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"What did you do -
" she began, but his palpable agony overcame her wariness. "There s a comm
link in the stable, it s closest.
Where did you leave him?"
Mark waved vaguely backward. "Somewhere... I don t know what you call it. On
the path to your picnic spot. Does that make sense? Don t the bloody ImpSec
guards have scanners?" He found he was practically stamping his feet in
frustration at her slowness. "You have longer legs. Go!"
She believed at last, and ran, with a blazing look back at him that
practically flayed his skin.
I didn t do -
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He turned, and began to leg it back to where he d left the Count. He wondered
if he ought to be running for cover instead. If he stole a lightflyer and made
it back to the capital, could he get one of the galactic embassies there to
give him political asylum?
She thinks I
...
they re all going to think I
... hell, even didn t trust himself, why should the Barrayarans?
he
Maybe he ought to save steps, and just kill himself right now, here in these
stupid woods. But he had no weapon, and rough as the terrain was, there hadn t
been any cliffs high and steep enough to fling himself over and be sure of
death on impact.
At first Mark thought he d taken another wrong turn. Surely the Count couldn t
have risen and walked on - no. There he was, lying down on his back beside a
fallen log. He was breathing in short labored gasps, with too-long pauses in
between, arms clutched in, clearly in much greater pain than when Mark had
left him. But not dead. Not dead yet.
"Hello. Boy," he huffed in greeting.
"Elena s bringing help," Mark promised anxiously. He looked up and around, and
listened.
But they re not here yet
.
"Good."
"Don t... try to talk."
This made the Count snort a laugh, an even more horrible effect against the
disrupted breathing. "Only Cordelia... has ever succeeded... in shutting me
up." But he fell silent after that. Mark prudently allowed him the last word,
lest he try to go another round.
Live, damn you. Don t leave me here like this
.
A familiar whooshing sound made Mark look up. Elena had solved the problem of
getting transport through the trees with a float-bike. A green-uniformed
ImpSec man rode behind her, clutching her around the waist. Elena swiftly
dropped the bike through the thinner branches, which crackled. She ignored the
whipping backlash that left red lines across her face. The ImpSec
man dismounted while the bike was still half a meter in the air. "Get back,"
he snarled to Mark. At least he carried a medkit.
"What did you do to him?"
Mark retreated to Elena s side. "Is he a doctor?"
"No, just a medic." Elena was out of breath too.
The medic looked up and reported, "It s the heart, but I don t know what or
why. Don t have the Prime Minister s doctor come here, have him meet us in
Hassadar. Without delay. I think we re going to need the facilities."
"Right." Elena snapped orders into a comm link.
Mark tried to help them get the Count temporarily positioned on the float
bike, propped between Elena and the corpsman. The medic glared at Mark. "Don t
touch him!"
The Count, whom Mark had thought half-conscious, opened his eyes and
whispered, "Hey. The boy s all right, Jasi." Jasi the medic wilted. " S all
right, Mark."
He s frigging dying, yet he s still thinking ahead. He s trying to clear me of
suspicion
.
"The aircar s meeting us in the nearest clearing," Elena pointed downslope.
"Get there if you want to ride along." The bike rose slowly and carefully.
Mark took the hint, and galloped off down the hill, intensely conscious of the
moving shadow just above the trees. It left him behind. He slammed faster,
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using tree trunks to make turns, and arrived at the double trail with palms
scraped raw just as the
ImpSec medic, Elena, and Armsman Pym finished laying Count Vorkosigan across
the backseat of the rear compartment of a sleek black aircar. Mark tumbled in
and sat next to Elena on the rear-facing seat as the canopy closed and sealed.
Pym took the controls in the front compartment, and they spiraled into the air
and shot away. The medic crouched on the floor by his patient and did logical
things like attaching oxygen and administering a hypospray of synergine to
stabilize against shock.
Mark was puffing louder than the Count, to the point that the absorbed
corpsman actually glanced up at him with a medical frown, but unlike the
Count, Mark caught his breath after a time. He was sweating, and shaking
inside. The last time he d felt this bad Bharaputran security troops had been
firing lethal weapons at him.
Are aircars supposed to fly this fast
? Mark prayed they wouldn t suck anything bigger than a bug into the thruster
intakes.
Despite the synergine the Count s eyes were going shocked and vague. He pawed
at the little plastic oxygen mask, batted away the medic s worried attempt to
control his hands, and motioned urgently to Mark. He so clearly wanted to say
something, it was less traumatic to let him than to try and stop him. Mark
slid onto his knees by the Count s head.
The Count whispered to Mark in a tone of earnest confidence, "All... true
wealth... is biological."
The medic glanced wildly at Mark for interpretation; Mark could only shrug
helplessly. "I think he s going out of it."
The Count only tried to speak once more, on the hurtling trip; he clawed his
mask away to say, "Spit," which the medic held his head to do, a nasty hacking
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