Lois McMaster Bujold 03 Barrayar

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what's to choose? Vordarian's claim is then as good as anyone's. If he killed
me, and got possession of
Gregor, or vice versa, he could conceivably consolidate from there. Till the
next coup, and train of revolts and vengeance-killings rebounding into the
indefinite future..." His eyes narrowed, as he contemplated this dark vision.
"That's my worst nightmare. That this war won't stop if we lose, till another
Dorca Vorbarra the Just arises to put an end to another Bloody Century. God
knows when. Frankly, I don't see a man of that calibre among my generation."
Check your mirror, thought Cordelia somberly.
"Ah, so that's why you wanted me to see the doctor first," Cordelia teased
Aral that night. The doctor, once Cordelia had adjusted a few of his confused
assumptions, had examined her meticulously, changed his prescription from
exercise to rest, and cleared her to resume marital relations, with caution.
Aral merely grinned, and made love to her as if she were spun glass. His own
recovery from the soltoxin was nearly complete, she judged from this. He slept
like a rock, only warmer, till the comconsole woke them at dawn. There must
have been some military conspiracy at work, for it not to have lit up before
then. Cordelia pictured some understaffer confiding to Kou, "Yeah, let's let
the Old Man get laid, maybe he'll mellow out...."
Still, the miserable fatigue-fog lifted faster this time. Within a day, with
Droushnakovi for escort, Cordelia was up and exploring her new surroundings.
She ran across Bothari in the base gymnasium. Count Piotr had not yet
returned, so once he'd debriefed to Aral Bothari had no duties either. "Got to
keep in training," he told her shortly.
"You been sleeping?"
"Not much," he said, and resumed his running. Compulsively, too long, far past
the optimum effect-for-time-spent trade-off.
He sweated to fill time and kill thought, and Cordelia silently wished him
luck.
She caught up on the details of the war from Aral and Kou and the controlled
newsvids. What counts were allied, who was known hostage and where, what units
were deployed on each side and which were ripped apart and scattered to both;
where fighting had taken place, what damages, which commanders had renewed
oath... knowledge without power. No more, she judged, than her
intellectualized version of Bothari's endless running; and even less useful
for distracting her mind from unbroken concentration on all the horrors and
disasters, past or impending, that she could presently do nothing about.
She preferred her military history with more temporal displacement. A century
or two in the past, say. She imagined some cool future scholar looking through
a time-telescope at her, and gave him a mental rude gesture. Anyway, she now
realized, the military histories she'd read had left out the most important
part; they never told what happened to people's babies.
No-they were all babies, out there. Every mother's son in a black uniform. One
of Aral's reminiscences floated up in her memory, velvet voice rumbling, "It
was about that time that soldiers started looking like children to me...." She
pushed away from the vidconsole, and went to search the bathroom for
medication for pain.
On the third day she passed Lieutenant Koudelka in a corridor, stumping along
at a near run, his face flushed with excitement.
"What's up, Kou?"
"Illyan's here. And he's brought Kanzian with him!"
Cordelia followed him to a briefing room. Droushnakovi had to lengthen even
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her long stride to keep up. Aral, flanked by two staffers, sat with his hands
clasped on the table before him, listening with utmost attention. Commander
Illyan sat on the edge of the table, swinging one leg in rhythm to his voice.
A bandage on his left arm was stained with yellow seepage. He was pale and
dirty, but his eyes shone in triumph, gilded with a touch of fever. He wore
civilian gear that looked as if it had been stolen out of someone's laundry,
and then rolled downhill in.
An older man was sitting beside Illyan-a staffer handed the man a drink, which
Cordelia recognized as a potassium-salts-laced fruit-flavored pick-me-up for
the metabolically depleted. He tasted it dutifully, and made a face, looking
as if he would have preferred some more old-fashioned revivifier such as
brandy. Overweight and undertall, greying where he was not balding, Admiral
Kanzian was not a very martial-looking man. He looked grandfatherly-though
only if one's grandfather was a research professor. His face was held together
with an intensity of intellect that seemed to give the term "military science"
real clout.
Cordelia had met him in uniform; his air of quiet authority seemed unaffected
by civilian shirt and slacks that might have come from the same laundry basket
as Illyan's.
Illyan was saying, "-and then we spent the next night in the cellar.
Vordarian's squad came back the next morning, but-
Milady!"
His grin of greeting was blunted by a flash of guilt, as he glanced to and
away from her waist. She'd rather he kept piffling on, excited, about his
adventures, but her arrival seemed to deflate him, ghost of his most notable
failure at his banquet of victory.
"Wonderful to see you both, Simon, Admiral." They exchanged nods; Kanzian made
to rise, but was unanimously waved back to his seat, which made his lip twist
in bemusement. Aral signed her to sit next to him.
Illyan continued in a more clipped fashion. His past two weeks of
hide-and-seek with Vordarian's forces seemed to parallel
Cordelia's, though in the far more complex setting of the seized capital. But
Cordelia recognized the familiar terrors under his plain words. He brought his
tale swiftly up to the present moment. Kanzian nodded an occasional
confirmation.
"Well done, Simon," said Vorkosigan when Illyan concluded. He nodded toward
Kanzian. "Extremely well done."
Illyan smiled. "Thought you'd like it, sir."
Vorkosigan turned to Kanzian. "As soon as you feel able, I would like to brief
you in the tac room, sir."
"Thank you, my lord. I've been out of communications-except for Vordarian's
newscasts-since I escaped Headquarters.
Though there was much to be deduced from what we did see. By the way, I
commend your strategy of restraint. Good so far. But you're close to its
limits."
"So I've sensed, sir."
"What's Jolly Nolly doing at Jumppoint Station One?"
"Not answering his tightbeam. Last week his understaffers were offering an
amazing array of excuses, but their ingenuity finally dried up."
"Ha. I can just picture it. His colitis must be in wonderful form. I'll bet
not all of those 'indisposeds' were lies. I think I should begin with a
private chat with Admiral Knollys, just the two of us."
"I would appreciate that, sir."
"We will discuss the inevitabilities of time. And the defects of a potential
commander who bases an entire strategy on an assassination he then does not
succeed in carrying out." Kanzian frowned judgmentally. "Not well constructed,
to let your whole war turn on one event. Vordarian always did have a tendency
to pop off." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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