The patch also had some sedative power. Mark's heart rate slowed, an effect which lasted till they landed and transferred to a sealed groundcar. A guard and a driver took the front compartment, and Mark sat across from Bothari-Jesek in the rear compartment for the last leg of his nightmare journey, from the military shuttleport outside the capital into the heart of Vorbarr Sultana. The center of the Barrayaran Empire.

It wasn't until he found himself having something resembling an asthma attack that Bothari-Jesek looked up from her own glum self-absorption and noticed.

"What the hell's the matter with you?" She leaned forward and took his pulse, which was racing. He was clammy all over.

"Sick," he gasped, and then at her irritated I-could-have-figured-that-out-for-myself look, admitted, "Scared." He thought he'd been as frightened as a human being could be, under Bharaputran fire, but that was as nothing compared to this slow, trapped terror, this drawn-out suffocating helplessness to affect his destiny.

"What do you have to be afraid of?" she asked scornfully. "Nobody's going to hurt you."

"Captain, they're going to kill me."

"Who? Lord Aral and Lady Cordelia? Hardly. If for any reason we fail to get Miles back, you could be the next Count Vorkosigan. Surely you've figured on that."

At this point he satisfied a long-held curiosity. When he passed out, his breathing did indeed begin again automatically. He blinked away black fog, and fended off Bothari-Jesek's alarmed attempt to loosen his clothes and check his tongue to be sure he hadn't swallowed it. She had pocketed a couple of anti-nausea patches from the shuttle medkit, just in case, and she held one uncertainly. He motioned urgently for her to apply it. It helped.

"Who do you think these people are?" she demanded angrily, when his breathing grew less irregular.

"I don't know. But they're sure as hell going to be pissed at me."

The worst was the knowledge that it need not have been this bad. Any time before the Jackson's Whole debacle he could in theory have walked right in and said hello. But he'd wanted to meet Barrayar on his own terms. Like trying to storm heaven. His attempt to make it better had made it infinitely worse.

She sat back and regarded him with slow bemusement. "You really are scared to death, aren't you?" she said, in a tone of revelation that made him want to howl. "Mark, Lord Aral and Lady Cordelia are going to give you the benefit of every doubt. I know they will. But you have to do your part."

"What is my part?"

"I'm . . . not sure," she admitted.

"Thanks. You're such a help."