“I s-see.”
The medal, it appeared, was to be awarded for her brave, one-woman assassination of Admiral Vorrutyer. Steady Freddy actually avoided the word assassination, along with blunt terms like murder and killing, favoring more liquid phrases like “freeing the universe of a viper of iniquity.”
The speech lumbered to its close, and the glittering medal on its colorful ribbon, Beta Colony’s highest honor, was lowered over her head by the president’s own hand. Gould positioned her in front of the rostrum, and pointed out the glowing green words of the prompter marching across thin air before her eyes. “Start reading,” he whispered.
“Am I on? Oh, Uh … People of Beta Colony, my beloved home,” that was all right so far, “when I left you to meet the m-menace of Barrayaran tyranny, s-succoring our friend and ally Escobar, it was with no idea that fate was to bring me face-to-face with a n-nobler d-destiny.”
It was here she departed from the script, watching herself go helplessly, like a doomed sea ship sinking beneath the waves. “I don’t see what’s so n-noble about b-butchering that sadistic ass Vorrutyer. And I wouldn’t take a medal for m-murdering an unarmed m-man even if I had done it.”
She pulled it off over her head. The ribbon caught in her hair, and she yanked it free, painfully, angrily. “For the last time. I did not kill Vorrutyer. One of his own men killed Vorrutyer. He c-caught him from behind and cut his throat from ear to ear. I was there, damn it. He bled all over me. The press from both sides are stuffing you with lies about that s-stupid war. D-damn voyeurs! Vorkosigan was not in charge of the prison camp when the atrocities took place. As s-soon as he was in charge he stopped them. Sh-sh-shot one of his own officers just to feed your l-lust for vengeance, and it cost him in his honor, too, I can tell you.”
The sound going out from the rostrum was cut off suddenly. She turned to Steady Freddy, tears of fury blurring her view of his astonished face, and flung the medal back at him with all the force of her arm. It missed his head and glittered down over the balcony into the crowd.
Her arms were pinned from behind. It triggered some buried reflex, and she kicked out frantically.
If only the president hadn’t tried to dodge, he would have been all right. As it was, the toe of her jackboot caught him in the groin with perfect unplanned accuracy. His mouth made a soundless “O” and he went down behind the rostrum.
Cordelia, hyperventilating uncontrollably, began to cry as a dozen more hands grabbed her arms, waist, legs. “P-please don’t lock me up again! I couldn’t take it. I just wanted to go home! Get that goddamn ampule away from me! No! No! No drugs, please, please! I’m sorry!”
She was hustled out, and the media event of the year collapsed just like Steady Freddy.
*
She was taken to a quiet room, one of the shuttleport’s administrative offices, immediately afterwards. The president’s personal physician arrived after a time and took charge, had everyone removed but himself and her mother, and gave her some breathing space to regain her self-control. It took her almost an hour to stop crying, once she had started. The embarrassment and outrage stopped seesawing at last, and she was able to sit up and talk in a voice like a bad cold.
“Please apologize to the president for me. If only someone had warned me, or asked me about it first. I’m—n-not in very good shape right now.”
“We should have realized it ourselves,” said the physician sorrowfully. “Your ordeal, after all, was much more personal than the usual soldier’s experience. It is we who must apologize, for subjecting you to an unnecessary strain.”
“We thought it would be a nice surprise,” added her mother.
“It was a surprise, all right. I only hope I don’t get myself locked in a padded cell. I’m a bit off cells at the moment.” The thought tightened her throat, and she breathed carefully to calm back down.
She wondered where Vorkosigan was now, what he was doing. Getting drunk sounded better all the time, and she wished she were with him, doing so. She pressed thumb and forefinger to the bridge of her nose, rubbing out the tension. “May I be permitted to go home now?”
“Is there still a crowd out there?” asked her mother.
“I’m afraid so. We’ll try to keep them back.”
With the doctor on one side and her mother on the other, she dwelt in Vorkosigan’s kiss all during the long walk to her mother’s groundcar. The crowd still pressed upon her, but in a hushed, respectful, almost frightened way, a great contrast to their earlier holiday mood. She felt sorry to have taken away their party.
*
There was a crowd at her mother’s apartment shaft too, in the foyer by the lift tubes, and even in the hallway to her door. Cordelia smiled and waved a little, cautiously, but just shook her head at questions, not trusting herself to speak coherently. They made their way through and closed the door at last.
“Whew! I suppose they meant well, but my lord—I felt like they wanted to eat me alive.”
“There was so much excitement about the war, and the Expeditionary Force—anyone in a blue uniform is getting star treatment. And when the prisoners got home, and your story came out—I’m glad I knew you were safe by then. My poor darling!” Cordelia got another hug, and welcomed it.
“Well, that explains where they came by the nonsense. It was the wildest rumor. The Barrayarans started it, and everyone just ate it up. I couldn’t stop it.”
“What did they do to you?”
“They kept following me around, pestering me with these offers of therapy—they thought the Barrayarans had been messing with my memory… . Oh, I see. You mean, what did the Barrayarans do to me. Nothing much. V-vorrutyer might have liked to, but he met with his accident before he’d got half started.” She decided not to disturb her mother with the details. “Something important did happen, though.” She hesitated. “I ran into Aral Vorkosigan again.”
“That horrible man? I wondered, when I heard the name in the news, if it was the same fellow who killed your Lieutenant Rosemont last year.”
“No. Yes. I mean, he didn’t kill Rosemont, one of his people did. But he’s the same one.”
“I don’t understand why you’re so sympathetic to him.”
“You ought to appreciate him now. He saved my life. Hid me in his cabin, during those missing two days after Vorrutyer was killed. I’d have been executed for it, if they’d caught me before the change in command.”
Her mother looked more disturbed than appreciative. “Did he—do anything to you?”
The question was filled with unanswerable irony. Cordelia dared not tell even her mother about the intolerable burden of truth he had laid on her. Her mother misunderstood the haunted look on her face.
“Oh, dear. I’m so sorry.”
“Huh? No, damn it. Vorkosigan’s no rapist. He’s got this thing about prisoners. Wouldn’t touch one with a stick. He asked me …” she trailed off, looking into the kind, concerned, and loving wall of her mother’s face. “We talked a lot. He’s all right.”
“He doesn’t have a very good reputation.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen some of it. It’s all lies.”
“He’s—not a murderer, then?”
“Well …” Cordelia foundered on the truth. “He has k-killed a lot of people, I suppose. He’s a soldier, you know. It’s his job. It can’t help spilling over a bit. I only know about three that weren’t in the line of duty, though.”
“Only three?” repeated her mother faintly. There was a pause. “He’s not a, a sex criminal, then?”
“Certainly not! Although I gather he went through a rather strange phase, after his wife committed suicide—I don’t think he realizes how much I know about it, not that that maniac Vorrutyer should be trusted as a source of information, even if he was there. I suspect it’s partly true, at least about their relationship. Vorrutyer was clearly obsessed with him. And Aral went awfully vague when I asked him about it.”
Looking at her mother’s appalled face, Cor
delia thought, it’s a good thing I never wanted to be a defense lawyer. All my clients would be in therapy forever. “It all makes a lot more sense if you meet him in person,” she offered hopefully.
Cordelia’s mother laughed uncertainly. “He surely seems to have charmed you. What does he have, then? Conversation? Good looks?”
“I’m not sure. He mostly talks Barrayaran politics. He claims to have an aversion to them, but it sounds more like an obsession to me. He can’t leave them alone for five minutes. It’s like they’re in him.”
“Is that—a very interesting subject?”
“It’s awful,” said Cordelia frankly. “His bedtime stories can keep you awake for weeks.”
“It can’t be his looks,” sighed her mother. “I’ve seen a holovid of him in the news.”
“Oh, did you save it?” asked Cordelia, instantly interested. “Where is it?”
“I’m sure there’s something in the vid files,” her mother allowed, staring. “But really, Cordelia—your Reg Rosemont was ten times better looking.”
“I suppose he was,” Cordelia agreed, “by any objective standard.”
“So what does the man have, anyway?”
“I don’t know. The virtues of his vices, perhaps. Courage. Strength. Energy. He could run me into the ground any day. He has power over people. Not leadership, exactly, although there’s that too. They either worship him or hate his guts. The strangest man I ever met did both at the same time. But nobody falls asleep when he’s around.”
“And which category do you fall in, Cordelia?” asked her mother, bemused.
“Well, I don’t hate him. Can’t say as I worship him, either.” She paused a long time, and looked up to meet her mother’s eyes squarely. “But when he’s cut, I bleed.”
“Oh,” said her mother, whitely. Her mouth smiled, her eyes flinched, and she busied herself with unnecessary vigor in getting Cordelia’s meager belongings settled.
*
On the fourth afternoon of her leave, Cordelia’s commanding officer brought a disturbing visitor.
“Captain Naismith, this is Dr. Mehta, from the Expeditionary Force Medical Service,” Commodore Tailor introduced them. Dr. Mehta was a slim, tan-skinned woman about Cordelia’s age, with dark hair drawn back, cool and antiseptic in her blue uniform.
“Not another psychiatrist,” Cordelia sighed. Her muscles knotted up the back of her neck. More interrogations—more twisting, more evasions, ever-shakier webs of lies to cover the gaps in her story where Vorkosigan’s bitter truths dwelt …
“Commodore Sprague’s reports finally caught up with your file, a little late, it seems.” Tailor’s lips thinned sympathetically. “Ghastly. I’m sorry. If we’d had them earlier, we might have been able to spare you last week. And everybody else.”
Cordelia flushed. “I didn’t mean to kick him. He kind of ran into me. It won’t happen again.”
Commodore Tailor suppressed a smile. “Well, I didn’t vote for him. Steady Freddy is not my main concern. Although”—he cleared his throat—“he has taken a personal interest in your case. You’re a public figure now, like it or not.”
“Oh, nonsense.”
“It’s not nonsense. You have an obligation.”
Who are you quoting, Bill? That’s not your voice. Cordelia rubbed the back of her neck. “I thought I’d discharged all my obligations. What more do they want from me?”
Tailor shrugged. “It was thought—I was given to understand—that you could have a future as a spokesman for—for the government. Due to your war experience. Once you’re well.”
Cordelia snorted. “They’ve got some awfully strange illusions about my soldierly career. Look—as far as I’m concerned, Steady Freddy can put on falsies and go woo the hermaphrodite vote in Quartz. But I’m n-not going to play the part of a, a propaganda cow, to be milked by any party. I’ve an aversion to politics, to quote a friend.”
“Well …” He shrugged, as though he too had discharged a duty, and went on more firmly. “Be that as it may, getting you fit for work again is my concern.”
“I’m—I’ll be all right, after m-my month’s leave. I just need a rest. I want to go back to Survey.”
“And so you can. Just as soon as you’re medically cleared.”
“Oh.” The implications of that took a moment to sink in. “Oh, no—wait a minute. I had a little p-problem with Dr. Sprague. Very nice lady, her reasoning was sound, but her premises were wrong.”
Commodore Tailor gazed at her sadly. “I think I’d better turn you over to Dr. Mehta, now. She’ll explain everything. You will cooperate with her, won’t you, Cordelia?”
Cordelia pursed her lips, chilled. “Let me get this straight. What you’re saying is, if I can’t make your shrink happy, I’ll never set foot on a Survey ship again. No c-command—no job, in fact.”
“That’s—a very harsh way of putting it. But you know yourself, for Survey, with small groups of people isolated together for extended periods of time, the psych profiles are of the utmost importance.”
“Yes, I know… .” She twitched her mouth into a smile. “I’ll c-cooperate. S-sure.”
Chapter Thirteen
“Now,” said Dr. Mehta cheerfully, setting up her box on a table in the Naismiths’ apartment next afternoon, “this is a completely noninvasive method of monitoring. You won’t feel a thing, it won’t do a thing to you, except give me clues as to which subjects are of subconscious importance to you.” She paused to swallow a capsule, remarking, “Allergy. Excuse me. Think of it as an emotional dowsing rod, looking for those buried streams of experience.”
“Telling you where to drill the well, eh?”
“Exactly. Do you mind if I smoke?”
“Go ahead.”
Mehta lit an aromatic cigarette and set it casually in an ashtray she had brought with her. The smoke drifted toward Cordelia. She squinted at its acridity. Odd perversion for a doctor; well, we all have our weaknesses. She eyed the box, suppressing irritation.
“Now for a baseline,” said Mehta. “July.”
“Am I supposed to say August, or something?”
“No, it’s not a free-association test—the machine will do the work. But you may, if you wish.”
“That’s all right.”
“Twelve.”
Apostles, thought Cordelia. Eggs. Days of Christmas.
“Death.”
Birth, thought Cordelia. Those upper-class Barrayarans put everything into their children. Name, property, culture, even their government’s continuity. A huge burden, no wonder the children bend and twist under the strain.
“Birth.”
Death, thought Cordelia. A man without a son is a walking ghost there, with no part in their future. And when their government fails, they pay the price in their children’s lives. Five thousand.
Mehta moved her ashtray a little to the left. It didn’t help; made it worse, in fact.
“Sex.”
Not likely, with me here and him there …
“Seventeen.”
Canisters, thought Cordelia. Wonder how those poor desperate little scraps of life are doing?
Dr. Mehta frowned uncertainly at her readouts. “Seventeen?” she repeated.
Eighteen, Cordelia thought firmly. Dr. Mehta made a note.
“Admiral Vorrutyer.”
Poor butchered toad. You know, I think you spoke the truth—you must have loved Aral once, to have hated him so. What did he do to you, I wonder? Rejected you, most likely. I could understand that pain. We have some common ground after all, perhaps… .
Mehta adjusted another dial, frowned again, turned it back. “Admiral Vorkosigan.”
Ah love, let us be true to one another… . Cordelia focused wearily on Mehta’s blue uniform. She’ll get a geyser if she drills her well there—probably knows it already, she’s making another note… .
Mehta glanced at her chronometer, and leaned forward with increased attention. “Let’s talk about Admiral Vorkosigan
.”
Let’s not, thought Cordelia, “What about him?”
“Does he work much in their Intelligence section, do you know?”
“I don’t think so. His main line seems to be staff tactician, when—when he isn’t on patrol duty.”
“The Butcher of Komarr.”
“That’s a damned lie,” said Cordelia automatically, then wished she hadn’t spoken.
“Who told you that?” asked Mehta.
“He did.”
“He did. Ah.”
I’ll get you for that “Ah”—no. Cooperation. Calm. I do feel calm… . Wish that woman would either finish smoking that thing or put it out. Stings my eyes.
“What proof did he offer you?”
None, Cordelia realized. “His word, I guess. His honor.”
“Rather intangible.” She made another note. “And you believed him?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“It—seemed consistent, with what I saw of his character.”
“You were his prisoner for six days, were you not, on that Survey mission?”
“That’s right.”
Mehta tapped her light pen and said “hm,” absently, looking through her. “You seem quite convinced of this Vorkosigan’s veracity. You don’t think he ever lied to you, then?”
“Well—yes, but after all, I was an enemy officer.”
“Yet you seem to accept his statements unquestioningly.”
Cordelia tried to explain. “A man’s word is something more to a Barrayaran than a vague promise, at least for the old-fashioned types. Heavens, it’s even the basis for their government, oaths of fealty and all that.”
Mehta whistled soundlessly. “You approve of their form of government now, do you?”
Cordelia stirred uncomfortably. “Not exactly. I’m just starting to understand it a little, is all. It could be made to work, I suppose.”
“So this word of honor business—you believe he never breaks it?”
“Well …”
“He does, then.”
“I have seen him do so. But the cost was huge.”
“He breaks it for a price, then.”
“Not for a price. At a cost.”
Shards of Honor (Vorkosigan Saga) Page 19