Miles in Love - Lois McMaster Bujold [150]
Ekaterin drew her map cube from her pocket. Madame Radovas sat up in alarm, aiming the stunner, saw what it was, and settled back uneasily, but did not move to take the map from her. Ekaterin checked the location of the Southport Transport docks and locks; the company had leased three loading bays in a line, and Ekaterin was not sure just which she was now in. The three-dimensional vid projection did not supply any exterior orientation, but she rather thought they were on the same side of the station as the wormhole, which might well put this lock in line-of-sight to it. I don't think there's very much time left at all.
In addition to the ramp by which she'd entered and the door to the lavatory, there appeared to be two other airsealed exits from the bay. One was clearly a personnel lock to the exterior, next to the freight lock. Another went back into a section which might be offices, if this was indeed the center bay of the three. Ekaterin mentally traced a route through it to the nearest public corridor. Several Komarrans had come and gone through that door; perhaps they were all camping back there. In any case, it seemed more heavily populated than the door she'd come in. But closer. The control booth was a dead end.
Ekaterin eyed her fellow-widow. Strange to think that their different domestic paths had brought them both to the same place in the end. Madame Radovas looked tired and worn. This has been a nightmare for everyone.
"How do you imagine you're going to get away, after this?" Ekaterin asked her curiously. Will you take us along? Surely the Komarrans would have to.
Madame Radovas's lips thinned. "We hadn't planned to. Till you two came along. I'm almost sorry. It was simpler before. Collapse the wormhole and die. Now it's all possibilities and distractions and worries again."
"Worries? Worse than expecting to die?"
"I left three children back on Komarr. If I were dead, ImpSec would have no reason to . . . bother them."
Hostages all round, indeed.
"Besides," said Madame Radovas, "I voted for it. I could do no less than my husband did."
"You took a vote? On what? And how do you divide up Komarran-style voting shares in a revolt? You had to have taken everyone along—if anyone who knew anything had been left to be questioned under fast-penta, it would have been all up."
"Soudha, Foscol, Cappell, and my husband were considered the primary shareholders. They decided I had inherited my husband's voting stock. The choices were simple enough—surrender, flee, or fight to the last. The count was three to one for this."
"Oh? Who voted against it?"
She hesitated. "Soudha."
"How odd," said Ekaterin, startled. "He's your chief engineer now—doesn't that worry you?"
"Soudha," said Madame Radovas tartly, "has no children. He wanted to wait and try again later, as though there would be a later. If we do not strike now, ImpSec will shortly hold all our relatives hostage. But if we close the wormhole and die, there will be no one left for ImpSec to threaten with their harm. My children will be safer, even if I never see them again." Her eyes were bleak and sincere.
"What about all the Barrayarans on Komarr and Sergyar who will never see their families again? Cut off, not ever knowing their fate . . ." Mine, for instance. "They'll be the same as dead, to each other. It will be the Time of Isolation all over again." She shivered in horror at the cascading images of shock and grief.
"So be glad you're on the good