'Medtech,' Cordelia whispered in cue.
'Medtech?' Vorkosigan finished smoothly, although the exasperated glance he gave her suggested that was not the cue he'd wanted.
The medtech smiled sourly. 'We're returning these to the senders.'
Vorkosigan walked around the pallet. 'Yes, but what are they?'
'All your bastards,' said the medtech.
Cordelia, catching the genuine puzzlement in Vorkosigan's voice, added, 'They're uterine replicators, um, Admiral. Self-contained, independently powered—they need servicing, though—'
'Every week,' agreed the medtech, viciously cordial. He held up a data disk. 'They sent you instructions with them.'
Vorkosigan looked appalled. 'What the hell am I supposed to do with them?'
'Thought you were going to make our women answer that question, did you?' replied the medtech, taut and sarcastic. 'Personally, I'd suggest you hang them around their fathers' necks. The paternal gene complements are marked on each one, so you should have no trouble telling who they belong to. Sign here.'
Vorkosigan took the receipt panel, and read it through twice. He walked around the pallet again, counting, looking deeply troubled. He came up beside Cordelia in his circuit, and murmured, 'I didn't realize they could do things like that.'
'They use them all the time at home.'
'They must be fantastically complex.'
'And expensive, too. I'm surprised—maybe they just didn't want to argue about taking them home with any of the mothers. A couple of them were pretty emotionally divided about abortions. This puts the blood guilt on you.' Her words seemed to enter him like bullets, and she wished she'd phrased herself differently.
'They're all alive in there?'
'Sure. See all the green lights? Placentas and all. They float right in their amniotic sacs, just like home.'
'Moving?'
'I suppose so.'
He rubbed his face, staring hauntedly at the canisters.
'Seventeen. God, Cordelia, what do I do with them? Surgeon, of course, but …' He turned to the fascinated clerk. 'Get the chief surgeon down here, on the double.' He turned back to Cordelia, keeping his voice down. 'How long will those things keep working?'
'The whole nine months, if necessary.'
'May I have my receipt, Admiral?' said the medtech loudly. 'I have other duties waiting.' He stared curiously at Cordelia in her orange pajamas.
Vorkosigan scribbled his name absently on the bottom of the receipt panel with a light pen, thumbprinted it, and handed it back, still slightly hypnotized by the pallet load of canisters. Cordelia, morbidly curious, walked around them too, inspecting the readouts. 'The youngest one seems to be about seven weeks old. The oldest is over four months. Must have been right after the war started.'
'But what do I do with them?' he muttered again. She had never seen him more at a loss.
'What do you usually do with soldier's by-blows? Surely the situation has come up before, not on this scale, maybe.'
'We usually abort bastards. In this case, it seems to have already been done, in a sense. So much trouble—do they expect us to keep them alive? Floating fetuses—babies in cans…'
'I don't know.' Cordelia sighed thoughtfully. 'What a thoroughly rejected little group of humanity they are. Except—but for the grace of God and Sergeant Bothari, one of those canned kids might have been mine, and Vorrutyer's. Or mine and Bothari's, for that matter.'
He looked quite ill at the thought. He lowered his voice almost to a whisper, and began again. 'But what do I—what would you have me do with them?'
'You're asking me for orders?'
'I've never—Cordelia, please—what honorable …'
It must be quite a shock to suddenly find out you're pregnant, seventeen times over—at your age, too, she thought. She squelched the black humor—he was so clearly out of his depth—and took pity on his real confusion. 'Take care of them, I suppose. I have no idea what that will entail, but—you did sign for them.'
He sighed. 'Quite. Pledged my word, in a sense.' He set the problem up in familiar terms, and found his balance therein. 'My word as Vorkosigan, in fact. Right. Good. Objective defined, plan of attack proposed—we're in business.'
The surgeon entered, and was taken aback at the sight of the float pallet. 'What the hell—oh, I know what they are. I never thought I'd see one…' He ran his fingers over one canister in a sort of technical lust. 'Are they ours?'
'All ours, it seems,' replied Vorkosigan. 'The Escobarans sent them down.'
The surgeon chuckled. 'What an obscene gesture. One can see why, I suppose. But why not just flush them?'
'Some unmilitary notion about the value of human life, perhaps,' said Cordelia hotly. 'Some cultures have it.'
The surgeon raised an eyebrow, but was quelled, as much by the total lack of amusement on his commander's face as by her words.
'There are the instructions.' Vorkosigan handed him the disk.
'Oh, good. Can I empty one out and take it apart?'
'No, you may not,' said Vorkosigan coldly. 'I pledged my word—as Vorkosigan—that they would be cared for. All of them.'
'How the devil did they maneuver you into that? Oh, well, I'll get one later, maybe…' He returned to his examination of the glittering machinery.
'Have you the facilities here to handle any problems that may arise?' asked Vorkosigan.
'Hell, no. Imp Mil would be the only place. And they don't even have an obstetrics department. But I bet Research would love to get hold of these babies …'
It took Cordelia a dizzy moment to realize he was referring to the uterine replicators, and not their contents.
'They have to be serviced in a week. Can you do it here?'
'I don't think …' The surgeon set the disk into the monitor at the clerk's station, and began flashing through it. 'There must be ten written kilometers of instructions—ah. No. We don't have—no. Too bad, Admiral. I'm afraid you'll have to eat your word this time.'
Vorkosigan grinned, wolfishly and without humor. 'Do you recall what happened to the last man who called me on my word?'
The surgeon's smile faded into uncertainty.
'These are your orders, then,' Vorkosigan went on, clipped. 'In thirty minutes you, personally, will lift off with these—things, for the fast courier. And it will arrive in Vorbarr Sultana in less than a week. You will go to the Imperial Military Hospital and requisition, by whatever means necessary, the men and equipment needed to— complete the project. Get an Imperial order if you have to. Directly, not through channels. I'm sure our friend Negri will put you in touch. See them set up, serviced, and report back to me.'
'We can't possibly make it in under a week! Not even in the courier!'
'You'll make it in five days, boosting six points past emergency max the whole way. If the engineer's been doing his job, the engines won't blow until you hit eight. Quite safe.' He glanced over his shoulder. 'Couer, scramble the courier crew, please. And get their captain on the line, I want to give him. his orders personally.'
Commodore Couer's eyebrows rose, but he moved to obey.
The surgeon lowered his voice, glancing at Cordelia. 'Is this Betan sentimentality at work, sir? A little odd in the Emperor's service, don't you think?'
Vorkosigan smiled, narrow-eyed, and matched his tone. 'Betan insubordination, Doctor? You will oblige me by directing your energies to carrying out your orders instead of evolving excuses why you can't.'
'Hell of a lot easier just to open the stopcocks. And what are you going to do with them once they're—
