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session. Gradually she began to feel cooler and clearer.
She sat up, her face buried in her hands. "That was a dirty trick," she
observed in a flat voice.
Mehta smiled, thin as plastic over an underlying excitement. "Well, it
was, a little. But it's been an enormously productive session. Far more than I
ever expected."
I'll bet, thought Cordelia. Enjoyed my performance, did you? Mehta was
kneeling on the floor, picking up pieces of the recorder.
"Sorry about your machine. Can't imagine what came over me. Did I-destroy
your results?"
"Yes, you should have just fallen asleep. Strange. And no." Rather
triumphantly, she pulled a data cartridge from the wreck, and set it carefully
on the table. "You won't have to go through that again. It's all right here.
Very good."
"What do you make of it?" asked Cordelia dryly, through her fingers.
Mehta regarded her with professional fascination. "You are without doubt
the most challenging case I've ever handled. But this should relieve your mind
of any lingering doubts about whether the Barrayarans have, ah, violently
rearranged your thinking. Your readouts practically went off the scales." She
nodded firmly.
"You know," said Cordelia, "I'm not too crazy about your methods. I have
a-particular aversion to being drugged against my will. I thought that sort of
thing was illegal."
"But necessary, sometimes. The data are much purer if the subject is not
aware of the observation. It's considered sufficiently ethical if permission
is obtained post facto."
"Post facto permission, eh?" Cordelia purred. Fear and fury wound a double
helix up her spine, coiling tighter and tighter. With an effort, she kept her
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smile straight, not letting it turn into a snarl. "That's a legal concept I'd
never thought of. It sounds-almost Barrayaran. I don't want you on my case,"
she added abruptly. Mehta made a note, and looked up, smiling. "That's not a
statement of emotion,"Cordelia emphasized. "That's a legal demand. I refuse
any further treatment from you."
Mehta nodded understandingly. Was the woman deaf?
"Enormous progress," said Mehta happily. "I wouldn't have expected to
uncover the aversion defense for another week yet."
"What?"
"You didn't expect the Barrayarans would put that much work into you and
not plant defenses around it, did you? Of course you feel hostile. Just
remember, those are not your own feelings. Tomorrow, we will work on them."
"Oh no we won't!" The muscles up her scalp were tense as wire. Her head
ached fiercely. "You're fired!"
Mehta looked eager. "Oh, excellent!"
"Did you hear me?" demanded Cordelia. Where did that shrieky whine in my
voice come from? Calm, calm . . .
"Captain Naismith, I remind you that we are not civilians. I am not in the
ordinary legal physician-patient relationship with you; we are both under
military discipline, pursuing, I have reason to believe, a military-never
mind. Suffice it to say, you did not hire me and you can't fire me. Tomorrow,
then."
Cordelia remained seated for hours after she left, staring at the wall and
swinging her leg in absent thumps against the side of the couch, until her
mother came home with supper. The next day she left the apartment early in the
morning on a random tour of the city, and didn't return until late at night.
That night, in her weariness and loneliness, she sat down to write her
first letter to Vorkosigan. She threw away her original attempt halfway
through, when she realized his mail was probably read by other eyes, perhaps
Illyan's. Her second was more neutrally worded. She made it handwritten, on
paper, and being alone kissed it before she sealed it, then smiled wryly at
herself for doing so. A paper letter was far more expensive to ship to
Barrayar than an electronic one, but he would handle it, as she had. It was as
close to a touch as they could come.
The next morning Mehta called early on the comconsole, to tell Cordelia
cheerily she could relax; something had come up, and their session that
afternoon was canceled. She did not refer to Cordelia's absence the previous
afternoon.
Cordelia was relieved at first, until she began thinking about it. Just to
be sure, she absented herself from home again. The day might have been
pleasant, but for a dust-up with some journalists lurking around the apartment
shaft, and the discovery about mid-afternoon that she was being followed by
two men in very inconspicuous civilian sarongs. Sarongs were last year's
fashion; this year it was exotic and whimsical body paint, at least for the
brave. Cordelia, wearing her old tan Survey fatigues, lost them by trailing
them through a pornographic feelie-show. But they turned up again later in the
afternoon as she puttered through the Silica Zoo.
At Mehta's appointed hour the next afternoon the door chimed. Cordelia
slouched reluctantly to answer it. How am I going to handle her today? she
wondered. I'm running low on inspiration. So tired . . .
Her stomach sank. Now what? Framed in the doorway were Mehta, Commodore
Tailor, and a husky medtech. That one, Cordelia thought, staring up at him,
looks like he could handle Bothari. Backing up a bit, she led them into her
mother's living room. Her mother retreated to the kitchen, ostensibly to
prepare coffee.
Commodore Tailor seated himself and cleared his throat nervously.
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"Cordelia, I have something to say that will be a little painful, I'm afraid."
Cordelia perched on the arm of a chair and swung her leg back and forth,
baring her teeth in what she hoped was a bland smile. "S-sticking you with the
dirty work, eh? One of the joys of command. Go ahead."
"We're going to have to ask you to agree to hospitalization for further
therapy."
Dear God, here we go. The muscles of her belly trembled beneath her shirt;
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