Cordelia's Honor - Lois McMaster Bujold [88]
She loosened the chain slightly. Mehta, eyes stunned with fear, choked, "None!"
"All Cretans are liars," Cordelia muttered. "Bill's not inept either." She dragged the doctor over to the aquarium and pushed her face into the water. She struggled wildly, but Cordelia, larger, stronger, in better training, held her under with a furious strength that astonished herself.
Mehta showed signs of passing out. Cordelia pulled her up and allowed her a couple of breaths.
"Care to revise your estimate yet?" God help me, what if this doesn't work? They'll never believe I'm not an agent now.
"Oh, please," Mehta gasped.
"All right, back you go." She held her down again.
The water roiled, splashing over the sides of the aquarium. Cordelia could see Mehta's face through the glass, strangely magnified, deathly yellow in the odd reflected light from the gravel. Silver bubbles broke around her mouth and flowed up over her face. Cordelia was temporarily fascinated by them. Air flows like water, underwater, she thought; is there an aesthetic of death?
"Now. How many? Where?"
"No, really!"
"Have another drink."
At her next breath Mehta gasped, "You wouldn't kill me!"
"Diagnosis, Doctor," hissed Cordelia. "Am I a sane woman, pretending to be mad, or a madwoman, pretending to be sane? Grow gills!" Her voice rose uncontrollably. She shoved Mehta back under, and found she was holding her own breath. And what if she's right and I'm wrong? What if I am an agent, and don't know it? How do you tell a copy from the original? Stone smashes scissors. . . .
She had a vision, trembling to her fingers, of holding the woman's head under, and under, until her resistance drained away, until unconsciousness took her, and a full count beyond that to assure brain death. Power, opportunity, will—she lacked nothing. So this is what Aral felt at Komarr, she thought. Now I understand—no. Now I know.
"How many? Where?"
"Four," Mehta croaked. Cordelia melted with relief. "Two outside the foyer. Two in the garage."
"Thank you," said Cordelia, automatically courteous; but her throat was tightened to a slit and squeezed her words to a smear of sound. "I'm sorry. . . ." She could not tell if Mehta, livid, heard or understood. Paper wraps stone. . . .
She bound and gagged her as she had once seen Vorkosigan do Gottyan. She shoved her down behind the bed, out of sight from the door. She stuffed bank cards, IDs, money, into her pockets. She turned on the shower.
She tiptoed out the bedroom door, breathing raggedly through her mouth. She ached for a minute, just one minute, to collect her shattered balance, but Tailor and the medtech were gone—to the kitchen for coffee, probably. She dared not risk the opening even to pause for boots.
No, God—! Tailor was standing in the archway to the kitchen, just raising a cup of coffee to his lips. She froze, he went still, and they stared at each other.
Her eyes, Cordelia realized, must be huge as some nocturnal animal's. She never could control her eyes.
Tailor's mouth twisted oddly, watching her. Then, slowly, he raised his left hand and saluted her. The incorrect hand, but the other was holding the coffee. He took a sip of his drink, gaze steady over the rim of his cup.
Cordelia came gravely to attention, returned the salute, and slipped quietly out the apartment door.
* * *
To her temporary terror, she found a journalist and his vidman in the hallway, one of the most persistent and obnoxious, the one she'd had thrown out of the building yesterday. She smiled at him, dizzy with exhilaration, like a sky diver just stepping into air.
"Still want to do that interview?"
He jumped at the bait.
"Slow down, now. Not here. I'm being watched, you know." She dropped her voice conspiratorially. "The government's doing a cover-up. What I know could