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play itself out. She had to repeat her precis, twice. Her own crew members,
led by Parnell, came over from the men's side.
Parnell jumped up on a bunk to address the orange-clad crowd, shouting
over the glad babble. "This lady isn't telling you everything. I had the real
story from one of the Barrayaran guards. After we were taken aboard the
flagship, she escaped and personally assassinated the Barrayaran commander,
Admiral Vorrutyer. That's why their advance collapsed. Let's hear it for
Captain Naismith!"
"That's not the real story," she objected, but was drowned out by shouts
and cheers. "I didn't kill Vorrutyer. Here! Put me down!" Her crew, ring-led
by Parnell, hoisted her to their shoulders, for an impromptu parade around the
camp. "It's not true! Stop this! Awk!"
It was like trying to turn back the tide with a teacup. The story had too
much innate appeal to the battered prisoners, too much wish-fulfillment come
to life. They took it in like balm for their wounded spirits, and made it
their own vicarious revenge. The story was passed around, elaborated, built
up, sea-changed, until within twenty-four hours it was as rich and unkillable
as legend. After a few days she gave up trying.
The truth was too complicated and ambiguous to appeal to them, and she
herself, suppressing everything in it that had to do with Vorkosigan, was
unable to make it sound convincing. Her duty seemed drained of meaning, dull
and discolored. She longed for home, and her sensible mother and brother, and
quiet, and one thought that would connect to another without making a chain of
secret horror.
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CHAPTER ELEVEN
Camp returned to routine soon, or what routine should always have been.
There followed weeks of waiting for the slow negotiations for prisoner
exchange to be completed, with everyone honing elaborate plans for what they
would do when they got home. Cordelia gradually came to a nearly normal
relationship with her shelter mates, although they still tried to give her
special privileges and services. She heard nothing from Vorkosigan.
She was lying on her bunk one afternoon, pretending to sleep, when
Lieutenant Alfredi roused her.
"There's a Barrayaran officer out here who says he wants to talk to you."
Alfredi trailed her to the door, suspicion and hostility in her face. "I don't
think we should let them take you away by yourself. We're so close to going
home. They've surely got it in for you."
"Oh. It's all right, Marsha."
Vorkosigan stood outside the shelter, in the dress greens worn daily by
the Staff, accompanied as usual by Illyan. He seemed tense, deferential,
weary, and closed.
"Captain Naismith," he said formally, "may I speak with you?"
"Yes, but-not here." She was acutely conscious of the eyes of her fellows
upon her. "Can we take a walk or something?"
He nodded, and they started off in shared silence. He clasped his hands
behind his back. She shoved hers into the pockets of her orange smock top.
Illyan trailed them, dog-like, impossible to shake. They left the prison
compound, and headed into the woods.
"I'm glad you came," said Cordelia. "There are some things I've been
meaning to ask you."
"Yes. I wanted to see you sooner, but winding this thing up properly has
been keeping me rather busy."
She nodded toward his yellow collar tabs. "Congratulations on your
promotion."
"Oh, that." He touched one briefly. "It's meaningless. Just a formality,
to expedite the work I'm doing now."
"Which is what?"
"Dismantling the armada, guarding the local space around this planet,
shuffling politicians back and forth between Barrayar and Escobar. General
housecleaning, now the party's over. Supervising prisoner exchange."
They were following a wide beaten path through the grey-green woods, up
the slope out of the crater's bowl.
"I wanted to apologize for questioning you under drugs. I know it offended
you deeply. Need drove me. It was a military necessity."
"You have nothing to apologize for." She glanced back at Illyan. I must
know. . . . "Quite literally nothing, I eventually realized."
He was silent. "I see," he said at last. "You are very acute."
"On the contrary, I am very baffled."
He swung to face Illyan. "Lieutenant, I crave a boon from you. I wish a
few minutes alone with this lady to discuss a very personal matter."
"I shouldn't, sir. You know that."
"I once asked her to marry me. She never gave me her answer. If I give you
my word that we will discuss nothing but what touches on that, may we have a
few moments' privacy?"
"Oh . . ." Illyan frowned. "Your word, sir?"
"My word. As Vorkosigan."
"Well-I guess it's all right then." Illyan seated himself glumly on a
fallen log to wait, and they walked on up the path.
They came out, at the top, on a familiar promontory overlooking the
crater, the very spot where Vorkosigan had planned the repossession of his
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ship, so long ago. They seated themselves on the ground, watching the activity
of the camp made silent by distance.
"Time was you would never have done that," Cordelia observed. "Pledged
your word falsely."
"Times change."
"Nor lied to me."
"That is so."
"Nor shot a man out of hand for crimes he didn't participate in."
"It wasn't out of hand. He had a summary court-martial first. And it did
get things straightened around in a hurry. Anyway, it will satisfy the
Interstellar Judiciary's commission. I'll have them on my hands too, come
tomorrow. Investigating prisoner abuses."
"I think you're getting blood-glutted. Individual lives are losing their
meaning for you."
"Yes. There have been so many. It's nearly time to quit." Expression was
deadened in his face and words.
"How did the Emperor buy you for that-extraordinary assassination? You of
all men. Was it your idea? Or his?" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]