Lois Bujold - Mirror Dance

Not for long, thought Mark hopelessly. And, Lord Mark? He can’t be serious.

“Also pleased to know where you are again. I take it, Captain Quinn, that my department’s message about Lord Mark’s disappearance from Earth finally caught up with you?”

“Not yet. It’s probably still chasing us from … our last stop.”

Illyan’s brows rose. “So did Lord Mark come in from the cold on his own, or did my erstwhile subordinate send him to me?”

“Neither, sir.” Quinn seemed to have trouble speaking. Bothari-Jesek wasn’t even trying to.

Illyan leaned forward, growing more serious, though still tinged with a slight irony. “So what half-cocked, insubordinate, I-thought-you-wanted-me-to-use-my-initiative-sir scam has he sent you to try to con me into paying for this time?”

“No scam, sir,” muttered Quinn. “But the bill is going to be huge.” The coolly amused air faded altogether as he studied her grey face. “Yes?” he said after a moment.

Quinn leaned on the desk with both hands, not for emphasis, Mark fancied, but for support. “Illyan, we have a problem. Miles is dead.”

Illyan took this in with a waxen stillness. Abruptly, he turned his chair around. Mark could see only the back of his head. His hair was thin. When he turned back, the lines had sprung out on his set face like a figure-ground reversal; like scars. “That’s not a problem, Quinn,” he whispered. “That’s a disaster.” He laid his hands down flat, very carefully, across the smooth black surface of the desk. So that’s where Miles picked up that gesture, Mark, who had studied it, thought irrelevantly.

“He’s frozen in a cryo-chamber.” Quinn licked her dry lips.

Illyan’s eyes closed; his mouth moved, whether on prayers or curses Mark could not tell. But he only said, mildly, “You might have said that first. The rest would have followed as a logical supposition.” His eyes opened, intent. “So what happened? How bad were his wounds—not a head wound, pray God? How well-prepped was he?”

“I helped do the prep myself. Under combat conditions. I … I think it was good. You can’t know until … well. He took a very bad chest wound. As far as I could tell he was untouched from the neck up.”

Illyan breathed, carefully. “You’re right, Captain Quinn. Not a disaster. Only a problem. I’ll alert the Imperial Military Hospital at Vorbarr Sultana to expect their star patient. We can transfer the cryo-chamber from your ship to my fast courier immediately.” Was the man babbling, just a little, with relief?

“Uh …” said Quinn. “No.”

Illyan rested his forehead gingerly in his hand, as if a headache was starting just behind his eyes. “Finish, Quinn,” he said in a tone of muffled dread.

“We lost the cryo-chamber.”

“How could you lose a cryo-chamber?!”

“It was a portable.” She intercepted his burning stare, and hurried up her report. “It was left downside in the scramble to get off. Each of the combat drop shuttles thought the other one had it. It was a mis-communication—I checked, I swear. It turned out the medic in charge of the cryo-chamber had been cut off from his shuttle by enemy forces. He found himself with access to a commercial shipping facility. We think he shipped the cryo-chamber from there.”

“You think? I will ask— what combat drop mission, in a moment. Where did he ship it?”

“That’s just it, we don’t know. He was killed before he could report. The cryo-chamber could be on its way literally anywhere by now.”

Illyan sat back and rubbed his lips, which were set in a thin, ghastly smile. “I see. And all this happened when? And where?”

“Two weeks and three days ago, on Jackson’s Whole.”

“He sent you all to Illyrica, via Vega Station. How the hell did you end up on Jackson’s Whole?”

Quinn stood at parade rest, and took it from the top, a stiff, clipped synopsis of the events of the last four weeks from Escobar onward. “I have a complete report with all our vid records and Miles’s personal log here, sir.” She laid a data cube on his comconsole.

Illyan eyed it like a snake; his hand did not move toward it. “And the forty-nine clones?”

“Still aboard the Peregrine, sir. We’d like to off-load them.”

My clones. What would Illyan do with them? Mark dared not ask.

“Miles’s personal log tends to be a fairly useless document, in my experience,” observed Illyan distantly. “He is quite canny about what to leave out.” He grew introspective, and fell silent for a time. Then he rose, and walked from side to side across the little office. The cool facade cracked without warning; face contorted, he turned and slammed his fist into the wall with bone-crunching force, shouting, “ Damn the boy for making a fucking farce out of his own funeral!”

He stood with his back to them; when he turned again and sat down his face was stiff and blank. When he looked up, he addressed Bothari-Jesek.

“Elena. It’s clear I’m going to have to stay here at Komarr, for the moment, to coordinate the search from ImpSec’s galactic affairs HQ. I can’t afford to put an extra five days of travel time between myself and the action. I will, of course … compose the formal missing-inaction report on Lieutenant Lord Vorkosigan and forward it immediately to Count and Countess Vorkosigan. I hate to think of it delivered by some subordinate, but it will have to be. But will you, as a personal favor to me, escort Lord Mark to Vorbarr Sultana, and deliver him to their custody?”

No, no, no, Mark screamed inside.

“I … would rather not go to Barrayar, sir.”

“The Prime Minister will have questions that only one who was on the spot can answer. You are the most ideal courier I can imagine for a matter of such … complex delicacy. I grant you the task will be painful.”

Bothari-Jesek was looking trapped. “Sir, I’m a senior shipmaster.

I’m not free to leave the Peregrine. And—frankly—I do not care to escort Lord Mark.”

“I’ll give you anything you ask, in return.”

She hesitated. “Anything?”

He nodded.

She glanced at Mark. “I gave my word that all the House Bharaputra clones would be taken somewhere safe, somewhere humane, where the Jacksonians can’t reach. Will you redeem my word for me?”

Illyan chewed his lip. “ImpSec can launder their identities readily enough, of course. No difficulty there. Appropriate placement might be trickier. But yes. We’ll take them on.”

Take them on. What did Illyan mean? For all their other flaws, the Barrayarans at least did not practice slavery.

“They’re children,” Mark blurted. “You have to remember they’re only children.” It’s hard to remember, he wanted to add, but couldn’t, under Bothari-Jesek’s cold eyes.

Illyan averted his glance from Mark. “I shall seek Countess Vorkosigan’s advice, then. Anything else?”

“The Peregrine and the Ariel—”

“Must remain, for the moment, in Komarr orbit and communications quarantine. My apologies to your troops, but they’ll have to tough it out.”

“You’ll cover the costs for this mess?”

Illyan grimaced. “Alas, yes.”

“And … and look hard for Miles!”

“Oh, yes,” he breathed.

“Then I’ll go.” Her voice was faint, her face pale.

“Thank you,” said Illyan quietly. “My fast courier will be at your disposal as quickly as you can make ready to depart.” His eye fell reluctantly on Mark. He had been avoiding looking at Mark for the whole last half of this interview. “How many personal guards do you wish?” he asked Bothari-Jesek. “I’ll make it clear to them that they are under your command till they see you safe to the Count.”