“Are we there yet?” Miles mumbled muzzily.
He blinked open eyes that were not, oddly enough, gluey and sore. The ceiling above him didn't waver and bend in his vision as though seen mirage-like through rising desert heat. Breath drawn through his flaring nostrils flowed in coolly and without clogging impediment. No phlegm. No tubes. No tubes?
The ceiling was unfamiliar. He groped for memory. Fog. Biotainered angels and devils, tormenting him; someone demanding he piss. Medical indignities, mercifully vague now. Trying to talk, to give orders, till some hypospray of darkness had shut him down.
And before that: near desperation. Sending frantic messages racing ahead of his little convoy. The return stream of days-old accounts of wormholes blockaded, outlanders interned by both sides, assets seized, ships massing, telling its own tale to Miles's mind, worse for the details. He knew too damned much about the details. We can't have a war now, you fools! Don't you know there are children almost present? His left arm jerked, encountering no resistance except for a smooth coverlet beneath his clutching fingers. “ . . . there yet?”
Ekaterin's lovely face bent over him from the side. Not half-hidden behind biotainer gear. He feared for a moment that this was only a holovid projection, or some hallucination, but the real warm kiss of breath from her mouth, carried on a puff of laughter, reassured him of her present solidity even before his hesitant hand touched her cheek.
“Where's your mask?” he asked thickly. He heaved up on one elbow, fighting off a wave of dizziness.
He certainly wasn't in the Barrayaran military ship's crowded, utilitarian sickbay to which he'd been transferred from the Idris . His bed was in a small but elegantly appointed chamber that screamed of Cetagandan aesthetics, from the arrays of live plants through the serene lighting to the view out the window of a soothing seashore. Waves creamed gently up a pale sandy beach seen through strange trees casting delicate fingers of shade. Almost certainly a vid projection, since the subliminals of the atmosphere and sounds of the room also murmured spaceship cabin to him. He wore a loose, silky garment in subdued gray hues, only its odd accessibilities betraying it as a patient gown. Above the head of his bed, a discreet panel displayed medical readouts.
“Where are we? What's happening? Did we stop the war? Those replicators they found on their end—it's a trick, I know it—”
The final disaster—his speeding ships intercepting tight-beamed news from Barrayar of diplomatic talks broken off upon the discovery, in a warehouse outside Vorbarr Sultana, of a thousand empty replicators apparently stolen from the Star Cr?che, their occupants gone. Supposed occupants? Even Miles hadn't been sure. A baffling nightmare of implications. The Barrayaran government had of course hotly denied any knowledge of how they came to be there, or where their contents were now. And was not believed . . .
“The ba—Guppy, I promised—all those haut babies—I've got to—”
“You have got to lie still.” A firm hand to his chest pushed him back down. “All the most urgent matters have been taken care of.”
“Who by?”
She colored faintly. “Well . . . me, mostly. Vorpatril's ship captain probably shouldn't have let me override him, technically, but I decided not to point that out to him. You're a bad influence on me, love.”
What? What? “How?”
“I just kept repeating your messages, and demanding they be put through to the haut Pel and ghem-General Benin. Benin was brilliant. Once he had your first dispatches, he figured out that the replicators found in Vorbarr Sultana were decoys, smuggled out of the Star Cr?che by the ba a few at a time over a year ago in preparation for this.” She frowned. “It was apparently a deliberate sleight of hand by the ba, meant to cause just this sort of trouble. A backup plan, in case anyone figured out that not everyone had died on the child-ship, and traced the trail as far as Komarr. It almost worked. Might have worked, if Benin hadn't been so painstaking and levelheaded. I gather that the internal political circumstances of his investigation were extremely difficult by then. He really put his reputation on the line.”
Possibly even his life, if Miles read between these simple lines. “All honor unto him, then.”
“The military forces—theirs and ours—have all gone off alert and are standing down, now. The Cetagandans have declared it an internal, civil matter.”
He eased back, vastly relieved. “Ah.”
“I don't think I could have gotten through to them without the haut Pel's name.” She hesitated. “And yours.”
“Ours.”
Her lips curved up at that. “Lady Vorkosigan did seem a title to conjure with. It gave both sides pause. That, and yelling the truth over and over. But I couldn't have held it together without the name.”
“May I suggest that the name couldn't have held it together without you?” His free hand tightened around hers, on the coverlet. Hers tightened back.
He started up again. “Wait—shouldn't you be in biotainer gear?”
“Not any more. Lie down , drat it. What's the last thing you remember?”
“My last clear memory is of being on the Barrayaran ship about four days out from Quaddiespace. Cold.”
Her smile didn't change, but her eyes grew dark with memory. “Cold is right. The blood filters fell behind, even with four of them running at once. We could see the life just draining out of you; your metabolism couldn't keep up, couldn't replace the resources being siphoned off even with the IVs and nutrient tubes running flat out, and multiple blood transfusions. Captain Clogston couldn't think of any other way to suppress the parasites but to put you, Bel, and them into stasis. A cold hibernation. The next step would have been cryofreeze.”
“Oh, no. Not again . . . !”
“It was the ultimate fallback, but it wasn't needed, thank heavens. Once you and Bel were sedated and chilled enough, the parasites stopped multiplying. The captains and crews of our little convoy were very good about rushing us along as fast as was safe, or a little faster. Oh—yes, we're here; we arrived in orbit around Rho Ceta . . . yesterday, I guess it was.”
Had she slept since then? Not much, Miles suspected. Her face, though cheerful now, was drawn with fatigue. He reached for it again, to lightly touch her lips with two fingers as he habitually did her holovid image.
“I remember that you wouldn't let me say good-bye to you properly,” he complained.
“I figured it would give you more motivation to fight your way back to me. If only for the last word.”
He snorted a laugh, and let his hand fall back to the coverlet. The artificial gravity probably wasn't turned up to two gees in this chamber, despite his arm feeling as though it were hung with lead weights. He had to admit, he didn't feel exactly . . . chipper. “What, then, am I all clear of those hell-parasites?”
Her smile returned. “All better. Well, that is, that frightening Cetagandan lady doctor the haut Pel brought with her has pronounced you cured. But you're still very debilitated. You're supposed to rest.”
“Rest, I can't rest! What else is happening? Where's Bel?”
“Sh, sh. Bel's alive too. You can see Bel soon, and Nicol too. They're in a cabin just down the corridor. Bel took . . .” She frowned hesitantly. “Took more damage from this than you did, but is expected to recover, mostly. In time.”
Miles didn't quite like the sound of that.
Ekaterin followed his glance around. “Right now we're aboard the haut Pel's own ship—that is, her Star Cr?che ship, that she brought from Eta Ceta. The women from the Star Cr?che had you and Bel carried across to treat you here. The haut ladies wouldn't let any of our men aboard to guard you, not even Armsman Roic at first, which caused the most stupid argument; I was ready to slap everybody concerned, till they finally decided that Nicol and I could come with you. Captain Clogston was very upset that he wouldn't be allowed to attend. He wanted to hold back giving them the replicators till they cooperated, but you can bet I put my foot down on that idea.”