Cordelia's Honor - Lois McMaster Bujold [257]
Vaagen shrugged helplessly. "All he would absorb."
The pediatrician and his colleague laid Miles out under a warming light, and began their examination, Cordelia and Aral on either side.
"This bend will straighten out on its own, Milady," the pediatrician pointed. "But the lower spine should have surgical correction as early as possible. You were right, Vaagen, the treatment to optimize skull development also fused the hip sockets. That's why the legs are locked in that strange position, m'lord. He'll require surgery to crack those bones loose and turn them around before he can start to crawl or walk. I don't recommend that in the first year, on top of the spinal work, let him gain strength and weight first—"
The surgeon, testing the infant's arms, swore suddenly and snatched up his diagnostic viewer. Miles mewed. Aral's hand clenched, by his trouser seam. Cordelia's stomach sank. "Hell!" said the surgeon. "His humerus just snapped. You're right, Vaagen, the bones are abnormally brittle."
"At least he has bones," sighed Vaagen. "He almost didn't, at one point."
"Be careful," said the surgeon, "especially of the head and spine. If the rest are as bad as the long bones, we're going to have to come up with some kind of reinforcement. . . ."
Piotr stamped toward the door. Aral glanced up, his lips thinning to a frown, and excused himself to follow. Cordelia was torn, but once observation assured her that the bone-setting was under way and the doctors' new caution would protect Miles from further damage today, she left their ingenious heads bent over him and followed Aral.
In the corridor, Piotr was stalking up and down. Aral stood at parade rest, unmoved and unmoving. Bothari was a silent witness in the background.
Piotr turned and saw her. "You! You've strung me along. This is what you call 'great repairs'? Gah!"
"They are great repairs. Miles is unquestionably much better than he was. Nobody promised perfection."
"You lied. Vaagen lied."
"We did not," denied Cordelia. "I tried to give you accurate summaries of Vaagen's experiments all the way along. What he's delivered is about what his reports led us to expect. Check your ears."
"I see what you're trying, and it won't work. I've just told him," he pointed at Aral, "this is where I stop. I don't want to see that mutant again. Ever. While it lives, if it lives, and it looks pretty damned sickly to me, don't bring it around my door. As God is my judge, woman, you won't make a fool of me."
"That would be redundant," snapped Cordelia.
Piotr's lips curled in a silent snarl. Cheated of a cooperative target, he turned on Aral. "And you, you spineless, skirt-smothered—if your elder brother had lived—" Piotr's mouth clamped shut abruptly, too late.
Aral's face drained to a grey hue Cordelia had seen but twice before; both times he'd been a breath and a chance away from committing murder. Piotr had joked about Aral's famous rages. Only now did Cordelia realize Piotr, though he may have witnessed his son in irritation, had never seen the real thing. Piotr seemed to realize it, too, dimly. His brows lowered; he stared, off-balanced.
Aral's hands locked to each other, behind his back. Cordelia could see them shake, white-knuckled. His chin lifted, and he spoke in a whisper.
"If my brother had lived, he would have been perfect. You thought so; I thought so; Emperor Yuri thought so, too. So ever after you've had to make do with the leftovers from that bloody banquet, the son Mad Yuri's death squad overlooked. We Vorkosigans, we can make do." His voice fell still further. "But my firstborn will live. I will not fail him."
The icy statement was a near-lethal cut across the belly, as fine a slash as Bothari could have delivered with Koudelka's swordstick, and very accurately placed. Truly, Piotr should not have lowered the tone of this discussion. The breath huffed from him in disbelief and pain.
Aral's expression grew inward. "I will not fail him again," he corrected himself lowly. "A second chance you were never given, sir." Behind his back his hands unclenched.