Bujold, Lois McMaster Vorkosigan 12 Komarr

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"So . . . how is your heart, these days?" Ekaterin asked diffidently.
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Aunt Vorthys's eyes popped open. After a moment, she shrugged. "So-so, dear. I'm on the waiting list
for a new one."
"I thought new organs were easy to grow, now."
"Yes, but surgical transplant teams are rather less so. My case isn't that urgent. After the problems a
friend of mine had, I decided I'd rather wait for one of the more proven groups to have a slot available."
"I understand." Ekaterin hesitated. "I've been thinking. We can't do anything locked in here. If I can get
anyone to come to the door, I thought we might try to feign you were dangerously sick, and get them to
let us out. After that who knows? It can't be worse than this. All you'd have to do is go limp and moan
convincingly."
"I'm willing," said Aunt Vorthys.
"All right."
Ekaterin fell to pounding on the door as loudly as she could, and calling the Komarrans urgently by
name. After about ten minutes of this, the lock clicked, the door slid back, and Madame Radovas
peeked in from a slight distance. Arozzi stood behind her with his stunner in his hand.
"What?" she demanded.
"My aunt is ill," said Ekaterin. "She can't stop shivering, and her skin is getting clammy. I think she may
be going into shock from the jump-sickness and her bad heart and all this stress. She has to have a warm
place to lie down, and a hot drink, at least. Maybe a doctor."
"We can't get you a doctor right now." Madame Radovas peered worriedly past Ekaterin at the limp
Professora. "We could arrange the other, I guess."
"Some of us wouldn't mind having the lav back," Arozzi muttered. "It's not so good, all of us having to
parade up and down the corridor to the nearest public one."
"There's no other safe place to lock them up," said Madame Radovas to him.
"So, put them out in the middle of the room and keep an eye on them. Stick them back in here later.
One's sick, the other has to take care of her, what can they do? It's no good if the old lady dies on us."
"I'll see what I can do," said Madame Radovas to Ekaterin, and closed the door again.
In a little while she came back, to escort the two Barrayaran women to a cot and a folding chair set up
at the edge of the loading bay, as far as possible from any emergency alarm. Ekaterin and Madame
Radovas supported the stumbling Professora to the cot, and helped her lie down, and covered her up.
Leaving Arozzi to guard them, Madame Radovas went off and returned with a steaming mug of tea and
set it down; Arozzi then turned the stunner over to her and returned to his work. Madame Radovas drew
up another folding chair and sat down a few prudent meters away from her captives. Ekaterin supported
her aunt's shoulders while she drank the tea, blinked gratefully, and sank back with a moan. Ekaterin
made play of feeling the Professora's forehead, and rubbing her chill hands, and looking very concerned.
She stroked the tousled gray hair, and stared covertly around the loading bay she'd merely glimpsed
before.
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The device still sat in its float cradle, but more power lines snaked across the floor to it now; Soudha
was overseeing the attachment of one such cable to the awkward array of converters at the base of the
horn. A man she did not recognize busied himself in the glass-walled control booth. At his gestures,
Cappell drew careful chalk lines on the deck near the device. When he finished, he consulted with
Soudha, and Soudha himself took the float cradle's remote control, stepped back, and with exquisite
care set the cradle to lift, move forward till it almost touched the outer wall, and gently land again in
precise alignment with the chalk marks. The horn was now aimed not quite square-on with the inner door
of the large freight lock. Were they getting ready to load it aboard a ship, and take it out to point at the
wormhole? Or could they use it right from here?
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?"
"Ileft 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 avote ? 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
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the last. The count was three to one for this."
"Oh? Who voted against it?"
She hesitated. "Soudha."
"Howodd ," 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. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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