Lois Bujold - Barrayar

His naked agony terrified her. She held him tightly in return. “I don’t know. I don’t know. But somebody … somebody has been making these kinds of decisions right along, while we went along blissfully unconscious, taking the world as given. And they were only human, too. No better, no worse than you.”

“Frightening thought.”

She sighed. “You can’t choose between evil and evil, in the dark, by logic. You can only cling to some safety line of principle. I can’t make your decision. But whatever principles you choose now are going to be your safety lines, to carry you forward. And for the sake of your people, they’re going to have to be consistent ones.”

He rested in her arms. “I know. There wasn’t really a question, about the decision. I was just … kicking a bit, going down.” He disengaged himself, and stood again. “Dear Captain. If I’m still sane, fifteen years from now, I believe it will be your doing.”

She looked up at him. “So what decision is it?”

The pain in his eyes gave her the answer. “Oh, no,” she said involuntarily, then bit off further words. And I was trying to speak so wisely. I didn’t mean this.

“Don’t you know?” he said gently, resigned. “Ezar’s way is the only way that can work, here. It’s true after all. He does rule from his grave.” He headed for their bathroom, to wash and change clothes.

“But you’re not him,” she whispered to the empty room. “Can’t you find a way of your own?”

Vorkosigan attended Carl Vorhalas’s public execution three weeks later.

“Are you required to go?” Cordelia asked him that morning, as he dressed, cold and withdrawn. “I don’t have to go, do I?”

“God, no, of course not. I don’t have to go, officially, except … I have to go. You can see why, surely.”

“Not … really, except as a form of self-punishment. I’m not sure that’s a luxury you can afford, in your line of work.”

“I must go. A dog returns to its vomit, doesn’t it? His parents will be there, do you know? And his brother.”

“What a barbaric custom.”

“Well, we could treat crime as a disease, like you Betans. You know what that’s like. At least we kill a man cleanly, all at once, instead of in bits over years. … I don’t know.”

“How will they … do it?”

“Beheading. It’s supposed to be almost painless.”

“How do they know?”

His laugh was totally without humor. “A very cogent question.”

He did not embrace her when he left. He returned a bare two hours later, silent, to shake his head at a tentative offer of lunch, cancel an afternoon appointment, and withdraw to Count Piotr’s library and sit, not-reading a book-viewer. Cordelia joined him there after a while, resting on the couch, and waited patiently for him to come back to her from whatever distant country of the mind he dwelt in.

“The boy was going to be brave,” he said after an hour’s silence. “You could see that he had every gesture planned out in advance. But nobody else followed the script. His mother broke him down… . And to top it the damned executioner missed his stroke. Had to take three cuts, to get the head off.”

“Sounds like Sergeant Bothari did better with a pocketknife.” Vorrutyer had been haunting her more than usual that morning, scarletly.

“It lacked nothing for perfect hideousness. His mother cursed me, too. Until Evon and Count Vorhalas took her away.” The dead-expressioned voice escaped him then. “Oh, Cordelia! It can’t have been the right decision! And yet … and yet … no other one was possible. Was it?”

He came to her then, and held her in silence. He seemed very close to weeping, and it almost frightened her more that he did not. The tension eventually drained out of him.

“I suppose I’d better pull myself together and go change. Vortala has a meeting scheduled with the Minister of Agriculture that’s too important to miss, and after that there’s the general staff… .”By the time he left his usual self-possession had returned.

That night he lay long awake beside her. His eyes were closed, but she could tell from his breathing it was pretense. She could not dredge up one word of comfort that did not seem inane to her, so kept silence with him through the watches of the night. Rain began outside, a steady drizzle. He spoke once.

“I’ve watched men die before. Ordered executions, ordered men into battle, chosen this one over that one, committed three sheer murders and but for the grace of God and Sergeant Bothari would have committed a fourth … I don’t know why this one should hit like a wall. It’s stopped me, Cordelia. And I dare not stop, or we’ll all fall together. Got to keep it in the air somehow.”

She awoke in the dark to a tinkling crash and a soft report, and drew in her breath with a start. Acridity seared her lungs, mouth, nostrils, eyes. A gut-wrenching undertaste pumped her stomach into her throat. Beside her, Vorkosigan snapped from sleep with an oath.

“Soltoxin gas grenade! Don’t breathe, Cordelia!” Emphasizing his shout, he shoved a pillow over her face, his hot strong arms encircling her and dragging her from the bed. She found her feet and lost her stomach at the same moment, stumbling into the hall, and he slammed the bedroom door shut behind them.

Running footsteps shook the floor. Vorkosigan cried, “Get back! Soltoxin gas! Clear the floor! Call Illyan!” before he too doubled over, coughing and retching. Other hands bundled them both toward the stairs. She could scarcely see through her madly watering eyes.

Between spasms Vorkosigan gasped, “They’ll have the antidote … Imperial Residence … closer than ImpMil … get Illyan at once. He’ll know. Into the shower—where’s Milady’s woman? Get a maid. …”

Within moments she was dumped into a downstairs shower, Vorkosigan with her. He was shaking and barely able to stand, but still trying to help her. “Start washing it off your skin, and keep washing. Don’t stop. Keep the water cool.”

“You, too, then. What was that crap?” She coughed again, in the spray of the water, and they exchanged help with the soap.

“Wash out your mouth, too… . Soltoxin. It’s been fifteen, sixteen years since I last smelled that stink, but you never forget it. It’s a poison gas. Military. Should be strictly controlled. How the hell anyone got hold of some … Damn Security! They’ll be flapping around like headless chickens tomorrow … too late.” His face was greenish-white beneath the night’s beard stubble.

“I don’t feel too bad now,” said Cordelia. “Nausea’s passing off. I take it we missed the full dose?”

“No. It just acts slowly. Doesn’t take much at all to do you. It mostly affects soft tissue—lungs will be jelly in an hour, if the antidote doesn’t get here soon.”

The growing fear that pounded in her gut, heart, and mind half-clotted her words. “Does it cross the placental barrier?”

He was silent for too long before he said, “I’m not sure. Have to ask the doctor. I’ve only seen the effects on young men.” Another spasm of deep coughing seized him, that went on and on.

One of Count Piotr’s serving women arrived, disheveled and frightened, to help Cordelia and the terrified young guard who had been assisting them. Another guard came in to report, raising his voice over the running water. “We reached the Residence, sir. They have some people on the way.”

Cordelia’s own throat, bronchia, and lungs were beginning to secrete foul—tasting phlegm, and she coughed and spat. “Anyone see Drou?”

“I think she took out after the assassins, Milady.”

“Not her job. When an alarm goes up, she’s supposed to run to Cordelia,” growled Vorkosigan. The talking triggered more coughing.