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lines, sealed, wished for a few liters of disinfectant to splash around. He
held the fabric up away from the lump that was
Bel's head as Roic lifted the herm onto the pallet.
The pallet moved at a brisk walking pace; Miles longed to run. They maneuvered
the load into the infirmary, into the small ward. As close as possible to the
rather cramped bathroom.
Miles motioned Roic to bend close again.
 All right. This is as far as you go. We don't both need to be in here for
this. I
want you to exit the room and turn on the molecular barriers. Then stand ready
to assist the medics from the
Prince Xav as needed.
 M'lord, are you sure you wouldn't rather we do it t'other way around?
 I'm sure. Go!
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Roic exited reluctantly. Miles waited till the lines of blue light indicating
that the barriers had been activated sprang into being across the doorway,
then bent to unzip the pod and fold it back from Bel's tensed, trembling body.
Even through his gloves, Bel's bare skin felt scorching hot.
Edging both the pallet and himself into the bathroom involved some awkward
clambering, but at last he had Bel positioned to shift into the waiting vat of
ice and water. Heave, slide, splash. He cursed the pallet and lunged over it
to hold Bel's head up. Bel's body jerked in shock; Miles wondered if his
shakily theorized palliative would instead give the victim heart failure. He
shoved the pallet back out the door, and out of the way, with one foot. Bel
was now trying to curl into a fetal position, a more heartening response than
the open-eyed coma Miles had observed so far. Miles pulled the bent limbs down
one by one and held them under the ice water.
Miles fingers grew numb with the cold, except where they touched Bel. The
herm's body temperature seemed scarcely affected by this brutal treatment.
Unnatural indeed. But at least Bel stopped growing hotter. The ice was melting
noticeably.
It had been some years since Miles had last glimpsed Bel nude, in a field
shower or donning or divesting space armor in a mercenary warship locker room.
Fifty-something wasn't old, for a Betan, but still, gravity was clearly
gaining on Bel.
On all of us
.
In their Dendarii days Bel had taken out its unrequited lust for Miles in a
series of half-joking passes, half-regretfully declined. Miles repented his
younger sexual reticence altogether, now. Profoundly.
We should have taken our chances back then, when we were young and beautiful
and didn't even know it.
And Bel had been beautiful, in its own ironic way, living and moving at ease
in a body athletic, healthy, and trim.
Bel's skin was blotched, mottled red and pale; the herm's flesh, sliding and
turning in the ice bath under Miles's anxious hands, had an odd texture, by
turns swollen tight or bruised like crushed fruit. Miles called Bel's name,
tried his best old
Admiral
Naismith Commands You voice, told a bad joke, all without penetrating the
herm's glazed stupor. It was a bad idea to cry in a biotainer suit, almost as
bad as throwing up in a pressure suit. You couldn't blot your eyes, or wipe
your snot.
And when someone touched you unexpectedly on the shoulder, you jumped as
though shot, and they looked at you funny, through their faceplate and yours.
 Lord Auditor Vorkosigan, are you all right? said the
Prince Xav
's biotainer-
swaddled surgeon, as he knelt beside him at the vat's edge.
Miles swallowed for self-control.  I'm fine, so far. This herm's in a very bad
way. I
don't know what they've told you about all this.
 I was told that I might be dealing with a possible Cetagandan-designed
bioweapon in hot mode, that had killed three so far with one survivor. The
part about there being a survivor made me really wonder about the first
assertion.
 Ah, you didn't get a chance to see Guppy yet, then. Miles took a breath and
ran through a brief recap of Gupta's tale, or at least the pertinent
biological aspects of it. As he spoke, his hands never stopped shoving Bel's
arms and legs back down, or ladling watery ice cubes over the herm's burning
head and neck. He finished,  I don't know if it was Gupta's amphibian
genetics, or something he did, that allowed him to
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survive this hell-shit when his friends didn't. Guppy said their dead flesh
steamed
. I
don't know what all this heat's coming from, but it can't be just fever. I
couldn't duplicate the Jacksonian's bioengineering, but I thought I could at
least duplicate the water tank trick. Wild-assed empiricism, but I didn't
think there was much time.
A gloved hand reached past him to raise Bel's eyelids, touch the herm here and
there, press and probe.  I see that.
 It's really important
 - Miles took another gulp of air to stabilize his voice -
 it's really important that this patient survive. Thorne's not just any
stationer. Bel was... He realized he didn't know the surgeon's security
clearance.  Having the portmaster die on our watch would be a diplomatic
disaster. Another one, that is.
And... and the herm saved my life yesterday. I owe - Barrayar owes - 
 My lord, we'll do our best. I have my top squad here; we'll take over now. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]