'Just shaken up. I knew I was running risks, when I was selected, but I wasn't expecting anything quite like that man. He was a classic. I'm surprised you served him.'
His face became shuttered. 'I serve the Emperor.'
She became conscious of Illyan, standing silent and watchful. What would she say if Vorkosigan asked her about the convoy? He was a greater danger to her duty than torture. She had begun to think, in the past months, that their separation must eventually diminish her heart-hunger for him, but seeing him live and intense before her made it ravenous. No telling what he felt, though. Right now he looked tired, uncertain, and strained. Wrong, all wrong …
'Ah, permit me to introduce Lieutenant Simon Illyan, of the Emperors personal security staff. He's my spy. Lieutenant Illyan, Commander Naismith.'
'It's Captain Naismith now,' she put in automatically. The lieutenant shook her hand with a bland calm innocence wholly at odds with the bizarre scene they had just left. He might have been at an embassy reception. Her touch left a streak of blood on his palm. 'Who do you spy on?'
'I prefer the term, 'surveillance,' ' he said.
'Bureaucratic weaselwording,' put in Vorkosigan. He added to Cordelia, 'The lieutenant spies on me. He represents a compromise between the Emperor, the Ministry of Political Education, and myself.'
'The phrase the Emperor used,' said Illyan distantly, 'was 'cease-fire.' '
'Yes. Lieutenant Illyan also has an eidetic memory biochip. You may think of him as a recording device with legs, which the Emperor may play back at will.'
Cordelia stared covertly at him. 'It's too bad we couldn't meet again under more auspicious circumstances,' she said carefully to Vorkosigan.
'There are no auspicious circumstances here.'
Lieutenant Illyan cleared his throat, glancing at Bothari, who stood twining and untwining his fingers and staring at the wall. 'What now, sir?'
'Hm. There is entirely too much physical evidence in that room, not to mention witnesses as to who went in and when, to attempt to monkey with the scenario. Personally, I should prefer for Bothari not to have been there at all. The fact that he is clearly
Illyan looked noncommittal. 'It's possible something might be arranged.'
'Good man.' He turned to Cordelia. 'You're going to have to stay in here and keep Bothari under control. Illyan and I must go at once, or there will be too many unaccounted minutes between the time we left Vorhalas and the time we sound the alarm. The Prince's security men will be going over that room thoroughly, and everyone's movements as well.'
'Were Vorrutyer and the Prince in the same party?' she asked, feeling for footing in the riptides of Barrayaran politics.
Vorkosigan smiled bitterly. 'They were just good friends.'
And he was gone, leaving her alone with Bothari and utter confusion.
She had Bothari sit down in Vorkosigan's desk chair, where he fidgeted silently and incessantly. She sat cross-legged on the bed, trying to radiate an air of calm control and good cheer. Not easy, from a spirit filled with panic frenzied for expression.
Bothari stood and began to pace about the room, talking to himself. No, not to himself, she realized. And most certainly not to her. The choppy whispered flow of words made no sense to her at all. Time flowed by slowly, viscous with fear.
Both she and Bothari jumped when the door clicked open, but it was only Illyan. Bothari fell into a knife- fighter's crouch as he slipped in.
'Servants of the beast are the beast's hands,' he said. 'He feeds them on the wife's blood. Bad servants.'
Illyan eyed him nervously, and pressed some ampules into her hand. 'Here. You give it to him. One of these would knock out a charging elephant. Can't stay.' He slipped back out again.
'Coward,' she muttered after him. But he was probably right. She might well have a better chance than he of getting it into the Sergeant. Bothari's agitation was approaching an explosive level.
She set the bulk of the ampules aside, and approached him with a sunny smile. Its effect was diminished by her eyes, large with fear. Bothari's eyes were flickering slits. 'Commodore Vorkosigan wants you to rest now. He sent some medicine to help you.'
He backed warily before her, and she stopped, cautious of forcing him into a corner. 'It's just a sedative, see?'
'The beast's drugs made the demons drunk. They sang and shouted. Bad medicine.'
'No, no. This is good medicine. It will make the demons go to sleep,' she promised. This was walking a tightrope in the dark. She tried another tack.
'Come to attention, soldier,' she said sharply. 'Inspection.'
It was a wrong move. He batted the ampule nearly out of her hand as she tried to stick it in his arm, and his hand closed around her wrist like a hot iron band. Her breath hissed inward at the pain, but she just managed to twist her fingers around and press the administrative spray end of the ampule against the inside of his wrist, before he picked her up bodily and flung her across the room.
She landed on her back, skidding across the friction matting with what seemed to her a dreadful amount of noise, fetching up with a bang against the door. Bothari lunged after her. Can he kill me before the stuff cuts in? she wondered wildly, and forced herself to go limp, as if unconscious. Surely unconscious people were very non- threatening.
Evidently not to Bothari, for his hands closed around her neck. One knee pressed into her rib cage, and she felt something go painfully wrong in the region. She popped her eyes open in time to see his eyes roll back. His hands slackened in their twisting, and he rolled off her to his hands and knees, head wagging dizzily, then slumped to the deck.
She sat up, leaning against the wall. 'I want to go home,' she muttered. 'This wasn't in my job description.' The feeble joke did nothing to dissolve the clot of hysteria rising in her throat, so she fell back on an older and more serious discipline, whispering its words aloud. By the time she finished self—control had returned.
She could not lift Bothari to the bunk. She raised his heavy head and slipped the pillow under it, and pulled his arms and legs into a more comfortable-looking position. When Vorkosigan and his shadow returned they could have a go at it.
The door opened at last, and Vorkosigan and Illyan entered, closing it quickly and walking carefully around Bothari.
'Well?' said Cordelia. 'How did it go?'
'With machine-like precision, like a wormhole jump to hell,' Vorkosigan replied. He turned his hand palm upward in a familiar gesture that caught her heart like a hook.
She looked her puzzlement at him. 'You're as baffling as Bothari. How did they take the murder?'
'It went just fine. I'm under arrest and confined to quarters, for suspicion of conspiracy. The Prince thinks I put Bothari up to it,' he explained. 'God knows how.'
'Uh, I know I'm very tired,' she said, 'and not thinking too clearly. But you did say, 'Just fine?' '
'Commodore Vorkosigan, sir,' interrupted Illyan. 'Keep in mind that I'm going to have to report this conversation.'
'What conversation?' said Vorkosigan. 'You and I are alone in here, remember? You're not required to observe me when I'm alone, as everyone knows. They'll start wondering why you're lingering in here before long.'
Lieutenant Illyan frowned over this Jesuitry. 'The Emperor's intention—'
'Yes? Tell me all about the Emperor's intention.' Vorkosigan looked savage.
'The Emperor's intention, as communicated to me, was that you be discouraged from incriminating yourself. I cannot edit my report, you know.'
