Miles, Mystery & Mayhem - Lois McMaster Bujold [193]
But by then even the non-telepaths would bear the genes in their bodies, potential fathers of telepathic sons. The entire population would be permeated with the gene complex, too late, impossible to eradicate.
The question, Why Athos? was answered at last. Of course Athos. Only Athos.
The audacity, the perfection, the beauty—and the enormity—of Cee's plot took Ethan's breath away. It all fit, with the overpowering self-evidence of a mathematical proof. It even accounted for Cee's missing mountain of money.
"Now who cannot recognize truth?" mocked Millisor softly.
"Oh," said Ethan, in a very small voice.
"The most insidious thing about the little monster is his charm," Millisor went on, watching Ethan closely. "We built him that way on purpose, not knowing then that the limits of his talent would render him unsuitable as a field agent. Although from the trouble he subsequently gave us we may have been wrong on that point as well. But do not mistake charm for virtue, Doctor. He is dangerous, utterly devoid of loyalty to the humanity from which he sprang, but of which he is not a part—"
Ethan wondered if that should be understood as Humanity = Cetaganda.
"—a virus of a man, who would make the whole universe over in his twisted image. Surely you of all men understand that lethal contagions demand vigorous counter-measures. But ours is the controlled violence of surgery. You must not swallow the virus's propaganda. We are not the butchers he would have you believe us to be."
Millisor's hands turned in their restraints, opened in pleading. "Help us. You must help us."
Ethan stared at Millisor's bonds, shaken. "I'm sorry . . ." God the Father, was he actually apologizing to Millisor? "No, Colonel. I remember Okita. I can understand a man being a killer, I think. But a bored killer?"
"Okita is only a tool. The surgeon's knife."
"Then your service has turned a man into a thing." An old quote drifted through Ethan's memory: By their fruits you shall know them. . . .
Millisor's eyes narrowed; he did not pursue the argument, but rather, with a glance at Arata, inquired, "And just what did you do to Sergeant Okita, Dr. Urquhart?"
Ethan glanced at Arata too, sorry he'd brought up the subject. "I didn't do anything to him. Maybe he met with an accident. Or perhaps he deserted." Or considering Okita's ultimate fate, perhaps "desserted" might be the better term . . . Ethan squelched that line of thought. "In any case, I can't help you. Even if I wanted to betray Cee to you—if that's what you're asking me to do—I really don't know where he is."
"Or where he is headed?" said Millisor suggestively.
Ethan shook his head. "Anywhere, for all I know. Anywhere but Athos, that is."
"Alas, yes," murmured Millisor. "Before, Cee was tied to that shipment. If I had the one, I had a string to the other. Now that the shipment is destroyed, a very poor second choice to our recovering it, he is entirely unleashed. Anywhere," Millisor sighed. "Anywhere . . ."
The ghem-colonel, Ethan reminded himself firmly, was the one who was tied down. He had his feet under him; it was up to him to end this interview before the smooth spy plucked any more information from him.
Ethan paused in his strategic retreat out the door. "I will leave you with one last thought, though, Colonel. If you had made that pitch to me when we first met, instead of doing what you did, you might have convinced me, and had it all."
Millisor's hands clenched and jerked against their bonds at last.
* * *
And so Ethan returned to his own hostel room, rented his first day on Kline Station and never occupied since. He thanked his spotty luck that he had paid for it in advance, for his personal effects were all as he had left them. He bathed, shaved, trimmed, changed back in to his own clothes at last, and ate a light meal from the room service console.
He sighed over his coffee.