the most astonishing transformations in apparent databases. Some subjects could be joked about but not discussed seriously. And some variations could not be mentioned at all. She had blighted more than one conversation beyond hope of recovery by what seemed to her a perfectly obvious and casual remark, and been taken aside by Aral for a quick debriefing.
She tried writing out a list of the rules she thought she had deduced, but found them so illogical and conflicting, especially in the area of what certain people were supposed to pretend not to know in front of certain other people, she gave up the effort. She did show the list to Aral, who read it in bed one night and nearly doubled over laughing.
“Is that what we really look like to you? I like your Rule Seven. Must keep it in mind … I wish I’d known it in my youth. I could have skipped all those godawful Service training vids.”
“If you snicker any harder, you’re going to get a nosebleed,” she said tartly. “These are your rules, not mine. You people play by them. I just try to figure them out.”
“My sweet scientist. Hm. You certainly call things by their correct names. We’ve never tried … would you like to violate Rule Eleven with me, dear Captain?”
“Let me, see, which one—oh, yes! Certainly. Now? And while we’re about it, let’s knock off Thirteen. My hormones are up. I remember my brother’s co-parent told me about this effect, but I didn’t really believe her at the time. She says you make up for it later, post-partum.”
“Thirteen? I’d never have guessed… .”
“That’s because, being Barrayaran, you spend so much time following Rule Two.”
Anthropology was forgotten, for a time. But she found she could crack him up, later, with a properly timed mutter of “Rule Nine, sir.”
The season was turning. There had been a hint of winter in the air that morning, a frost that had wilted some of the plants in Count Piotr’s back garden. Cordelia anticipated her first real winter with fascination. Vorkosigan promised her snow, frozen water, something she’d experienced on only two Survey missions. Before spring, I shall bear a son. Huh.
But the afternoon had basked in the autumn light, warming again. The flat roof of Vorkosigan House above the front wing now breathed back that heat around Cordelia’s ankles as she picked her way across it, though the air on her cheeks was cooling to crispness as the sun slanted to the city’s horizon.
“Good evening, boys.” Cordelia nodded to the two guards posted to this rooftop duty station.
They nodded back, the senior touching his forehead in a hesitant semi-salute. “Milady.”
Cordelia had taken to regular sunset-watching up here. The view of the cityscape from this four-floors-up vantage was very fine. She could catch a gleam of the river that divided the town, beyond trees and buildings. Although the excavation of a large hole a few blocks away along the line of sight suggested that the riverine scene would be occluded soon by new architecture. The tallest turret of Vorhartung Castle, where she’d attended all those ceremonies in the Council of Counts’ chamber, peaked from a bluff overlooking the water.
Beyond Vorhartung Castle lay the oldest parts of the capital. She’d not yet seen that area, its kinked one- horse-wide streets impassable to groundcars, though she’d flown over the strange, low, dark blots in the heart of the city. The newer parts, glittering out toward the horizon, were more like galactic standard, patterned around the modern transportation systems.
None of it was like Beta Colony. Vorbarr Sultana was all spread out on the surface, or climbed skyward, strangely two-dimensional and exposed. Beta Colony’s cities plunged down into shafts and tunnels, many-layered and complex, cozy and safe. Indeed, Beta Colony did not have architecture so much as it had interior design. It was amazing, the variety of schemes people came up with to vary dwellings that had outsides.
The guards twitched and sighed, as she leaned on the stonework, gazing out. They really didn’t like it when she strayed nearer than three meters to the edge, though the space was only six meters wide. But she should be able to spot Vorkosigan’s groundcar turning into the street soon. Sunsets were all very well, but her eyes turned downward.
She inhaled the complex odors, from vegetation, water vapor, industrial waste gases. Barrayar permitted an amazing amount of air dumping, as if … well, air was free, here. Nobody measured it, there were no air processing and filtration fees… . Did these people even realize how rich they were? All the air they could breathe, just by stepping outdoors, taken for granted as casually us they took frozen water falling from the sky. She took an extra breath, as if she could somehow greedily hoard it, and smiled—
A distant, crackling, hard-edged boom shattered her thoughts and stopped her breath. Both guards jumped. So, you heard a bang. It doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with Aral. And, icily, It sounded like a sonic grenade. Not a little one. Dear God. There was a column of smoke and dust rising from a street-canyon several blocks over, she couldn’t see the source—she craned outward—
“Milady.” The younger guard grasped her upper arm. “Please go inside.” His face was tense, eyes wide. The senior man had his hand clamped to his ear, sucking info off his comm channel—she had no comm link.
“What’s coming on?” she asked.
“Milady, please go below!” He hustled her toward the trapdoor to the attic, from which stairs led down to the fourth floor. “I’m sure it was nothing,” he soothed as he pushed.
“It was a Class Four sonic grenade, probably air-tube launched,” she informed his appalling ignorance. “Unless the thrower was suicidal. Haven’t you ever heard one go off?”
Droushnakovi shot out the trapdoor, a buttered roll squashed in one hand and her stunner clutched in the other. “Milady?” The guard, looking relieved, shoved Cordelia at her and returned to his senior. Cordelia, screaming inside, grinned through clenched teeth and allowed herself to be guarded, climbing dutifully down the trap.
“What happened?” she hissed to Droushnakovi.
“Don’t know yet. The red alert went off in the basement refectory, and everybody ran for their posts,” panted Drou. She must have practically teleported up the six flights.
“Ngh.” Cordelia galloped down the stairs, wishing for a drop tube. The comconsole in the library would surely be manned—somebody must have a comm link—she spun down the circular staircase and pelted across the black and white stones.
The house guard commander was indeed at the post, channeling orders. Count Piotr’s senior liveried man jittered at his shoulder. “They’re coming straight here,” the ImpSec man said over his shoulder. “You fetch that doctor.” The brown-uniformed man dashed out.
“What happened?” Cordelia demanded. Her heart was hammering now, and not just from the dash downstairs.
He glanced up at her, started to say something calming and meaningless, and changed his mind in mid- breath. “Somebody took a potshot at the Regent’s groundcar. They missed. They’re continuing on here.”
“How near a miss?”
“I don’t know, Milady.”
He probably didn’t. But if the groundcar still functioned … Helplessly, she gestured him back to his work, and wheeled to return to the foyer, now manned by a couple of Count Piotr’s men, who discouraged her from standing too near the door. She hung on the stair railing three steps up and bit her lip.
“Was Lieutenant Koudelka with him, do you think?” asked Droushnakovi faintly.
“Probably. He usually is,” Cordelia answered absently, her eyes on the door, waiting, waiting… .
She heard the car pull up. One of Count Piotr’s men opened the house door. Security men swarmed over the silver shape of the vehicle in the portico—God, where did they all come from? The car’s shiny finish was scored and smoked, but not deeply dented; the rear canopy was not cracked, though the front was scarred. The rear doors swung up, and Cordelia stretched for a view of Vorkosigan, maddeningly obstructed by the green backs of the ImpSec men. They parted. Lieutenant Koudelka sat in the aperture, blinking dizzily, blood dripping down his chin, then was levered to his feet by a guard. Vorkosigan emerged at last, refusing to be hustled, waving back help. Even the most worried guards did not dare to touch him without an invitation. Vorkosigan strode inside, grim-faced and pale. Koudelka, propped by his stick and an ImpSec corporal, followed, looking wilder. The blood issued from his nose. Piotr’s man swung closed the front door of Vorkosigan House, shutting out three-fourths of the chaos.
Aral met her eyes, above the heads of the men, and the saturnine look fixed on his face slipped just a little. He offered her a fractional nod, I’m all right. Her lips tightened in return, You’d by-God better be…
Kou was saying in a shaken voice, “—bloody great hole in the street! Could’ve swallowed a freight shuttle. That driver has amazing reflexes—what?” He shook his head at a questioner. “Sorry, my ears are ringing—come
