Cordelia's Honor - Lois McMaster Bujold [246]
Once on the level, she prodded the weeping Bothari ruthlessly forward, and wouldn't let him stop till they came again to Ezar's cache in the ancient stable cellar.
"Is he all right?" Droushnakovi asked nervously, as Bothari sat down with his head between his knees.
"He has a headache," said Cordelia. "It may take a while to pass off."
Droushnakovi asked even more diffidently, "Are you all right, Milady?"
Cordelia couldn't help it; she laughed. She choked down the hysteria as Drou began to look really scared. "No."
Chapter Nineteen
Ezar's cache included a crate of currency, Barrayaran marks of various denominations. It also included a choice of IDs tailored to Drou, not all of which were obsolete. Cordelia put the two together, and sent Drou out to purchase a used groundcar. Cordelia waited by the cache while Bothari slowly uncurled from his tight fetal ball of pain, recovering enough to walk.
Getting back out of Vorbarr Sultana had always been the weak part of her plan, Cordelia felt, perhaps because she'd never really believed they'd get this far. Travel was tightly restricted, as Vordarian sought to keep the city from collapsing under him should its frightened populace attempt to stream away. The monorail required passes and cross-checks. Lightflyers were absolutely forbidden, targets of opportunity for trigger-happy guards. Groundcars had to cross multiple roadblocks. Foot travel was too slow for her burdened and exhausted party. There were no good choices.
After an eternity, pale Drou returned, to lead them back through the tunnels and out to an obscure side street. The city was dusted with sooty snow. From the direction of the Residence, a kilometer off, a darker cloud boiled up to mix with the winter-grey sky; the fierce fire was still not under control, apparently. How long would Vordarian's decapitated command structure keep functioning? Had word of his death leaked out yet?
As instructed, Drou had found a very plain and unobtrusive old groundcar, though there had been enough funds to buy the most luxurious new vehicle the city still held. Cordelia wanted to save that reserve for the checkpoints.
But the checkpoints were not as bad as Cordelia had feared. Indeed, the first was empty, its guards pulled back, perhaps, to fight the fire or seal the perimeter of the Residence. The second was crowded with vehicles and impatient drivers. The inspectors were perfunctory and nervous, distracted and half-paralyzed by who-knew-what rumors coming from downtown. A fat wad of currency, handed out under Drou's perfect false ID, disappeared into a guard's pocket. He waved Drou through, driving her "sick uncle" home. Borthari looked sick enough, for sure, huddled under a blanket that also hid the replicator. At the last checkpoint Drou "repeated" a likely version of a rumor of Vordarian's death, and the worried guard deserted on the spot, shedding his uniform in favor of a civilian overcoat and vanishing down a side street.
They zigzagged over bad side roads all afternoon to reach Vorinnis's neutral District, where the aged groundcar died of a fractured power-train. They abandoned it and took to the monorail system then, Cordelia driving her exhausted little party on, racing the clock in her head. At midnight, they reported in at the first military installation over the next loyalist border, a supply depot. It took Drou several minutes of argument with the night duty officer to persuade him to 1) identify them, 2) let them in, and 3) let them use the military comm net to call Tanery Base to demand transport. At that point the D.O. abruptly became a lot more efficient. A high-speed air shuttle with a hot pilot was scrambled to pick them up.
Approaching Tanery Base at dawn from the air, Cordelia felt the most unpleasant flash of deja vu. It was so like her first arrival from the mountains, she had the sense of being caught in a time loop. Perhaps she'd died and gone to hell, and her eternal