"Did you pretend it didn't matter
Did you blame a few bad men
Did you think your leaders wouldn't
Just do it all again
How far is it from here to Nuremberg?"
--David Rovics, How Far Is It From Here to Nuremberg

*

Laisa looked up and caught Captain Galeni's eye.

"How soon are we going to have communications restored?" she asked. "Surely whoever designed this override didn't mean for it to cripple Barrayaran communications too?"

"As I understand it there are two issues," Duv said. "One is that the override is not coming from this building. The computers and master switches running this are likely located either under the office building Political Education took over, which was bulldozed thirty years ago, or in the Consulate itself. The second is that the current settings are locked with your husband's seal. If Lord Auditor Vorkosigan can't unlock it from there, I don't think we have a chance here. We're getting some progress on an orbital tightbeam relay, though."

The main holodisplay in ImpSec Komarr showed a cramped security post deep within the Barrayaran High Consulate of Komarr. On one of the small screens in the back of the security post Count Vorkosigan babbled on about the aftermath of the Conquest, mostly inaudible from Laisa's twice-removed vantage point. His two oldest sons half-blocked the screen as they had a low-voiced discussion.

Lord Vorkosigan sat crosslegged in a chair, his Auditor's chain wrapped around his wrist. Despite the aura of self-control he was projecting, tension was written in his face and behind his eyes. His brother Admiral Naismith seemed slightly more relaxed, but occasionally he betrayed an edge of chill fury. Naismith's silver-haired bodyguard Sergeant Taura crouched by the door, while a quartet of deeply upset Vorkosigan armsmen stood guard. A lone ImpSec corporal hovered nervously, trying to stay out of everyone's way.

And there was also another woman there, Laisa reminded herself. Invisible behind the hidden holocam, journalist Gita Fazliu was being very quiet, listening intently to a conversation far above her security clearance.

"What do you think is up there, Piotr?" Naismith asked. "Besides a lot of men with guns. Who's there, who's backing them? No way Moretti funded this by himself. Not even with Obis. Outside their price range."

"There's not that many Komarrans," Lord Vorkosigan said. "Less than twenty, I'm guessing, and maybe three professional commando squads as backup in armor. I only got glimpses of the latter. No insignia."

"Special forces or freelancers?" Naismith asked.

"Could be either. The gear looked more merc, but I'm a little out of touch."

"Did you hear the autosniper earlier?" Taura asked. "It sounded like a Fel make to me."

"Mm. I'll point out that this is not the sort of operation people use their own drop shuttles for," Naismith said.

"It's not the Cetas," Lord Vorkosigan said.

"Yes, I was about to say. Nuevos?"

"Might be. The possibilities are endless, actually." Lord Vorkosigan pinched his nose. "I just had a nightmarish thought. This does seem like the sort of thing that would appeal to the late, unlamented Commander Cavilo…"

"Oh, God, I hope not," Naismith muttered. "Isn't she dead? Somebody made sure she was actually dead, right, and not just faking? Stake through the heart and a garlic necklace at minimum…"

"That's what I'm wondering. Hmm. You are sure you got Ryoval once and for all?"

"Yes," Sergeant Taura said.

"What've we got for weapons?" Naismith asked.

"Oh, lots," Taura said, shrugging off her pack. Laisa was surprised by the variety of deadly technological devices she set on the side table. With a nod from Lord Vorkosigan, the other men in the room also laid out their private arsenals. Taura's collection was by far the largest and most exotic, while Lord Vorkosigan contributed merely a small, well-concealed stunner. Naismith glanced at Fazliu and quirked an eyebrow until she reluctantly surrendered her own elegantly designed stunner to him. He turned it over in his hands, checked the power pack, and handed it back to her with a nod.

"So it looks like the only one not carrying is you, Miles," Vorkosigan noted. "How the hell did that happen?"

"I was recording an interview," the admiral said through his teeth.

Lord Vorkosigan frowned down at the gathered weaponry. Naismith's bodyguard was finishing the assembly of a large and menacing weapon that seemed to be built exactly to her scale. "Not much to stage a counter-coup with," he said.

"Well, we have Taura's elephant gun," Naismith's lip twisted.

"But nothing else resembling heavy weaponry," Vorkosigan said with another frown. "And no real armor." He glanced at the guard. "The ImpSec low-profile you have under there might blunt a stunner or civilian weapon but won't stop serious fire."

"The really irritating thing is that I brought mine and Taura's space armor, but I left it in orbit," Naismith grumbled. "I seem to be getting insufficiently paranoid in my old age."

"I can't believe you smuggled all that past ImpSec as it is," Vorkosigan said, shaking his head.

"I have permits!"

"For needle grenades?" The Auditor picked up a tiny round device Laisa didn't recognize. "This is cute, though." He tossed it at Roic.

"Share and enjoy," Admiral Naismith said, waving a hand. The arsenal was duly divided. The armsmen got the best picks, while Taura retained a couple of her larger weapons. Naismith chose a needler clearly built to his personal specifications and also took a similarly-scaled nerve disruptor Lord Vorkosigan turned down.

"Just the stunner?" Naismith asked.

"Let's consider me a civilian for the duration," Lord Vorkosigan said neutrally. He stared into space. "My aim's not good enough these days."

A hint of embarrassment from Naismith. "Ah."

Lord Vorkosigan's attention finally fixed on the woman behind the holocam. "Who's your friend, Miles?"

"Uh, this is Dr. Gita Fazliu," Naismith said. "She's the program host for Interstellar Exchange. We sort of got interrupted mid-interview." He glanced sideways. "Gita, this is Lord Auditor Piotr Vorkosigan, my brother."

"She does have security and loyalty oaths on file?"

"I'd imagine so," the admiral said uneasily.

The effect of Vorkosigan's continued stare at Fazliu was extremely unnerving, Laisa thought. "Do you have any military or paramilitary training?" he asked her.

"Um, no, my Lord Auditor."

"Have you ever killed anyone?"

"No!" Fazliu said, shocked.

"Have you ever seen someone die or handled a dead body?"

"Look, what's this about?" she asked plaintively.

Vorkosigan glanced sideways at Naismith, lip twitching upwards. "My God," he said, "an innocent bystander."

"That's not funny," Naismith said.

"Right," Vorkosigan said. "You should stay… well, not here. Hmm."

"I've tried to ditch her already with no success," Naismith said. "She seems to think her chances of being shot by Barrayarans alone is higher than her chances of being shot by Komarran terrorists with us."

"If you stand somewhere brightly lit and look as civilian as possible, you'll probably be fine," Lord Vorkosigan remarked.

"You think?" Naismith sounded ever-so-slightly dubious.

Vorkosigan began to answer, but his attention was suddenly distracted by the voices from the display behind him. Naismith's eyes also widened and he moved closer to his brother and the screen. Curiously, the Count's voice got louder as he did so, as if somebody had suddenly turned the volume up.

"Oh, Bothari. He was just some bastard enlisted kid out of the Caravenserai with a very large cock." Only now that the rest of the room was nearly silent could Laisa decipher Count Vorkosigan's accent, which had become increasingly impenetrable as the minutes wore on. Drool oozed from his open mouth now, bubbles of spittle appearing as he spoke. "The proverbial Indian changeling, heh. I didn't like what Ges was doing to him. The drugs. If they were just screwing each other I wouldn't have cared, but Ges liked to watch."

"Admiral Vorrutyer liked to watch this Bothari man rape his prisoners," Albescu prompted. Count Vorkosigan nodded vigorously.

"Are you sure you want to hear this, Empress?" Galeni asked. Some of the ImpSec men in the room were looking uncomfortable. Neither of the Vorkosigan brothers looked surprised, just grim.

"And you were also sleeping with Vorrutyer."

"I wasn't at the time." The Count looked blurrily indignant. "He used to like to watch me fuck his sister."

"You were having sex with Admiral Vorrutyer and his sister?" Albescu sputtered.

"Not at once! God. One at a time was more than I could handle. My wife was long dead by then, and I hadn't gotten drunk enough to go out with Ges in many years. He'd fallen into the Prince's orbit, anyway, and everyone knew what was going on there. Even Vorhalas eventually figured it out."

"Can you explain what was going on there that everyone knew?"

Vorkosigan gave a low snort. "Sex for power. Serg fucking him, of course - Ges never had any objection to playing the woman's part. Though it wasn't really a preference thing, more a social rank thing. He knelt for me too. Most of the time." The Komarrans were looking morbidly fascinated, but Dubauer seemed bored.

"I'm beginning to understand why Father warned me so ferociously off Lady Donna." Naismith mentioned, sounding a little strangled.

"Two wings away and a floor down was not nearly far enough away from you two, yes," Lord Vorkosigan said, eyes still grimly fixed to the screen.

"Oh, were we keeping you up, Piotr?" Naismith asked with a needlelike grin.

"The arguments, mostly," the Lord Auditor said in a dignified fashion. He seemed relieved to have a distraction from his father's overly-candid testimony.

"Yeah, I should have listened to him. What she really needed was someone easily terrorized she could show off in public."

Lord Vorkosigan barely choked down a laugh. "Haven't you heard? Well, never mind…" His amusement was very brief.

"In the fleet, there was an unclean silence about it all," Count Vorkosigan continued. "If Vorrutyer wanted a woman for his games, he had her. There were others who were never touched, though, who knows why one and not the other? Some stayed on the ships, some were sent to the camps. The camps in a way were worse. More banal atrocities. A couple of women died there."

"Did you yourself rape any prisoners, Admiral Vorkosigan?"

"No," he whispered.

"When did you find out this sort of abuse was going on?"

"I guessed it from the start," he said, "but I was away from the flagship often enough… I was in denial. My quarters were across from Vorrutyer's, so it eventually became impossible to ignore. There was one evening where a young lady was being dragged in - I intervened, asking Vorrutyer what he thought he was doing. We ended up having dinner, the four of us – Vorrutyer, and I and Illyan and the terrified girl. A vicious pretense. The way she flinched at Bothari – I knew." His face twisted in a slack grimace. "I did insist on escorting her back to the cells. The next morning his door was ajar and she was screaming."

"Simon Illyan was there?" Albescu asked alertly. The Komarrans in the room all showed some reaction to the name, hatred the most prominent.

"He wasn't with Vorrutyer, he was with me," Vorkosigan explained.

"Were you sleeping with him too?" A sneer.

"No, unfortunately. It wouldn't have been appropriate. He was my spy. His duty was to watch my every move for Ezar and make sure I didn't do anything idiotic like assassinate my superior officers. I was very close, that morning. I went back for my plasma arc, but Simon talked me down."

"Unlike the Komarr invasion, I understand you were not initially in charge of the Escobar invasion," Dubauer said. "Can you tell us about the chain of command and what your particular responsibilities were?"

"The Prince and Vice-Admiral Vorrutyer were co-commanders. Rulf Vorhalas was under them. I was next in seniority, a commodore again after a few years spent at captain. It wasn't any secret I thought the whole thing was a terrible idea, so I was assigned to keep the contingency plans updated."

"Were you involved with the discussions about going to war in Escobar?" Obis asked.

"Yes," Vorkosigan said. "Just about all of them except the war faction's internal meetings. As a cadet member of the Counts with relevant experience I was permitted to attend the joint sessions."

"Did the subject of interstellar law ever come up in these discussions?" Dubauer again.

"Functionally, the government has never cared about that sort of thing," Vorkosigan explained. "The Emperor willed it, so it was done."

"Who is that Betan woman and what's she doing here?" Naismith asked his brother under his breath.

"I'm not sure myself," Lord Vorkosigan replied in equally hushed tones. "I've heard the name. I think she might be Moretti's lover."

"Is he over his dead wife then?" the admiral whispered back.

"Signs point to no..."

"So the choice to wage illegal war against Escobar was Ezar Vorbarra's?" Moretti asked.

"Taura, why don't you take Dr. Fazliu across the hall a moment," Lord Vorkosigan said, suddenly mindful of his brother's guest. He pointed at the corporal. "You go with them."

Count Vorkosigan seemed to be writhing internally beneath his induced slack-jawed idiocy, and his answer was longer in coming than normal. His body language was changing too, as if he was shrinking away from something he did not want to face. Fazliu turned away and the room vanished. "The war party and the Prince wanted it. Ezar wanted to let them try."

"Yes, about Prince Serg," Obis said. Despite Fazliu's departure, his voice was still clearly audible. "Reports from Escobaran prisoners of war indicate that he had a taste for torturing and raping pregnant female prisoners."

"Yes, that's true." Weirdly, the Count seemed calmer now. Laisa flinched at his words. She'd known the grandfather of her children had mental issues, as Gregor had talked in circles around the subject at length. He had absolutely insisted on the strictest of gene-cleaning regimens for Casimir and his younger, still-gestating brother. But to have it out so baldly…

Galeni looked like he was suppressing a string of swears. "Naismith's still wearing his mike from the interview. Unforgivably sloppy."

The visual portion of the vid now showed the room Fazliu was in across the hall, but the audio feed was extremely muddled. The holojournalist was asking Taura a question, but at the same time Naismith and Vorkosigan were having an intense discussion over the sound of Count Vorkosigan's interrogation. Their voices all merged into an impenetrable jangle.

As Taura answered the Komarran woman, one of the brothers yelped "What!?" Laisa initially thought it was Naismith, then realized it had to have been his brother the Auditor.

"Oh, shit." Naismith said. The Komarran interrogators were also talking over each other in the background. Moretti finally won out.

"The entire war against Escobar was waged so that the Emperor could kill his son?"

"Yes. Essentially. There was no murder involved, he was perfectly capable of getting himself killed. I hardly needed to provide a nudge. If he had been a better leader, he would still have not left the system alive. If he had been a better man…the situation would have never come up."

"So you betrayed ten thousand people to their deaths to kill one man?" Obis sounded legitimately shocked. Somebody in the room with Laisa swore in French.

"It was somewhat more than that, counting the Escobarans. The fleet was also disproportionally loaded with officers who were his political allies. Vorrutyer, others. Vorhalas and I were there to ride herd, though Rulf knew nothing. I did try to save him, but…" Vorkosigan sighed. "I'm death to that family, and it's not on purpose. Not since the first time." His voice became a little more cheerful. "It was less ugly than I expected. My initial projections were twenty-three thousand Barrayaran dead, we actually only lost about sixty-one hundred dead and missing. The extraction was relatively painless, mostly because Vorrutyer wasn't running..."

"Did you know about this?" Laisa whispered to Galeni.

Galeni shook his head violently. "I never suspected. I'm not sure your husband even realizes. My God. He's been sitting on this for more than thirty years."

"All for nothing," she breathed.

"Once upon a time, this alone would have brought down the Imperium," Galeni said. "Even now, it will destroy him."

She wasn't sure she quite grasped the magnitude of what had just been revealed yet. The more she thought about it, the more her heart dropped. "I see now what you meant earlier. The Massacre is the least of it, isn't it?"

"I'm sorry if this is rude, but… just how tall are you?" Fazliu's voice cut in over Admiral Vorkosigan's words.

"It's not the first time I've been asked that, trust me. Two meters, forty-four centimeters," Taura said. She stretched, horizontally. "Taller in these boots."

"…a strategist, but never a tactician," the Count continued, his voice fading out.

"Ceilings must be a bit of an issue," the holojournalist said blankly.

"I've learned to appreciate fascist-scale architecture. Komarr's a little cramped for me."

"What do you think they're doing in there?" Fazliu asked in a hushed tone after another moment .

Laisa could barely make out the Count's voice in the background. "He knew he could ask it of me, because I had known Yuri…"

"Miles sometimes gets… distracted," Taura said. "We really need to get moving." Rising, she slipped out the door, leaving Fazliu with the silent, spooked ImpSec corporal. His name badge read MIZIROV, B. and his undress greens were neatly pressed. He fingered one of his Horus-eye badges nervously and said nothing. The Komarran woman gingerly walked past him to peek out into the hall. It was still empty.

Count Vorkosigan's quiet voice was audible once more, over the total silence in the security post and ImpSec Komarr. "The paranoia of our rulers – it's the paranoia of exquisite vulnerability. Serg tried to assassinate his dying father twice in ten months. He was that sort of man. Not the leader Yuri was, though. Men would follow Yuri, through death and terror. He was the most hunted man on Barrayar during the Occupation…"

"So the current Emperor of Barrayar – his father was a psychotic sex criminal, his grandfather was a mass murderer, his, uh, father's uncle was a paranoid evil dictator," Obis said. "How crazy is he?"

"Gregor? Gregor's a good kid," Count Vorkosigan said distantly. "Always surprised me, that."

The door between the hall and the security post opened again. Laisa was surprised at how quietly Taura could move when she wanted to. Through the door, the brothers were partially visible again.

"Miles certainly ended up with more than his share of crazy," the Count added.

"Hey now," Naismith muttered. He looked deeply shaken. The armsmen were uneasy too, some shocked, some introspective. Only Pym remained unruffled. Lord Vorkosigan was, as usual, impossible to read.

A quiet chuckle from Taura. "We should be moving, sir."

"Yes," the Auditor said distantly. "Quite." His eyes widened. "Oh." Albescu was asking another question, but Laisa was too distracted to make it out.

"What now?" Naismith asked.

"This is still going out on the internal network. I was wondering if they were showing this to the hostages, and I realized that I urgently need to check on something." Lord Vorkosigan consulted a side screen. "I may have made a critical error. Also..." he winced at what the screen told him.

"Have they started tracing?"

"Yes. We need to move now." He looked out at Fazliu as he reached the door. His eyes narrowed in disapproval. "You too. Come on."

"If they've got chemical sniffers this is going to be a real short trip," Naismith commented in a low voice. "Where are we going?"

Lord Vorkosigan hobbled along at a fair pace, his cane clicking on the floor. None of his companions offered to assist him. "Third floor, guest quarters. We're in better shape than you'd think. They half-trashed the internal security monitoring going in and I finished the job after I spotted you down here. We can even use the lift-tubes."

Taura took point in their little group, with Naismith and Pym trailing her. Another two Vorkosigan armsmen flanked Fazliu and the Auditor protectively, while the corporal and the remaining armsman invisibly brought up the rear. Lord Vorkosigan unlocked a sealed nearby lift tube and stepped aside politely to let the sergeant eel up it first.

"Milady," Galeni said. "There's a call for you. It's Rathjens."

"For me?" she asked, surprised. Galeni looked grim. He nodded. With a glance around the room, she stepped to the secure comconsole and activated the cone.

"I see the orbital relay's working," she said. "What's the situation?"

General Rathjens was deeply agitated. "Milady, I thought I should tell you as well. Admiral Lord Vorventa was just here, with several platoons of his men."

She drew in a breath. "Have we engaged with the terrorists then?"

"No. He spoke to General Laisner and Colonel Eliopoulos. All three of them are now on their way to your location, with Vorventa's marines. Vorventa does not approve of your handling of the situation."

Her eyes widened. "I would have thought he'd send his men in after Count Vorkosigan," she said.

Rathjens hesitated. "This is no longer about Count Vorkosigan, if it ever was. It is my duty to watch your back, Milady."

"How close are you to mounting a rescue mission?"

"It won't be soon. The best hostage team has gone with Eliopoulos."

"I see," she said, inwardly furious. "Thank you, General."

Her thoughts raced as she switched off the cone, turning to look at Galeni. He was already issuing orders to a fully armored ImpSec squad. Her armsmen were listening intently.

"I want Vorventa relieved of command," she said. "He's deserted his post."

Galeni nodded. "Rathjens apprised me. Milady, this building isn't built like the headquarters in Vorbarr Sultana. If we're besieged by men in armor with air support, we won't be able to hold out. Our one advantage is that they do not know where the prince is. With your permission, I'd like to move him to another safe house, so they cannot fast-penta you for his location."

Laisa thought about it. She smiled humorlessly. "I think that if we reach that point, we've already lost, Commodore." She was not about to let Galeni disappear Casimir. Right now she didn't want to worry about whether her little boy was safe in whatever other secret hideout Galeni might choose on top of everything else. Barrayar seemed to view her as wholly peripheral to his upbringing as it was.

A glance at the holovid, now displaying a featureless corridor that meant nothing to her. Her brow furrowed in a sudden frown. "Gere, I want you to go down to the entrance. Be visible, and remind them of who exactly they are moving against. You may let the admiral and the general in, without escort. I will agree to speak with them only on my terms."

Gere looked at her thoughtfully, and Laisa was reminded that as an Imperial armsman he took orders from nobody here – not her, not even Galeni. She hadn't stopped to think of what her armsmen thought of all this. They were all ex-military men. Did they secretly agree with Vorventa? Laisa knew that a few of Gregor's more senior armsmen quietly disapproved of her. But Gere just nodded.

"That may help," Galeni said. "If they don't obey, it's clear treason, which expands our options significantly. We've uncovered some body armor that might fit you, if it comes to an assault…"

She shook her head. "If I'm going to speak to them, I don't want it to be in badly fitting military gear. It won't impress them. I am their Empress. That's all that should be required."

"As you wish," he said. He didn't look pleased.

"Do get me a nerve disruptor and holster, though," she said pleasantly.

Commodore Galeni's eyebrows went up and he gave her a short bow. As his head rose, his attention was completely arrested by the vid display.

Laisa turned and froze. She could feel a ripple of instinctual hatred run through the room. Raised on the myths of the occupiers, her reaction to the green-and-gold painted ghem warrior was no less intense than theirs.

The Cetagandan was half-hidden behind a door frame, but his plasma arc was clearly visible. Equally clearly, it was pointed squarely at Lord Vorkosigan's head. The Auditor looked up – and smiled.