Cordelia's Honor - Lois McMaster Bujold [215]
Cordelia's heart pounded. She leaned into the holovid as if she might climb through it. "Did he bring anything with him?" she demanded breathlessly. "Like a canister, about half a meter high—lots of blinking lights, and big red letters on top that say This End Up? Looks mysterious as hell, guaranteed to send any security guard into fits—his name, Major!"
"He brought nothing but the clothes he's standing in. He's not in good shape. His name is Vaagen, Captain Vaagen."
"I'll be right there."
"No, Milady! The man is practically raving. Could be dangerous, I can't let you—"
She left him talking to an empty room. Droushnakovi had to break into a run to catch up with her. Cordelia made it to the main portal Security offices in less than seven minutes, and paused in the corridor to catch her breath. To catch her soul, that wanted to fly out her mouth. Calm. Calm. Raving apparently cut no ice with Sircoj.
She lifted her chin and entered the office. "Tell Major Sircoj that Lady Vorkosigan is here to see him," she told the clerk, who raised impressed brows and obediently bent to his comconsole.
Sircoj appeared in a few endless minutes—through that door, Cordelia mentally marked his route. "I must see Captain Vaagen."
"Milady, he could be dangerous," Sircoj began exactly where she'd cut him off before. "He could be programmed in some unexpected way."
Cordelia considered unexpectedly grabbing Sircoj by the throat and attempting to squeeze reason into him. Impractical. She took a deep breath. "What will you let me do? Can I at least see him on vid?"
Sircoj looked thoughtful. "That might be all right. A cross-check on our identification, and we can record. Very well."
He took her into another room, and keyed up a monitor viewer. Her breath blew out with a small moan.
Vaagen was alone in a holding room, pacing from wall to wall. He wore green uniform trousers and a brown-stained white shirt. He was terribly changed from the trim and energetic scientist she'd last seen in his lab at ImpMil. Both his eyes were ringed with red-purple blotches, one lid swollen nearly shut; the slit glowed a frightening blood-scarlet. He moved bent-over. Bathless, sleepless, swollen lips . . .
"You get a medtech for that man!" Cordelia realized she'd yelled when Sircoj jumped.
"He's been triaged. His condition is not life-threatening. We can start treating him just as soon as he's security-cleared," said Sircoj doggedly.
"Then you put him on-line with me," Cordelia said through set teeth. "Drou, go back to the office, call Aral. Tell him what's going on."
Sircoj looked worried at this, but stuck valiantly to his procedures. More endless seconds, while someone went back to the prison-area and took Vaagen to a comconsole.
His face came up over the plate at last; Cordelia could see her own face reflected in the passionate intensity in his. Connected at last.
"Vaagen! What happened?"
"Milady!" His hands clenched, trembling, as he leaned on them toward the vid pickup. "The idiots, the morons, the ignorant, stupid—" he sputtered into helpless obscenities, then caught his breath and began again, quickly, concisely, as if her image might be snatched away again at any moment.
"We thought we might be all right at first, after the first two days' fighting trailed off. We hid the replicator at ImpMil, but nobody came. We lay low, and took turns sleeping in the lab. Then Henri managed to smuggle his wife out of town, and we both stayed. We tried to continue the treatments in secret. Thought we might wait it out, wait till rescue. Things had to break, one way or another. . . .
"We'd almost stopped expecting them, but they came. Last—yesterday."