'Just a minute.' She dug out Rosemont's handkerchief from his uniform pocket and jumped down into the grave, slipping on the body. She spread the handkerchief over his face. It was a small, reality-defying gesture, but she felt better for it. Vorkosigan grasped her hand and pulled her up.
'All right.' They shoveled and pushed the dirt back into the hole far more quickly than it had been excavated, and packed it down as best they could by walking on it.
'Is there some ceremony you wish to perform?' Vorkosigan asked.
Cordelia shook her head, not feeling up to reciting the vague, official funeral service. But she knelt by the grave for a few minutes making a more serious, less certain inward prayer for her dead. It seemed to fly upward and vanish in the void, echoless as a feather.
Vorkosigan waited patiently until she arose. 'It's rather late,' he said, 'and we have just seen three good reasons not to go stumbling around in the dark. We may as well rest here until dawn. I'll take the first watch. Do you still want to bash my head in with a rock?'
'Not at the moment,' she said sincerely.
'Very well. I'll wake you later.'
Vorkosigan began his watch with a patrol of the perimeter of the glade, taking the cold light with him. It wavered through the black distance like a captive firefly. Cordelia lay down on her back beside Dubauer. The stars glimmered faintly through the gathering mist. Could one be her ship yet, or Vorkosigan's? Not likely, at the range they undoubtedly were by now.
She felt hollow. Energy, will, desire, slipped through her fingers like shining liquid, sucked away through some infinite sand. She glanced at Dubauer beside her, and jerked her mind from the easy vortex of despair. I'm still a commander, she told herself sharply; I have a command. You serve me still, ensign, although you cannot now serve even yourself… .
The thought seemed a thread to some great insight, but it melted in her grasp, and she slept.
CHAPTER TWO
They divided the meager spoils from the camp in makeshift backpacks and started down the mountain in the grey mist of morning. Cordelia led Dubauer by the hand and helped him when he stumbled. She was not sure how clearly he recognized her, but he clung to her and avoided Vorkosigan.
The forest grew thicker and the trees taller as they went down. Vorkosigan hacked through the undergrowth with his knife for a while, then they took to the stream bed. Splashes of sunlight began to filter through the canopy, picking out fiery green velvet humps of moss, sparkling rills of water, and stones on the stream bed like a layer of bronze coins.
Radial symmetry was popular among the tiny creatures occupying the ecological niches held by insects on Earth. Some aerial varieties like gas—filled jellyfishes floated in iridescent clouds above the stream like flocks of delicate soap bubbles, delighting Cordelia's eye. They seemed to have a mellowing effect on Vorkosigan, too, for he called for a break from what seemed to her a killing pace.
They drank from the stream and sat a while watching the little radials dart and puff in the spray from a waterfall. Vorkosigan closed his eyes and leaned against a tree. He was running on the ragged edge of exhaustion too, Cordelia realized. Temporarily unwatched, she studied him curiously. He had behaved throughout with curt but dignified military professionalism. Still she was bothered by a subliminal alarm, a persistent sense of something of importance forgotten. It popped out of her memory suddenly, like a ball held underwater breaking the surface on release and arcing into the air.
'I know who you are. Vorkosigan, the Butcher of Komarr.' She immediately wished she had not spoken, for he opened his eyes and stared at her, a peculiar play of expressions passing across his face.
'What do you know about Komarr?' His tone added, An ignorant Betan.
'Just what everyone knows. It was a worthless ball of rock your people annexed by military force for command of its wormhole clusters. The ruling senate surrendered on terms, and were murdered immediately after. You commanded the expedition, or …' Surely the Vorkosigan of Komarr had been an admiral. 'Was it you? I thought you said you didn't kill prisoners.'
'It was.'
'Did they demote you for it?' she asked, surprised. She had thought that sort of conduct to be Barrayaran standard.
'Not for that. For the sequel.' He seemed reluctant to say more, but he surprised her again by going on. 'The sequel was more effectively suppressed. I had given my word—my word, as Vorkosigan—they were to be spared. My Political Officer countermanded my order, and had them killed behind my back. I executed him for it.'
'Good God.'
'I broke his neck with my own hands, on the bridge of my ship. It was a personal matter, you see, touching my honor. I couldn't order a firing squad—they were all afraid of the Ministry of Political Education.'
That was the official euphemism for the secret police, Cordelia recalled, of which Political Officers were the military branch. 'And you aren't?'
'They're afraid of me.' He smiled sourly. 'Like those scavengers last night, they'll run from a bold attack. But one must not turn one's back.'
'I'm surprised they didn't have you hanged.'
'There was a great uproar, behind closed doors,' he admitted reminiscently, fingering his collar tabs. 'But a Vorkosigan can't be made to disappear in the night, not yet. I did make some powerful enemies.'
'I'll bet.' This bald story, told without adornment or apology, had the ring of truth to her inner ear, although she had no logical reason to trust him. 'Did you, uh, happen to turn your back on one of those enemies yesterday?'
He glanced at her sharply. 'Possibly,' he said slowly. 'There are some problems with that theory, however.'
'Like what?'
'I'm still alive. I wouldn't have thought they'd risk starting the job without finishing it. To be sure, they'd be tempted by the opportunity to blame my death on you Betans.'
'Whew. And I thought I had command troubles just keeping a bunch of Betan intellectual prima donnas working together for months on end. God keep me from politics.'
Vorkosigan smiled slightly. 'From what I've heard of Betans, that's no easy task either. I don't think I should care to trade commands. It would irritate me to have every order argued over.'
'They don't argue every order.' She grinned, as his crack ferreted up some particular memories. 'You learn how to coax them along.'
'Where do you suppose your ship is now?'
Wariness dropped across her amusement like a portcullis. 'I suppose that depends on where your ship is.'
Vorkosigan shrugged and stood, hitching his pack more securely to his shoulders. 'Then perhaps we should waste no more time finding out.' He gave her a hand to pull her up, the soldier-mask repossessing his features.
It took all the long day to descend the great mountain to the red-soiled plains. A closer view found them cut and channeled by watercourses running turbid from the recent rains, and confused by outcrops of rocky badlands. They caught glimpses of groups of hexapedal grazers. Cordelia deduced from their wary herd behavior that associated predators must lurk nearby.
Vorkosigan would have pushed on, but Dubauer was seized by a serious and prolonged convulsion followed by lethargy and sleepiness. Cordelia insisted adamantly on a halt for the night. They made camp, if one could so describe stopping and sitting down, in an open gap in the trees perhaps three hundred meters above the levels. They shared their simple supper of oatmeal and blue cheese dressing in a beaten-down silence. Vorkosigan cracked another cold light as the last colors of a gaudy sunset drained from the sky, and seated himself on a large flat boulder. Cordelia lay down and watched the Barrayaran watching until sleep relieved her of her aching legs and
