His naked agony terrified her. She held him tightly in return. "I don't know. I don't know. But somebody . . . somebody has been making these kinds of decisions right along, while we went along blissfully unconscious, taking the world as given. And they were only human, too. No better, no worse than you."

"Frightening thought."

She sighed. "You can't choose between evil and evil, in the dark, by logic. You can only cling to some safety line of principle. I can't make your decision. But whatever principles you choose now are going to be your safety lines, to carry you forward. And for the sake of your people, they're going to have to be consistent ones."

He rested in her arms. "I know. There wasn't really a question, about the decision. I was just . . . kicking a bit, going down." He disengaged himself, and stood again. "Dear Captain. If I'm still sane, fifteen years from now, I believe it will be your doing."

She looked up at him. "So what decision is it?"

The pain in his eyes gave her the answer. "Oh, no," she said involuntarily, then bit off further words. And I was trying to speak so wisely. I didn't mean this.

"Don't you know?" he said gently, resigned. "Ezar's way is the only way that can work, here. It's true after all. He does rule from his grave." He headed for their bathroom, to wash and change clothes.

"But you're not him," she whispered to the empty room. "Can't you find a way of your own?"

Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight

Vorkosigan attended Carl Vorhalas's public execution three weeks later.

"Are you required to go?" Cordelia asked him that morning, as he dressed, cold and withdrawn. "I don't have to go, do I?"

"God, no, of course not. I don't have to go, officially, except . . . I have to go. You can see why, surely."

"Not . . . really, except as a form of self-punishment. I'm not sure that's a luxury you can afford, in your line of work."

"I must go. A dog returns to its vomit, doesn't it? His parents will be there, do you know? And his brother."

"What a barbaric custom."

"Well, we could treat crime as a disease, like you Betans. You know what that's like. At least we kill a man cleanly, all at once, instead of in bits over years. . . . I don't know."

"How will they . . . do it?"

"Beheading. It's supposed to be almost painless."

"How do they know?"

His laugh was totally without humor. "A very cogent question."

He did not embrace her when he left. He returned a bare two hours later, silent, to shake his head at a tentative offer of lunch, cancel an afternoon appointment, and withdraw to Count Piotr's library and sit, not-reading a book-viewer. Cordelia joined him there after a while, resting on the couch, and waited patiently for him to come back to her from whatever distant country of the mind he dwelt in.