tighter and tighter. With an effort, she kept her smile straight, not letting it turn into a snarl. 'That's a legal concept I'd never thought of. It sounds—almost Barrayaran. I don't want you on my case,' she added abruptly. Mehta made a note, and looked up, smiling. 'That's not a statement of emotion,' Cordelia emphasized. 'That's a legal demand. I refuse any further treatment from you.'
Mehta nodded understandingly. Was the woman deaf?
'Enormous progress,' said Mehta happily. 'I wouldn't have expected to uncover the aversion defense for another week yet.'
'What?'
'You didn't expect the Barrayarans would put that much work into you and not plant defenses around it, did you? Of course you feel hostile. Just remember, those are not your own feelings. Tomorrow, we will work on them.'
'Oh no we won't!' The muscles up her scalp were tense as wire. Her head ached fiercely. 'You're fired!'
Mehta looked eager. 'Oh, excellent!'
'Did you hear me?' demanded Cordelia. Where did that shrieky whine in my voice come from? Calm, calm …
'Captain Naismith, I remind you that we are not civilians. I am not in the ordinary legal physician-patient relationship with you; we are both under military discipline, pursuing, I have reason to believe, a military—never mind. Suffice it to say, you did not hire me and you can't fire me. Tomorrow, then.'
Cordelia remained seated for hours after she left, staring at the wall and swinging her leg in absent thumps against the side of the couch, until her mother came home with supper. The next day she left the apartment early in the morning on a random tour of the city, and didn't return until late at night.
That night, in her weariness and loneliness, she sat down to write her first letter to Vorkosigan. She threw away her original attempt halfway through, when she realized his mail was probably read by other eyes, perhaps Illyan's. Her second was more neutrally worded. She made it handwritten, on paper, and being alone kissed it before she sealed it, then smiled wryly at herself for doing so. A paper letter was far more expensive to ship to Barrayar than an electronic one, but he would handle it, as she had. It was as close to a touch as they could come.
The next morning Mehta called early on the comconsole, to tell Cordelia cheerily she could relax; something had come up, and their session that afternoon was canceled. She did not refer to Cordelia's absence the previous afternoon.
Cordelia was relieved at first, until she began thinking about it. Just to be sure, she absented herself from home again. The day might have been pleasant, but for a dust-up with some journalists lurking around the apartment shaft, and the discovery about mid-afternoon that she was being followed by two men in very inconspicuous civilian sarongs. Sarongs were last year's fashion; this year it was exotic and whimsical body paint, at least for the brave. Cordelia, wearing her old tan Survey fatigues, lost them by trailing them through a pornographic feelie-show. But they turned up again later in the afternoon as she puttered through the Silica Zoo.
At Mehta's appointed hour the next afternoon the door chimed. Cordelia slouched reluctantly to answer it. How am I going to handle her today? she wondered. I'm running low on inspiration. So tired …
Her stomach sank. Now what? Framed in the doorway were Mehta, Commodore Tailor, and a husky medtech. That one, Cordelia thought, staring up at him, looks like he could handle Bothari. Backing up a bit, she led them into her mother's living room. Her mother retreated to the kitchen, ostensibly to prepare coffee.
Commodore Tailor seated himself and cleared his throat nervously. 'Cordelia, I have something to say that will be a little painful, I'm afraid.'
Cordelia perched on the arm of a chair and swung her leg back and forth, baring her teeth in what she hoped was a bland smile. 'S—sticking you with the dirty work, eh? One of the joys of command. Go ahead.'
'We're going to have to ask you to agree to hospitalization for further therapy.'
Dear God, here we go. The muscles of her belly trembled beneath her shirt; it was a loose shirt, maybe they wouldn't notice. 'Oh? Why?' she inquired casually.
'We're afraid—we're very much afraid that the Barrayaran mind programming you underwent was a lot more extensive than anyone realized. We think, in fact …' he paused, taking a deep breath, 'that they've tried to make you an agent.'
Is that an editorial or an imperial 'we,' Bill?
'Tried, or succeeded?'
Tailor's gaze wavered. Mehta fixed him with a cold stare. 'Our opinion is divided on that—'
Note, class, how sedulously he avoids the 'I' of personal responsibility—it suggests the worst 'we' of all, the guilty 'we'—what the hell are they planning?
'—but that letter you sent day before yesterday to the Barrayaran admiral, Vorkosigan—we thought you should have a chance to explain it, first.'
'I s—see.' You dared! 'Not an official l—letter. How could it be? You know Vorkosigan's retired now. But perhaps,' her eye nailed Tailor, 'you would care to explain by what right you are intercepting and reading my private mail?'
'Emergency security. For the war.'
'War's over.'
He looked uncomfortable at that. 'But the espionage goes on.'
Probably true. She had often wondered how Ezar Vorbarra came by the knowledge of the plasma mirrors, until the war the most closely guarded new weapon in the Betan arsenal. Her foot was tapping nervously. She stilled it. 'My letter.' My heart, on paper—paper wraps stone … She kept her voice cool. 'And what did you learn from my letter, Bill?'
'Well, that's a problem. We've had our best cryptographers, our most advanced computer programs, working on it for the better part of two days. Analyzed it right down to the molecular structure of the paper. Frankly,' he glanced rather irritably at Mehta, 'I'm not convinced they found anything.'
No, Cordelia thought, you wouldn't. The secret was in the kiss. Not subject to molecular analysis. She sighed glumly. 'Did you send it on, after you were done?'
'Well—I'm afraid there wasn't anything left, by then.'
Scissors cut paper … 'I'm no agent. I g—give you my word.'
Mehta looked up alertly.
'I find it hard to believe, myself,' Tailor said.
Cordelia tried to hold his eyes; he looked away. You do believe it, she thought. 'What happens if I refuse to have myself committed?'
'Then as your commanding officer, I must order you to do so.'
I'll see you in hell first—no. Calm. Must stay calm, keep them taking, maybe I can talk my way out of this yet. 'Even if it's against your private judgment?'
'This is a serious security matter. I'm afraid it doesn't admit private judgments.'
'Oh, come on. Even Captain Negri has been known to make a private judgment, they say.'
She'd said something wrong. The temperature in the room seemed to drop suddenly.
'How do you know about Captain Negri?' said Tailor frozenly.
'Everybody knows about Negri.' They were staring at her. 'Oh, c—come on! If I were an agent of Negri's, you'd never know it. He's not so inept!'
'On the contrary,' said Mehta in a clipped tone, 'we think he's so good that you'd never know it.'
'Garbage!' said Cordelia, disgusted. 'How do you figure that?'
Mehta answered literally. 'My hypothesis is that you are being controlled—unconsciously, perhaps—by this rather sinister and enigmatic Admiral Vorkosigan. That your programming began during your first captivity and was completed, probably, during the late war. You were destined to be the linchpin of a new Barrayaran intelligence network here, to replace the one that was just rooted out. A mole, perhaps, put in place and not activated for years, until some critical moment—'
'Sinister?' Cordelia interrupted. 'Enigmatic? Aral? I could laugh.' I could weep …
'He is obviously your control,' said Mehta complacently. 'You have apparently been programmed to obey him unquestioningly.'
