She hesitated. She wasn’t about to reply, Intuition, though that was exactly what those subliminal cues added up to. “He seems to me to have an assassin’s mind. The sort that fires from cover into the back of his enemy.”
Illyan smiled quizzically. “Beg pardon, Milady, but that doesn’t sound like the Vordarian I know. I’ve always found him more the openly bullheaded type.”
How badly must he hurt, how ardently desire, for a bullheaded man to turn subtle? She was unsure. Perhaps, not knowing how deeply Aral’s happiness with her ran, Vordarian did not recognize how vicious his attack upon it was? And did personal and political animosity necessarily run together? No. The man’s hatred had been profound, his blow precisely, if mistakenly, aimed.
“Move him to your short list,” she said.
Illyan opened his hand; not mere placation, by his expression some chain of thought was engaged. “Very well, Milady.”
Chapter Six
Cordelia watched the shadow of the lightflyer flow over the ground below, a slim blot arrowing south. The arrow wavered across farm fields, creeks, rivers, and dusty roads—the road net was rudimentary, stunted, its development leapfrogged by the personal air transport that had arrived in the blast of galactic technology at the end of the Time of Isolation. Coils of tension unwound in her neck with each kilometer they put between themselves and the hectic hothouse atmosphere of the capital. A day in the country was an excellent idea, overdue. She only wished Aral could have shared it with her.
Sergeant Bothari, cued by some landmark below, banked the lightflyer gently to its new course. Droushnakovi, sharing the back seat with Cordelia, stiffened, trying not to lean into her. Dr. Henri, in front with the Sergeant, stared out the canopy with an interest almost equal to Cordelia’s.
Dr. Henri turned half around, to speak over his shoulder to Cordelia. “I do thank you for the luncheon invitation, Lady Vorkosigan. It’s a rare privilege to visit the Vorkosigans’ private estate.”
“Is it?” said Cordelia. “I know they don’t have crowds, but Count Piotr’s horse friends drop in fairly often. Fascinating animals.”
Cordelia thought that over a second, then decided Dr. Henri would realize without being told that the “fascinating animals” applied to the horses, and not Count Piotr’s friends. “Drop the least little hint that you’re interested, and Count Piotr will probably show you personally around the stable.”
“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.
