“I'll”—Corbeau swallowed—”think about it. My lord.”
“Excellent.” And not readily stampeded, either, good. “Do so.” Miles smiled and waved dismissal; warily, Corbeau withdrew. As soon as he was out of earshot, Miles murmured a code into his wrist com.
“Ekaterin, love? Where are you?”
“In my cabin on the Prince Xav . The nice young yeoman is getting ready to help carry my things to the shuttle. Yes, thank you, that too . . .”
“Right. I've just about cracked us loose from Quaddiespace. Greenlaw was reasonable, or at least, too exhausted to argue any more.”
“She has all my sympathy. I don't think I have a functional nerve left, right now.”
“Don't need your nerves, just your usual grace. The moment you can get to a comconsole, call up Garnet Five. I want to appoint that heroic young idiot Corbeau to be Barrayaran consul here, and make him clean up all this mess I have to leave in my wake. It's only fair; he certainly helped create it. Gregordid specifically ask that I assure that Barrayaran ships could dock here again someday. The boy is wobbling, however. So pitch it to Garnet Five, and make sure that she makes sure Corbeau says yes.”
“Oh! What a splendid idea, love. They would make a good team, I think.”
“Yep. Her for beauty, and um . . . her for brains.”
“And him for courage, surely. I think it might work out. I must think what to send them for a wedding present, to convey my personal thanks.”
“Partnering present? I don't know, ask Nicol. Oh. Speaking of Nicol.” Miles glanced aside at the sheeted figure in the next bunk. Crucial message delivered, Thorne had fallen back into what Miles hoped was sleep and not incipient coma. “I'm thinking that Bel really ought to have someone to ride along and take care of it. Or of things for it. Some kind of support trooper, anyway. I expect the Star Cr?che will have a fix for their own weapon—they'd have to, lab accidents, after all.” If we get there in time . “But this looks like something that's going to involve a certain amount of really unpleasant convalescence. I'm not exactly looking forward to it myself.” But consider the alternative . . . ”Ask her if she's willing. She could ride in the Kestrel with you, be some company, anyway.” And if neither he nor Bel got out of this alive, mutual support.
“Certainly. I'll call her from here.”
“Call me again when you're safe aboard the Kestrel , love.” Often and often .
“Of course.” Her voice hesitated. “Love you. Get some rest. You sound like you need it. Your voice has that down-in-a-well sound it gets when . . . There will be time.” Determination flashed through her own audible fatigue.
“I wouldn't dare die. There's this fierce Vor lady who threatened she'd kill me if I did.” He grinned weakly and cut the com.
* * *
He drowsed for a time in dizzy exhaustion, fighting the sleep that tried to overtake him, because he couldn't be sure it wasn't the ba's hell-disease gaining on him, and he might not wake up. He marked a subtle change in the sounds and voices that penetrated from the outer chamber, as the medical team switched over to evacuation-mode. In time, a tech came and took Bel away on a float pallet. In a little more time, the pallet was returned, and Clogston himself and another medtech shifted the Imperial Auditor and all his growing array of life-support trappings aboard.
One of the intelligence officers reported to Miles, during a brief delay in the outer chamber.
“We finally found the remains of Lieutenant Solian, my Lord Auditor. What there was of them. A few kilograms of . . . well. Inside a bod pod, folded up and put back in its wall locker in the corridor just outside the cargo hold where the replicators were.”
“Right. Thank you. Bring it along. As is. For evidence, and for . . . the man died doing his job. Barrayar owes him . . . debt of honor. Military burial. Pension, family . . . figure it all out later . . .”
His pallet rose again, and the corridor ceilings of the Idris flowed past his blurred gaze for the last time.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“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.”