Lois Bujold - Barrayar

“No news may be good news,” Koudelka went on. “While it’s true Vordarian holds the capital—”

“And therefore ImpMil, yes,” said Cordelia.

“And he’s publicizing names of hostages related to anyone in our command structure, there’s been no mention of, of your child, in the lists. The Admiral thinks Vordarian simply doesn’t realize that what went into the replicator was viable. Doesn’t know what he’s got.”

“Yet,” bit off Cordelia.

“Yet,” Koudelka conceded reluctantly.

“All right. Go on.”

“The overall situation isn’t as bad as we feared at first.

Vordarian holds Vorbarr Sultana, his own District and its military bases, and he’s put troops in Vorkosigan’s District, but he only has about five district counts who are his committed allies. About thirty of the other counts were caught in the capital, and we can’t tell their real allegiance while Vordarian holds guns to their heads. Most of the twenty-three remaining Districts have reiterated their oaths to my Lord Regent. Though a couple are waffling, who have relatives in the capital or who are in dicey strategic positions as potential battlefields.”

“And the space forces?”

“I was just coming to them, yes, Milady. Over half of their supplies come up from the shuttleports in Vordarian’s District. For the moment, they’re still holding out for a clear result rather than moving in to create one. But they’ve refused to openly endorse Vordarian. It’s a balance, and whoever can tip it their way first will start a landslide. Admiral Vorkosigan seems awfully confident.” Cordelia was not sure from the lieutenant’s tone if he altogether shared that confidence. “But then, he has to. For morale. He says Vordarian lost the war the hour Negri got away with Gregor, and the rest is just maneuvering to limit the losses. But Vordarian holds Princess Kareen.”

“Doubtless one of the losses Aral is anxious to limit. Is she all right? Vordarian’s goons haven’t abused her?”

“Not as far as we know. She seems to be under house arrest in her own rooms in the Imperial Residence. Several of the more important hostages have been secluded there.”

“I see.” She glanced sideways in the dim cabin at Bothari, who did not change expression. She waited for him to ask after Elena, but he said nothing. Droushnakovi stared bleakly into the night, at the mention of Kareen.

Had Kou and Drou made up? They seemed cool, civil, all duty and on duty. But whatever surface apologies had passed, Cordelia sensed no healing in them. The secret adoration and will-to-trust was all gone from the blue eyes that now and then flicked from the control interface to the man in the passenger seat. Drou’s glances were merely wary.

Lights glowed ahead on the ground, the spatter of a middle-sized city, and beyond it, the jumbled geometries of a sprawling military shuttleport. Drou went through code-check after code-check, as they approached. They spiraled down to a pad that lit for them, peopled with armed guards. Their guard-flyers passed on overhead to their own landing zones.

The guards surrounded them as they exited the flyer, and escorted them as fast as Koudelka’s pace would permit to a lift tube. They went down, took a slide-walk, and went down again through blast doors. Tanery Base clearly featured a hardened underground command post. Welcome to the bunker. And yet a throat-catching whiff of familiarity shook Cordelia for a terrifying moment of confusion and loss. Beta Colony did a lot better on the interior decorating than these barren corridors, but she might have descended to the utility level of some buried Betan city, safe and cool… I want to go home.

There were three green-uniformed officers, talking in a corridor. One was Aral. He saw her. “Thank you, dismissed, gentlemen,” he said in the middle of someone’s sentence, then more consciously, “We’ll continue this shortly.” But they lingered to goggle.

He looked no worse than tired. Her heart ached to look at him, and yet … Following you has brought me here. Not to the Barrayar of my hopes, but to the Barrayar of my fears.

With a voiceless “Ha!” he embraced her, hard to him. She hugged him back. This is a good thing. Go away, World. But when she looked up the World was still waiting, in the form of seven watchers all with agendas.

He held her away, and scanned her anxiously up and down. “You look terrible, dear Captain.”

At least he was polite enough not to say, You smell terrible. “Nothing a bath won’t cure.”

“That is not what I meant. Sickbay for you, before anything.” He turned to find Sergeant Bothari first in line.

“Sir, I must report in to my lord Count,” Bothari said.

“Father’s not here. He’s on a diplomatic mission from me to some of his old cronies. Here, you, Kou—take Bothari and set him up with quarters, food chits, passes, and clothes. I’ll want your personal report immediately. I’ve seen to Cordelia, Sergeant.”

“Yes, sir.” Koudelka led Bothari away.

“Bothari was amazing,” Cordelia confided to Aral. “No—that’s unjust. Bothari was Bothari, and I shouldn’t have been amazed at all. We wouldn’t have made it without him.”

Aral nodded, smiling a little. “I thought he would do for you.”

“He did indeed.”

Droushnakovi, taking up her old position at Cordelias elbow the moment Bothari vacated it, shook her head in doubt, and followed along as Aral steered Cordelia down the corridor. The rest of the parade followed less certainly.

“Hear any more about Illyan?” Cordelia asked.

“Not yet. Did Kou brief you?”

“A sketch, enough for now. I don’t suppose any more word’s come in on Padma and Alys Vorpatril, then, either?”

He shook his head regretfully. “But neither are they on the list of Vordarian’s confirmed captures. I think they’re hiding in the city. Vordarian’s side is leaking information like a sieve, we’d know if any arrest that important had happened. I can only wonder if our own arrangements are so porous. That’s the trouble with these damned civil affrays, everybody has a brother—”

A voice from down the corridor hailed loudly, “Sir! Oh, sir!” Only Cordelia felt Aral flinch, his arm jerking under her hand.

An HQ staffer led a tall man in black fatigues with colonel’s tabs on the collar toward them. “There you are, sir. Colonel Gerould is here from Marigrad.”

“Oh. Good. I have to see this man now. …” Aral looked around hurriedly, and his eye fell on Droushnakovi. “Drou, please escort Cordelia to the infirmary for me. Get her checked, get her—get her everything.”

The colonel was no HQ desk pilot. He looked, in fact, as if he’d just flown in from some front line, wherever the “front” was in this war for loyalties. His fatigues were dirty and wrinkled and looked slept—in, their smoke-stink eclipsing Cordelia’s mountain-reek. His face was lined with fatigue. But he looked only grim, not beaten. “The fighting in Marigrad has gone house-to-house, Admiral,” he reported without preamble.

Vorkosigan grimaced. “Then I want to hopscotch it. Come with me to the tactics room—what is that on your arm, Colonel?”

A wide piece of white cloth and a narrower strip of brown circled the officer’s black upper left sleeve. “ID, sir. We couldn’t tell who we were shooting at, up close. Vordarian’s people are wearing red and yellow, ’s as close as they could come to maroon and gold, I guess. That’s supposed to be brown and silver for Vorkosigan, of course.”

“That’s what I was afraid of.” Vorkosigan looked extremely stern. “Take it off. Burn it. And pass the word down the line. You already have a uniform, Colonel, issued to you by the Emperor. That’s who you’re fighting for. Let the traitors alter their uniforms.”