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The chime of the comconsole wakes Jole from a deep sleep in the middle of his night cycle. He’s programmed the device to alert him only in case of an urgent fleet issue. Or if the message comes from one of two specific Barrayaran comcodes. He’s been hoping for an update, preferably good news, regarding the… calamity – yes, Miles missing-presumed-KIA and his clone-brother Mark coming in from the cold less-than-voluntarily certainly qualify as a calamity – unfolding in his mentor’s personal life. Aral’s last message hinted at impending news, with no clue as to whether it was a positive or negative result.
Jole scrubs a hand through his hair, orders the lights to 25%, and calls up the new communique. To his surprise, the header of the tightbeam, marked Urgent, Personal, and Confidential, proclaims the sender to be Countess Cordelia Vorkosigan. A typed note proceeding the attached message reads:
“Captain Jole, I strongly suggest you wait until you’re off-duty to open this. Love, Cordelia.”
Something icy settles in his stomach. There is no good scenario presaged by a warning such as this. He takes a swig from the flask of water on his bedside table and clicks the playback button.
Cordelia appears above the holo-plate, looking wrecked in a way he has never seen before. She’s still dressed for the day, though the quality of the light in what is clearly her study suggests it was night when she recorded this. No, this is assuredly not good news.
“Oliver, I am sorry to send you worries upon worries when you’re somewhere back of beyond – I know Aral’s been keeping you up to date on our… situation – but this news will be hitting the nets any time now and I wanted to get to you ahead of it. Aral had a heart attack earlier today… or is it yesterday now?” She brushes a hand over her face and looks around as if searching for a temporal clue. A vague wave of her hand banishes that concern. “Well, whichever. He was stabilized at the hospital in Hassadar. It was a burst artery, not an occlusion. He’s alive but there was significant damage to his heart muscle, so doctors are recommending a transplant or a mechanical. He’s at ImpMil now for more tests to determine the best option.”
A pause. A deep breath, blown out steadily in what almost sounds like the words: “This too shall pass.”
“He’s alive, Oliver,” she repeats with forced brightness, whether for his sake or hers it’s hard to know. “And going to stay that way.”
Jole can almost feel the strength of that determination coming through the holovid though she still looked horribly ragged.
“That’s all I have to report at the moment,” she continues gamely. “But I will send more information as I can.”
After another pause, she looks at the holocam directly, gives him a dim smile. “Deep breaths, Oliver,” she instructs.
“Cordelia out.”
Her face disappears from the plate.
Oliver sits stock still for countless minutes as he tries to heed Cordelia’s last command. Eventually he controls his racing heart and mind. Then he replays the message to catch the things he knows he missed the first time, rewinding several times over her announcing: “He’s alive.”
When the first rush of shock and fear finally wind down to a dull weight in his midsection, he pauses the vid on her face just before she signed off, relishing the comfort of that smile. And is amazed in turn at her easy compassion for him. With everything she is dealing with, from Miles’ disappearance to Mark’s first homecoming, and now this, she could have been forgiven for forgetting to think of him. Yet she has taken the time to inform him as if he is a person entitled to the information. A member of the family. An equal partner in her and Aral’s lives.
He knows he was exceptionally selfish during his time with Aral. When they had first started up, it had taken Oliver far too long to think of Cordelia as anything but his lover’s absent wife. When he’d finally thought to ask about her in a vague sort of way, Aral had given him a vague sort of answer about her not minding and that Oliver should not worry. He’d decided she was like many a wife who tolerated their husbands’ affairs so long as they were discreet – he hadn’t reckoned with Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan being very much unlike any Barrayaran wife.
When Aral announced the Countess had returned from her visit to Beta Colony several weeks early, he’d been scared out of his mind, certain she’d come because they had not been circumspect enough and some rumor had gotten back to her. He’d had visions of his head ending up presented to his lover with the same demented smirk he’d seen in vid recreations of Lady Vorkosigan’s Shopping Trip.
Instead, he’d been confronted with a bemused but supportive metamour, who hadn’t pressed for details but made damned sure that his relationship with Aral was desired and consensual on Oliver’s part.
And now? God, he’s always been a little bit in love with her – how can he not, with all that she had done for him those seven years of his Agreement with Aral and in the on-again-off-again times in between? – but for the first time he realizes she really loves him in return, and not just as the tolerated caprice of her beloved husband.
It is a revelation he isn’t quite sure he knows what to do with.
Although he’s calmed down quite a bit since the first time he watched the vid, the ice in his stomach doesn’t abate; knowing sleep is an impossibility, he heads down to the officers’ mess to grab some coffee and then on to his ready room for what he hopes is a couple of hours to process.
If the lieutenant with the con is surprised by the appearance of the Fleet XO hours ahead of his own scheduled shift, the young Vor lord keeps it to himself. Jole merely nods and declines the offer to take the hot seat, slipping into the small, attached office.
As Alpha shift approaches, the coldness in his belly retreats enough for him to send a yeomen back to the mess for a plate of food, and a request off to the commander of the Barrayaran escort group for a few minutes of his time at his earliest convenience. There is no telling when the official word on the Prime Minister will arrive, and while he does not wish to spread gossip, he knows better than to keep his unofficial – if hearing it from the mouth of the Countess herself could be considered ‘unofficial’ anyway – knowledge from his commanding officer. It is not, after all, a wholly personal matter.
And Commodore Vororlov is one of Vorkosigan’s New Men, Vor but from a very minor family that hasn’t been a powerhouse since well before the end of the Time of Isolation. He’d been on staff with then-Regent Vorkosigan for a time and carried the philosophies he learned there into his career, rising rather meteorically for a man born with little connections.
The Commodore’s aide-de-camp responds with an ASAP. Jole finishes his breakfast – he’s already short of sleep so not passing up his chance to eat – before going to the shuttle bay to catch a ride to the flagship.
“I apologize for disturbing you so early, sir,” Jole says as soon as salutes have been exchanged and the older man waves him into a seat at his desk. The commodore’s ready room reflects a man of taste but frugality, a holdover from his upbringing as a cash-strapped aristocrat. Jole empathizes entirely.
“Not at all,” Vororlov returns, his brown eyes intent and curious. “I knew it would be worth my time, coming from you.” A high compliment in this man’s books. Jole is gratified; they’ve been working together now for almost five months and the relationship has been easy.
“It is, sir,” Jole assures him. “Unfortunately, it’s not good news. The official announcement will probably be coming down soon, but I’ve had advance information from Countess Vorkosigan herself. The Prime Minister has suffered a massive heart attack. He’s being treated at ImpMil but his condition is serious. As of her message, they were weighing the pros and cons of vat-grown transplant vs mechanical replacement.”
Saying it out loud causes the fear and desperation to hit him again. God, they are weeks away from home and he has no legitimate reason to ask to abandon his duties to try to rush back, even were there a way to get there before everything is over, one way or another.
The Commodore takes the information in with only a mild frown but the hand he runs through his salt and pepper hair is a tell of his distress, both professional and personal Jole judges. “Damn!” he mutters succinctly.
“Yes, sir.”
“Right,” Vororlov says after a brief pause, “no need to tell you to keep this confidential until it’s official, I am sure.”
“No, sir,” Jole affirms. “But I can write something up to announce to the crew and our charges if you’d like, for when the word comes in.”
Captain Jole knows that, apart from perhaps ImpSec, all Service men are inveterate gossips, and no amount of forbidding political discourse could stop these most political of animals from passing rumors off as truth if the fleet commanders don’t get out in front of it. And neither of them can afford to forget the fact that, whatever progress has been made with the vassal planet in recent years, they are still shepherding a civilian convoy staffed by people who will have… strong reactions when they learn that the Butcher of Komarr has been laid low.
Vororlov gives Jole an appraising look, lips pursed as he ponders his XO’s offer. “Only if it won’t be a hardship for you, Captain. I know you’re a close friend of the family as well as one of Admiral Vorkosigan’s protegees.”
Jole’s heart pinches. He’s been remarkably lucky through most of his career to have superiors of honor, but Vorolov is decidedly in a class by himself in this regard, eclipsed by Aral alone for the level of regard he gives his men. The Commodore doesn’t know the half of it – none of the men Jole has reported to since leaving the Prime Minister’s staff has been in the Need-to-Know pool – but he clearly understands that Count Vorkosigan is more to Oliver than a professional connection.
“Thank you, sir.” He manages to push this out clearly, past the sudden constriction of his throat. “But I can handle it.”
The Commodore nods. “Very good,” he says simply, trusting Jole to know his own limits. “If you can have it on my console within an hour, I’d be obliged.”
“Of course, sir.” Jole knows a dismissal from this man when he hears it. He stands, gives the fleet’s commander his best salute and takes his leave.
Cordelia’s next update comes just before the official announcement goes out to the Fleet. He’s grateful to have a bit of bright news to hang on to while crew members try to worm out of their Captain whatever insights he might have on the situation. It is excruciating to endure none-the-less, and for all he knows there is not a thing he can do for either Aral or Cordelia, the need to run to them, to be by their side now is nearly irresistible. He reminds himself over and over that the Prime Minister will not thank him for getting cashiered and incarcerated for desertion.
Messages come at regular intervals, though they’re usually of the “nothing new to report” variety with her trying not to show how distraught she is. He doesn’t learn of the additional weight she was shouldering, of sending her only remaining son on a potential fool’s errand to find her first born, until months later when he’s back on Barrayar and the whole frantic mess is resolved. In hindsight he is glad about this though he feels badly about not being able to be of any consolation to her on that score. In the meantime, her missives, however terse, are of immense comfort.
Finally a message that breaks the monotony arrives: Cordelia is looking haggard but there is just a touch of humor and hope in her face when she greets him. She’s not in her office this time, but in a brightly lit room that is unmistakably medical.
“Tomorrow’s the day at last, Oliver,” she says.
Then the view pans around to a cylindrical vat, translucent and filled with a clear liquid. Within it, distinctly beating, is a heart. Aral’s heart, Oliver surmises. His breath catches.
“I hope you aren’t regretting saying yes to seeing it,” Cordelia continues, focusing the holocorder back on herself. “I find it quite fascinating, but Aral thought it was a little grotesque. I wonder which side you’ll fall on.”
Oliver grins. And if that doesn’t sum up the pair of them, he doesn’t know what does.
“Hang in there, kiddo,” she says bracingly, and he’s fairly certain she’s saying it to herself as much as him. “One more day. I’ll message again as soon as it’s done.”
He’s not sure why being in the homestretch should make things so much worse, but somehow it does. His duty shifts crawls by; he rockets between unsupported elation and unendurable anxiety, certain his emotions are transparent to his whole crew and superior officer. Wishing like hell there was someone he could confide in. He’s sent a few messages back to Cordelia, of course, but he’s had to be guarded – even high-security messages are prone to tampering by a person with the right clearance or skills to bypass encryption measures.
It’s thirty-eight hours before the next message is delivered at last, and another hour after that before he’s able to get to the privacy of his quarters to view it. And she is smiling, a smile that actually reaches her eyes, looking like the sun finally came out after weeks of storm clouds.
“The surgery was a success,” she announces elatedly. “The doctor said it went like clockwork and he’s very, very positive about the outcome.
“Aral’s in recovery right now so I can’t be with him physically, but they let me see him on the monitors briefly. I’d send you a picture as proof of life, but I am pretty sure Aral would rise up and strangle me.”
She laughs, a little hysterically to be sure, but he can’t help but laugh in response.
The chime of the comconsole wakes him again an hour into his sleep cycle. He panics for a moment, sure it’s Cordelia telling him some complication has arisen and Aral’s condition has worsened or that he’s dead. But when he plays the message, it’s his beloved’s face that appears above the vid plate, and all fear and anxiety fall away.
He’s barely eighty hours out of surgery but sitting up, by sheer force of will, if Oliver is any judge. He’s dressed in a familiar flowery shirt. Oliver can imagine him ordering Lieutenant Tyson to go fetch it from Vorkosigan House so he doesn’t have to appear in hospital wear for this missive. No tubes show either, but he suspects Aral insisted on covering them: equal parts vanity and wanting to shield Oliver from the sight of this medical reality. Oliver adores him for it.
“I can only talk for a few minutes,” Aral says, and Oliver can tell immediately by the annoyed tolerance in his tone exactly who’s doing the ‘allowing.’ “But this is the real proof of life so you can stop worrying. And tell all the vultures from that trade fleet you’re escorting it’ll take more than heart failure to keep me down.” And he deploys the Grin, the brash feral one that made Oliver fall in love with him nine years ago and keeps him coming back.
He stops the recording on that face. Aral’s hair, longer than he normally wears it, is badly rumpled, causing Oliver inappropriate thoughts. And, God, it’s good to feel something positive for the first time in weeks.
God’s in His Heaven. All’s right with the world.
Jole laughs at himself, then restarts the message.