Cordelia's Honor - Lois McMaster Bujold [171]
"How do you do, Dr. Vaagen? How would you like to write the paper of a lifetime?"
The Residence man barked a laugh. "She's got your number, Vaagen."
He smiled back, astonished to be so instantly understood. "You realize, I can't guarantee any results. . . ."
"Results!" interrupted her man. "My God, you'd better let her know what your idea of results is. Or show her the pictures—no, don't do that. Milady," he turned to her, "the treatment he's discussing was last tried twenty years ago. It did irreparable damage to the mothers. And the results—the very best results you could hope for would be a twisted cripple. Perhaps much worse. Indescribably worse."
"Jellyfish describes it pretty well," said Vaagen.
"You're inhuman, Vaagen!" snapped her man, with a glance her way to check the distress quotient.
"A viable jellyfish, Dr. Vaagen?" asked Cordelia, intent.
"Mm. Maybe," he replied, inhibited by his colleagues' angry glares. "But there is the difficulty of what happens to the mothers when the treatment is applied in vivo."
"So, can't you do it in vitro?" Cordelia asked the obvious question.
Vaagen shot a glance of triumph at her man. "It would certainly open up a number of possible lines of experiment, if it could be arranged," he murmured to the ceiling.
"In vitro?" said the Residence man, puzzled. "How?"
"What, how?" said Cordelia. "You've got seventeen Escobaran-manufactured uterine replicators stored in a closet around here somewhere, carried home from the war." She turned excitedly to Vaagen. "Do you happen to know a Dr. Henri?"
Vaagen nodded. "We've worked together."
"Then you know all about them!"
"Well—not exactly all. But, ah—in fact, he informs me that they are available. But you understand, I'm not an obstetrician."
"You certainly aren't," said her man. "Milady, this man isn't even a physician. He's only a biochemist."
"But you're an obstetrician," she pointed out. "So we have the whole team, then. Dr. Henri, and, um, Captain Vaagen here for Piotr Miles, and you, for the transfer."
His lips were compressed, and his eyes held a very strange expression. It took her a moment to identify it as fear. "I can't do the transfer, Milady," he said. "I don't know how. Nobody on Barrayar has ever done one."
"You don't advise it, then?"
"Definitely not. The possibility of permanent damage—you can, after all, begin again in a few months, if the soft-tissue scarring doesn't extend to testicular—ahem. You can begin again. I am your doctor, and that is my considered opinion."
"Yes, if somebody else doesn't knock Aral off in the meantime. I must remember this is Barrayar, where they are so in love with death they bury men who are still twitching. Are you willing to try the operation?"
He drew himself up in dignity. "No, Milady. And that's final."
"Very well." She pointed a finger at her doctor, "You're out," and shifted it to Vaagen, "you're in. You are now in charge of this case. I rely on you to find me a surgeon—or a medical student, or a horse doctor, or somebody who's willing to try. And then you can experiment to your heart's content."
Vaagen looked mildly triumphant; her former man looked furious. "We had better see what my Lord Regent has to say, before you carry his wife off on this wave of criminally false optimism."
Vaagen looked a little less triumphant.
"You thinking of charging over there right now?" asked Cordelia.
"I'm sorry, Milady," said the Residence man, "but I think we'd do best to quash this thing right now. You don't know Captain Vaagen's reputation. Sorry to be so blunt, Vaagen, but you're an empire builder, and this time you've gone too far."
"Are you ambitious for a research wing, Captain Vaagen?"