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Vorkosigan to complete the trip to the safety of the supply cache as quickly
as possible. The radial held captive in Vorkosigan's shirt had died and
deflated during the night, turning into a horrible gelid blob. Vorkosigan of
necessity took a few minutes to wash it out in the stream, but the stinks and
stains it left made him the unquestioned front-runner in the filth-collection
contest Cordelia felt they were having. They had a quick snack of their dull
but safe oatmeal and blue cheese dressing, and started on their way as the sun
rose, sending their long shadows racing ahead of them across the rusty,
flower-strewn levels.
Near their noon halt Vorkosigan took a break and disappeared behind a bush for
biological necessity. In a few moments a string of curses came floating around
it, followed shortly by the speaker himself, hopping from foot to foot
and shaking out the legs of his trousers. Cordelia gave him a look of innocent
inquiry.
"You know those light yellow cones of sand we've been seeing?" Vorkosigan
said, unbuckling his pants.
"Yes . . ."
"Don't stand on one to piss."
Cordelia failed to strangle a giggle. "What did you find? Or should I say,
what found you?"
Vorkosigan turned his trousers inside out and began picking the little round
white creatures running among their folds on cilia-like legs. Cordelia
appropriated one and held it on the palm of her hand for a closer look. It was
yet another model of the radials, an underground form.
"Ow!" She brushed it away hastily.
"Stings, doesn't it?" snarled Vorkosigan.
A burble of laughter welled up within her. But she was saved from a lapse of
control when she noticed a more sobering feature of his appearance.
"Hey, that scratch doesn't look too good, does it?"
The claw mark of the scavenger on his right leg that Vorkosigan had collected
the night they buried Rosemont was swollen and bluish, with ugly red streaks
radiating from it up as far as his knee.
"It's all right," he said firmly, beginning to put on his de-radialed pants.
"It doesn't look all right. Let me see."
"There's nothing you can do about it here," he protested, but submitted to a
brief examination. "Satisfied?" he inquired sarcastically, and finished
dressing.
"I wish your micro people had been a little more thorough when they concocted
that salve," Cordelia shrugged. "But you're right. Nothing to be done now."
They trudged on. Cordelia watched him more closely now. From time to time he
would begin to favor the leg, then notice her scrutiny and march forward with
a determinedly even stride. But by the end of the day he had abandoned
subterfuge and was frankly limping. In spite of it he led on into the sunset,
the afterglow of the sunset, and the gathering night, until the cratered
mountain toward which they had been angling was a black bulk on the horizon.
At last, stumbling in the dark, he gave up and called a halt. She was glad,
for Dubauer was flagging, leaning on her heavily and trying to lie down. They
slept where they stopped on the red sandy soil. Vorkosigan cracked a cold
light and took his usual watch, as Cordelia lay in the dirt and watched the
unreachable stars wheel overhead.
Vorkosigan had asked to be waked before dawn, but she let him sleep until full
light. She didn't like the way he looked, alternately pale and flushed, or his
shallow rapid breathing.
"Think you'd better take one of your painkillers?" she asked him when he rose,
for he seemed barely able to put weight on the leg, which was much more
swollen.
"Not yet. I have to save some for the end." He cut a long stick instead, and
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the three of them began the day's task of walking down their shadows.
"How far to the end?" Cordelia asked.
"I estimate a day, day and a half, depending on what kind of time we can
make." He grimaced. "Don't worry. You're not going to have to carry me. I'm
one of the fittest men in my command." He limped on. "Over forty."
"How many men over forty are there in your command?"
"Four."
Cordelia snorted.
"Anyway, if it becomes necessary, I have a stimulant in my medkit that would
animate a corpse. But I want to save it for the end too."
"What kind of trouble are you anticipating?"
"It all depends on who picks up my call. I know Radnov-my Political
Officer-has at least two agents in my communications section." He pursed his
lips, measuring her again. "You see, I don't think it was a general mutiny. I
think it was a spur-of-the-moment assassination attempt on the part of Radnov
and a very few others. Using you Betans, they thought they could get rid of me
without implicating themselves. If I'm right, everyone aboard ship thinks I'm
dead. All but one."
"Which one?"
"Wouldn't I like to know. The one who hit me on the head and hid me in the
bracken, instead of cutting my throat and dumping me in the nearest hole.
Lieutenant Radnov seems to have a ringer in his group. And yet- if this ringer
were loyal to me, all he'd have to do is tell Gottyan, my first officer, and
he'd have had a loyal patrol down to pick me up before now. Now who in my
command is so confused in his thinking as to betray both sides at once? Or am
I missing something?"
"Maybe they're all still chasing my ship," suggested Cordelia.
"Where is your ship?"
Honesty should be safely academic by now, Cordelia calculated. "Well on its
way back to Beta Colony."
"Unless they've been captured."
"No. They were out of your range when I talked to them. They may not be armed,
but they can run rings around your battle cruiser."
"Hm. Well, it's possible."
He doesn't sound surprised, Cordelia noted. I'd bet his secret reports on our
stuff would give our counter-intelligence people colonic spasms. "How far will
they pursue?"
"That's up to Gottyan. If he judges he can't possibly catch them, he'll return
to the picket station. If he thinks he can, he's bound to make maximum
effort."
"Why?"
He glanced sidelong at her. "I can't discuss that."
"I don't see why not. I'm not going anywhere but a Barrayaran prison cell, for
a while. Funny how one's standards change. After this trek, it will seem like
the lap of luxury."
"I'll try to see it doesn't come to that," he smiled.
His eyes bothered her, and his smile. His curtness she could meet and match
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