“We should have taken our chances back then, when we were young and beautiful and didn't even know it.”
“The dead cannot cry out for justice; it is a duty of the living to do so for them.”
“If you make it plain you like people, it's hard for them to resist liking you back.”
“If the truth doesn't save us, what does that say about us?”
“We did it," he muttered to Ekaterin, now perching on the chair arm. "Why didn't anybody stop us? Why aren't there more regulations about this sort of thing? What fool in their right mind would put me in charge of a baby? Two babies?”
“I always thought my parents could fix anything. Now it's my turn. Dear God, how did this happen?”
“to slide halfway to stupid and stop was rare indeed.”
“All sorts of men don't make it home for the births of their children. But My mother was out of town on the day I was born, so she missed it, just seems . . . seems like a more profound complaint, somehow.”
“Are we not all called on to yield our children back to the world, in the end?”
“Military intelligence was as nothing to military stupidity.”
“To Komarr, my lord? Or Sergyar?” “No. Calculate the shortest possible jump route directly to Rho Ceta.” Vorpatril’s head jerked back in startlement. “If the orders I received from Sector Five HQ mean what we think, you’ll hardly get passage there. Reception by plasma fire and fusion shells the moment you pop out of the wormhole would be what I’d expect.” “Unpack, Miles,” Ekaterin’s voice drifted in. He grinned briefly at the familiar exasperation in her voice. “By the time we arrive there, I will have arranged our clearances with the Cetagandan Empire.” I hope. Or else they were all going to be in more trouble than Miles ever wanted to imagine. “Barrayar is bringing their kidnapped haut babies back to them. On the end of a long stick. I get to be the stick.”
“Right.” Roic nodded. He glanced over Miles’s growing array of medical attachments. “By the way, m’lord. Had you happened to mention your seizure disorder to the surgeon yet?”
“And . . . it would be a real relief for me to have someone along I can talk to freely.” Her smile tilted a little at this. “Talk, or vent?” “I—hem!—suspect this one is going to entail quite a lot of venting, yes. D’you think you can stand it?”
“Miles bowed, sitting; his floater bobbed slightly. “My horse would like you fine. He’s extremely amiable, not to mention much too old and lazy to stampede anywhere. And I personally guarantee that with a Vorkosigan liveried armsman at your back, not the most benighted backcountry hick would offer you insult.” Roic,”
“Send a patroller to check,” said Miles a little tightly. Remembering he was supposed to be a diplomat, he added, “If you please.” Teris”
“I’ll bet. I . . .” He couldn’t say it, not so baldly. He dodged, while he mustered courage. “I promised to call Nicol when I had news of Bel, and I haven’t had a chance. The news, as you may know, is not good; we found Bel, but the herm has been deliberately infected with a bioengineered Cetagandan parasite that may . . . may prove lethal.”
“The second ward was declared a temporary holding cell for their prisoner, the ba, who followed in the procession, bound to a float pallet. Miles scowled as the pallet drifted past, towed on its control lead by a watchful, muscular sergeant.”
“But the herm was gray-faced, lips purple-blue, eyelids fluttering. An IV pump, not dependent upon potentially erratic ship’s gravity, infused yellow fluid rapidly into Bel’s right arm. The left arm was strapped to a board; plastic tubing filled with blood ran from under a bandage and into a hybrid appliance bound around with quantities of plastic tape. A second tube ran back again, its dark surface moist with condensation.”
“Anyway, I’m sure you’ll be able to handle Garnet Five. Just be your usual charming self.” Ekaterin’s vision of him, he reminded himself, was not exactly objective. Thank God. “I’ve been trying to charm quaddies all day, with no noticeable success.” “If you make it plain you like people, it’s hard for them to resist liking you back. And Nicol will be playing in the orchestra tonight.”
“Only in homeopathy do you get specific remedies for people who believe they are made of glass, have a delusion that they are selling green vegetables, or have an aptitude for, or a horror of, mathematics.”
“Gain cannot be made without loss to someone else.”
“His presence in my life is like the lighthouse in stormy waters to a ship lost at sea.”
“Good grief," said Merlin. "You look like the bastard child of
Dumbledore and David Bowie. No, sorry, Dumbledore and Ziggy
Stardust.”
“My name is Catbug. What’s yours?”
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