"Oh, come on. Even Captain Negri has been known to make a private judgment, they say."
She'd said something wrong. The temperature in the room seemed to drop suddenly.
"How do you know about Captain Negri?" said Tailor frozenly.
"Everybody knows about Negri." They were staring at her. "Oh, c—come on! If I were an agent of Negri's, you'd never know it. He's not so inept!"
"On the contrary," said Mehta in a clipped tone, "we think he's so good that you'd never know it."
"Garbage!" said Cordelia, disgusted. "How do you figure that?"
Mehta answered literally. "My hypothesis is that you are being controlled—unconsciously, perhaps—by this rather sinister and enigmatic Admiral Vorkosigan. That your programming began during your first captivity and was completed, probably, during the late war. You were destined to be the linchpin of a new Barrayaran intelligence network here, to replace the one that was just rooted out. A mole, perhaps, put in place and not activated for years, until some critical moment—"
"Sinister?" Cordelia interrupted. "Enigmatic? Aral? I could laugh." I could weep …
"He is obviously your control," said Mehta complacently. "You have apparently been programmed to obey him unquestioningly."
"I am not a computer." Thump, thump, went her foot. "And Aral is the one person who has never constrained me. A point of honor, I believe."
"You see?" said Mehta. To Tailor; she didn't look at Cordelia. "All the evidence points one way."
"Only if you're s—standing on your head!" cried Cordelia, furious. She glared at Tailor. 'That's not an order I have to take. I can resign my commission."
"We need not have your permission," said Mehta calmly, "even as a civilian. If your next of kin will agree to it."
"My mother'd never do that to me!"
"We've already discussed it with her, at length. She's very concerned for you."
"I s—see." Cordelia subsided abruptly, glancing toward the kitchen. "I wondered why that coffee was taking so long. Guilty conscience, eh?" She hummed a snatch of tune under her breath, then stopped. "You people have really done your homework. Covered all the exits."
Tailor summoned up a smile and offered it to her, placatingly. "You don't have anything to be afraid of, Cordelia. You'll have our very best people working for– with—"
On, thought Cordelia.
"—you. And when you're done, you'll be able to return to your old life as if none of this had ever happened."
Erase me, will you? Erase him … Analyze me to death, like my poor timid love letter. She smiled back at him, ruefully. "Sorry, Bill. I just have this awful vision of being p—peeled like an onion, looking for the seeds."
He grinned. "Onions don't have seeds, Cordelia."
"I stand corrected," she said dryly.
"And frankly," he went on, "if you are right and, uh, we are wrong—the fastest way you can prove it is to come along." He smiled the smile of reason.
"Yes, true …" But for that little matter of a civil war on Barrayar—that tiny stumbling block—that stone—paper wraps stone …
"Sorry, Cordelia." He really was.
"It's all right."
"Remarkable ploy of the Barrayarans," Mehta expounded thoughtfully. "Concealing an espionage ring under the cover of a love affair. I might even have bought it, if the principals had been more likely."
"Yes," Cordelia agreed cordially, writhing within. "One doesn't expect a thirty-four-year-old to fall in love like an adolescent. Quite an unexpected—gift, at my age. Even more unexpected at forty-four, I gather."
"Exactly," said Mehta, pleased by Cordelia's ready understanding. "A middle-aged career officer is hardly the stuff of romance."
Tailor, behind her, opened his mouth as if to speak, then shut it again. He stared meditatively at his hands.
"Think you can cure me of it?" asked Cordelia.
"Oh, yes."
"Ah." Sergeant Bothari, where are you now? Too late. "You leave me no choice. Curious." Delay, whispered her mind. Look for an opportunity. If you can't find one, make one. Pretend this is Barrayar, where anything is possible. "Is it all right if I g—get a shower—change clothes, pack? I assume this is going to be a lengthy business."
"Of course." Tailor and Mehta exchanged a relieved look. Cordelia smiled pleasantly.
Dr. Mehta, without the medtech, accompanied her to her bedroom. Opportunity, thought Cordelia dizzily. "Ah, good," she said, closing the door behind the doctor. "We can chat while I pack."
Sergeant Bothari—there is a time for words, and there is a time when even the very best words fail. You were a man of very few words, but you didn't fail. I wish I'd understood you better. Too late …
Mehta seated herself on the bed, watching her specimen, perhaps, as it wriggled on its pin. Her triumph of logical deduction. Are you planning to write a paper on me, Mehta? wondered Cordelia dourly. Paper wraps stone …
She puttered around the room, opening drawers, slamming cabinets. There was a belt—two belts—and a chain belt. There were her identity cards, bank cards, money. She pretended not to see them. As she moved, she talked. Her brain seethed. Stone smashes scissors …
"You know you remind me a bit of the late Admiral Vorrutyer. You both want to take me apart, see what makes me tick. Vorrutyer was more like a little kid, though. Had no intention of picking up his mess afterwards.
"You, on the other hand, will take me apart and not even get a giggle out of it. Of course, you fully intend to put the pieces back together afterwards, but from my point of view that scarcely makes any difference. Aral was right about people in green silk rooms …"
Mehta looked puzzled. "You've stopped stuttering," she noted.
"Yes …" Cordelia paused before her aquarium, considering it curiously. "So I have. How strange." Stone smashes scissors …
She removed the top. The old familiar nausea of funk and fear wrung her stomach. She wandered aimlessly behind Mehta, the chain belt and a shirt in her hands. I must choose now. I must choose now. I choose—now!
She lunged, wrapping the belt around the doctor's throat, yanking her arms up behind her back, securing them painfully with the other end of the belt. Mehta emitted a strangled squeak.
Cordelia held her from behind, and whispered in her ear.
"In a moment I'll give you your air back. How long depends on you. You're about to get a short course in the real Barrayaran interrogation techniques. I never used to approve of them, but lately I've come to see they have their uses—when you're in a tearing hurry, for instance—"
Can't let her guess I'm playacting. Playacting. "How many men does Tailor have planted around this building, and what are their positions?"
She loosened the chain slightly. Mehta, eyes stunned with fear, choked, "None!"
"All Cretans are liars," Cordelia muttered. "Bill's not inept either." She dragged the doctor over to the aquarium and pushed her face into the water. She struggled wildly, but Cordelia, larger, stronger, in better training, held her under with a furious strength that astonished herself.
Mehta showed signs of passing out. Cordelia pulled her up and allowed her a couple of breaths.
"Care to revise your estimate yet?" God help me, what if this doesn't work? They'll never believe I'm not an agent now.
"Oh, please," Mehta gasped.
"All right, back you go." She held her down again.
The water roiled, splashing over the sides of the aquarium. Cordelia could see Mehta's face through the glass, strangely magnified, deathly yellow in the odd reflected light from the gravel. Silver bubbles broke around her mouth and flowed up over her face. Cordelia was temporarily fascinated by them. Air flows like water, underwater, she thought; is there an aesthetic of death?