seemed to go against his grain.
'There's not a whole lot I could do with it anyway,' she said at the dubious look on his face.
'No, no, the old man said you were to have it. I'm not going to argue with him about prisoners. It's a sensitive subject with him.'
'So I understand. I might point out, if it will help your perspective, that our two governments are not at war as far as I know, and that I am being unlawfully detained.'
Koudelka puzzled over this attempted readjustment of his point-of-view, then let it bounce harmlessly off his impermeable habits of thought. Carrying her new kit, he led her to her quarters.
CHAPTER FIVE
Stepping out of her cabin door next morning she found a guard posted. The top of her head was level with his broad shoulders, and his face reminded her of an overbred borzoi, narrow, hook-nosed, with his eyes too close together. She realized at once where she had seen him before, at a distance in a dappled wood, and had a moment of residual fear.
'Sergeant Bothari?' she hazarded.
He saluted her, the first Barrayaran to have done so. 'Ma'am,' he said, and fell silent.
'I want to go to sickbay,' she said uncertainly.
'Yes, ma'am.' His voice was a deep bass, monotonous in its cadence. He executed a neat turn and led off. (Guessing that he had relieved Koudelka as her guide and keeper, she pattered after him. She was not quite ready to attempt light conversation with him, so asked him no questions en route. He offered her only silence. Watching him, it occurred to her that a guard on her door might be as much to keep others out as her in. Her stunner seemed suddenly heavy on her hip.
At sickbay she found Dubauer sitting up and dressed in insignialess black fatigues like the ones she had been issued. His hair had been cut and he had been shaved. There was certainly nothing wrong with the physical care he was receiving. She spoke to him a while, until her own voice began to sound inane in her ears. He looked at her, but gave little other reaction.
She caught a glimpse of Vorkosigan in a private chamber off the main ward, and he motioned her to enter. He was dressed in plain green pajamas of the standard design, and was sitting up in bed stabbing away with a light pen at a computer interface swung over it. Curiously, although he was clothed almost civilian style, bootless and weaponless, her impression of him was unchanged. He seemed a man who could carry on stark naked, and only make those around him feel overdressed. She smiled a little at this private image, and greeted him with a sketchy wave. One of the officers who had escorted him to sickbay last night was standing by the bed.
'Commander Naismith, this is Lieutenant Commander Vorkalloner, my second officer. Excuse me a moment; captains may come and captains may go, but the administration goes on forever.'
'Amen.'
Vorkalloner looked very much the professional Barrayaran soldier; he might have stepped out of a recruiting advertisement. Yet there was a certain underlying humor in his expression that made her think him a tolerable preview of Ensign Koudelka in ten or twelve years time.
'Captain Vorkosigan speaks highly of you,' said Vorkalloner, making small talk. A slight frown from his captain at this opening escaped his notice. 'I guess if we could only catch one Betan, you were the best choice.'
Vorkosigan winced. Cordelia gave him a slight shake of her head, signaling to let the gaffe pass. He shrugged, and began tapping out something on his keyboard.
'As long as all my people are safely on their way home, I'll take it as a fair trade. Almost all of them, anyway.' Rosemont's ghost breathed coldly in her ear, and Vorkalloner seemed suddenly less amusing. 'Why were you all so anxious to put us in a bottle, anyway?'
'Why, orders,' said Vorkalloner simply, like an ancient fundamentalist who answers every question with the tautology, 'Because God made it that way.' Then a little agnostic doubt began to creep over his face. 'Actually, I thought we might have been sent out here on guard duty as some kind of punishment,' he joked.
The remark caught Vorkosigan's humor. 'For your sins? Your cosmology is too egocentric, Aristede.' Leaving Vorkalloner to unravel that, he went on to Cordelia, 'Your detention was intended to be free of bloodshed. It would have been, too, but for that other little matter cropping up in the middle of it. It is a worthless apology for some,' and she knew he shared the memory of Rosemont's burial in the cold black fog, 'but it is the only truth I can offer you. The responsibility is no less mine for that. As I am sure someone in the high command will point out when this arrives.' He smiled sourly and continued typing.
'Well, I can't say I'm sorry to have messed up their invasion plans,' she said daringly. There, let's see what that stirs up …
'What invasion?' asked Vorkalloner, waking up.
'I was afraid you'd figure that out, once you saw the cache caverns,' said Vorkosigan to her. 'It was still being hotly debated when we left, and the expansionists were waving the advantage of surprise as a big stick to beat the peace party. Speaking as a private person—well, I have not that right while in uniform. Let it go.'
'What invasion?' probed Vorkalloner hopefully.
'With luck, none,' answered Vorkosigan, allowing himself to be persuaded to partial frankness. 'One of those was enough for a lifetime.' He seemed to look inward on private, unpleasant memories.
Vorkalloner plainly found this a baffling attitude from the Hero of Komarr. 'It was a great victory, sir. With very little loss of life.'
'On our side.' Vorkosigan finished typing his report and signed it off, then entered a request for another form and began fencing at it with the light pen.
'That's the idea, isn't it?'
'It depends on whether you mean to stay or are just passing through. A very messy political legacy was left at Komarr. Not the sort of thing I care to leave in trust for the next generation. How did we get onto this subject?' He finished the last form.
'Who were they thinking of invading?' asked Cordelia doggedly.
'Why haven't I heard anything about it?' asked Vorkalloner.
'In order, that is classified information, and it is not being discussed below the level of the General Staff, the central committee of the two Councils, and the Emperor. That means this conversation is to go no farther, Aristede.'
Vorkalloner glanced at Cordelia pointedly. 'She's not on the General Staff. Come to think of it—'
'Neither am I, anymore,' Vorkosigan conceded. 'As for our guest, I've told her nothing she couldn't deduce for herself. As for myself, my opinion was requested on—certain aspects. They didn't like it, once they'd got it, but they did ask for it.' His smile was not at all nice.
'Is that why you were shipped out of town?' asked Cordelia perceptively, feeling she was beginning to get the hang of how things were done on Barrayar. 'So Lieutenant Commander Vorkalloner was right about pulling guard duty. Was your opinion requested by, uh, a certain old friend of your fathers?'
'It certainly wasn't requested by the Council of Ministers,' said Vorkosigan, but refused to be drawn any further, and changed the subject firmly. 'Have my men been treating you properly?'
'Quite well, yes.'
'My surgeon swears he will release me this afternoon, if I am good and stay in bed this morning. May I stop by your cabin to speak with you privately later? There are some things I need to make clear.'
'Sure,' she responded, thinking the request was phrased rather ominously.
The surgeon came in, aggrieved. 'You're supposed to be resting, sir.' He glared pointedly at Cordelia and Vorkalloner.
'Oh, very well. Send these off with the next courier, Aristede,' he pointed to the screen, 'along with the verbals and the formal charges.'
The doctor herded them out, as Vorkosigan began typing again.
She wandered around the ship for the rest of the morning, exploring the limits of her parole. Vorkosigan's
