[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.
Page 166
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
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.
Mistress Hysopi studied him sideways, but said nothing.
While Bothari lingered to settle up the month's expenses with Mistress
Hysopi, Cordelia and Dr. Henri strolled down to the lake, Droushnakovi
following.
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]