Cordelia's Honor - Lois McMaster Bujold [240]
"But if only we'd got here sooner, I might—we might have saved her."
"We still might."
"But she's really sold out!"
"Do people lie in their sleep?" asked Cordelia. At Drou's confused look, she explained. "She didn't look like a lover to me. She lay like a prisoner. I promised we'd try for her, and we will." Time. "But we'll go for Miles first. Let's try the second exit."
"We'll have to pass through more monitored corridors," Droushnakovi warned.
"Can't be helped. If we wait, this place will start waking up, and we'll hit more people."
"They're coming on duty in the kitchens right now," sighed Drou. "I used to stop in for coffee and hot pastries, some days."
Alas, a commando raid could not knock off for breakfast. This was it. Go or no-go? Was it bravery, or stupidity, that drove her on? It couldn't be bravery, she was sick with fear, the same hot acid nausea she'd felt just before combat during the Escobar war. Familiarity with the sensation didn't help. If I do not act, my child will die. She would simply have to do without courage. "Now," Cordelia decided. "There will be no better chance."
Up the narrow ladder again. The second panel opened in the old Emperor's private office. To Cordelia's relief it still remained dark and unused, untouched since it had been cleaned out and locked after Ezar's death last spring. His comconsole desk, with all its Security overrides, was disconnected, wiped of secrets, dead as its owner. The windows were still dark, with the tardy winter morning.
Kou's stick banged against Cordelia's calf as she strode across the room. It did look odd, hitched to her waist too obviously like a sword. On a bureau in the office was a wide antique tray holding a flat ceramic bowl, typical of the knickknacks that cluttered the Residence. Cordelia laid the stick across the tray and lifted it solemnly, servant-fashion.
Droushnakovi nodded approval. "Carry it halfway between your waist and your chest," she whispered. "And keep your spine straight, they always told me."
Cordelia nodded. They closed the panel behind them, straightened themselves, and entered the lower corridor of the north wing.
Two Residence serving women and a security guard. At first glance, they looked perfectly natural in this setting, even in these troubled times. A guard corporal standing duty at the foot of the Petite Stairway at the corridor's west end came to attention at the sight of Bothari's ImpSec and rank tabs; they exchanged salutes. They were passing out of sight up around the stairs' curve before he looked again, harder. Cordelia steeled herself not to break into a panicked run. A subtle piece of misdirection; the two women couldn't be a threat, they were already guarded. That their guard could be the threat, might escape the corporal for minutes yet.
They turned into the upper corridor. There. Behind that door, according to the loyalists' reports, Vordarian kept the captured replicator. Right under his eye. Perhaps as a human shield; any explosive dropped on Vordarian's quarters must kill tiny Miles as well. Or did the Barrayaran think of her damaged child as human?
Another guard stood outside that door. He stared at them suspiciously, his hand touching his sidearm. Cordelia and Droushnakovi walked on by without turning their heads. Bothari's exchanged salute flowed smoothly into a clip to the man's jaw that snapped his head back into the wall. Bothari caught him before he dropped. They swung the door open and dragged the guard inside; Bothari took his place in the corridor. Silently, Drou closed the door.
Cordelia stared wildly around the little chamber, looking for automatic monitors. The room might formerly have been a bedroom of the sort once slept in by bodyservants to be near their Vorish masters, or perhaps an unusually large wardrobe; it didn't even have a window overlooking some dull inner court. The portable uterine replicator