Lois McMaster Bujold 03 Barrayar

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At that point the D.O. abruptly became a lot more efficient. A high-speed air
shuttle with a hot pilot was scrambled to pick them up.
Approaching Tanery Base at dawn from the air, Cordelia felt the most
unpleasant flash of deja vu. It was so like her first arrival from the
mountains, she had the sense of being caught in a time loop. Perhaps she'd
died and gone to hell, and her eternal torment would be to repeat the last
three weeks' events over and over, endlessly. She shivered.
Droushnakovi watched her with concern. The exhausted Bothari dozed, in the air
shuttle's passenger cabin. Illyan's two
ImpSec men, identical twins for all Cordelia could tell to Vordarian's ones
they'd murdered back at the Residence, maintained a nervous silence. Cordelia
held the uterine replicator possessively on her lap. The plastic bag sat
between her feet. She was irrationally unable to let either item out of her
sight, though it was clear Drou would much rather the bag had ridden in the
luggage compartment.
The air shuttle touched neatly down on its landing pad, and its engines whined
to silence.
"I want Captain Vaagen, and I want him now," Cordelia repeated for the fifth
time as Illyan's men led them underground into the Security debriefing area.
"Yes, Milady. He's on his way," the ImpSec man assured her again. She glowered
suspiciously at him.
Cautiously, the ImpSec men relieved them of their personal arsenal. Cordelia
didn't blame them; she wouldn't have trusted her wild-looking crew with
charged weapons either. Thanks to Ezar's cache the women were not ill dressed,
though there had been nothing in Bothari's size, so he'd retained his smoked
and stinking black fatigues. Fortunately the. dried blood spatters didn't show
much. But all their faces were hollow-eyed, grooved and shadowed. Cordelia
shivered, and Bothari's hands and eyelids twitched, and Droushnakovi had a
distressing tendency to start crying, silently, at random moments, stopping as
suddenly as she started.
At long last-only minutes, Cordelia told herself firmly-Captain Vaagen
appeared, a tech at his side. He wore undress greens, and his steps were
quick, up to Vaagen-speed again. The only residue of his injuries seemed to be
a black patch over his eye; on him, it looked good, giving him a fine
piratical air. Cordelia trusted the patch was only a temporary part of ongoing
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treatment.
"Milady!" He managed a smile, the first to shift those facial muscles in a
while, Cordelia sensed. His one eye gleamed triumph. "You got it!"
"I hope so, Captain." She held up the replicator, which she had refused to let
the ImpSec men touch. "I hope we're in time.
There aren't any red lights yet, but there was a warning beeper. I shut it
off, it was driving me crazy."
He looked the device over, checking key readouts. "Good. Good. Nutrient
reservoir is very low, but not quite depleted yet.
Filters still functioning, uric acid level high but not over tolerance-I think
it's all right, Milady. Alive, that is. What this interruption has done to my
calcification treatments will take more time to determine. We'll be in the
infirmary. I should be able to begin servicing it within the hour."
"Do you have everything you need there? Supplies?"
His white teeth flashed. "Lord Vorkosigan had me begin setting up a lab the
day after you left. Just in case, he said."
And, I love you. "Thank you. Go, go." She surrendered the replicator into
Vaagen's hands, and he hurried out with it.
She sat back down like a marionette with the strings cut. Now she could allow
herself to feel the full weight of her exhaustion.
But she could not stop quite yet. She had one very important debriefing yet to
accomplish. And not to these hovering ImpSec twits, who pestered her-she
closed her eyes and pointedly ignored them, letting Drou stammer out answers
to their foolish questions.
Desire warred with dread. She wanted Aral. She had defied Aral, most openly.
Had it touched his honor, scorched his-
admittedly, unusually flexible-Barrayaran male ego beyond tolerance? Would she
be frozen out of his trust forever? No, that suspicion was surely unjust. But
his public credibility among his peers, part of the delicate psychology of
power-had she damaged it? Would some damnable unforseen political consequence
rebound out of all this, back on their heads? Did she care? Yes, she decided
sadly. It was hell to be so tired, and still care.
"Kou!"
Drou's cry snapped Cordelias eyes open. Koudelka was limping into the main
portal Security debriefing office. Good Lord, the man was back in uniform,
shaved and sharp. Only the grey rings under his eyes were non-regulation.
Kou and Drou's reunion, Cordelia was delighted to note, was not in the least
military. The staff soldier was instantly plastered all over with tall and
grubby blonde, exchanging muffled unregulation greetings like darling, love,
thank God, safe, sweet... . The
ImpSec men turned away uncomfortably from the blast of naked emotion radiating
from their faces. Cordelia basked in it. A far more sensible way to greet a
friend than all that moronic saluting.
They parted only to see each other better, still holding hands. "You made it,"
chortled Droushnakovi. "How long have you-is
Lady Vorpatril-?"
"We only made it in about two hours ahead of you," Kou said breathlessly,
reoxygenating after a heroic kiss. "Lady Vorpatril and the young lord are
bedded down in the infirmary. The doctor says she's suffering mainly from
stress and exhaustion. She was incredible. We had a couple of bad moments,
getting past Vordarian's Security, but she never cracked. And you-you did it!
I
passed Vaagen in the corridor, with the replicator-you rescued m'lord's son!"
Droushnakovi's shoulders sagged. "But we lost Princess Kareen."
"Oh." He touched her lips. "Don't tell me-Lord Vorkosigan instructed me to
bring you all to him the instant you arrived.
Debrief to him before anyone. I'll take you to him now." He waved away the
ImpSec men like flies, something Cordelia had been longing to do.
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Bothari had to help her rise. She gathered up the yellow plastic bag. She
noted ironically that it bore the name and logo of one of the capital's most
exclusive women's clothiers. Kareen encompasses you at last, you bastard.
"What's that?" asked Kou.
"Yes, Lieutenant," the urgent ImpSec man put in, "please-she's refused to let
us examine it in any way. By regulations, we shouldn't let her carry it into
the base."
Cordelia pulled open the top of the bag and held it out for Kou's inspection.
He peered within.
"Shit." The ImpSec men surged forward as Koudelka jumped back. He waved them
down. "I... I see," he swallowed. "Yes, Admiral Vorkosigan will certainly want
to see that."
"Lieutenant, what should I put on my inventory?" the ImpSec man-whined,
Cordelia decided, was what he was doing. "I have to register it, if it's going
in."
"Let him cover his ass, Kou," Cordelia sighed.
Kou peeked again, his lips twisting into a very crooked grin. "It's all right. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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