"Whoa, girl! That goon who shot Padma Vorpatril wasn't the only one taking aim at him. Padma was so penta-soaked and confused, he wasn't even trying to take cover. They must have double-dosed him, to force him to lead them back to Alys. He might as easily have died from another shot, or blundered into our own cross-fire."

"Sergeant Bothari didn't hesitate," Droushnakovi said flatly.

"No," agreed Cordelia.

"Sergeant Bothari doesn't waste energy feeling . . . sorry, for the enemy, either."

"No. Do you?"

"I feel sick."

"You kill two total strangers, and expect to feel jolly?"

"Bothari does."

"Yes. Bothari enjoyed it. But Bothari is not, even by Barrayaran standards, a sane man. Do you aspire to be a monster?"

"You call him that!"

"Oh, but he's my monster. My good dog." She always had trouble explaining Bothari, sometimes even to herself. Cordelia wondered if Droushnakovi knew the Earth-historical origin of the term, scapegoat. The sacrificial animal that was released yearly into the wilderness, to carry the sins of its community away . . . Bothari was surely her beast of burden; she saw clearly what he did for her. She was less certain what she did for him, except that he seemed to find it desperately important. "I, for one, am glad you are heartsick. Two pathological killers in my service would be an excess. Treasure that nausea, Drou."

She shook her head. "I think maybe I'm in the wrong trade."

"Maybe. Maybe not. Think what a monstrous thing an army of Botharis would be. Any community's arm of force—military, police, security—needs people in it who can do the necessary evil, and yet not be made evil by it. To do only the necessary, and no more. To constantly question the assumptions, to stop the slide into atrocity."

"The way that security colonel quashed that obscene corporal."

"Yes. Or the way that lieutenant questioned the colonel . . . I wish we might have saved him," Cordelia sighed.

Drou frowned deeply, into her lap.

"Kou thought you were angry with him," said Cordelia.

"Kou?" Droushnakovi looked up dimly. "Oh, yes, he was just in here. Did he want something?"

Cordelia smiled. "Just like Kou, to imagine all your unhappiness must center on him." Her smile faded. "I'm going to send him with Lady Vorpatril, to try and smuggle her and the baby out. We'll go our separate ways as soon as she's able to walk."

Drou's face grew worried. "He'll be in terrible danger. Vordarian's people will be rabid over losing her and the young lord tonight."