"Yes . . ." Her heart lurched, gulped. As an exercise in self-discipline, Cordelia closed her eyes and did not open them again. "Tell me about that, Drou."
"Negri trained me himself. Because I was Kareen's body servant, he always said I would be the last barrier between Kareen and Gregor and—and anything that was bad enough to get that far. He showed me everything about the Residence. He used to drill me about it. He showed me things I don't think he showed anybody else. We had five emergency escape routes worked out, in our disaster drills. Two of them were common Security procedure. One of them he showed only to a few top staffers like Illyan. The other two—I don't know that anybody knew about them but Negri and Emperor Ezar. And I'm thinking . . ." she moistened her lips, "a secret route out of something ought to be an equally secret route in. Don't you think?"
"Your reasoning interests me extremely, Drou. As Aral might say. Go on." Cordelia still did not open her eyes.
"That's about it. If I could somehow get to the Residence, I bet I could get in. If Vordarian's just taken over all the standard Security arrangements and beefed them up."
"And get back out?"
"Why not?"
Cordelia found she had to remember to breathe. "Who do you work for, Drou?"
"Captain—" she started to answer, but slowed self-consciously. "Negri. But he's dead. Commander—Captain Illyan, now, I suppose."
"Let me rephrase that." Cordelia opened her eyes at last. "Who did you put your life on the line for?"
"Kareen. And Gregor, of course. They were kind of the same thing."
"Still are. This mother bets." She caught Drou's blue gaze. "And Kareen gave you to me."
"To be my mentor. We thought you were a soldier."
"Never. But that doesn't mean I never fought." Cordelia paused. "What do you want to trade for, Drou? Your life in my hand—I shall not say oath-sworn, that's for those other idiots—for what?"
"Kareen," Droushnakovi answered steadily. "I've watched them, here, gradually reclassifying her as expendable. Every day for three years, I put my life on the line because I believed that her life was important. You watch someone that closely for that long, you don't have too many illusions about her. Now they seem to think I should just switch off my loyalty, like some guard-machine. There's something wrong with that. I want to—to at least try for Kareen. In exchange for that—whatever you will, Milady."
"Ah." Cordelia rubbed her lips. "That seems . . . equitable. One expendable life for another. Kareen for Miles." She sank down in the chair in deep meditation.
First you see it. Then you do it. "It's not enough." Cordelia shook her head at last. "We need . . . someone who knows the city. Someone with muscle, for backup. A weapons-man, a sleepless eye. I need a friend." The corners of her lips turned up in a very small smile. "Closer than a brother." She rose and walked to the comconsole.
* * *
"You asked to see me, Milady?" said Sergeant Bothari.
"Yes. Please come in."
Senior officers' quarters did not intimidate Bothari, but his brow furrowed nonetheless as Cordelia gestured him to a seat. She took Aral's usual spot across the low table from him. Drou sat again in the corner, watching in reserved silence.
Cordelia regarded Bothari, who regarded her in return. He looked all right physically, though his face was grooved with tension. She sensed, as with a third eye, frustrated energies coursing through his body; arcs of rage, nets of control, a tangled electric knot of dangerous sexuality under it all. Reverberating energies, building up and up without release, in desperate need of ordered action lest they break out wildly on their own. She blinked, and refocused on his less terrifying surface; a tired-looking ugly man in an elegant brown uniform.
To her surprise, Bothari began. "Milady. Have you heard anything new about Elena?"
Wondering why I called you here? To her shame, she had almost forgotten Elena. "Nothing new, I'm afraid. She is reported being kept along with Mistress Hysopi in that downtown hotel that Vordarian's Security commandeered when they ran out of cells, with a lot of other second- and third-tier hostages. She hasn't been moved to the Residence or anything." Elena was not, unlike Kareen, in the direct line of Cordelia's secret mission. If he asked, how much dare she promise?
"I was sorry to hear about your son, Milady."
"My mutant, as Piotr would say." She watched him; she could read his shoulders and spine and gut better than that blank beaky face.
"About Count Piotr," he said, and stopped. His hands hooked each other, between his knees, and flexed. "I had thought to speak to the admiral. I hadn't thought to speak to you. I should have thought of you."
"Always." Now what?
"Man came up to me yesterday. In the gym. Not in uniform, no rank or nametag. He offered me Elena. Elena's life, if I would assassinate Count Piotr."
"How tempting," Cordelia choked, before she could stop herself. "What, uh, guarantees did he offer?"
"That question came to me, pretty shortly. There I would be, in deep shit, maybe executed, and who would care for a, a dead man's bastard then? I figured it for a cheat, just another cheat. I went back to look for him, been on the lookout, but I never spotted him since." He sighed. "It almost seems like a hallucination, now."
The expression on Drou's face was a study in the deepest unreassurance, but fortunately Bothari was turned away from her and did not notice. Cordelia shot her a small quelling frown.
"Have you been having hallucinations?" Cordelia asked.
"I don't think so. Just bad dreams. I try not to sleep."
"I . . . have a dilemma of my own," Cordelia said. "As you heard me tell Piotr."
"Yes, Milady."
"Had you heard about the time limit?"
"Time limit?"
"If it's not serviced, the replicator will start to fail to support Miles in less than six days. Aral argues that Miles is in no more danger than any of his staffers' families. I disagree."
"Behind his back, I've heard some say otherwise."
"Ah?"
"They say it's a cheat. The admiral's son is some sort of mutant, non-viable, while they risk whole children."
"I don't think he realizes . . . anyone says that."
"Who would repeat it to his face?"
"Very few. Maybe not even Illyan." Though Piotr probably wouldn't fail to pass it on, if he picked it up. "Dammit! No one, on either side, would hesitate to dump that replicator." She brooded, and began again. "Sergeant. Who do you work for?"
"I am oath-sworn Armsman to Count Piotr," Bothari recited the obvious. He was watching her closely now, a weird smile tugging at one corner of his mouth.
"Let me rephrase that. I know the official penalties for an armsman going AWOL are fearsome. But suppose—"
"Milady." He held up a hand; she paused in mid-breath. "Do you remember, back on the front lawn at Vorkosigan Surleau when we were loading Negri's body into the lightflyer, when my Lord Regent told me to obey your voice as his own?"
Cordelia's brows went up. "Yes . . . ?"
"He never countermanded that order."
"Sergeant," she breathed at last, "I'd never have guessed you for a barracks-lawyer."
His smile grew a millimeter tighter. "Your voice is as the voice of the Emperor himself. Technically."
"Is it, now," she whispered in delight. Her nails dug into her palms.
He leaned forward, his hands now held rock-still between his knees. "So, Milady. What were you saying?"
* * *
The motor pool staging bay was an echoing low vault, its shadows slashed by the lights from a glass-walled office. Cordelia stood waiting in the darkened lift tube portal, Drou at her shoulder, and watched through the distant rectangle of glass as Bothari negotiated with the transport officer. General Vorkosigan's Armsman was signing out a vehicle for his oath-lord. The passes and IDs Bothari had been issued apparently worked just fine. The motor pool man fed Bothari's cards to his computer, took Bothari's palm print on his sensor-pad, and di
spatched orders with snap and hustle.
Would this simple plan work? Cordelia wondered desperately. And if it didn't, what alternative had they? Their planned route sketched itself in her mind, red light-lines snaking over a map. Not north toward their goal, but due south first, by groundcar into the next loyal District. Ditch the distinctive government vehicle, take the monorail west to yet another District, then northwest to another; then due east into Count Vorinnis's neutral zone, focus of so much diplomatic attention from both sides. Piotr's comment echoed in her memory, "I swear, Aral, if Vorinnis doesn't quit trying to play both ends against the middle, you ought to hang him higher than Vordarian when this is over." Then into the capital District itself, then, somehow, into the sealed city. A daunting number of kilometers to cover. Three times the distance of the direct route. So much time. Her heart swung north like a compass needle.
The first and last Districts would be the worst. Aral's forces could be almost more inimical to this excursion than Vordarian's. Her head spun with the cumulative impossibility of it all.
Step by step, she told herself firmly. One step at a time. Just get off Tanery Base; that, they could do. Divide the infinite future into five-minute blocks, and take them one by one.
There, the first five minutes down already, and a swift and shining general staff car appeared from underground storage. A small victory, in reward for a little patience and daring. What might great patience and daring yet bring?
Judiciously, Bothari inspected the vehicle, as if in doubt that it was quite fit for his master. The transport officer waited anxiously, and seemed to deflate with relief when the great general's Armsman, after running his hand over the canopy and frowning at some minute speck of dust, gave it a grudging acceptance. Bothari brought the vehicle around to the lift tube portal and parked it, neatly blocking the office's view of the entering passengers.
Drou bent to pick up their satchel, packed with a very odd variety of clothing including Bothari's and Cordelia's mountain souvenirs, and their thin assortment of weapons. Bothari set the polarization on the rear canopy to mirror-reflection, and raised it.
"Milady!" Lieutenant Koudelka's anxious voice called from the lift tube entry behind them. "What are you doing?"
Cordelia's teeth closed on vile words. She converted her savage expression to a light, surprised smile, and turned. "Hello, Kou. What's up?"
He frowned, looking at her, at Droushnakovi, at the satchel. "I asked first." He was out of breath; he must have been chasing them down for some minutes, after not finding her in Aral's quarters. An ill-timed errand.
Cordelia kept her smile fixed, as her mind blinked on a vision of a Security team piling out of the lift tube to arrest her, or at least her plans. "We're . . . going into town."
His lips thinned in skepticism. "Oh? Does the Admiral know? Where's Illyan's outer-perimeter team, then?"
"Gone on ahead," said Cordelia blandly.
The vague plausibility actually raised a flicker of doubt in his eyes. Alas, only for a moment. "Now, wait just a bloody minute—"
"Lieutenant," Sergeant Bothari interrupted. "Take a look at this." He gestured toward the rear passenger compartment of the staff car.
Koudelka leaned to look. "What?" he said impatiently.
Cordelia winced as Bothari's open hand chopped down across the back of Koudelka's neck, and winced again at the heavy thud of Koudelka's head hitting the far side of the compartment's interior after a powerful boost-assist to neck and belt by Bothari. His swordstick clattered to the pavement.
"In." Bothari's voice was a strained low growl, accompanied by a quick glance across the bay toward the glass-walled transport office.
Droushnakovi flung the satchel into the compartment and dove in after Koudelka, shoving his long loose limbs out of the way. Cordelia grabbed up the stick and piled in after. Bothari stood back, saluted, closed the mirrored canopy, and entered the driver's compartment.
They started smoothly. Cordelia had to control irrational panic as Bothari stopped at the first checkpoint. She could see and hear the guards so clearly, it was difficult to remember they saw only the reflections of their own hard eyes. But apparently General Piotr could indeed pass anywhere at will. How pleasant, to be General Piotr. Though in these trying times, probably not even Piotr could have entered Tanery Base without that rear canopy being opened and scanned. The final gate crew that waved them out was busily engaged in just such an inspection of a large incoming convoy of freight haulers. Their timing was just as Cordelia had planned and prayed.
Cordelia and Droushnakovi finally got the sprawling Koudelka straightened up between them. His first alarming flaccidity was passing off. He blinked and moaned. Koudelka's head, neck, and upper torso were of the few areas of his body not rewired; Cordelia trusted nothing inorganic was broken.
Droushnakovi's voice was taut with worry. "What'll we do with him?"
"We can't dump him out on the road, he'd run back and give the word," said Cordelia. "Yet if we cinched him to a tree out of sight somewhere, there's a chance he might not be found . . . we'd better tie him up, he's coming around."
"I can handle him."
"He's had enough handling, I'm afraid."
Droushnakovi managed to immobilize Koudelka's hands with a twisted scarf from the satchel; she was quite good at clever knots.
"He might prove useful," mused Cordelia.
"He'll betray us," frowned Droushnakovi.
"Maybe not. Not once we're in enemy territory. Once the only way out is forward."
Koudelka's eyes stopped jerking, following some invisible starry blur, and came at last into focus. Both his pupils were still the same size, Cordelia was relieved to note.
"Milady—Cordelia," he croaked. His hands yanked futilely at the silky bonds. "This is crazy. You'll run right into Vordarian's forces. And then Vordarian will have two handles on the Admiral, instead of just one. And you and Bothari know where the Emperor is!"
"Was," corrected Cordelia. "A week ago. He's been moved since then, I'm sure. And Aral has demonstrated his capacity to resist Vordarian's leverage, I think. Don't underestimate him."
"Sergeant Bothari!" Koudelka leaned forward, appealing into the intercom. The front canopy was also silvered, now.
"Yes, Lieutenant?" Bothari's bass monotone returned.
"I order you to turn this vehicle around."
A slight pause. "I'm not in the Imperial Service anymore, sir. Retired."
"Piotr didn't order this! You're Count Piotr's man."
A longer pause; a lower tone. "No. I am Lady Vorkosigan's dog."
"You're off your meds!"
How such could travel over a purely audio link Cordelia was not sure, but a canine grin hung in the air before them.
"Come on, Kou," Cordelia coaxed. "Back me. Come for luck. Come for life. Come for the adrenaline rush."
Droushnakovi leaned over, a sharp smile on her lips, to breathe in Koudelka's other ear, "Look at it this way, Kou. Who else is ever going to give you a chance at field combat?"
His eyes shifted, right and left, between his two captors. The pitch of the groundcar's power-whine rose, as they arrowed into the growing twilight.
Chapter Sixteen
Illegal vegetables. Cordelia sat in bemused contemplation between sacks of cauliflower and boxes of cultivated brillberries as the creaking hovertruck coughed along. Southern vegetables, that flowed toward Vorbarr Sultana on a covert route just like hers. She was half-certain that under that pile were a few sacks of the same green cabbages she'd traveled with two or three weeks ago, migrating according to the strange economic pressures of the war.
The Districts controlled by Vordarian were now under strict interdiction by the Districts loyal to Vorkosigan. Though starvation was still a long way off, food prices in the capital of Vorbarr Sultana had skyrocketed, in the face of hoarding and the coming winter. So poor men were inspired to take chances. And a poor man already taking a chance was not averse to adding a few unlisted passe
ngers to his load, for a bribe.
It was Koudelka who'd generated the scheme, abandoning his urgent disapproval, drawn in to their strategizing almost despite himself. It was Koudelka who'd found the produce wholesale warehouses in the town in Vorinnis's District, and cruised the loading docks for independents striking out with their loads. Though it was Bothari who'd ruled the size of the bribe, pitifully small to Cordelia's mind, but just right for the parts they now played of desperate countryfolk.
"My father was a grocer," Koudelka had explained stiffly, when selling his scheme to them. "I know what I'm doing."
Cordelia had puzzled for a moment what his wary glance at Droushnakovi meant, till she recalled Drou's father was a soldier. Kou had talked of his sister and widowed mother, but it was not till that moment that Cordelia realized Kou had edited his father from his reminiscences out of social embarrassment, not any lack of love between them. Koudelka had vetoed the choice of a meat truck for transport: "It's more likely to be stopped by Vordarian's guards," he'd explained, "so they can shake down the driver for steaks." Cordelia wasn't sure if he was speaking from military or food service experience, or both. In any case, she was grateful not to ride with grisly refrigerated carcasses.
They dressed for their parts as best they could, pooling the satchel and the clothes they stood in. Bothari and Koudelka played two recently discharged vets, looking to better their sorry lot, and Cordelia and Drou two countrywomen co-scheming with them. The women were decked in a realistically odd combination of worn mountain dress and upper-class castoffs apparently acquired from some secondhand shop. They managed the right touch of mis-fittedness, of women not wearing originals, by trading garments.
Cordelia's eyes closed in exhaustion, though sleep was far from her. Time ticked in her brain. It had taken them two days to get this far. So close to their goal, so far from success . . . Her eyes snapped open again when the truck halted and thumped to the ground.
Bothari eased through the opening to the driver's compartment. "We get out here," he called lowly. They all filed through, dropping to the city curb. Their breath smoked in the chill. It was pre-dawn dark, with fewer lights about than Cordelia thought there ought to be. Bothari waved the transport on.