Lois Bujold - Barrayar

“I’ve never met the General.” Dr. Henri looked daunted by the prospect, and fingered the collar of his undress greens. A research scientist from the Imperial Military Hospital, Henri dealt with high rankers often enough not to be awed; it had to be all that Barrayaran history clinging to Piotr that made the difference.

Piotr had acquired his present rank at the age of twenty—two, fighting the Cetagandans in the fierce guerilla war that had raged through the Dendarii Mountains, just now showing blue on the southern horizon. Rank was all then—emperor Dorca Vorbarra could give him at the time; more tangible assets such as reinforcements, supplies, and pay were out of the question in that desperate hour. Twenty years later Piotr had changed Barrayaran history again, playing kingmaker to Ezar Vorbarra in the civil war that had brought down Mad Emperor Yuri. Not your average HQ staffer, General Piotr Vorkosigan, not by anybody’s standards.

“He’s easy to get along with,” Cordelia assured Dr. Henri. “Just admire the horses, and ask a few leading questions about the wars, and you can relax and spend the rest of your time listening.”

Henri’s brows went up, as he searched her face for irony. Henri was a sharp man. Cordelia smiled cheerfully.

Bothari was silently watching her in the mirror set over his control interface, Cordelia noticed. Again. The sergeant seemed tense today. It was the position of his hands, the cording of the muscles in his neck, that gave him away. Bothari’s flat yellow eyes were always unreadable; set deep, too close together, and not quite on the same level, above his sharp cheekbones and long narrow jaw. Anxiety over the doctor’s visit? Understandable.

The land below was rolling, but soon rucked up into the rugged ridges that channeled the lake district. The mountains rose beyond, and Cordelia thought she caught a distant glint of early snow on the highest peaks. Bothari hopped the flyer over three running ridges, and banked again, zooming up a narrow valley. A few more minutes, a swoop over another ridge, and the long lake was in sight. An enormous maze of burnt—out fortifications made a black crown on a headland, and a village nestled below it. Bothari brought the flyer down neatly on a circle painted on the pavement of the village’s widest street.

Dr. Henri gathered up his bag of medical equipment. “The examination will only take a few minutes,” he assured Cordelia, “then we can go on.”

Don’t tell me, tell Bothari. Cordelia sensed Dr. Henri was a little unnerved by Bothari. He kept addressing her instead of the Sergeant, as if she were some translator who would put it all into terms that Bothari would understand. Bothari was formidable, true, but talking past him wouldn’t make him magically disappear.

Bothari led them to a little house set in a narrow side street that went down to the glimmering water. At his knock, a heavyset woman with greying hair opened the door and smiled. “Good morning, Sergeant. Come in, everything’s all ready. Milady.” She favored Cordelia with an awkward curtsey.

Cordelia returned a nod, gazing around with interest. “Good morning, Mistress Hysopi. How nice your house looks today.” The place was painfully scrubbed and straightened—as a military widow, Mistress Hysopi understood all about inspections. Cordelia trusted the everyday atmosphere in the hired fosterer’s house was a trifle more relaxed.

“Your little girl’s been very good this morning,” Mistress Hysopi assured the Sergeant. “Took her bottle right down—she’s just had her bath. Right this way, Doctor. I hope you’ll find everything’s all right… .”

She guided the way up narrow stairs. One bedroom was clearly her own; the other, with a bright window looking down over rooftops to the lake, had recently been made over into a nursery. A dark—haired infant with big brown eyes cooed to herself in a crib. “There’s a girl,” Mistress Hysopi smiled, picking her up. “Say hi to your daddy, eh, Elena? Pretty—pretty.”

Bothari entered no further than the door, watching the infant warily. “Her head has grown a lot,” he offered after a moment.

“They usually do, between three and four months,” Mistress Hysopi agreed.

Dr. Henri laid out his instruments on the crib sheet, and Mistress Hysopi carried the baby back over and began undressing her. The two began a technical discussion about formulae and feces, and Bothari walked around the little room, looking but not touching. He did look terribly huge and out-of-place among the colorful, delicate infant furnishings, dark and dangerous in his brown and silver uniform. His head brushed the slanting ceiling, and he backed cautiously to the door.

Cordelia hung curiously over Henri and Hysopi’s shoulders, watching the little girl wriggle and attempt to roll. Infants. Soon enough she would have one of those. As if in response her belly fluttered. Piotr Miles was not, fortunately, strong enough to fight his way out of a paper bag yet, but if his development continued at this rate, the last couple of months were going to be sleepless. She wished she’d taken the parents’ training course back on Beta Colony even if she hadn’t been ready to apply for a license. Yet Barrayaran parents seemed to manage to ad lib. Mistress Hysopi had learned on the job, and she had three grown children now.

“Amazing,” said Dr. Henri, shaking his head and recording his data. “Absolutely normal development, as far as I can tell. Nothing to even show she came out of a uterine replicator.”

“I came out of a uterine replicator,” Cordelia noted with amusement. Henri glanced involuntarily up and down at her, as if suddenly expecting to find antennae sprouting from her head. “Betan experience suggests it doesn’t matter so much how you got here, as what you do after you arrive.”

“Really.” He frowned thoughtfully. “And you are free of genetic defects?”

“Certified,” Cordelia agreed.

“We need this technology.” He sighed, and began packing his things back up. “She’s fine, you can dress her again,” he added to Mistress Hysopi.

Bothari loomed over the crib at last, to stare down, the lines creased deep between his eyes. He touched the infant only once, a finger to her cheek, then rubbed thumb and finger together as if checking his neural function. Mistress Hysopi studied him sideways, but said nothing.

While Bothari lingered to settle up the month’s expenses with Mistress Hysopi, Cordelia and Dr. Henri strolled down to the lake, Droushnakovi following.

“When those seventeen Escobaran uterine replicators first arrived at Imp Mil,” said Henri, “sent from the war zone, I was frankly appalled. Why save those unwanted fetuses, and at such a cost? Why land them on my department? Since then I’ve become a believer, Milady. I’ve even thought of an application, spin-off technology, for burn patients. I’m working on it now, the project approval came down just a week ago.” His eyes were eager, as he detailed his theory, which was sound as far as Cordelia understood the principles.

“My mother is a medical equipment and maintenance engineer at Silica Hospital,” she explained to Henri, when he paused for breath and approval. “She works on these sorts of applications all the time.” Henri redoubled his technical exposition.

Cordelia greeted two women in the street by name, and politely introduced them to Dr. Henri.

“They’re wives of some of Count Piotr’s sworn armsmen,” she explained as they passed on.

“I should have thought they’d choose to live in the capital.”

“Some do, some stay here. It seems to depend on taste. The cost of living is much lower out here, and these fellows aren’t paid as much as I’d imagined. Some of the backcountry men are suspicious of city life, they seem to think it’s purer here.” She grinned briefly. “One fellow has a wife in each location. None of his brother-armsmen have ratted on him yet. A solid bunch.”