"You have a surprising talent for information analysis," she remarked. "I noticed it even back at Jackson's Whole."
"Me?" he blinked. "Certainly not!" Not a talent, surely, or he'd be getting better results. But despite all his frustrations, he had felt a kind of contentment, in his little cubicle at ImpSec this past week. The serenity of a monk's cell, combined with the absorbing challenge of that universe of data . . . in an odd way it reminded him of the peaceful times with the virtual learning programs, in his childhood back at the clone-crèche. The times when no one had been hurting him.
"The Countess thinks so too. She wants to see you."
"What, now?"
"She sent me to get you. But I had to get my word in first. Before it got any later, and I lost my chance. Or my nerve."
"All right. Let me pull myself together." He was intensely grateful wine had not been served tonight. He retreated to his bathroom, washed his face in the coldest water, forced down a couple of painkiller tabs, and combed his hair. He slipped one of the back-country-style vests over his dark shirt, and followed Bothari-Jesek into the hall.
She took him to the Countess's own study, which was a serene and austere chamber overlooking the back garden, just off her bedroom. Her and her husband's bedroom. Mark glimpsed the dark interior, down a step and through an archway. The Count's absence seemed an almost palpable thing.
The Countess was at her comconsole, not a secured government model, just a very expensive commercial one. Shell flowers inlaid on black wood framed the vid plate, which was generating the image of a harried-looking man. The Countess was saying sharply, "Well, find out the arrangements, then! Yes, tonight, now. And then get back to me. Thank you." She batted the off-key and swung around to face Mark and Bothari-Jesek.
"Are you checking on a ticket to Jackson's Whole?" he asked tremulously, hoping against hope.
"No."
"Oh." Of course not. How could she let him go? He was a fool. It was useless to suppose—
"I was checking on getting you a ship. If you're going, you'll need a lot more independent mobility than scheduled commercial transport will allow."
"
Buy
a ship?" he said, stunned. And he'd thought that line about the clock factory had been a
joke.
"Isn't that pretty expensive?"
"Lease, if I can. Buy if I have to. There seem to be three or four possibilities, in Barrayar or Komarr orbit."
"Still—how?" He didn't think even the Vorkosigans could buy a jump-ship out of pocket change.
"I can mortgage something," the Countess said rather vaguely, looking around.
"Since synthetics came in, you can't hock the family jewels any more." He followed her gaze. "Not Vorkosigan House!"
"No, it's entailed. Same problem with the District Residence at Hassadar. I can pledge Vorkosigan Surleau on my bare word, though."
The heart of the realm, oh shit . . .
"All these houses and history are all very well," she complained, raising her eyebrows at his dismayed expression, "but a bloody museum doesn't make a very liquid asset. In any case, the finances are my problem. You'll have your own worries."
"A crew?" was the first thought that popped into his head, and out of his mouth.
"A jump-pilot and engineer will come with the ship, at a minimum. As for supercargo, well, there are all those idle Dendarii, hanging in Komarr orbit. I imagine you could find a volunteer or two among them. It's obvious they can't take the
Ariel
back into Jacksonian local space."
"Quinnie has bleeding fingers by now, from scratching at the doors," Bothari-Jesek said. "Even Illyan won't be able to hold her much longer, if ImpSec doesn't get a break soon."
"Will Illyan try to hold me?" asked Mark anxiously.
"If it weren't for Aral, I'd be going myself," said the Countess. "And I sure as hell wouldn't let Illyan stop
me.
You are my proxy. I'll deal with ImpSec."
Mark bet she would. "The Dendarii I'm thinking of are highly motivated, but—I foresee problems, getting them to follow my orders. Who will be in command of this little private excursion?"
"It's the golden rule, boy. He who has the gold, makes the rules. The ship will be yours. The choice of companions will be yours. If they want a ride, they have to cooperate."
"That would last past the first wormhole jump. Then Quinn would lock me in a closet."
The Countess puffed a laugh despite herself. "Hm. That is a point." She leaned back in her station chair, steepling her fingers together, her eyes half-closed for a minute or two. They opened wide again. "Elena," she said. "Will you take oath to Lord Vorkosigan?" The fingers of her right hand fanned at Mark.
"I'm already sworn to Lord Vorkosigan," Elena said stiffly. Meaning, to Miles.
The gray eyes went flinty. "Death releases all vows." And then glinted. "The Vor system never has been very good at catching the curve balls thrown at it by galactic technologies. Do you know, I don't think there has ever been a ruling as to the status of a voice-oath when one of the respondents is in cryo-stasis? Your word can't be your breath when you don't have any breath, after all. We shall just have to set our own precedent."
Elena paced to the window, and stared out into nothing. The reflecting lights of the room obscured any view of the night. At last, she turned decisively on her heel, went down on both knees in front of Mark, and raised her hands pressed palm to palm. Automatically, Mark enclosed her hands with his own.
"My lord," she said, "I pledge you the obedience of a liegewoman."
"Um . . ." said Mark. "Um . . . I think I may need more than that. Try this one. 'I, Elena Bothari-Jesek, do testify I am a freewoman of the District Vorkosigan. I hereby take service under Lord Mark Pierre Vorkosigan, as an Armsman—Armswoman?—simple, and will hold him as my liege commander until my death or his releases me.' "
Shocked, Bothari-Jesek stared up at him. Not very far up, true. "You can't do that! Can you?"
"Well," said the Countess, watching this playlet with her eyes alight, "there isn't actually a law saying a Count's heir can't take a female Armsman. It's just never been done. You know—
tradition.
"
Elena and the Countess exchanged a long look. Hesitantly, as if half-hypnotized, Bothari-Jesek repeated the oath.
Mark said, "I, Lord Mark Pierre Vorkosigan, vassal secundus to Emperor Gregor Vorbarra, do accept your oath, and pledge you the protection of a liege commander; this by my word as Vorkosigan." He paused. "Actually," he said aside to the Countess, "I haven't made my oath to Gregor yet, either. Would that invalidate this?"
"Details," said the Countess, waving her fingers. "You can work out the details later."
Bothari-Jesek stood up again. She looked at him like a woman waking up in bed with a hangover and a strange partner she didn't remember meeting the night before. She rubbed the backs of her hands where his skin had touched hers.
Power. Just how much Vor-power did this little charade give him? Just as much as Bothari-Jesek allowed, Mark decided, eyeing her athletic frame and shrewd face. No danger she would permit him to abuse his position. The uncertainty in her face was giving way to a suppressed pleasure that delighted his eye.
Yes. That was the right move.
No question but that he had pleased the Countess, who was grinning outright at her subversive son.
"Now," said the Countess, "how fast can we pull this together? How soon can you be ready to travel?"
"Immediately," said Bothari-Jesek.
"At your command, ma'am," said Mark. "I do feel—it's nothing psychic, you understand. It's not even the general itch. It's only logic. But I do think we could be running out of time."
"How so?" asked Bothari-Jesek. "There's nothing more static than cryo-stasis. We're all going crazy from uncertainty, sure, but that's our problem. Miles may have more time than we do."
Mark shook his head. "If Miles had fallen frozen into friendly or even neutral hands, they ought to have responded to the rumors of reward by now. But if . . . someone . . . wanted to revive him, they'd have to do the prep first. We're all very conscious right now of how long it takes to grow organs for transplant."
The Countess nodded wryly.
"If—wherever Miles is—committed to the project soon after they got him, they could be nearly ready to attempt a revival by now."
"They might botch it," said the Countess. "They might not be careful enough." Her fingers drummed on the pretty shell inlay.
"I don't follow that," objected Bothari-Jesek. "Why would an enemy bother to revive him? What fate could be worse than death?"
"I don't know," sighed Mark. But if there is one, I bet the Jacksonians can arrange it.
With breath, came pain.
He was in a hospital bed. That much he knew even before opening his eyes, from the discomfort, the chill, and the smell. That seemed right. Vaguely, if unpleasantly, familiar. He blinked, to discover that his eyes were plastered with goo. Scented, translucent, medical goo. It was like trying to see through a pane of glass covered with grease. He blinked some more, and achieved a limited focus, then had to stop and catch his breath from the effort.
There was something terribly wrong with his breathing, labored panting that didn't provide enough air at all. And it whistled. The whistling came from a plastic tube down his throat, he realized, trying to swallow. His lips were dry and cracked; the tube blocking his mouth prevented him from moistening them. He tried to move. His body sent back shooting aches and pains, burning through every bone. There were tubes going into, or perhaps out of, his arms. And his ears. And his nose.
There were too damned many tubes. That was bad, he realized dimly, though how he knew he could not have said. With a heroic effort, he tried to raise his head and see down his body. The tube in his throat shifted painfully.
Ridges of ribs. Belly gaunt and sunken. Red welts radiated all over his chest, like a long-legged spider crouched just beneath his skin, its body over his sternum. Surgical glue held together jagged incisions, multiple scarlet scars looking like a map of a major river drainage delta. He was pocked with monitor-pads. More tubes ran from places orifices ought not to be. He caught a glimpse of his genitalia, lying in a limp discolored lump; there was a tube from there, too. Pain from there would be subtly reassuring, but he couldn't feel anything at all. He couldn't feel his legs or feet, either, though he could see them. His whole body was covered thickly with the scented goo. His skin was peeling in nasty big pale flakes, stuck in the stuff. His head fell back on a pad, and black clouds boiled in his eyes.
Too many damn tubes. Bad . . .
He was in a muzzy, half-awake state, floating between confusing dream-fragments and pain, when the woman came.
She leaned into his blurred vision. "We're taking the pacer out, now." Her voice was clear and low. The tubes had gone away from his ears, or maybe he'd dreamed them. "Your new heart will be beating and your lungs working all on their own."
She bent over his aching chest. Pretty woman, of the elegantly intellectual type. He was sorry he was dressed only in goo, in front of her, though it seemed to him that he had carried on with even less to wear, once. He could not remember where or how. She did something to the spider-body lump; he saw his skin part in a thin red slit and then be sealed again. She seemed to be cutting out his heart, like an antique priestess making sacrifice, but that could not be, for his labored breathing continued. She'd definitely taken out something, for she placed it on a tray held by her male assistant.
"There." She watched him closely.
He watched her in return, blinking away the distortions of the ointment. She had straight, silky black hair, bound in a knot—more of a wad, actually—on the back of her head. A few fine strands escaped to float around her face. Golden skin. Brown eyes with a hint of an epicanthic fold. Stubby, stubborn black lashes. The bridge of her nose was coolly arched. A pleasant, original face, not surgically altered to a mathematically perfect beauty, but enlivened by an alert tension. Not an empty face. Somebody interesting was in there. But not, alas, somebody familiar.
She was tall and slim, dressed in a pale green lab smock over other clothes. "Doc-tor," he tried to guess, but it came out a formless gurgle around the plastic in his mouth.
"I'm going to take that tube out now," she told him. She pulled something sticky from around his lips and cheeks—tape? More dead skin came with it. Gently, she drew out the throat-tube. He gagged. It was like un-swallowing a snake. The relief of being rid of it almost made him pass out again. There was still some sort of tube—oxygen?—blocking his nostrils.
He moved his jaw, and swallowed for the first time in . . . in . . . Anyway, his tongue felt thick and swollen. His chest hurt terribly. But saliva flowed; his dry mouth re-hydrated. One did not really appreciate saliva till one was forced to do without it. His heart beat fast and light, like bird wings fluttering. It did not feel right, but at least he felt something.
"What's your name?" she asked him.
The subliminal terror he had been studiously ignoring yawned black beneath him. His breath quickened in his panic. Despite the oxygen, he could not get enough air. And he could not answer her question. "Ah," he whispered. "Ag . . ." He did not know who he was, nor how he had come by this huge burden of hurt. The not-knowing frightened him far more than the hurt.
The young man in the pale-blue medical jacket snorted, "I think I'm going to win my bet. That one's coagulated behind the eyeballs. All short circuits back there." He tapped his forehead.
The woman frowned in annoyance. "Patients don't come popping up out of cryo-stasis like a meal out of a microwave. It takes just as much healing as if the original injury hadn't killed them, and more. It will be a couple of days before I can even begin to evaluate his higher neural functions."
Still, she pulled something sharp and shiny from the lapel of her jacket and moved around him, touching him and watching a monitor readout on the wall above his head. When his right hand jerked back at a prick, she smiled.
Yeah, and when my prick jerks up at a right hand, I'll smile,
he thought dizzily.