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Sonia:

No surname given. Amor Klyeuvi's niece, she is an aged woman, with gray hair in a long braid down her back. She gives sweet cakes to the boy who brings Kly's mount back to his hiding place. (B)

Sonic grenade:

An airtube-launched grenade that killed Aral's mother when one was shot into her stomach during Yuri Vorbarra's Massacre. It is also used in an assassination attempt against Aral's motorcade in Vorbarr Sultana after he is named Regent. Although the technology isn't defined, the weapon is powerful enough to make a large hole in the street after missing the armored groundcar. The weapon might have been older ordnance with a possibly defective tracker, as the security didn't detect a ranging pulse before the attack. (B, SH)

Sonic toilet:

A standing lavatory disposal device on jump stations that uses sound waves to break apart waste matter. Ekaterin tries to clog one using her shoes while being held prisoner to cause a maintenance alert, but it disposes of her footwear without any problem. (K)

Soudha:

No first name given. He is an administrator and the department head of Waste Heat Management at the Serifosa branch of the Komarr Terraforming Project. A big, square-handed man in his late forties, he gives Andro Farr the runaround about Marie, then spreads the story that she ran off with Barto Radovas. He is siphoning money from the terraforming project by creating a fake experimental department and employees, then using the funds to build a wormhole-destruction device that will collapse the jump point between Komarr and Barrayar, leaving the latter planet cut off from the rest of the universe. Along with Barto and Madame Radovas, Marie Trogir, Lena Foscol, Cappell, and Arrozi, he considers himself to be a Komarran patriot doing what is best for his planet, with humane limits on loss of life, but a previous test of the device caused the Soletta Station accident, and the group doesn't realize that their device has a very good chance of destroying them and the entire jump-point station. After their device is destroyed by Ekaterin, he votes to stop the standoff, and surrender to the authorities. (K)

South Province:

An area on Athos where Ethan Urquhart's family comes from. (EA)

Soya oatmeal:

One of the two provisions at Base One that weren't destroyed in the Barrayaran attack. Cordelia, Aral, and Dubauer survive on it during their trip to the supply cache. (SH)

Spacer's Union:

A galaxywide union for the men and women who work on projects in near and deep space. Leo Graf sees potential problems with them when the effectively enslaved quaddies arrive to compete for work. (FF)

Spaceship:

A powered, self-contained vehicle capable of traveling between planets or stars. The propulsion system is not specified, and neither is the fuel that powers the ships. The fuel used is sufficiently compact that refueling does not affect most trips, and multiple jumps between solar systems are possible without refueling. Fuel cost and efficiency are important to the economy of commercial ships. Acceleration forces are high, ranging from 15g to 100g, and are compensated for by artificial gravity so the crew and passengers only feel one-gee during that time. There are many different kinds of ships, some that lack jump capacity, and are designed solely to travel within one solar system, and others equipped with Necklin field generators to travel through wormholes, enabling them to cross vast distances quickly. Interstellar ships need a jump pilot with a cybernetic link to the ship to control the jump, in effect making them part of the ship while they are jacked in. The jump pilot's cybernetic link includes expensive micro-viral circuitry implanted by delicate surgery into the pilot's brain. Metal contact points for the control headset show on the forehead. The jump can take several subjective hours for the pilot, but little or no subjective time for the passengers. If a person feels unusual subjective effects during jumps, it may be appropriate