Ethan of Athos by Lois McMaster Bujold

Author:Lois McMaster Bujold [Bujold, Lois McMaster]
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Science fiction, General, Science Fiction - General, Fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Fantasy fiction, Fiction - Science Fiction, American Science Fiction And Fantasy, Obstetricians, Inrerplanetary voyages
ISBN: 9780671656041
Publisher: Baen Books
Published: 2010-01-21T16:09:52+00:00

Chapter Eight

After a moment's stunned silence Ethan sputtered, “What do you want of Athos?”

“Refuge, sir,” said the young man. “For I'm surely a refugee.” Tension rendered his smile false and anxious. He grew more urgent as Ethan backed away slightly. “The census courier's manifest listed one of your titles as ambassador-at-large. You can give me political asylum, can't you?”

“I -- I --” Ethan stammered. “That was just something the Population Council threw in at the last minute, because no one was sure what I'd find out here. I'm not really a diplomat, I'm a doctor.” He stared at the young man, who stared back with a kind of beaten hunger. The automatic part of Ethan totted up the symptoms of fatigue Cee presented: grey in the hollows of his skin, bloodshot sclera, a barely observable tremula in his smooth corded hands. A horrid realization shook Ethan. “Look, uh -- you aren't by chance asking me to protect you from Ghem-colonel Millisor, are you?”

Cee nodded.

“Oh -- oh, no. You don't understand. It's just me, out here. I don't have an embassy or anything like that. I mean, real embassies have security guards, soldiers, a whole intelligence corps --”

Cee's smile twisted. “Does the man who arranged Okita's last accident really need them?”

Ethan stood with his mouth open, his utter dismay robbing him of reply.

Cee went on. “There are many of them -- Millisor can command the resources of Cetaganda against me -- and I'm alone. The only one left. The sole survivor. Alone, it isn't a question whether they'll kill me, only how soon.” His beautiful structured hands opened in pleading. “I was sure I'd eluded them, and it was safe to double back. Only to find Millisor -- the fearless vampire hunter himself! --” the young man's mouth thinned in bitterness, “squatting across the last gateway. I beg you, sir. Grant me asylum.”

Ethan cleared his throat nervously. “Ah -- just what do you mean by 'vampire hunter'?”

“It's how he views himself,” Cee shrugged. “To him all his crimes are heroics, for the good of Cetaganda, because somebody has to do the dirty work -- his exact thought, that. He's proud to do it. But he doesn't have to nerve himself to do the dirty work on me. He hates and fears me worse than any hell, in his secretive little soul -- ha! As if his secrets were more vital or vile than anyone else's. As if I gave a damn for his secrets, or his soul.”

Wanly, Ethan recognized the seasick symptoms of talk at cross-purposes again. He stretched for some bottom to this floating conversation. “What are you?”

The young man drew back, his face suddenly shuttered with suspicion. “Asylum. Asylum first, and then you can have it all.”

“Huh?”

The suspicion turned to despair before Ethan's eyes. The excitement that hope had lent Cee evaporated, leaving a bleak dryness. “I understand. You see me as they do. A medical monstrosity, put together from graveyard bits, cooked in a vat. Well,” he inhaled resolution, “so be it.

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