Cordelia's Honor - Lois McMaster Bujold [19]
He stared at her. "That's exactly—I was about to say, he fired a sonic grenade into her stomach. I couldn't hear anything after that for quite some time. As if all sound had gone off the scale of human reception. Total noise, emptier of meaning than silence."
"Yes . . ." How strange, that he should know exactly what I felt—he says it better, though. . . .
"I suppose my determination to be a soldier stems from that date. I mean the real thing, not the parades and the uniforms and the glamour, but the logistics, the offensive advantage, the speed and surprise—the power. A better-prepared, stronger, tougher, faster, meaner son-of-a-bitch than any who came through that door. My first combat experience. Not very successful."
He was shivering, now. But then, so was she. They walked on, and she sought to turn the subject.
"I've never been in combat. What's it like?"
He paused thoughtfully. Measuring me again, thought Cordelia. And sweating; fever must be topping out, for the moment, thank heavens.
"At a distance, in space, there's the illusion of a clean and glorious fight. Almost abstract. It might be a simulation, or a game. Reality doesn't break in unless your ship is hit." He gazed at the ground in front of him, as if choosing his path, but the ground was very level there. "Murder—murder is different. That day at Komarr, when I killed my Political Officer—I was angrier that day than the day I—than another time. But close up, feeling the life pass out under your hands, seeing that blank unoccupied corpse, you see your own death in the face of your victim. Yet he had betrayed my honor."
"I'm not sure I quite understand that."
"Yes. Anger seems to make you stronger, not weaker like me. I wish I understood how you do that."
It was another one of his weird unmanageable compliments. She fell silent, looking at her feet, the mountain ahead, the sky, anywhere but his unreadable face. So she was the first to notice the contrail glowing in the westering sun.
"Hey, does that look like a shuttle up there to you?"
"Indeed it does. Let's watch from the shade of that big bush," directed Vorkosigan.
"Don't you want to try and attract their attention?"
"No." He turned his hand palm up in response to her look of inquiry. "My best friends and my deadliest enemies all wear the same uniform. I prefer to make my presence known as selectively as possible."
They could hear the distant roar of the shuttle's engines now as it vanished behind the grey-green wooded mountain to the west.
"They seem to be headed for the cache," commented Vorkosigan. "That complicates things." He compressed his lips. "What are they doing back there, I wonder? Could Gottyan have found the sealed orders?"
"Surely he'd inherit all your orders."
"Yes, but I didn't have my files in the standard location, not wishing to share all my affairs with the Council of Ministers. I don't think Korabik Gottyan could find what eludes Radnov. Radnov's a clever spy."
"Is Radnov a tall, broad-shouldered man with a face like an axeblade?"
"No, that sounds like Sergeant Bothari. Where did you see him?"
"He was the man who shot Dubauer, in the woods by the ravine."
"Oh, really?" Vorkosigan's eyes lit, and he smiled wolfishly. "Much becomes clear."
"Not to me," Cordelia prodded.
"Sergeant Bothari is a very strange man. I had to discipline him rather severely last month."
"Severely enough to make him a candidate for Radnov's conspiracy?"
"I'll wager Radnov thought so. I'm not sure I can make you understand about Bothari. Nobody else seems to. He's a superb ground combat soldier. He also hates my guts, as you Betans would phrase it. He enjoys hating my guts. It seems to be necessary for his ego, somehow."
"Would he shoot you in the back?"
"Never. Strike me in the face, yes. In fact, it was for decking me that he was disciplined last time." Vorkosigan rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. "But arming him to the teeth and leading him into battle at my back is perfectly safe."
"He sounds like an absolute looney."