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eyes wide, heads lined up at the level of the porch floor as if stuck up on
some ancient battlement as a warning to kindred malefactors.
"What did you just say to your friends, Zed?" asked
Miles quietly. "Repeat it."
Zed licked his lips. "I jus' said you'd come to kill
Lem Csurik, lord." Zed was clearly now wondering if
Miles's murderous intent included obnoxious and disrespectful boys as well.
"That is not true, Zed. That is a dangerous lie."
Zed looked bewildered. "But Da -- said it."
"What is true, is that I've come to catch the person who killed Lem Csurik's
baby daughter. That may be
Lem. But it may not. Do you understand the difference?"
"But Harra said Lem did it, and she ought to know, he's her husband and all."
"The baby's neck was broken by someone. Harra thinks
Lem, but she didn't see it happen. What you and your
friends here have to understand is that I won't make a mistake. I can't
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condemn the wrong person. My own truth drugs won't let me. Lem Csurik has only
to come here and tell me the truth to clear himself, if he didn't do it.
"But suppose he did. What should I do with a man who would kill a baby, Zed?"
Zed shuffled. "Well, she was only a mutie . . ." then shut his mouth and
reddened, not-looking at Miles.
It was, perhaps, a bit much to ask a twelve-year-old boy to take an interest
in any baby, let alone a mutie one ... no, dammit. It wasn't too much. But how
to get a hook into that prickly defensive surface?
And if Miles couldn't even convince one surly twelve-year-old, how was he to
magically transmute a whole District of adults? A rush of despair made him
suddenly want to rage. These people were so bloody impossible. He checked his
temper firmly.
"Your Da was a twenty-year man, Zed. Are you proud that he served the
Emperor?"
"Yes, lord." Zed's eyes sought escape, trapped by these terrible adults.
Miles forged on. "Well, these practices --
mutie-killing -- shame the Emperor, when he stands for Barrayar before the
galaxy. I've been out there.
I know. They call us all savages, for the crimes of a few. It shames the Count
my father before his peers, and Silvy Vale before the District. A soldier gets
honor by killing an armed enemy, not a baby. This matter touches my honor as a
Vorkosigan, Zed.
Besides," Miles's lips drew back on a mirthless grin, and he leaned forward
intently in his chair -- Zed recoiled as much as he dared -- "you will all be
astonished at what only a mutie can do. That I have sworn on my grandfather's
grave."
Zed looked more suppressed than enlightened, his slouch now almost a crouch.
Miles slumped back in his chair and released him with a weary wave of his
hand.
"Go play, boy."
Zed needed no urging. He and his companions shot away around the house as
though released from springs.
Miles drummed his fingers on the chair arm, frowning into the silence that
neither Pym nor Dea dared break.
"These hill-folk are ignorant, lord," offered Pym after a moment.
"These hill-folk are mine, Pym. Their ignorance is
... a shame upon my house." Miles brooded. How had this whole mess become his
anyway? He hadn't created it. Historically, he'd only just got here himself.
"Their continued ignorance, anyway," he amended in fairness. It still made a
burden like a mountain. "Is the message so complex? So difficult? 'You don't
have to kill your children anymore.' It's not like we're asking them all to
learn -- 5-Space navigational math." That had been the plague of Miles's last
Academy semester.
"It's not easy for them," shrugged Dea. "It's easy for the central authorities
to make the rules, but these people have to live every minute of the
consequences. They have so little, and the new rules force them to give their
margin to marginal people who can't pay back. The old ways were wise, in the
old days. Even now you have to wonder how many premature reforms we can
afford, trying to ape the galactics."
And what's your definition of a marginal person, Dea?
"But the margin is growing," Miles said aloud.
"Places like this aren't up against famine every winter any more. They're not
isolated in their disasters, relief can get from one district to another under
the Imperial seal . . . we're all getting more connected, just as fast as we
can.
Besides," Miles paused, and added rather weakly, "perhaps you underestimate
them."
Dea's brows rose ironically. Pym strolled the length of the porch, running his
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scanner in yet another pass over the surrounding scrubland. Miles, turning in
his chair to pursue his cooling teacup, caught a slight movement, a flash of
eyes, behind the casement-hung front window swung open to the summer air -- Ma
Karal, standing frozen, listening. For how long?
Since he'd called her boy Zed, Miles guessed, arresting her attention. She
raised her chin as his eyes met hers, sniffed, and shook out the cloth she'd
been holding with a snap. They exchanged a nod. She turned back to her work
before Dea, watching Pym,
noticed her.
Karal and Alex returned, understandably, around suppertime.
"I have six men out searching," Karal reported cautiously to Miles on the
porch, now well on its way to becoming Miles's official HQ. Clearly, Karal had
covered ground since midafternoon. His face was sweaty, lined with physical as
well as the underlying emotional strain. "But I think Lem's gone into the
scrub. It could take days to smoke him out. There's hundreds of places to lie
low out there."
Karal ought to know. "You don't think he's gone to some relatives?" asked
Miles. "Surely, if he intends to evade us for long, he has to take a chance on
re-supply, on information. Will they turn him in when he surfaces?"
"It's hard to say." Karal turned his hand palm-out.
"It's . . . a hard problem for 'em, m'lord."
"Hm."
How long would Lem Csurik hang around out there in the scrub, anyway? His
whole life -- his blown-to-bits life -- was all here in Silvy Vale.
Miles considered the contrast. A few weeks ago, Csurik had been a young man
with everything going for him; a home, a wife, a family on the way, happiness;
by Silvy Vale standards, comfort and security. His cabin, Miles had not failed
to note, though simple, had been kept with love and energy, and so redeemed
from the potential squalor of its poverty. Grimmer in the winter, to be sure.
Now Csurik was a hunted fugitive, all the little he had torn away in the
twinkling of an eye. With nothing to hold him, would he run away and keep
running? With nothing to run to, would he linger near the ruins of his life?
The police force available to Miles a few hours way in Hassadar was an itch in
his mind. Was it not time to call them in, before he fumbled this into a worse
mess? But ... if he were meant to solve this by a show of force, why hadn't
the Count let him come by aircar on the first day? Miles regretted that
two-and-a-half-day ride. It had sapped his forward momentum, slowed him down
to Silvy Vale's walking pace, tangled him with time to doubt. Had the Count
foreseen it? What did he know that Miles didn't? What could he know? Dammit,
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