Komarr

Her first coherent thought was unutterable relief that she had not brought Nikki with her. How am I going to tell him? Tomorrow, that was a problem for tomorrow. Let him play away tonight in the bubble of another universe, one without this horror in it.

'Madame Vorsoisson.' Lord Vorkosigan's voice was muffled and faint in his breath mask. 'Oh, God.'

Fearfully, she touched the cold chains around his wrists. The torn flesh was swollen up around the links, almost burying them. 'I'll go inside and look for some cutters.' She almost added, Wait here, but closed her lips on that inanity just in time.

'No, wait,' he gasped. 'Don't leave me alone—there's a key . . . supposedly … on the walk back there.' He jerked his head.

She found it at once, a simple mechanical type. It was cold, a slip of metal in her shaking fingers. She had to try several times to get it inserted in the locks that fastened the chains. She then had to peel the chain out of Vorkosigan's blood-crusted flesh as if from a rubber mold, before his hand could fall. When she released the second one, he nearly pitched headfirst over the edge of the concrete. She grabbed him and dragged him back toward the wall. He tried to stand, but his legs would not at first unbend, and he fell over again. 'Give yourself a minute,' she told him. Awkwardly, she tried to massage his legs, to restore circulation; even through the fabric of his gray trousers she could feel how cold and stiff they were.

She stood, holding the key in her hand, and stared in bewilderment at Tien's body. She doubted she and Vorkosigan together could lift that dead weight back up to the walk.

'It's much too late,' said Vorkosigan, watching her. His brows were crooked with concern. 'I'm s-sorry. Leave him for Tuomonen.'

'What is this on his back?' She touched the peculiar arrangement, what appeared to be a plastic packet fixed in place with engineering tape.

'Leave that,' said Lord Vorkosigan more sharply. 'Please.' And then, in more of a rush, stuttering in his shivering, 'I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I c-couldn't b-break the chains. Hell, he couldn't either, and he's s-stronger than I am. … I thought I c-could break my hand and get it out, but I couldn't. I'm sorry. …'

'You need to come inside, where it's warm. Here.' She helped pull him to his feet; with a last look over his shoulder at Tien, he suffered himself to be led, hunched over, leaning on her and lurching on his unsteady legs.

She led him through the airlock into the office building, and guided him to an upholstered chair in the lobby. He more fell than sat in it. He shivered violently. 'B-b-button,' he muttered to her, holding up his hands like paralyzed paws toward her.

'What?'

'Little button on the s-side of wrist-comm. Press it!'

She did so; he sighed and relaxed against the seat back. His stiff hands yanked at his breath mask; she helped him pull it off over his head, and pulled down her own mask.

'God I am glad to get out of that thing. Alive. I th-thought I was gonna have a seizure out there. . . .'He rubbed his pale face, scrubbing at the red pressure-lines engraved in the skin from the edges of the mask. 'And it itched.' Ekaterin spotted the control on a nearby wall and hastily tapped in an increase of the lobby's temperature. She was shivering too, though not from the cold, in suppressed shocky shudders.

'Lord Vorkosigan?' Captain Tuomonen's anxious voice issued thinly from the wrist com. 'What's going on? Where the hell are you?!'

Vorkosigan lifted his wrist toward his mouth. 'Waste Heat experiment station. Get out here. I need you.'

'What are you– Should I bring a squad?'

'Don't need guns now, I don't think. You'll need forensics, though. And a medical team.'

'Are you injured, my lord?' Tuomonen's voice grew sharp with panic.

'Not to speak of,' he said, apparently oblivious to the blood still leaking from his wrists. 'Administrator Vorsoisson is dead, though.'

'What the hell—you didn't check in with me before you left the dome, dammit! What the hell is going on out there?!'

'We can discuss my failings at length, later. Carry on, Captain. Vorkosigan out.' He let his arm fall, wearily. His shivering was lessening, now. He leaned his head back against the upholstery; the dark smudges of exhaustion under his eyes looked like bruises. He stared sadly at Ekaterin. 'I am sorry, Madame Vorsoisson. There was nothing I could do.'

'I would scarcely think so!'

He looked around, squinting, and added abruptly, 'Power plant!'

'What about it?' asked Ekaterin.

'Gotta check before the troops arrive. I spent a lot of time wondering if it might have been sabotaged, when I was tied up out there.'

His legs were still not working right. He almost fell over again as he tried to turn on his heel; she rose and just caught him, under his elbow.

'Good,' he said vaguely to her, and pointed. 'That way.'

She was evidently drafted as support. He hobbled off in determination, clinging to her arm without apology. The forced action actually helped her to recover, if not calm, a sort of tenuous physical coherence; her shudders damped out, and her incipient nausea passed, leaving her belly feeling hot and odd. Another pedestrian tube led down to the power plant, next to the river. The river was the largest in the Sector, and the proximate reason for siting the experiment station here. By Barrayaran standards it would have been called a creek. Vorkosigan barged awkwardly around the power plant's control room, examining panels and readouts. 'Nothing looks abnormal,' he muttered. 'I wonder why they didn't set it to self-destruct? I would have. . . .' He fell into a station chair. She pulled up another one, and sat opposite him, watching him fearfully. 'What happened!'

'I—we came out, Tien brought me out here—how the devil did you come here?'

'Lena Foscol called me at home, and told me Tien wanted a ride. She almost didn't catch me. I'd been about to leave. She didn't even tell me you were out here. You might still be . . .'

'No . . . no, I'm almost certain she'd have made some other arrangement, if she'd missed you altogether.' He sat up straighter, or tried to. 'What time is it now?'

'A little before 2100.'

'I … would have guessed it was much later. They stunned us, you see. I don't know how long . . . What time did she call you?'

'It was just after 1900 hours.'

His eyes squeezed shut, then opened again. 'It was too late. It was already too late by then, do you understand?' he asked urgently. His hand jerked toward hers, on her knee as she leaned toward him to catch his hoarse words, but then fell back.

'No …'

'There was something questionable going on in the Waste Heat department. Your husband brought me out here to show me—well, I don't quite know what he thought he was going to show me, but we ran headlong into Soudha and his accomplices in the process of decamping. Soudha got the drop on me—stunned us both. I came to, chained to that railing out there. I don't think—I don't know. … I don't think they meant to kill your husband. He hadn't checked his breath mask, y'see. His reservoirs were almost empty. The Komarrans didn't check it either, before they left us. I didn't know, no one did.'

'Komarrans wouldn't,' Ekaterin said woodenly. 'Their mask-check procedures are ingrained by the time they're three years old. They'd never imagine an adult would go outside the dome with deficient equipment.' Her hands clenched, in her lap. She could picture Tien's death now.

'It was . . . quick,' Vorkosigan offered. 'At least that.'

It was not. Neither quick nor clean. 'Please do not lie to me. Please do not ever lie to me.'