The Mountains of Mourning

moments Miles pretended not to notice his audience, restraining Pym with a hand signal from running them off. Yes, look well, look your fill, thought Miles. What you see is what you 're going to get, for the rest of your lives or at any rate mine. Get used to it…. Then he caught Zed Karal's whisper, as self-appointed tour guide to his cohort — 'That big one's the one that's come to kill Lem Csurik!'

'Zed,' said Miles.

There was an abrupt frozen silence from under the edge of the porch. Even the animal rustlings stopped.

'Come here,' said Miles.

To a muted background of dismayed whispers and nervous giggles, Karal's middle boy slouched warily up on to the porch.

'You three -' Miles's pointing finger caught them in mid-flight, 'wait there.' Pym added his frown for emphasis, and Zed's friends stood paralyzed, eyes wide, heads lined up at the level of the porch floor as if stuck up on some ancient battlement as a warning to kindred malefactors.

'What did you just say to your friends, Zed?' asked Miles quietly. 'Repeat it.'

Zed licked his lips. 'I jus' said you'd come to kill Lem Csurik, lord.' Zed was clearly now wondering if Miles's murderous intent included obnoxious and disrespectful boys as well.

'That is not true, Zed. That is a dangerous lie.'

Zed looked bewildered. 'But Da — said it.'

'What is true, is that I've come to catch the person who killed Lem Csurik's baby daughter. That may be Lem. But it may not. Do you understand the difference?'

'But Harra said Lem did it, and she ought to know, he's her husband and all.'

'The baby's neck was broken by someone. Harra thinks Lem, but she didn't see it happen. What you and your friends here have to understand is that I won't make a mistake. I can't condemn the wrong person. My own truth drugs won't let me. Lem Csurik has only to come here and tell me the truth to clear himself, if he didn't do it.

'But suppose he did. What should I do with a man who would kill a baby, Zed?'

Zed shuffled. 'Well, she was only a mutie…' then shut his mouth and reddened, not-looking at Miles.

It was, perhaps, a bit much to ask a twelve-year-old boy to take an interest in any baby, let alone a mutie one… no, dammit. It wasn't too much. But how to get a hook into that prickly defensive surface? And if Miles couldn't even convince one surly twelve-year-old, how was he to magically transmute a whole District of adults? A rush of despair made him suddenly want to rage. These people were so bloody impossible. He checked his temper firmly.

'Your Da was a twenty-year man, Zed. Are you proud that he served the Emperor?'

'Yes, lord.' Zed's eyes sought escape, trapped by these terrible adults.

Miles forged on. 'Well, these practices — mutie-killing — shame the Emperor, when he stands for Barrayar before the galaxy. I've been out there. I know. They call us all savages, for the crimes of a few. It shames the Count my father before his peers, and Silvy Vale before the District. A soldier gets honor by killing an armed enemy, not a baby. This matter touches my honor as a Vorkosigan, Zed. Besides,' Miles's lips drew back on a mirthless grin, and he leaned forward intently in his chair — Zed recoiled as much as he dared — 'you will all be astonished at what only a mutie can do. That I have sworn on my grandfather's grave.'

Zed looked more suppressed than enlightened, his slouch now almost a crouch. Miles slumped back in his chair and released him with a weary wave of his hand. 'Go play, boy.'

Zed needed no urging. He and his companions shot away around the house as though released from springs.

Miles drummed his fingers on the chair arm, frowning into the silence that neither Pym nor Dea dared break.

'These hill-folk are ignorant, lord,' offered Pym after a moment.

'These hill-folk are mine, Pym. Their ignorance is… a shame upon my house.' Miles brooded. How had this whole mess become his anyway? He hadn't created it. Historically, he'd only just got here himself. 'Their continued ignorance, anyway,' he amended in fairness. It still made a burden like a mountain. 'Is the message so complex? So difficult? 'You don't have to kill your children anymore.' It's not like we're asking them all to learn — 5-Space navigational math.' That had been the plague of Miles's last Academy semester.

'It's not easy for them.' Dea shrugged. 'It's easy for the central authorities to make the rules, but these people have to live every minute of the consequences. They have so little, and the new rules force them to give their margin to marginal people who can't pay back. The old ways were wise, in the old days. Even now you have to wonder how many premature reforms we can afford, trying to ape the galactics.'

And what's your definition of a marginal person, Dea? 'But the margin is growing,' Miles said aloud. 'Places like this aren't up against famine every winter any more. They're not isolated in their disasters; relief can get from one district to another under the Imperial seal… we're all getting more connected, just as fast as we can. Besides,' Miles paused, and added rather weakly, 'perhaps you underestimate them.'

Dea's brows rose ironically. Pym strolled the length of the porch, running his scanner in yet another pass over the surrounding scrubland. Miles, turning in his chair to pursue his cooling teacup, caught a slight movement, a flash of eyes, behind the casement-hung front window swung open to the summer air — Ma Karal, standing frozen, listening. For how long? Since he'd called her boy Zed, Miles guessed, arresting her attention. She raised her chin as his eyes met hers, sniffed, and shook out the cloth she'd been holding with a snap. They exchanged a nod. She turned back to her work before Dea, watching Pym, noticed her.

* * *

Karal and Alex returned, understandably, around suppertime.

'I have six men out searching,' Karal reported cautiously to Miles on the porch, now well on its way to becoming Miles's official HQ. Clearly, Karal had covered ground since mid afternoon. His face was sweaty, lined with physical as well as the underlying emotional strain. 'But I think Lem's gone into the scrub. It could take days to smoke him out. There's hundreds of places to lie low out there.'

Karal ought to know. 'You don't think he's gone to some relatives?' asked Miles. 'Surely, if he intends to evade us for long, he has to take a chance on re-supply, on information. Will they turn him in when he surfaces?'

'It's hard to say.' Karal turned his hand palm-out. 'It's… a hard problem for 'em, m'lord.'

'Hm.'

How long would Lem Csurik hang around out there in the scrub, anyway? His whole life — his blown-to-bits life — was all here in Silvy Vale. Miles considered the contrast. A few weeks ago, Csurik had been a young man with everything going for him; a home, a wife, a family on the way, happiness; by Silvy Vale standards, comfort and security. His cabin, Miles had not failed to note, though simple, had been kept with love and energy and so redeemed from the potential squalor of its poverty. Grimmer in the winter, to be sure. Now Csurik was a hunted fugitive, all the little he had torn away in the twinkling of an eye. With nothing to hold him, would he run away and keep running? With nothing to run to, would he linger near the ruins of his life?

The police force available to Miles a few hours way in Hassadar was an itch in his mind. Was it not time to call them in, before he fumbled this into a worse mess? But… if he were meant to solve this by a show of force, why hadn't the Count let him come by aircar on the first day? Miles regretted that two-and-a-half-day ride. It had sapped his forward momentum, slowed him down to Silvy Vale's walking pace, tangled him with time to doubt. Had the Count foreseen it? What did he know that Miles didn't? What could he know? Dammit, this test didn't need to be made harder by artificial stumbling blocks, it was bad enough all on its own. He wants me to be clever, Miles thought morosely. Worse, he wants me to be seen to be clever, by everyone here. He prayed he was not about to be spectacularly stupid instead.

'Very well, Speaker Karal. You've done all you can for today. Knock off for the night. Call your men off too. You're not likely to find anything in the dark.'