Lois Bujold - Barrayar

“Screw duty,” Vaagen muttered. “Bitched to hell … damned ignorant goons …”

They withdrew, to leave Vaagen to his unrestful recovery. Vorkosigan dispatched Illyan to his multiplied duties.

Cordelia faced Aral. “Now what?”

His lips were a flat, hard line, his eyes half-absent with calculation, the same calculations she was running, Cordelia guessed, complicated by a thousand added factors she could only imagine. He said slowly, “Nothing’s changed, really. From before.”

“It is changed. Whatever the difference there is between being in hiding, and being a prisoner. But why did Vordarian wait till now for this capture? If he was ignorant of Miles’s existence before this, who told him of it? Kareen, maybe, when she decided to cooperate?”

Droushnakovi looked sick at this suggestion.

Aral said, “Maybe Vordarian’s playing with us. Maybe he was always keeping the replicator in reserve, till he most needed a new lever.”

“Our son. In reserve,” Cordelia corrected. She stared into those half-there grey eyes, willing See me, Aral! “We have to talk about this.” She towed him down the corridor to the nearest private room, a doctors’ conference chamber, and turned up the lights. Obediently, he seated himself at the table, Kou at his elbow, and waited for her. She sat down opposite him. We’ve always sat on the same side, before… . Drou stood behind her.

Aral watched her warily. “Yes, Cordelia?”

“What’s going on in your head?” she demanded. “Where are we, in this?”

“I … regret. In hindsight. Regret not sending a raid earlier. The Residence is a far more difficult fortress to penetrate right now than the military hospital, dangerous as a raid on ImpMil would have been. And yet… I could not change that choice. When men on my own staff were asked to wait and sweat, I could not risk men and expend resources for my private benefit. Miles’s … position, gave me the power to demand their loyalty in the face of Vordarian’s pressure. They knew I asked no risk of them and theirs I was unwilling to share myself.”

“But now the situation’s changed,” Cordelia pointed out. “Now you aren’t sharing the same risks. Their relatives have all the time there is. Miles has only six days, minus the time we spend arguing.” She could feel that clock ticking, in her head.

He said nothing.

“Aral … in all our time here, what favor have I ever asked of you, of your official powers?”

A sad half-smile quirked across his lips, and vanished. His eyes were wholly on her, now. “Nothing,” he whispered. They both sat tensely, leaning toward the other, his elbows planted and hands clasped near his chin, her hands out flat before her, controlled.

“I’m asking now.”

“Now,” he said after a long hesitation, “is an extremely delicate time, in the overall strategic situation. We are right now engaged in secret negotiations with two of Vordarian’s top commanders to sell him out. The space forces are about to commit. We are on the verge of being able to shut Vordarian down without a major set-battle.”

Cordelia’s thought was diverted just long enough to wonder how many of Vorkosigan’s commanders were secretly negotiating right now to sell them out. Time would tell. Time.

Vorkosigan continued, “If—if we bring this negotiation off as I wish, we will be in a position to rescue most of the hostages in one major surprise raid, from a direction Vordarian does not expect.”

“I’m not asking for a big raid.”

“No. But I’m telling you that a small raid, particularly if things went wrong, might seriously interfere with the success of the larger, later one.”

“Might.”

“Might.” He tilted his head in concession to the uncertainty.

“Time?”

“About ten days.”

“Not good enough.”

“No. I will try to speed things up. But you understand—if I botch this chance, this timing, several thousand men could pay for my mistakes with their lives.”

She understood clearly. “All right. Suppose we leave the armies of Barrayar out of this for the moment. Let me go. With maybe a liveried man or two, and pinpoint—downright hypodermic—secrecy. A totally private effort.”

His hands slapped to the table, and he sputtered, “No! God, Cordelia!”

“Do you doubt my competence?” she asked dangerously. I sure do. Now was not the moment to admit this, however. “Is that ’Dear Captain’ just a pet name for a pet, or did you mean it?”

“I have seen you do extraordinary things—”

You’ve also seen me fall flat on my face, so?

“—but you are not expendable. God. That really would make me terminally crazy. To wait, not knowing …”

“You ask that of me. To wait, unknowing. You ask it every day.”

“You are stronger than I. You are strong beyond reason.”

“Flattering. Not convincing.”

His thought circled hers; she could see it in his knife-keen eyes. “No. No haring off on your own. I forbid it, Cordelia. Flat, absolutely. Put it right out of your mind. I cannot risk you both.”

“You do. In this.”

His jaw clamped; his head lowered. Message received and understood. Koudelka, sitting worriedly beside him, glanced back and forth between the two of them in consternation. Cordelia could sense the pressure of Drou’s hand, white-tight on the back of her chair.

Vorkosigan looked like something being ground between two great stones; she had no desire to see him smeared to powder. In a moment, he would demand her word to confine herself to Base, to dare no risk.

She opened her hand, curving up on the tabletop. “I would choose differently. But no one appointed me Regent of Barrayar.”

The tension ran out of him with a sigh. “Insufficient imagination. A common failing, among Barrayarans, my love.”

Returning to Aral’s quarters, Cordelia found Count Piotr in the corridor, just turning away from their door. He was quite changed from the exhausted wild man who’d left her on a mountain trail. Now he was dressed in the sort of quietly upper-class clothes favored by retired Vor lords and senior Imperial ministers; neat trousers, polished half-boots, an elaborate tunic. Bothari loomed at his shoulder, once again costumed in his formal brown-and-silver livery. Bothari carried a thick coat folded over his arm, by which Cordelia deduced Piotr had just blown in from his diplomatic mission to some fellow District count to the wintery north of Vordarian’s holdings. Vorkosigan’s people certainly seemed to be able to move at will now, outside the heartlands held by Vordarian.

“Ah. Cordelia.” Piotr gave her a formal, cautious nod; not reopening hostilities here. That was fine with Cordelia. She was not sure she had any will to fight left in her gnawed-out heart.

“Good day, sir. Was your trip a success?”

“Indeed it was. Where is Aral?”

“Gone to Sector Intelligence, I believe, to consult with Illyan about the most recent reports from Vorbarr Sultana.”

“Ah? What’s happening?”

“Captain Vaagen turned up at our door. He’d been beaten half-senseless, but he still somehow made it from the capital—it seems Vordarian finally woke up to the fact that he had another hostage. His squad looted Miles’s replicator from ImpMil, and took it back to the Imperial Residence. I expect we’ll hear more from him soon about it, but he’s doubtless waited to give us the full pleasure of Captain Vaagen’s tale, first.”

Piotr threw back his head in a sharp, bitter laugh. “Now there’s an empty threat.”

Cordelia unclenched her jaw long enough to say, “What do you mean, sir?” She knew perfectly well what he meant, but she wanted to see him run to his limit. All the way, damn you; spit it all out.