"Oh, God," said Vorkosigan. He looked sick at the flashing vision of the rise and fall of hopes these words conjured. "I don't play theater with lives, Evon!"

Vorhalas held his hatred like a shield before him. "Go to hell."

Vorkosigan sighed, and pushed away from the wall. The doctor was lingering to chivvy them to the waiting vehicle for the trip to the Imperial Military Hospital. "Take him away, Illyan," said Vorkosigan wearily.

"Wait," said Cordelia. "I need to know—I need to ask him something."

Vorhalas eyed her sullenly.

"Was this the result you intended? I mean, when you chose that particular weapon? That specific poison?"

He looked away from her, speaking to the far wall. "It was what I could grab, going through the armory. I didn't think you could identify it, and get the antidote all the way from ImpMil in time. . . ."

"You relieve me of a burden," she whispered.

"The antidote came from the Imperial Residence," Vorkosigan explained. "A quarter of the distance. The Emperor's infirmary there has everything. As for identification . . . I was there, at the destruction of the Karian mutiny. Just about your age, I think, or a little younger. The smell brought it all back, just now. Boys coughing out their lungs in red blobs. . . ." He seemed to shrink into himself, into the past.

"I didn't intend your death particularly. You were just in the way, between me and him." Vorhalas gestured blindly at her swollen torso. "It wasn't the result I intended. I meant to kill him. I didn't even know for sure that you shared the same room at night." He was looking everywhere, now, except her face. "I never thought about killing your . . ."

"Look at me," she croaked, "and say the word out loud."

"Baby," he whispered, and burst into sudden, shocking sobs.

Vorkosigan stepped back, beside her. "Wish you hadn't done that," he whispered. "Reminds me of his brother. Why am I death to that family?"

"Still want him to eat vengeance?"

He leaned his forehead on her shoulder, briefly. "Not even that. You empty us all out, dear Captain. But, oh . . ." His hand reached out as if to cup her belly, then drew back in consciousness of their ring of silent watchers. He straightened. "Bring me a full report in the morning, Illyan," he said, "at the hospital."

He took her by the arm as they turned to follow the doctor. She could not tell if it was to support her or himself.

* * *

She was surrounded by helpers at the Imperial Military Hospital complex, carried along as on a river. Doctors, nurses, corpsmen, guards. Aral was separated from her at the door, and it made her uneasy and alone in the crowd. She said very little to them, empty courtesies, automatic as levers. She wished for shock to take her consciousness, numbness, reality-denying madness, hallucinations, anything. Instead she just felt tired.