diapered and warmly wrapped, completing the picture of a timid little family trying to make it out of town to the wife’s parents in the country before the fighting started. Cordelia had seen hundreds of refugees just like them, in passing, on her way into Vorbarr Sultana.
Koudelka inspected his little group, ending with a frowning look at the swordstick in his hand. Even when seen as a mere cane, the satin wood, polished steel ferrule, and inlaid grip did not look very middle-class. Koudelka sighed. “Drou, can you hide this somehow? It’s conspicuous as hell with this outfit, and more of a hindrance than a help when I’m trying to carry this baby.”
Droushnakovi nodded, and knelt and wrapped the stick in a shirt, and stuffed it into the satchel. Cordelia remembered what had happened the last time Kou had carried that stick down to the caravanserai, and stared nervously into the shadows. “How likely are we to be jumped by someone, at this hour? We don’t look rich, certainly.”
“Some would kill you for your clothes,” said Bothari glumly, “with winter coming on. But it’s safer than usual. Vordarian’s troops have been sweeping the quarter for ’volunteers,’ to help dig those bomb shelters in the city parks.”
“I never thought I’d approve of slave labor,” Cordelia groaned.
“It’s nonsense anyway,” Koudelka said. “Tearing up the parks. Even if completed they wouldn’t shelter enough people. But it looks impressive, and it sets up Lord Vorkosigan as a threat, in people’s minds.”
“Besides,” Bothari lifted his jacket to reveal the silvered gleam of his nerve disruptor, “this time I’ve got the right weapon.”
This was it, then. Cordelia embraced Alys Vorpatril, who hugged her back, murmuring, “God help you, Cordelia. And God rot Vidal Vordarian in hell.”
“Go safely. See you back at Tanery Base, eh?” Cordelia glanced at Koudelka. “Live, and so confound our enemies.”
“We’ll tr—we will, Milady,” said Koudelka. Gravely, he saluted Droushnakovi. There was no irony in the military courtesy, though perhaps a last tinge of envy. She returned him a slow nod of understanding. Neither chose to confuse the moment with further words. The two groups parted in the clammy darkness. Drou watched over her shoulder till Koudelka and Lady Vorpatril turned out of sight, then picked up the pace.
They passed from black alleys to lit streets, from deserted darkness to occasional other human forms, hurrying about early winter morning business. Everybody seemed to cross streets to avoid everybody else, and Cordelia felt a little less noticeable. She stiffened inwardly when a municipal guard groundcar drove slowly past them, but it did not stop.
They paused, across the street, to be certain their target building had been unlocked for the morning. The structure was multi-storied, in the utilitarian style of the building boom that had come on the heels of Ezar Vorbarra’s ascent to power and stability thirty-plus years ago. It was commercial, not governmental; they crossed the lobby, entered the lift tubes, and descended unimpeded.
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
