Lois Bujold - Barrayar

Drou began seriously looking over her shoulder when they reached the sub-basement. “Now we look out of place.” Bothari kept watch as she bent and forced a lock to a utility tunnel. She led them down it, taking two cross-turns. The passage was clearly used frequently, as the lights remained on. Cordelia’s ears strained for footsteps not their own.

An access cover was bolted to the floor. Droushnakovi loosened it quickly. “Hang and drop. It’s not much more than two meters. It’ll likely be wet.”

Cordelia slid into the dark circle, landing with a splash. She lit her hand-light. The water, slick and black and shimmering, came to her booted ankles in the synthacrete tube. It was icy cold. Bothari followed. Drou knelt on his shoulders, to coax the cover back into place, then splashed down beside her. “There’s about half a kilometer of this storm sewer. Come on,” she whispered. This close to their goal, Cordelia needed no urging to hurry.

At the half-kilometer, they climbed into a darkened orifice high on the curving wall that led to a much older and smaller tunnel, made of time-blackened brick. Knees and backs bent, they shuffled along. It must be particularly painful for Bothari, Cordelia reflected. Drou slowed, and began tapping on the tunnel’s roof with the steel ferrule of Koudelka’s stick. When the ticks became hollow tocks, she stopped. “Here. It’s meant to swing downward.

Watch it.” She released the sheath, and slid the blade carefully between a line of slimy bricks. A click, and the false-brick-lined panel flopped down, nearly cracking her head. She returned the sword to its casing. “Up.” She pulled herself through.

They followed to find themselves in another ancient drain, even narrower. It sloped more steeply upward. They crouched along, their clothes brushing the sides and picking up damp stains. Drou rose suddenly, and clambered out over a pile of broken bricks into a dark, pillared chamber.

“What is this place?” whispered Cordelia. “Too big for a tunnel …”

“The old stables,” Drou whispered back. “We’re under the Residence grounds, now.”

“It doesn’t sound so secret to me. Surely they must appear in old drawings and elevations. People—Security—must know this is here.” Cordelia stared into the dim, musty recesses, past pale arches picked out by their wavering hand-lights.

“Yes, but this is the cellar of the old old stables. Not Dorcas, but Dorca’s great—uncle’s. He kept over three hundred horses. They burned down in a spectacular fire about two hundred years ago, and instead of rebuilding on the site, they knocked them flat and put up the new old stables on the east side, downwind. Those got converted to staff apartments in Dorca’s day. Most of the hostages are being kept over there now.” Drou marched firmly forward, as if sure of her ground. “We’re to the north of the main Residence now, under the gardens Ezar designed. Ezar apparently found this old cellar and arranged this passage with Negri, thirty years ago. A bolt-hole that even their own Security didn’t know about. Trusting, eh?”

“Thank you, Ezar,” Cordelia murmured wryly.

“Once we’re out of Ezar’s passage, the real risk starts,” the girl commented.

Yes, they could still pull out now, retrace their steps and no one the wiser. Why have these people so blithely handed me the right to risk their lives? God, I hate command. Something skittered in the shadows, and somewhere, water dripped.

“Here,” said Droushnakovi, shining her light on a pile of boxes. “Ezar’s cache. Clothes, weapons, money—Captain Negri had me add some women’s and boy’s clothes to it just last year, at the time of the Escobar invasion. He was keyed up for trouble about it, but the riots never reached here. My clothes should only be a little big for you.”

They discarded their beslimed street clothes. Droushnakovi shook out clean dresses, suitable for senior Residence womenservants too superior for menial’s uniforms; the girl had worn them for just such service. Bothari unbundled his black fatigue uniform again from the satchel, and donned it, adding correct Imperial Security insignia. From a distance he made a proper guard, though he was perhaps a little too rumpled to pass inspection up close. As Drou had promised, a complete array of weapons lay fully charged in sealed cases. Cordelia chose a fresh stunner, as did Drou; their eyes met. “No hesitation this time, eh?” Cordelia murmured. Drou nodded grimly. Bothari took one of each, stunner, nerve disruptor, and plasma arc. Cordelia trusted he wouldn’t clank when he walked.

“You can’t fire that thing indoors,” Droushnakovi objected to the plasma arc.

“You never know,” shrugged Bothari.

After a moment’s thought, Cordelia added the swordstick, tightening a loop of her belt around its grip. A serious weapon it wasn’t, but it had proved an unexpectedly useful tool on this trip. For luck. Then from the last depths of the satchel, Cordelia pulled what she privately considered to be the most potent weapon of all.

“A shoe?” said Droushnakovi blankly.

“Gregor’s shoe. For when we make contact with Kareen. I rather fancy she still has the other.” Cordelia nested it deeply in the inner pocket of one of Drou’s Vorbarra—crested boleros, worn over Cordelia’s dress to complete the picture of an inner Residence worker.

When their preparations were as complete as possible, Drou led them again into narrowing darkness. “Now we’re under the Residence itself,” she whispered, turning sideways. “We go up this ladder, between the walls. It was added after, there’s not much space.”

This proved an understatement. Cordelia sucked in her breath and climbed after her, sandwiched flat between two walls, trying not to accidently touch or thump. The ladder was made, naturally, of wood. Her head throbbed with exhaustion and adrenaline. She mentally measured the width. Getting the uterine replicator back down this ladder was going to be a bitch. She told herself sternly to think positively, then decided that was positive. Why am I doing this? I could be back at Tanery Base with Aral right now, letting these Barrayarans kill each other all day long, if it is their pleasure. …

Above her, Drou stepped aside onto some sort of tiny ledge, a mere board. When Cordelia came up beside her, she gestured “stop” and extinguished her hand-light. Drou touched some silent latch mechanism, and a wall panel swung outward before them. Clearly, everything had been kept well oiled right up to Ezar’s death.

They looked out into the old Emperors bedchamber. They had expected it to be empty. Drou’s mouth opened in a voiceless O of dismay and horror.

Ezar’s huge old carved wooden bed, the one he’d for-God’s-sake died in, was occupied. A shaded light, dimmed to an orange glow, cast highlight and shadow across two bare-torsoed, sleeping forms. Even in this foreshortened view, Cordelia instantly recognized the dish-face and moustache of Vidal Vordarian. He sprawled across four—fifths of the bed, his heavy arm flung possessively across Princess Kareen. Her dark hair was tumbled on the pillow. She slept in a tight, tiny ball in the upper corner of the bed, facing outward, white arms clutched to her chest, nearly in danger of falling out.

Well, we’re reached Kareen. But there’s a hitch. Cordelia shivered with the impulse to shoot Vordarian in his sleep. But the energy discharge must set off alarms. Until she had Miles’s replicator in her hand, she was not ready to run for it. She motioned Drou to close the panel again, and breathed “Down,” to Bothari, waiting beneath her. They reversed their painstaking four-flight climb. Back in the tunnel, Cordelia turned to face the girl, who was crying quite silently.