Bothari had to help her rise. She gathered up the yellow plastic bag. She noted ironically that it bore the name and logo of one of the capital’s most exclusive women’s clothiers. Kareen encompasses you at last, you bastard.
“What’s that?” asked Kou.
“Yes, Lieutenant,” the urgent ImpSec man put in, “please—she’s refused to let us examine it in any way. By regulations, we shouldn’t let her carry it into the base.”
Cordelia pulled open the top of the bag and held it out for Kou’s inspection. He peered within.
“Shit.” The ImpSec men surged forward as Koudelka jumped back. He waved them down. “I … I see,” he swallowed. “Yes, Admiral Vorkosigan will certainly want to see that.”
“Lieutenant, what should I put on my inventory?” the ImpSec man—whined, Cordelia decided, was what he was doing. “I have to register it, if it’s going in.”
“Let him cover his ass, Kou,” Cordelia sighed.
Kou peeked again, his lips twisting into a very crooked grin. “It’s all right. Put it down as a Winterfair gift for Admiral Vorkosigan. From his wife.”
“Oh, Kou,” Drou held out his sword. “I saved this. But we lost the casing, I’m sorry.”
Kou took it, looked at the bag, made the connection, and carried it more carefully. “That’s … that’s all right. Thank you.”
“I’ll take it back to Siegling’s and get a duplicate casing made,” Cordelia promised.
The ImpSec men gave way before Admiral Vorkosigan’s top aide. Kou led Cordelia, Bothari, and Drou into the base. Cordelia pulled the drawstring tight, and let the bag swing from her hand.
“We’re going down to the Staff level. The admiral’s been in a sealed meeting for the last hour. Two of Vordarian’s top officers came in secretly last night. Negotiating to sell him out. The best hostage-rescue plan hinges on their cooperation.”
“Did they know about this yet?” Cordelia held up the bag.
“I don’t think so, Milady. You’ve just changed everything.” His grin grew feral, and his uneven stride lengthened.
“I expect that raid is still going to be required,” Cordelia sighed. “Even in collapse, Vordarian’s side is still dangerous. Maybe more dangerous, in their desperation.” She thought of that downtown Vorbarr Sultana hotel, where Bothari’s baby girl Elena was, as far as she knew, still housed. Lesser hostages. Could she persuade Aral to apportion a few more resources for lesser hostages? Alas, she had probably not put all the soldiers out of work even yet. I tried. God, I tried.
They went down, and down, to the nerve center of Tanery Base. They came to a highly secured conference chamber; a lethally armed squad stood ramrod-guard outside it. Koudelka wafted them past. The doors slid aside, and closed again behind them.
Cordelia took in the tableau, that paused to look back up at her from around the polished table. Aral was in the center, of course. Illyan and Count Piotr flanked him on either side. Prime Minister Vortala was there, and Kanzian, and some other senior staffers all in formal dress greens. The two double-traitors sat across, with their aides. Clouds of witnesses. She wanted to be alone with Aral, be rid of the whole bloody mob of them. Soon.
Aral’s eyes locked to hers in silent agony. His lips curled in an utterly ironic smile. That was all; and yet her stomach warmed with confidence again, sure of him. No frost. It was going to be all right. They were in step again, and a torrent of words and hard embraces could not have communicated it any better. Embraces would come, though, the grey eyes promised. Her own lips curved up for the first time since—when?
Count Piotr’s hand slapped down hard upon the table. “Good God, woman, where have you been?” he cried furiously.
A morbid lunacy overtook her. She smiled fiercely at him, and held up the bag. “Shopping.”
For a second, the old man nearly believed her; conflicting expressions whiplashed over his face, astonishment, disbelief, then anger as it penetrated he was being mocked.
“Want to see what I bought?” Cordelia continued, still floating. She yanked the bag’s top open, and rolled Vordarian’s head out across the table. Fortunately, it had ceased leaking some hours back. It stopped faceup before him, lips grinning, drying eyes staring.
Piotr’s mouth fell open. Kanzian jumped, the staffers swore, and one of Vordarian’s traitors actually fell out of his chair, recoiling. Vortala pursed his lips and raised his brows. Koudelka, grimly proud of his key role in stage- managing this historic moment in one-upsmanship, laid the swordstick on the table as further evidence. Illyan puffed, and grinned triumphantly through his shock.
Aral was perfect. His eyes widened only briefly, then he rested his chin on his hands and gazed over his father’s shoulder with an expression of cool interest. “But of course,” he breathed. “Every Vor lady goes to the capital to shop.”
“I paid too much for it,” Cordelia confessed.
“That, too, is traditional.” A sardonic smile quirked his lips.
“Kareen is dead. Shot in the melee. I couldn’t save her.”
He Opened his hand, as if to let the nascent black humor fall through his fingers. “I see.” He raised his eyes again to hers, as if asking Are you all right?, and apparently finding the answer, No.
“Gentlemen. If you will be pleased to excuse yourselves for a few minutes. I wish to be alone with my wife.”
In the shuffle of the men rising to their feet, Cordelia caught a mutter, “Brave man …”
She nailed Vordarian’s men by eye, as they backed from the table. “Officers. I recommend that when this conference resumes, you surrender unconditionally upon Lord Vorkosigan’s mercy. He may still have some.” I certainly don’t, was the unspoken cap to that. “I’m tired of your stupid war. End it.”
Piotr edged past her. She smiled bitterly at him. He grimaced uneasily back. “It appears I underestimated you,” he murmured.
“Don’t you ever … cross me again. And stay away from my son.”
A look from Vorkosigan held back her outpouring of rage, quivering on the lip of her cup. She and Piotr exchanged wary nods, like the vestigial bows of two duelists.
“Kou,” said Vorkosigan, staring bemusedly at the grisly object lying by his elbow. “Will you please arrange for this thing to be removed to the base morgue. I don’t fancy it as a table decoration. It will have to be stored till it can be buried with the rest of him. Wherever that may be.”
“Sure you don’t want to leave it there to inspire Vordarian’s staffers to come to terms?” said Kou.
“No,” said Vorkosigan firmly. “It’s had a sufficiently salutary effect already.”
Gingerly, Kou took the bag from Cordelia, opened it, and used it to capture Vordarian’s head without actually touching it.
Aral’s eye took in her weary team, Droushnakovi’s grief, Bothari’s compulsive twitching. “Drou. Sergeant. You are dismissed to wash and eat. Report back to me in my quarters after we finish here.”
Droushnakovi nodded, and the sergeant saluted, and they followed Koudelka out.
Cordelia fell into Aral’s arms as the door sighed shut, into his lap, catching him as he rose for her. They both landed with enough force to threaten the balance of the chair. They embraced each other so tightly, they had to back off to manage a kiss.
“Don’t you ever,” he husked, “pull a stunt like that again.”
“Don’t you ever let it become necessary, again.”
“Deal.”
He held her face away from his, between his hands, his eyes devouring her. “I was so afraid for you, I forgot to be afraid for your enemies. I should have remembered. Dear Captain.”
“I couldn’t have done a thing, alone. Drou was my eyes, Bothari my right arm, Koudelka our feet. You must forgive Kou for going AWOL. We sort of kidnapped him.”
“So I heard.”
“Did he tell you about your cousin Padma?”
“Yes,” a grieved sigh. He stared back through time. “Padma and I were the only survivors of Mad Yuri’s massacre of Prince Xav’s descendants, that day. I was eleven. Padma was one, a baby … I always thought of him as the baby, ever after. Tried to watch out for him … Now I’m the only one left. Yuri’s work is almost done.”
“Bothari’s Elena. She must be rescued. She’s a lot more important than that barn full of counts at the
