Free Cordelia's Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold Page B

south."
    Vorkosigan removed Gottyan's belt and bound his hands behind his back. "You really did have trouble making up your mind, didn't you?" In an aside to Cordelia he explained, "Sens is one of Radnov's. Koudelka's mine. Rather like flipping a coin."
    "And this was your friend?" Cordelia raised her eyebrows. "Seems to me the only difference between your friends and your enemies is how long they stand around chatting before they shoot you."
    "Yes," Vorkosigan agreed, "I could take over the universe with this army if I could ever get all their weapons pointed in the same direction. Since your pants will stay up without it, Commander Naismith, may I please borrow your belt?" He finished securing Gottyan's legs with it, gagged him, then stood a moment looking up, then down the path.
    "All Cretans are liars," murmured Cordelia, then more loudly, "North or south?"
    "An interesting question. How would you answer it?"
    "I had a teacher who used to reflect back my questions that way. I thought it was the Socratic method, and it impressed me immensely, until I found out he used it whenever he didn't know the answer." Cordelia stared at Gottyan, whom they had placed in the spot that had so effectively concealed her, wondering whether his directions marked a return to loyalty or a last-ditch effort to complete Vorkosigan's botched assassination. He stared back in puzzlement and hostility.
    "North," she said reluctantly at last. She and Vorkosigan exchanged a look of understanding, and he nodded briefly.
    "Come on then."
    They started quietly up the path, over a rise and through a hollow dense with grey-green thickets. "Have you known Gottyan long?"
    "We served together for the last four years, since my demotion. He was a good career officer, I thought. Apolitical, thorough. He has a family."
    "Do you think you could—get him back, later?"
    "Forgive and forget? I gave him a chance at that. He turned me down. Twice, if you're right in your choice of directions." They were climbing another slope. "The sentry post is at the top. Whoever's there will be able to scope us in a moment. Drop back here and cover me. If you hear firing—" he paused, "use your initiative."
    Cordelia smothered a short laugh. Vorkosigan loosed his disruptor in its holster and walked openly up the path, making plenty of noise.
    "Sentry, report," she heard his voice call firmly.
    "Nothing new since—good God, it's the Captain !" followed by the most honestly delighted laugh she felt she'd heard in centuries. She leaned against a tree, suddenly weak. And just when was it, she asked herself, that you stopped being afraid of him and started being afraid for him? And why is this new fear so much more gut-wrenching than the first? You don't seem to have come out ahead on the trade, have you?
    "You can come out now, Commander Naismith," Vorkosigan's voice carried back to her. She rounded the last stand of underbrush and climbed a grassy knoll. Camped upon it were two young men looking very neat and military in their clean fatigues. One, taller than Vorkosigan by a head, with a boy's face on a man's body, she recognized from her view through the scope as Koudelka. He was shaking his Captain's hand with unabashed enthusiasm, assuring himself of its unghostly reality. The other man's hand went to his disruptor when he saw her uniform.
    "We were told the Betans killed you, sir," he said suspiciously.
    "Yes, it's a rumor I've had difficulty living down," said Vorkosigan. "As you can see, it's not true."
    "Your funeral was splendid," said Koudelka. "You should have been there."
    "Next time, perhaps," Vorkosigan grinned.
    "Oh. You know I didn't mean it that way, sir. Lieutenant Radnov made the best speech."
    "I'm sure. He'd probably been working on it for months."
    Koudelka, a little quicker on the uptake than his companion, said "Oh." His fellow merely looked puzzled.
    Vorkosigan went on. "Permit me to introduce Commander Cordelia Naismith, of the Betan Astronomical Survey.