her words to a smear of sound. 'I'm sorry… ' She could not tell if Mehta, livid, heard or understood. Paper wraps stone… .
She bound and gagged her as she had once seen Vorkosigan do Gottyan. She shoved her down behind the bed, out of sight from the door. She stuffed bank cards, IDs, money, into her pockets. She turned on the shower.
She tiptoed out the bedroom door, breathing raggedly through her mouth. She ached for a minute, just one minute, to collect her shattered balance, but Tailor and the medtech were gone—to the kitchen for coffee, probably. She dared not risk the opening even to pause for boots.
No, God—! Tailor was standing in the archway to the kitchen, just raising a cup of coffee to his lips. She froze, he went still, and they stared at each other.
Her eyes, Cordelia realized, must be huge as some nocturnal animal's. She never could control her eyes.
Tailors mouth twisted oddly, watching her. Then, slowly, he raised his left hand and saluted her. The incorrect hand, but the other was holding the coffee. He took a sip of his drink, gaze steady over the rim of his cup.
Cordelia came gravely to attention, returned the salute, and slipped quietly out the apartment door.
To her temporary terror, she found a journalist and his vidman in the hallway, one of the most persistent and obnoxious, the one she'd had thrown out of the building yesterday. She smiled at him, dizzy with exhilaration, like a sky diver just stepping into air.
'Still want to do that interview?'
He jumped at the bait.
'Slow down, now. Not here. I'm being watched, you know.' She dropped her voice conspiratorially. 'The government's doing a cover-up. What I know could blow the administration sky-high. Things about the prisoners. You could—make your reputation.'
'Where, then?' He was avid.
'How about the shuttleport? Their bar's quiet. I'll buy you a drink, and we can—plan our campaign.' Time ticked in her brain. She expected her mother's apartment door to slam open any second. 'It's dangerous, though. There are two government agents up in the foyer and two in the garage. I'd have to get past them without being seen. If it were known I was talking to you, you might not get a chance at a second interview. No rough stuff—just a little quiet disappearance in the night, and the ripple of a rumor about 'gone for medical tests.' Know what I mean?' She was fairly sure he didn't—his media service dealt mainly in sex fantasies—but she could see a vision of journalistic glory growing in his face.
He turned to his vidman. 'Jon, give her your jacket, your hat, and your holovid.'
She tucked her hair up in the broad-brimmed hat, concealed her fatigues under the jacket, and carried the vid ostentatiously. They took the lift tube up to the garage. There were two men in blue uniforms waiting by its exit. She placed the vid casually on her shoulder, her arm half-concealing her face, as they walked past them to the journalist's groundcar.
At the shuttleport bar she ordered drinks, and took a large gulp of her own. 'I'll be right back,' she promised, and left him sitting there with the unpaid-for liquor in front of him.
The next stop was the ticket computer. She punched up the schedule. No passenger ships leaving for Escobar for at least six hours. Far too long. The shuttleport would surely be one of the first places searched. A woman in shuttleport uniform walked past. Cordelia collared her.
'Pardon me. Could you help me find out something about private freighter schedules, or any other private ships leaving soon?'
The woman frowned, then smiled in sudden recognition. 'You're Captain Naismith!'
Her heart lurched, and pounded drunkenly. No—steady on … 'Yes. Um … The press have been giving me a rather hard time. I'm sure you understand.' Cordelia gave the woman a look that raised her to an inner circle. 'I want to do this quietly. Maybe we could go to an office? I know you're not like them. You have a respect for privacy. I can see it in your face.'
'You can?' The woman was flattered and excited, and led Cordelia away. In her office she had access to the full traffic control schedules, and Cordelia keyed through them rapidly. 'Hm. This looks good. Starts for Escobar within the hour. Has the pilot gone up yet, do you know?'
'That freighter isn't certified for passengers.'
'That's all right. I just want to talk to the pilot. Personally. And privately. Can you catch him for me?'
'I'll try.' She succeeded. 'He'll meet you in Docking Bay 27. But you'll have to hurry.'
'Thanks. Um … You know, the journalists have been making my life miserable. They'll stop at nothing. There's even a pair who've gone so far as to put on Expeditionary Force uniforms to try and get in. Call themselves Captain Mehta and Commodore Tailor. A real pain. If any of them come sniffing around, do you suppose you could sort of forget you saw me?'
'Why, sure, Captain Naismith.'
'Call me Cordelia. You're first-rate! Thanks!'
The pilot was a very young one, getting his first experience on freighters before taking on the larger responsibilities of passenger ships. He too recognized her, and promptly asked for her autograph.
'I suppose you're wondering why you were chosen,' she began as she wrote it out for him, without the faintest idea of where she was going, but only with the thought that he looked the sort of person who had never won a contest in his life.
'Me, ma'am?'
'Believe me, the security people went over your life from end to end. You're trustworthy. That's what you are. Really trustworthy.'
'Oh—they can't have found out about the cordolite!' Alarm struggled with response to flattery.
'Resourceful, too,' Cordelia extemporized, wondering what cordolite was. She'd never heard of it. 'Just the man for this mission.'
'What mission!'
'Sh, not so loud. I'm on a secret mission for the President. Personally. It's so delicate, even the Department of War doesn't know about it. There'd be heavy political repercussions if it ever got out. I have to deliver a secret ultimatum to the Emperor of Barrayar. But no one must know I've left Beta Colony.'
'Am I supposed to take you there?' he asked, amazed. 'My freight run—'
I believe I could talk this kid into running me all the way to Barrayar on his employer's fuel, she thought. But it would be the end of his career. Conscience controlled soaring ambition.
'No, no. Your freight run must appear to be exactly the same as usual. I'm to meet a secret contact on Escobar. You'll simply be carrying one article of freight that isn't on the manifest. Me.'
'I'm not cleared for passengers, ma'am.'
'Good heavens, don't you think we know that? Why do you suppose you were picked over all the other candidates, by the President himself?'
'Wow. And I didn't even vote for him.'
He took her aboard the freighter shuttle, and made her a seat among the last—minute cargo. 'You know all the big names in Survey, don't you, ma'am? Lightner, Parnell… Do you suppose you could ever introduce me?'
'I don't know. But—you will get to meet a lot of the big names from the Expeditionary Force, and Security, when you get back from Escobar. I promise.' Will you ever …
'May I ask you a personal question, ma'am?'
'Why not? Everyone else does.'
'Why are you wearing slippers?'
She stared down at her feet. 'I'm—sorry, Pilot Officer Mayhew. That's classified.'
'Oh.' He went forward to lift ship.
Alone at last, she leaned her forehead against the cool smooth plastic side of a packing case, and wept silently for herself.
