A placental transfer was vastly more demanding than a straightforward cesarian section. The fragile placenta must be chemically and hormonally persuaded to release from the blood-vessel-enriched uterus, without damaging too many of its multitude of tiny villi, then floated free from the uterine wall in a running bath of highly oxygenated nutrient solution. The replicator sponge then had to be slipped into place between the placenta and the uterine wall, and the placenta’s villi at least partially induced to re-interdigitate on its new matrix, before the whole mess could be lifted from the living body of the mother and placed in the replicator. The more advanced the pregnancy, the more difficult the transfer.
The umbilical cord between placenta and infant was monitored, and extra oxygen injected by hypospray as needed. On Beta Colony, a nifty little device would do this; here, an anxious tech hovered.
The tech began running the clear bright yellow solution-bath into her uterus. It filled her, and ran over, trickling pink-tinged down her sides and into the catch basin. The surgeon was now working, in effect, underwater. No question about it, a placental transfer was a messy operation.
“Sponge,” called the surgeon softly, and Vaagen and Henri trundled the uterine replicator to her side, and strung out the matrix sponge from it on its feed lines. The surgeon fiddled interminably with a tiny hand-tractor, his hands out of Cordelia’s line of sight as she peered down cross-eyed over her chest to her rounded-so-barely- rounded-belly. She shivered. Ritter was sweating.
“Doctor …” A tech pointed to something on a vid monitor.
“Mm,” said Ritter, glancing up, then continuing fiddling. The techs murmured, Vaagen and Henri murmured, calm, professional, reassuring … she was so cold… .
The fluid trickling over the white dam of her skin changed abruptly from pink—tinged to bright, bright red, a splashing flow, much faster than the input feed was emitting.
“Clamp that,” hissed the surgeon.
Cordelia caught just a glimpse, beneath a membrane, of tiny arms, legs, a wet dark head, wriggling on the surgeons gloved hands, no larger than a half-drowned kitten. “Vaagen! Take this thing of yours now if you want it!” snapped Ritter. Vaagen plunged his gloved hands into her belly as dark whorls clouded Cordelias vision, her head aching, exploding in sudden sparkling flashes. The blackness ballooned out, overwhelming her. The last thing she heard was the surgeon’s despairing sibilant voice, “Oh, shit … !”
Her dreams were foggy with pain. The worst part was the choking. She choked and choked, and wept for lack of air. Her throat was full of obstructions, and she clawed at it, until her hands were bound. She dreamed of Vorrutyer’s tortures, then, multiplied and extended into insane complications that went on for hours. A demented Bothari knelt on her chest, and she could get no air at all.
When she finally woke clear-headed, it was like breaking up out of some underground prison-hell into God’s own fight. Her relief was so profound she wept again, a muted whimper and a wetness in her eyes. She could breathe, although it pained her; she was bruised and aching and unable to move. But she could breathe. That was enough.
“Sh. Sh.” A thick warm finger touched her eyelids, wiping away the moisture. “It’s all right.”
“Izzit?” She blinked and squinted. It was night, artificial light making warm pools in the room. Aral’s face wavered over hers. “Izzit … tonight? Wha’ happened?”
“Sh. You’ve been very, very sick. You had a violent hemorrhage during the placental transfer. Your heart stopped twice.” He moistened his lips and went on. “The trauma, on top of the poisoning, flared into soltoxin pneumonia. You had a very bad day yesterday, but you’re over the worst, off the respirator.”
“How … long?”
“Three days.”
“Ah. Baby, Aral. Diddit work? Details!”
“It went all right. Vaagen reports the transfer was successful. They lost about thirty percent of the placental function, but Henri compensated with an enriched and increased oxy-solution flow, and all seems to be well, or as well as can be expected. The baby’s still alive, anyway. Vaagen has started his first calcium-treatment experiment, and promises us a baseline report soon.” He caressed her forehead. “Vaagen has priority-access to any equipment, supplies, or techs he cares to requisition, including outside consultants. He has an advising civilian pediatrician, plus Henri. Vaagen himself knows more about our military poisons than any man, on Barrayar or off it. We can do no more, right now. So rest, love.”
“Baby—where?”
“Ah—you can see where, if you wish.” He helped her lift her head, and pointed out the window. “See that second building, with the red lights on the roof? That’s the biochemistry research facility. Vaagen and Henri’s lab is on the third floor.”
“Oh, I recognize it now. Saw it from the other side, the day we collected Elena.”
“That’s right.” His face softened. “Good to have you back, dear Captain. Seeing you that sick … I haven’t felt that helpless and useless since I was eleven years old.” That was the year Mad Yuri’s death squad had murdered his mother and brother. “Sh,” she said in turn. “No, no … s’all right now.”
They took away all the rest of the tubes piercing her body the next morning, except for the oxygen. Days of quiet routine followed. Her recovery was less interrupted than Aral’s. What seemed troops of men, headed by Minister Vortala, came to see him at all hours. He had a secured comconsole installed in his room, over medical protests. Koudelka joined him eight hours a day, in the makeshift office.
Koudelka seemed very quiet, as depressed as everyone else in the wake of the disaster. Though not as morbid as anyone who’d had to do with their failed Security. Even Illyan shrank, when he saw her.
Aral walked her carefully up and down the corridor a couple of times a day. The vibra-scalpel had made a cleaner cut through her abdomen than, say, your average sabre-thrust, but it was no less deep. The healing scar ached less than her lungs, though. Or her heart. Her belly was not so much flat as flaccid, but definitely no longer occupied. She was alone, uninhabited, she was herself again, after five months of that strange doubled existence.
Dr. Henri came with a float chair one day, and took her on a short trip over to his laboratory, to see where the replicator was safely installed. She watched her baby moving in the vid scans, and studied the team’s technical readouts and reports. Their subject’s nerves, skin, and eyes tested out encouragingly, though Henri was not so sure about hearing, because of the tiny bones in the ear. Henri and Vaagen were properly trained scientists, almost Betan in their outlook, and she blessed them silently and thanked them aloud, and returned to her room feeling enormously better.
When Captain Vaagen burst into her room the next afternoon, however, her heart sank. His face was thunderously dark, his lips tight and harsh.
“What’s wrong, Captain?” she asked urgently. “That second calcium run—did it fail?”
“Too early to tell. No, your baby’s the same, Milady. Our trouble is with your in-law.”
“Beg pardon?”
“General Count Vorkosigan came to see us this morning.”
“Oh! He came to see the baby? Oh, good. He’s so disturbed by all this new life-technology. Maybe he’s finally starting to work past those emotional blocks. He embraces the new death-technologies readily enough, old Vor warrior that he is… .”
“I wouldn’t get too optimistic about him, if I were you, Milady.” He took a deep breath, taking refuge in a formality of stance, just black, not black-humored this time. “Dr. Henri had the same idea you did. We showed the General all around the lab, went over the equipment, explained our treatment theories. We were absolutely honest, as we’ve been with you. Maybe too honest. He wanted to know what results we were going to get. Hell, we don’t know. And so we said.
“After some beating around the bush, hinting … well, to cut it short, the General first asked, then ordered, then tried to bribe Dr. Henri to open the stopcock. To destroy the fetus. The mutation, he calls it. We threw him the hell out. He swore he’d be back.”
She was shaking, down in her belly, though she kept her face blank. “I see.”
“I want that old man kept out of my lab, Milady. And I don’t care how you do it. I don’t need this kind of crap coming down. Not from that high up.”
“I’ll see … wait here.” She wrapped her robe around her own green pajamas more tightly, seated her oxygen tube more firmly, and walked carefully across the corridor. Aral, half-casual in uniform trousers and a shirt, sat at a small table by his window. The only sign of his continued patienthood was the oxygen tube up his nose,
