Cordelia's Honor - Lois McMaster Bujold [186]
Kou and Drou materialized from their separate holes in the house, to goggle along with the rest of the guards. Gregor spotted Droushnakovi, and flew to her like an arrow, to wind his hands tightly in her skirt. "Droushie, help!" His crying dared to become audible, then. She wrapped her arms around him and lifted him up.
Aral knelt by the injured ImpSec chief. "Negri, what happened?"
Negri reached up and grabbed his jacket with his working right hand. "He's trying for a coup—in the capital. His troops took ImpSec, took the comm center—why didn't you respond? HQ surrounded, infiltrated—bad fighting now at the Imperial Residence. We were on to him—about to arrest—he panicked. Struck too soon. I think he has Kareen—"
Piotr demanded, "Who has, Negri, who?"
"Vordarian."
Aral nodded grimly. "Yes . . ."
"You—take the boy," gasped Negri. "He's almost on top of us . . ." His shivers oscillated into convulsions, his eyes rolling back whitely. His breath stuttered in resonant chokes. His brown eyes refocused in sudden intensity. "Tell Ezar—" The convulsions took him again, racking his thick body. Then they stopped. All stop. He was no longer breathing.
Chapter Eleven
"Sir," said Koudelka urgently to Vorkosigan, "the secured comconsole was sabotaged." The ImpSec guard commander at his elbow nodded confirmation. "I was just coming to tell you. . . ." Koudelka glanced fearfully at Negri's body, laid out on the grass. Two ImpSec men now knelt beside it frantically applying first aid: heart massage, oxygen, and hypospray injections. But the body remained flaccid under their pummeling, the face waxy and inert. Cordelia had seen death before, and recognized the symptoms. No good, fellows, you won't call this one back. Not this time. He's gone to deliver that last message to Ezar in person. Negri's last report . . .
"What time-frame on the sabotage?" demanded Vorkosigan. "Delayed or immediate?"
"It looked like immediate," reported the guard commander. "No sign of a timer or device. Somebody just broke open the back and smashed it up inside."
Everyone's eyes went to the ImpSec man who had been assigned the guard post outside the comconsole room. He stood, dressed like most of the others in black fatigues, disarmed between two of his fellows. They had followed their commander out when the uproar began on the front lawn. The prisoner's face was about the same lead-grey color as Negri's, but animated by flickering fear.
"And?" Vorkosigan said to the guard commander.
"He denies doing it," shrugged the commander. "Naturally."
Vorkosigan looked at the arrestee. "Who went in after me?"
The guard stared around wildly. He pointed abruptly at Droushnakovi, still holding the whimpering Gregor. "Her."
"I never!" said Drou indignantly. Her clutch tightened.
Vorkosigan's teeth closed. "Well, I don't need fast-penta to know that one of you is lying. No time now. Commander, arrest them both. We'll sort it out later." Vorkosigan's eyes anxiously scanned the northern horizon. "You," he pointed to another ImpSec man, "assemble every piece of transport you can find. We evacuate immediately. You," this to one of Piotr's armsmen, "go warn them in the village. Kou, grab the files, take a plasma arc and finish melting down that comconsole, and get back to me."
Koudelka, with one anguished look back over his shoulder at Droushanakovi, stumped off toward the house. Drou stood stiffly, stunned and angry and frightened, the cold wind fluttering her skirts. Her brows drew down at Vorkosigan. She scarcely noticed Koudelka's