Mirror Dance

“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