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ugly rumor has security implications, I am not free to act purely on my own
behalf. If not... it's still a difficult business. An accusation, I could
fight. This is something subtler."
He glanced around. "However, since it's now come to you perforce, his request
is moot, and I shall consider myself relieved of it.
I think perhaps we'd better continue this inside."
She contemplated the desolate space, open to the sky and the city. "Yes."
"If you will?" He gestured toward Vorkosigan House, but made no move to touch
her. Ekaterin took Nikki by the hand, and they accompanied him silently up the
path and around through the guarded front gate.
He led them up to "his" floor, back to the cheerful sunny room in which he'd
fed her that memorable luncheon. When they reached the Yellow Parlor, he
seated her and Nikki on the delicate primrose sofa and himself on a straight
chair across from them.
There were lines of tension around his mouth she hadn't seen since Komarr. He
leaned forward with his hands clasped between his knees and asked her, "How
and when did it come to you?"
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She gave a, to her ears, barely coherent account of Vormoncrief's intrusion,
corroborated by occasional elaborations from
Nikki. Miles listened gravely to Nikki's stammering recital, attending to him
with a serious respect which seemed to steady the boy despite the horrifying
nature of the subject. Although he did have to suck a smile back off his lips
when Nikki got to a vivid description of how Vormoncrief acquired his bloody
nose - "And he got it all over his uniform, too!" Ekaterin blinked, taken
aback to find herself receiving exactly the same look of pleased masculine
admiration from both parties.
But the moment of enthusiasm passed.
Miles rubbed his forehead. "If it were up to my judgment, I'd answer several
of Nikki's questions here and now. My judgment is unfortunately suspect.
Conflict of interest doesn't even begin to cover my position in this." He
sighed softly, and leaned back on the hard chair in an unconvincing simulation
of ease. "The first thing I would like to point out is that at the moment, all
the onus is on me. The backsplash of this sewage appears to have missed you.
I'd like to see it stay that way. If we... don't see each other, no one will
have pretext to target you with further slander."
"But that would make you look worse," said Ekaterin. "It would make it look as
if I believed Alexi's lies."
"The alternative would make it look as if we had somehow colluded in Tien's
death. I don't see how to win this one. I do see how to cut the damage in
half."
Ekaterin frowned deeply.
And leave you standing there to be pelted with this garbage all alone?
After a moment she said, "Your proposed solution is unacceptable. Find
another."
His eyes rose searchingly to her face. "As you wish..."
"What are you talking about?" Nikki demanded, his brows drawn down in
confusion.
"Ah." Miles touched his lips, and regarded the boy. "The reason, it seems,
that my political opponents have accused me of sabotaging your da's breath
mask, is that I want to court your mother."
Nikki's nose wrinkled, as he worked through this. "Did you really ask her to
marry you?"
"Well, yes. In a pretty clumsy way. I did." Was he actually reddening? He
spared her a quick glance, but she didn't know what he saw in her face. Or
what he made of it. "But now I'm afraid that if she and I continue to go
around together, people will say we must have plotted together against your
da. She's afraid that if we don't continue to go around together, people will
say that proves she thinks I did - I'm sorry if this distresses you - murder
him. It's called, damned if you do, damned if you don't."
"Damn them all," said Ekaterin harshly. "I don't care what any of those
ignorant idiots think, or say, or do.
People can go choke on their vile gossip." Her hands clenched in her lap. "I
do care what Nikki thinks."
Rot
Vormoncrief.
Vorkosigan raised an eyebrow at her. "And you think this version wouldn't come
around to him too, the way the first one did?"
She looked away from him. Nikki was scrunching up again, glancing uncertainly
from adult to adult. This was not, Ekaterin decided, the moment to tell him to
keep his feet off the good furniture.
"Right," Miles breathed. "All right, then." He gave her a ghost of a nod. She
was shaken by a weird inner vision of a knight drawing down his visor before
facing the tilt. He studied Nikki a moment, and moistened his lips. "So - what
you think of it all do so far, Nikki?"
"Dunno." Nikki, so briefly voluble, was drawing in again, not good.
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"I don't mean facts. No one has given you enough facts yet for you to make
much of. Try feelings. Worries. For example, are you afraid of me?"
"Naw," Nikki muttered, wrapping his arms around his knees and staring down at
his shoes rubbing on the fine yellow silk upholstery.
"Are you afraid it might be true?"
"It could not be," said Ekaterin fiercely. "It was physically impossible."
Nikki looked up. "But he was in ImpSec, Mama! ImpSec agents can do anything,
and make it look like anything!"
"Thank you for that... vote of confidence, Nikki," said Miles gravely. "I
think. In fact, Ekaterin, Nikki's right. I can imagine several plausible
scenarios that could have resulted in the physical evidence you saw."
"Name one," she said scornfully.
"Most simply, I might have had an unknown accomplice." Rather horribly, his
fingers made a tiny twisting gesture, as of someone venting a bound man's
oxygen supply. Nikki of course missed both the gesture and the reference. "It
elaborates from there. If I can generate them, so can others, and I'm sure
some won't hesitate to share their bright ideas with you."
"You foresaw this?" she asked, a little numb.
"Ten years in ImpSec does things to your brain. Some of them aren't very
nice."
The tidal wave of anger that had hurled her here was receding, leaving her
standing on a very bare shore indeed. She had not intended to talk so frankly
in front of Nikki. But Vormoncrief had destroyed any chance of continuing to
protect him by ignorance. Maybe Miles was right. They were going to have to
deal with this. All three of them were going to have to deal, and go on
dealing, ready or not, old enough or not.
"Shuffling facts only takes you so far anyway. Sooner or later, you come down
to bare trust. Or mistrust." He turned to Nikki, his eyes unreadable. "Here's [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]