Young Miles - Lois McMaster Bujold [102]
Elena released her, and stood back. Once, at the summer place at Vorkosigan Surleau, Miles had witnessed a horse trapped in a shed burn to death, no one able to get near it for the heat. He had thought no sound could be more heart-piercing than its death screams. Elena's silence was. She was not crying now.
Miles drew himself up in dignity. "No, ma'am. Admiral Vorkosigan saw them all safely delivered to an orphanage, I believe. All but . . ."
Elena's lips formed the word, "lies," but there was no more conviction in her. Her eyes sucked at the Escobaran woman with a hunger that terrified Miles.
The door of the cabin slid open again. Arde Mayhew sauntered in, saying, "My lord, do you want these assignments—God almighty!" He nearly tripped, stopping short. "I'll get the medtech, hang on!" He dashed back out.
Elena Visconti approached Bothari's body with the caution one would use toward a freshly killed poisonous reptile. Her eyes locked with Miles's from opposite sides of the barrier. "Admiral Naismith, I apologize for inconveniencing you. But this was no murder. It was the just execution of a war criminal. It was just," she insisted, her voice edged with passion. "It was." Her voice fell away.
It was no murder, it was a suicide, Miles thought. He could have shot you where you stood at any time, he was that fast. "No . . ."
Her lips thinned in despair. "You call me a liar too? Or are you going to tell me I enjoyed it?"
"No . . ." He looked up at her across a vast gulf, one meter wide. "I don't mock you. But—until I was four, almost five years old, I couldn't walk, only crawl. I spent a lot of time looking at people's knees. But if there was ever a parade, or something to see, I had the best view of anybody because I watched it from on top the Sergeant's shoulder."
For answer, she spat on Bothari's body. A spasm of rage darkened Miles's vision. He was saved from a possibly disastrous action by the return of Mayhew and the medtech.
The medtech ran to him. "Admiral! Where are you hit?"
He stared at her stupidly a moment, then glanced down at himself, realizing the red reason for her concern. "Not me. It's the Sergeant." He brushed ineffectually at the cooling stickiness.
She knelt by Bothari. "What happened? Was it an accident?"
Miles glanced up at Elena where she stood, just stood, arms wrapped around herself as if she were cold. Only her eyes traveled, back and forth from the Sergeant's crumpled form to the harsh straightness of the Escobaran. Back and forth, finding no rest.
His mouth was stiff; he made it move by force of will. "An accident. He was cleaning the weapons. The needler was set on auto rapid-fire." Two true statements out of three.
The Escobaran woman's mouth curled in silent triumph and relief. She thinks I have endorsed her justice, Miles realized. Forgive me . . .
The medtech shook her head, running a hand scanner over Bothari's chest. "Whew. What a mess."
A sudden hope rocketed through Miles. "The cryo chambers—what's their status?"
"All filled, sir, after the counterattack."
"When you triage for them, how—how do you choose?"
"The least messed-up ones have the best hope of revival. They get first choice. Enemies last, unless Intelligence throws a fit."
"How would you rate this injury?"
"Worse than any I've got on ice now, except two."
"Who are the two?"
"A couple of Captain Tung's people. Do you want me to dump one?"
Miles paused, searching Elena's face. She was staring at Bothari's body as if he were some stranger, wearing her father's face, who had suddenly unmasked. Her dark eyes were like deep caverns; like graves, one for Bothari, one for himself.
"He hated the cold," he muttered at last. "Just—get a morgue pack."
"Yes, sir." She exited, unhurried.
Mayhew wandered up, to stare bemused and bewildered on the face of death. "I'm sorry, my lord. I was just beginning to like him, in a kind of weird way."
"Yes. Thank you. Go