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have your voluntary cooperation."
"Thank God for that." Cordelia lay back on her bed and pulled her pillow
over her face, thinking of drug therapy. It made her blood run cold. She
wondered how long she could take deep probing for memories that weren't there
before she started manufacturing them to meet the demand. And worse: the very
first effect of probing must be to bring up those secret agonies that were
uppermost on her mind-Vorkosigan's secret wounds. . . . She sighed, removed
the pillow from her head and hugged it to her chest, and looked up to find
Sprague regarding her with deep concern. "You still here?"
"I'll always be here, Cordelia."
"That's-what I was afraid of."
Sprague got no more from her after that. She was afraid to sleep, now, for
fear of talking or even being questioned in her sleep. She took little
catnaps, waking with a start whenever there was movement in the cabin, such as
her roommate getting up to go to the bathroom in the night. Cordelia did not
admire Ezar Vorbarra's secret purposes in the late war, but at least they had
been accomplished. The thought of all that pain and death being made vain as
smoke haunted her, and she resolved that all Vorkosigan's soldiers, yes, even
Vorrutyer and the camp commandant, would not be made to have died for nothing
through her.
She ended the trip far more frayed than she had begun it, floating on the
edge of real breakdown, plagued by pounding headaches, insomnia, a mysterious
left-hand tremula, and the beginnings of a stutter.
The trip from Escobar to Beta Colony was much easier. It only took four
days, in a Betan fast courier sent, she was surprised to find, especially for
her. She viewed the news reports on her cabin holovid. She was deathly tired
of the war, but she caught by chance a mention of Vorkosigan's name, and could
not resist following it up to find out what the public view of his part was.
Horrified, she discovered that his work with the Judiciary's investigative
commission led the Betan and Escobaran press to blame him for the way the
prisoners had been treated, as if he had been in charge of them from the
beginning. The old false Komarr story was dragged out on parade, and his name
was reviled everywhere. The injustice of it all made her furious, and she gave
up the news in disgust.
At last they orbited Beta Colony, and she haunted Nav and Com for a
glimpse of home.
"There's the old sandbox at last." The captain cheerfully keyed her a
view. "They're sending a shuttle up for you, but there's a storm over the
capital, and it's a bit delayed, till it subsides enough for them to drop
screens at the port."
"I may as well wait till I get down to call my mom," Cordelia commented.
"She's probably at work now. No point bothering her there. Hospital's not far
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from the shuttleport. I can get a nice relaxing drink while I wait for her to
get off shift and pick me up."
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
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