Cordelia's Honor - Lois McMaster Bujold [62]
"I'm quite sure I got them all. I'd stake my reputation on it."
"Right now you're staking your life on it, so you'd better be correct. Second, there are two armed guards in the corridor to keep everybody out. You could scarcely ask for more. I admit it's a bit crowded."
Illyan rolled his eyes in exasperation. "I've diddled the Security search to the limit I dare. I can't do any more without drawing more attention than I divert."
"Will it hold twenty-six more hours?"
"Maybe." Illyan frowned at his charge, baffled and bothered. "You have something planned, don't you, sir." It was not a question.
"I?" His fingers worked the keys of his console, and reflections of colored light from the readouts played over his impassive face. "I'm merely waiting in hope of some reasonable opportunity. When the Prince leaves for Escobar most of his own security people will go with him. Patience, Illyan."
He keyed his console again. "Vorkosigan to Tactics Room."
"Commander Venne here, sir."
"Oh, good. Venne, I'd like hourly updates piped down here from the time the Prince and Admiral Vorhalas leave. And let me know immediately, regardless of time, if you start getting anything unusual, anything not in the plans."
"Yes, sir. The Prince and Admiral Vorhalas are leaving now, sir."
"Very good. Carry on. Vorkosigan out."
He sat back and drummed his fingers on the desk. "Now we wait. It will be about twelve hours before the Prince reaches Escobar orbit. They'll be starting landings soon after that. An hour for signals to reach us from Escobar. An hour for signals to return. So much lag. A battle can be over in two hours. We could cut the lag by three-quarters if the Prince would let us move off station."
His casual tone barely masked his tension, in spite of his advice to Illyan. The room in which he sat scarcely seemed to exist for him. His mind moved with the armada wheeling in a tightening constellation around Escobar, fast glittering couriers, grim cruisers, sluggish troop carriers, bellies crammed with men. A light pen turned, forgotten, in his fingers, around and over, around and over.
"Hadn't you better eat, sir?" suggested Illyan.
"What? Oh, yes, I suppose. And you, Cordelia—you must be hungry. Go ahead, Illyan."
Illyan left to forage. Vorkosigan worked at his desk console for a few more minutes before shutting it down with a sigh. "I suppose I'd better think about sleep, too. Last time I slept was on board the General Vorhartung, closing on Escobar—a day and a half ago, I guess. About the time you were being captured."
"We were captured a bit before that. We were in tow for almost a day."
"Yes. Congratulations, by the way, on a very successful maneuver. That wasn't a real battle cruiser, I take it?"
"I really can't say."
"Somebody wants to claim it as a kill."
Cordelia suppressed a grin. "Fine by me." She braced herself for more questioning, but, strangely, he turned the subject.
"Poor Bothari. I wish the Emperor might give him a medal. I'm afraid the best I'll be able to do for him is get him properly hospitalized."
"If the Emperor disliked Vorrutyer so, why did he put him in charge?"
"Because he was Grishnov's man, and widely famous as such, and the Prince's favorite. Putting all the bad eggs in one basket, so to speak." He cut himself off with a fist-closing gesture.
"He made me feel like I'd met the ultimate in evil. I don't think anything will really scare me, after him."
"Ges Vorrutyer? He was just a little villain. An old-fashioned craftsman, making crimes one-off. The really unforgivable acts are committed by calm men in beautiful green silk rooms, who deal death wholesale, by the shipload, without lust, or anger, or desire, or any redeeming emotion to excuse them but cold fear of some pretended future. But the crimes they hope to prevent in that future are imaginary. The ones they commit in the present—they are real." His voice fell,