Shards of Honor (Vorkosigan Saga) (25 page)

The captain gave her a peculiar look. "Uh, yeah."

The shuttle arrived eventually. Cordelia shook hands all around, thanking the courier crew for the ride, and went aboard. The shuttle stewardess greeted her with a pile of new clothes.

"What's all this? By heavens, the Expeditionary Force uniforms at last! Better late than never, I guess."

"Why don't you go ahead and put them on," urged the stewardess, smiling extraordinarily.

"Why not." She had been wearing the same borrowed Escobaran uniform for quite some time now, and was thoroughly tired of it. She took the sky blue cloth and the shiny black boots, amused. "Why jackboots, in God's name? There's scarcely a horse on Beta Colony, except in the zoos. I admit, they do look wicked."

Finding she was the sole passenger on the shuttle, she changed on the spot. The stewardess had to help her with the boots.

"Whoever designed these should be forced to wear them to bed," Cordelia muttered. "Or perhaps he does."

The shuttle descended, and she went to the window, eager for the first look at her hometown. The ochre haze parted at last, and they spiraled neatly down to the shuttleport and taxied to the docking bay.

"Seems to be a lot of people out there today."

"Yes, the president's going to make a speech," said the stewardess. "It's very exciting. Even if I didn't vote for him."

"Steady Freddy got that many people to show up for one of his speeches? Just as well. I can blend with the crowd. This thing is a bit bright. I think I'd rather be invisible, today."

She could feel the letdown beginning, and wondered how far down it would end. The Escobaran doctor had been right in her principles, if not in her facts; there was an emotional debt yet to be paid, knotted somewhere under her stomach.

The shuttle's engines whined to silence, and she rose to thank the grinning stewardess, uneasy. "There's not going to be a r-reception committee out there for me, is there? I really don't think I could handle it today."

"You'll have some help," the stewardess assured her. "Here he comes now."

A man in a civilian sarong entered the shuttle, smiling broadly. "How do you do, Captain Naismith," he introduced himself. "I'm Philip Gould, the president's press secretary." Cordelia was shocked. Press Secretary was a cabinet-level post. "It's an honor to meet you."

She was tumbling fast. "You're not p-planning some kind of, of d-dog and pony show out there, are you? I r-really just want to go home."

"Well, the president is planning a speech. And he has a little something for you," he said soothingly. "In fact, he was hoping he might make several speeches with you, but we can discuss that later. Now, we hardly expect the Heroine of Escobar to suffer from stage fright, but we have prepared some remarks for you. I'll be with you all the time, and help you with the cues, and the press." He passed her a hand viewer. "Do try and look surprised, when you first step out of the shuttle."

"I am surprised." She scanned the script rapidly. "Th-this is a p-pack of lies!"

He looked worried. "Have you always had that little speech impediment?" he asked cautiously.

"N-no, it's my souvenir from the Escobaran psych service, and the l-late war. Who came up with this g-garbage, anyway?" The line that particularly caught her eye referred to "the cowardly Admiral Vorkosigan and his pack of ruffians." "Vorkosigan's the bravest man I ever met."

Gould took her firmly by the upper arm, and guided her to the shuttle hatch. "We have to go, now, to make the holovid timing. Maybe you can just leave that line out, all right? Now, smile."

"I want to see my mother."

"She's with the president. Here we go."

They exited the tube from the shuttle hatch into a milling mob of men, women, and equipment. They all began shouting questions at once. Cordelia began to shake, all over, in waves that began in the pit of her stomach and radiated outward. "I don't know any of these people," she hissed to Gould.

"Keep walking," he hissed back through a fixed smile. They mounted a reviewing stand set up on the balcony overlooking the shuttleport concourse. The concourse was packed solidly with a colorful crowd in a holiday mood. They blurred before Cordelia's eyes. She saw a familiar face at last, her mother, smiling and crying, and she fell into her arms, to the delight of the press who recorded it copiously.

"Get me out of this as fast as you can," she whispered fiercely into her mother's ear. "I'm about to lose it."

Her mother held her at arm's length, not understanding, still smiling. Her place was taken by Cordelia's brother, his family clustered nervously and proudly behind him, looking at her, she felt, with eyes that devoured her.

She spotted her crew, also dressed in the new uniforms, standing with some government officials. Parnell gave her a thumbs-up, grinning dementedly. She was bundled over to stand behind a rostrum with the president of Beta Colony.

Steady Freddy seemed larger than life to her confused eyes, big and booming. Perhaps that was why he projected over the holovid so well. He grasped her hand and held it up in his, to the cheers of the crowd. It made her feel like an idiot.

The president gave a fine performance with his speech, not even using the prompter. It was full of the jingoistic patriotism that had so intoxicated the place when she'd left, and not one word in a dozen touched the real truth even from the Betan point of view. He worked up gradually and with perfect showmanship to the medal. Cordelia's heart began to pound lumpishly as she caught the drift of it. She tried desperately to evade the knowledge, turning to the press secretary.

"Is this on behalf of m-my crew, for the plasma mirrors?"

"They have theirs already." Was he ever going to stop smiling? "This is your very own."

"I s-see."

The medal, it appeared, was to be awarded for her brave, one-woman assassination of Admiral Vorrutyer. Steady Freddy actually avoided the word assassination, along with blunt terms like murder and killing, favoring more liquid phrases like "freeing the universe of a viper of iniquity."

The speech lumbered to its close, and the glittering medal on its colorful ribbon, Beta Colony's highest honor, was lowered over her head by the president's own hand. Gould positioned her in front of the rostrum, and pointed out the glowing green words of the prompter marching across thin air before her eyes. "Start reading," he whispered.

"Am I on? Oh, Uh . . . People of Beta Colony, my beloved home," that was all right so far, "when I left you to meet the m-menace of Barrayaran tyranny, s-succoring our friend and ally Escobar, it was with no idea that fate was to bring me face-to-face with a n-nobler d-destiny."

It was here she departed from the script, watching herself go helplessly, like a doomed sea ship sinking beneath the waves. "I don't see what's so n-noble about b-butchering that sadistic ass Vorrutyer. And I wouldn't take a medal for m-murdering an unarmed m-man even if I had done it."

She pulled it off over her head. The ribbon caught in her hair, and she yanked it free, painfully, angrily. "For the last time. I did
not
kill Vorrutyer. One of his own men killed Vorrutyer. He c-caught him from behind and cut his throat from ear to ear. I was
there,
damn it. He bled all over me. The press from both sides are stuffing you with lies about that s-stupid war. D-damn voyeurs! Vorkosigan was
not
in charge of the prison camp when the atrocities took place. As s-soon as he was in charge he stopped them. Sh-sh-shot one of his own officers just to feed your l-lust for vengeance, and it cost him in his honor, too, I can tell you."

The sound going out from the rostrum was cut off suddenly. She turned to Steady Freddy, tears of fury blurring her view of his astonished face, and flung the medal back at him with all the force of her arm. It missed his head and glittered down over the balcony into the crowd.

Her arms were pinned from behind. It triggered some buried reflex, and she kicked out frantically.

If only the president hadn't tried to dodge, he would have been all right. As it was, the toe of her jackboot caught him in the groin with perfect unplanned accuracy. His mouth made a soundless "O" and he went down behind the rostrum.

Cordelia, hyperventilating uncontrollably, began to cry as a dozen more hands grabbed her arms, waist, legs. "
P-please
don't lock me up again! I couldn't take it. I just wanted to go home! Get that goddamn ampule away from me! No! No! No drugs, please, please! I'm
sorry!
"

She was hustled out, and the media event of the year collapsed just like Steady Freddy.

*
     
*
     
*

She was taken to a quiet room, one of the shuttleport's administrative offices, immediately afterwards. The president's personal physician arrived after a time and took charge, had everyone removed but himself and her mother, and gave her some breathing space to regain her self-control. It took her almost an hour to stop crying, once she had started. The embarrassment and outrage stopped seesawing at last, and she was able to sit up and talk in a voice like a bad cold.

"Please apologize to the president for me. If only someone had warned me, or asked me about it first. I'm—n-not in very good shape right now."

"We should have realized it ourselves," said the physician sorrowfully. "Your ordeal, after all, was much more personal than the usual soldier's experience. It is we who must apologize, for subjecting you to an unnecessary strain."

"We thought it would be a nice surprise," added her mother.

"It was a surprise, all right. I only hope I don't get myself locked in a padded cell. I'm a bit off cells at the moment." The thought tightened her throat, and she breathed carefully to calm back down.

She wondered where Vorkosigan was now, what he was doing. Getting drunk sounded better all the time, and she wished she were with him, doing so. She pressed thumb and forefinger to the bridge of her nose, rubbing out the tension. "May I be permitted to go home now?"

"Is there still a crowd out there?" asked her mother.

"I'm afraid so. We'll try to keep them back."

With the doctor on one side and her mother on the other, she dwelt in Vorkosigan's kiss all during the long walk to her mother's groundcar. The crowd still pressed upon her, but in a hushed, respectful, almost frightened way, a great contrast to their earlier holiday mood. She felt sorry to have taken away their party.

*
     
*
     
*

There was a crowd at her mother's apartment shaft too, in the foyer by the lift tubes, and even in the hallway to her door. Cordelia smiled and waved a little, cautiously, but just shook her head at questions, not trusting herself to speak coherently. They made their way through and closed the door at last.

"Whew! I suppose they meant well, but my lord—I felt like they wanted to eat me alive."

"There was so much excitement about the war, and the Expeditionary Force—anyone in a blue uniform is getting star treatment. And when the prisoners got home, and your story came out—I'm glad I knew you were safe by then. My poor darling!" Cordelia got another hug, and welcomed it.

"Well, that explains where they came by the nonsense. It was the wildest rumor. The Barrayarans started it, and everyone just ate it up. I couldn't stop it."

"What did they do to you?"

"They kept following me around, pestering me with these offers of therapy—they thought the Barrayarans had been messing with my memory. . . . Oh, I see. You mean, what did the
Barrayarans
do to me. Nothing much. V-vorrutyer might have liked to, but he met with his accident before he'd got half started." She decided not to disturb her mother with the details. "Something important did happen, though." She hesitated. "I ran into Aral Vorkosigan again."

"That horrible man? I wondered, when I heard the name in the news, if it was the same fellow who killed your Lieutenant Rosemont last year."

"No. Yes. I mean, he didn't kill Rosemont, one of his people did. But he's the same one."

"I don't understand why you're so sympathetic to him."

"You ought to appreciate him now. He saved my life. Hid me in his cabin, during those missing two days after Vorrutyer was killed. I'd have been executed for it, if they'd caught me before the change in command."

Her mother looked more disturbed than appreciative. "Did he—do anything to you?"

The question was filled with unanswerable irony. Cordelia dared not tell even her mother about the intolerable burden of truth he had laid on her. Her mother misunderstood the haunted look on her face.

"Oh, dear. I'm so sorry."

"Huh? No, damn it. Vorkosigan's no rapist. He's got this thing about prisoners. Wouldn't touch one with a stick. He asked me . . ." she trailed off, looking into the kind, concerned, and loving wall of her mother's face. "We talked a lot. He's all right."

"He doesn't have a very good reputation."

"Yeah, I've seen some of it. It's all lies."

"He's—not a murderer, then?"

"Well . . ." Cordelia foundered on the truth. "He has k-killed a lot of people, I suppose. He's a soldier, you know. It's his job. It can't help spilling over a bit. I only know about three that weren't in the line of duty, though."