mark with her to the Imperial Military Hospital on her daily visit to her husband. Mark had made that journey in her company twice before, since the Count’s collapse. He didn’t much care for it. For one thing, the place smelled entirely too much like the clinics that had helped make a torment of his Jacksonian youth; he found himself remembering details of early surgeries and treatments that he thought he’d altogether forgotten. For another, the Count himself still terrified Mark. Even laid low, his personality was as powerful as his life was precarious, and Mark wasn’t sure which teetering aspect scared him more.

His feet slowed to a halt in the hospital corridor outside the Prime Minister’s guarded room, and he stood in indecisive misery. The Countess glanced back, and stopped. “Yes?”

“I … really don’t want to go in there.”

She frowned thoughtfully. “I won’t force you. But I’ll predict you a prediction.”

“Say on, oh seeress.”

“You will never regret having done so. But you may deeply regret not having done so.”

Mark digested that. “All right,” he said faintly, and followed her.

They tiptoed in quietly on the deep carpeting. The drapes were open on a wide view of the Vorbarr Sultana city-scape, sweeping down to the ancient buildings and the river that bisected the capital’s heart. It was a cloudy, chilly, rainy afternoon, and grey and white mists swirled around the tops of the highest modern towers. The Count’s face was turned to the silver light. He looked abstracted, bored, and ill, his face puffy and greenish, only partly a reflection of the light and the green uniform pajamas that reminded all forcibly of his patient-status. He was peppered with monitor pads, and had an oxygen tube to his nostrils.

“Ah.” His head turned at their entry, and he smiled. He keyed up a light at his bedside, which cast a warmer pool of illumination that nonetheless failed to improve his color. “Dear Captain. Mark.” The Countess bent to his bedside, and they exchanged a longer-than-formal kiss. The Countess swung herself up on the end of his bed and perched there cross-legged, arranging her long skirt. Casually, she began to rub his bare feet, and he sighed contentedly.

Mark advanced to about a meter distance. “Good afternoon, sir. How are you feeling?”

“Hell of a deal, when you can’t kiss your own wife without running out of breath,” he complained. He lay back, panting heavily.

“They let me into the lab to see your new heart,” the Countess commented. “It’s chicken-heart sized already, and beating away cheerfully in its little vat.”

The Count laughed weakly. “How grotesque.”

“I thought it was cute.”

“You would.”

“If you really want grotesque, consider what you want to do with the old one, after,” the Countess advised with a wicked grin. “The opportunities for tasteless jokes are almost irresistible.”

“The mind reels,” murmured the Count. He glanced up at Mark, still smiling.

Mark took a breath. “Lady Cordelia has explained to you what I intend to do, hasn’t she, sir?”

“Mm.” The Count’s smile faded. “Yes. Watch out for your back. Nasty place, Jackson’s Whole.”

“Yes, I … know.”

“So you do.” He turned his head to stare out the grey window. “I wish I could send Bothari with you.”

The Countess looked startled. Mark could read her thought right off her face, Has he forgotten Bothari is dead? But she was afraid to ask. She pasted a brighter smile on her mouth instead.

“I’m taking Bothari-Jesek, sir.”

“History repeats itself.” He struggled to sit up on one elbow, and added sternly, “It had better not, boy, y’hear?” He relaxed back into his pillows before the Countess could respond and make him. Her face lost its tension; he was clearly a little fogged, but he wasn’t so far out of it as to have forgotten his Armsman’s violent death. “Elena’s smarter than her father was, I’ll give her that,” he sighed. The Countess finished with his feet.

He lay back, brows drawn down, apparently struggling to think of more useful advice. “I once thought—I only found this out when I grew old, understand—that there is no more terrible fate than to become the mentor. To be able to tell how, yet not to do. To send your protege out, all bright and beautiful, to stand your fire … I think I’ve found a worse fate. To send your student out knowing damn well you haven’t had a chance to teach enough. … Be smart, boy. Duck fast. Don’t sell yourself to your enemy in advance, in your mind. You can only be defeated here.” He touched his hands to his temples.

“I don’t even know who the enemy is, yet,” said Mark ruefully.

“They’ll find you, I suppose,” sighed the Count. “People give themselves to you, in their talking, and in other ways, if you are quiet and patient and let them, and not in such a damn rush to give yourself to them you go bat-blind and deaf. Eh?”

“I guess so. Sir,” said Mark, baffled.

“Huh.” The Count had run himself completely out of breath. “You’ll see,” he wheezed. The Countess eyed him, swung herself off the bed, and stood up.

“Well,” said Mark, and nodded briefly, “goodbye.” His word hung in the air, insufficient. Cardiac conditions are not contagious, dammit. What are you scared of? He swallowed, and cautiously went nearer the Count. He had never touched the man except the once when trying to help load him onto the float bike. Afraid, emboldened, he held out his hand. »

The Count grasped it, a brief, strong grip. His hand was big and square and blunt-fingered, a hand fit for shovels and picks, swords and guns. Mark’s own hand seemed small and child-like, plump and pale by contrast. They had nothing in common but the grip.

“Confusion to the enemy, boy,” whispered the Count.

“Turn-about is fair play, sir.”

His father snorted a laugh.

Mark made one final vid-call that evening, his last night on Bar-rayar. He sneaked off to use the console in Miles’s room, not in secret, exactly, but in private. He stared at the blank machine for ten minutes before spasmodically punching in the code he had obtained.

A middle-aged blonde woman’s image appeared over the vid plate when the chime stopped. The remains of a striking beauty made her face strong and confident. Her eyes were blue and humorous. “Commodore Koudelka’s residence,” she answered formally.

It’s her mother. Mark choked down panic to quaver, “May I speak with Kareen Koudelka, please—ma’am?”

A blonde brow twitched. “I believe I know which one you are, but—who may I say is calling?”

“Lord Mark Vorkosigan,” he got out.

“Just a moment, my lord.” She left the range of the vid pick-up; he could hear her voice fading in the distance, calling “Kareen!”

There was a muffled bumping in the background, garbled voices, a shriek, and Kareen’s laughing voice crying, “No, Delia, it’s for me! Mother, make her go away! Mine, all mine! Out!” The sound of a door thumping closed on, presumably, flesh, a yelp, then a firmer and more final slam.

Panting and tousled, Kareen Koudelka arrived in range, and gave him a starry-eyed “Hi!”

If not just like the look Lady Cassia had given Ivan, it was a robust and blue near-cousin. Mark felt faint. “Hello,” he said breathlessly. “I called to say goodbye.” No, dammit, that was much too short—

“What?”

“Um, excuse me, that’s not quite what I meant. But I’m going to be traveling off-planet soon, and I didn’t want to leave without speaking to you again.”

“Oh.” Her smile drooped. “When will you come back?”

“I’m not sure. But when I do, I’d like to see you again.”

“Well … sure.”

Sure, she said. What a lot of joyful assumptions were embedded in that sure.

Her eyes narrowed. “Is there something wrong, Lord Mark?”

“No,” he said hastily. “Um … was that your sister I heard in the background just now?”

“Yes. I had to lock her out, or she’d stand out of range and make faces at me while we talked.” Her earnest air of injury was immediately spoiled when she added, “That’s what I do to her, when fellows call.”

He was a fellow. How … how normal. He led her on with one question after another, to talk about her sisters, her parents, and her life. Private schools and cherished children … The Commodore’s family was well-to-do, but with some sort of Barrayaran-style work ethic driving a passion for education and accomplishment, an ideal of service running like an undercurrent, towing them all into their future. He went awash in her words, dreamily sharing. She was so peaceable and real. No shadow of torment, nothing spoiled or deformed. He felt like he was feeding, not his belly but his head. His brain felt warm and distended and happy, a sensation near-erotic but less threatening. Alas, after a time she became conscious of the disproportion in the conversation.

“Good heavens, I’m babbling. I’m sorry.”

“No! I like listening to you talk.”

“That’s a first. In this family, I’m lucky to get a word in edgewise. I didn’t talk till I was three. They had me tested. It turned out it was just because my sisters were answering everything for me!”

Mark laughed.

“Now they say I’m making up for lost time.”

“I know about lost time,” Mark said ruefully.

“Yes, I’ve … heard a little. I guess your life has been quite an adventure.”

“Not an adventure,” he corrected. “A disaster, maybe.” He wondered what his life would look like, reflected in her eyes. Something shinier… . “Maybe when I get back I can tell you a bit about it.” If he got back. If he brought this off.

I’m not a nice person. ’You should know that, before. Before what? The more over-extended their acquaintance became, the harder it would be to tell her his repellent secrets.

“Look, I … you have to understand.” God, he sounded just like Bothari-Jesek, working up to her confession. “I’m kind of a mess, and I’m not just talking about my outsides.” Hell, hell, and what had this f nice young virgin to do with the arcane subtleties of psycho-programming tortures, and their erratic results? What right had he to put horrors in her head? “I don’t even know what I should tell you!”

Now was too soon, he could feel that clearly. But later might be too late, leaving her feeling betrayed and tricked. And if he continued this conversation one more minute, he’d drift into abject-blurting mode, and lose the one bright, un-poisoned thing he’d found.

Kareen tilted her head in puzzlement. “Maybe you ought to ask the Countess.”

“Do you know her well? To talk to?”

“Oh, yes. She and my mother are best friends. My mother used to be her personal bodyguard, before she retired to have us.”

Mark sensed the shadowy league of grandmothers again. Powerful old women with genetic agendas… . He felt obscurely that there were some things a man ought to do for himself. But on Barrayar, they used go-betweens. He had in his camp an ambassadoress-extraordinary to the whole female gender. The Countess would act for his good. Yeah, like a woman holding down a screaming child to get it a painful vaccination that would save it from a deadly disease.

How much did he trust the Countess? Did he dare trust her in this?

“Kareen … before I come back, do me a favor. If you get a chance to talk privately to the Countess, ask her what she thinks you ought to know about me, before we get better acquainted. Tell her I asked you to.”

“All right. I like to talk with Lady Cordelia. She’s sort of been my mentor. She makes me think I can do anything.” Kareen hesitated. “If you’re back by Winterfair, will you dance with me again at the Imperial Residence Ball? And not hide in the corner this time,” she added sternly.

“If I’m back by Winterfair, I won’t have to hide in the corner. Yes.”

“Good. I’ll hold you to your word.”

“My word as Vorkosigan,” he said lightly.

Her blue eyes widened. “Oh. My.” Her soft lips parted in a blinding smile.

He felt like a man who’s gone to spit, and had a diamond pop accidentally from his lips instead. And he couldn’t call it back and re-swallow it. There must be a Vorish streak in the girl, to take a man’s word so seriously.

“I have to go now,” he said.

“All right. Lord Mark—be careful?”

“I—why do you say that?” He hadn’t said a word about where he was going or why, he swore.

“My father is a soldier. You have that same look in your eyes that he gets, when he’s lying through his teeth about some difficulty he’s heading into. He can never fool my mother, either.”

No girl had ever told him to be careful, like she meant it. He was touched beyond measure. “Thank you, Kareen.” Reluctantly, he cut the comm, with a gesture that was nearly a caress.