Miles Errant - Lois McMaster Bujold [250]
"I helped do the prep myself. Under combat conditions. I . . . I think it was good. You can't know until . . . well. He took a very bad chest wound. As far as I could tell he was untouched from the neck up."
Illyan breathed, carefully. "You're right, Captain Quinn. Not a disaster. Only a problem. I'll alert the Imperial Military Hospital at Vorbarr Sultana to expect their star patient. We can transfer the cryo-chamber from your ship to my fast courier immediately." Was the man babbling, just a little, with relief?
"Uh . . ." said Quinn. "No."
Illyan rested his forehead gingerly in his hand, as if a headache was starting just behind his eyes. "Finish, Quinn," he said in a tone of muffled dread.
"We lost the cryo-chamber."
"How could you lose a cryo-chamber?!"
"It was a portable." She intercepted his burning stare, and hurried up her report. "It was left downside in the scramble to get off. Each of the combat-drop shuttles thought the other one had it. It was a mis-communication—I checked, I swear. It turned out the medic in charge of the cryo-chamber had been cut off from his shuttle by enemy forces. He found himself with access to a commercial shipping facility. We think he shipped the cryo-chamber from there."
"You think? I will ask—what combat drop mission, in a moment. Where did he ship it?"
"That's just it, we don't know. He was killed before he could report. The cryo-chamber could be on its way literally anywhere by now."
Illyan sat back and rubbed his lips, which were set in a thin, ghastly smile. "I see. And all this happened when? And where?"
"Two weeks and three days ago, on Jackson's Whole."
"I sent you all to Illyrica, via Vega Station. How the hell did you end up on Jackson's Whole?"
Quinn stood at parade rest and took it from the top, a stiff, clipped synopsis of the events of the last four weeks from Escobar onward. "I have a complete report with all our vid records and Miles's personal log here, sir." She laid a data cube on his comconsole.
Illyan eyed it like a snake; his hand did not move toward it. "And the forty-nine clones?"
"Still aboard the Peregrine, sir. We'd like to off-load them."
My clones. What would Illyan do with them? Mark dared not ask.
"Miles's personal log tends to be a fairly useless document, in my experience," observed Illyan distantly. "He is quite canny about what to leave out." He grew introspective, and fell silent for a time. Then he rose and walked from side to side across the little office. The cool facade cracked without warning; face contorted, he turned and slammed his fist into the wall with bone-crunching force, shouting, "Damn the boy for making a fucking farce out of his own funeral!"
He stood with his back to them; when he turned again and sat down his face was stiff and blank. When he looked up, he addressed Bothari-Jesek.
"Elena. It's clear I'm going to have to stay here at Komarr, for the moment, to coordinate the search from ImpSec's galactic affairs HQ. I can't afford to put an extra five days of travel time between myself and the action. I will, of course . . . compose the formal missing-in-action report on Lieutenant Lord Vorkosigan and forward it immediately to Count and Countess Vorkosigan. I hate to think of it delivered by some subordinate, but it will have to be. But will you, as a personal favor to me, escort Lord Mark to Vorbarr Sultana, and deliver him to their custody?"
No, no, no, Mark screamed inside.
"I . . . would rather not go to Barrayar, sir."
"The Prime Minister will have questions that only one who was on the spot can answer. You are the most ideal courier I can imagine for a matter of such . . . complex delicacy. I grant you the task will be painful."
Bothari-Jesek was looking trapped. "Sir, I'm a senior shipmaster. I'm not free to leave the Peregrine. And—frankly—I do not care to escort Lord Mark."
"I'll give you anything you ask, in return."
She hesitated. "Anything?"
He nodded.
She glanced at Mark. "I gave my word that all the House