The guard lieutenant's pause for accuracy was fatal; Droushnakovi's nerve disruptor cross-fire and Cordelia's stunner beam intersected upon his body—a millisecond too late. His nerve disruptor bolt took Padma Vorpatril squarely in the back of his head. Blue sparks danced, dark hair sparked orange, and Padma's body arced in a violent convulsion and fell twitching. Alys Vorpatril wailed, a short sharp cry cut off by a gasp. On her hands and knees, she seemed momentarily frozen between trying to crawl toward him, or away.
Droushnakovi's cross-fire vantage was perfect. The last guard was killed while still trying to raise the canopy of the armored groundcar. A driver, shielded inside the second vehicle, prudently chose to try and speed away. Koudelka's plasma arc bolt, set on high power, blasted into the groundcar as it accelerated past the corner. It skidded wildly, dragging an edge and trailing sparks, and crashed into the side of a brick building.
Yes, and didn't my whole strategy for this mission turn on our staying invisible? Cordelia thought dizzily, and ran forward. She and Droushnakovi reached Alys Vorpatril at the same moment; together they hoisted the shuddering woman to her feet.
"We have to get out of here," said Bothari, rising from his firing-crouch and coming toward them.
"No shit," agreed Koudelka, limping up and staring around at the sudden and spectacular carnage. The street was amazingly quiet. Not for long, Cordelia suspected.
"This way." Bothari pointed up an alley, narrow and dark. "Run."
"Shouldn't we try to take that car?" Cordelia gestured to the body-draped vehicle.
"No. Traceable. And it can't fit where we're going."
Cordelia was not sure if the wild-faced, weeping Alys was able to run anywhere, but she stuck her stunner back in her waistband and took one of the pregnant woman's arms. Drou took the other, and together they guided her in the sergeant's wake. At least Koudelka was no longer the slowest of the party.
Alys was crying, yet not hysterical; she glanced only once over her shoulder at her husband's body, then concentrated grimly on trying to run. She did not run well. She was hopelessly unbalanced, her arms wrapping her belly in an attempt to take up the shocks of her heavy footsteps. "Cordelia," she gasped. An acknowledgment of recognition; there was no time or breath for demands of explanation.
They had not lurched more than three blocks when Cordelia began to hear sirens from the area they were fleeing. But Bothari seemed controlled again, unpanicked. They traversed another narrow alley, and Cordelia realized they had crossed into a region of the city with no streetlights, or indeed any lights at all. Her eyes strained in the misty shadows.
Alys stopped suddenly, and Cordelia skidded to a halt, almost jerking the woman off her feet. Alys stood for half a minute, bent over, gasping.
Cordelia realized that beneath its deceptive padding of fat, Alys's abdomen was hard as a rock; the back of her robe was soaking wet. "Are you going into labor?" she asked. She didn't know why she made that a question, the answer was obvious.
"This has been going on—for a day and a half," Alys blurted. She seemed unable to straighten. "I think my water broke back there, when that bastard knocked me down. Unless it's blood—should have passed out by now, if all that was blood—it hurts so much worse, now. . . ." Her breath slowed; she pulled her shoulders back with effort.
"How much longer?" asked Kou in alarm.
"How should I know? I've never done this before. Your guess is as good as mine," Lady Vorpatril snapped. Hot anger to warm cold fear. It wasn't enough warmth, a candle against a blizzard.
"Not much longer, I'd say," came Bothari's voice out of the dark. "We'd better go to ground. Come on."
Lady Vorpatril could no longer run, but managed a rapid waddle, stopping helplessly every two minutes. Then every one minute.
"Not going to make it all the way," muttered Bothari. "Wait here." He disappeared up a side—alley? The passages all seemed alleys here, cold and stinking, much too narrow for groundcars. They had passed exactly two people in the maze, huddled to one side of a passage in a heap, and stepped carefully around them.
"Can you do anything to, like, hold back?" asked Kou, watching Lady Vorpatril double over again. "We ought to . . . try and get a doctor or something."
"That's what that idiot Padma went out for," Alys ground out. "I begged him not to go . . . oh, God!" After another moment she added, in a surprisingly conversational tone, "The next time you're vomiting your guts out, Kou, let me suggest you just close your mouth and swallow hard . . . it's not exactly a voluntary reflex!" She straightened again, shivering violently.
"She doesn't need a doctor, she needs a flat spot," Bothari spoke from the shadows. "This way."
He led them a short distance to a wooden door, formerly nailed shut in an ancient solid stuccoed wall. Judging from the fresh splinters, he'd just kicked it open. Once inside, with the door pulled tight-shut again, Droushnakovi at last dared pull a hand-light from the satchel. It illuminated a small, empty, dirty room. Bothari swiftly prowled its perimeters. Two inner doors had been broken open long ago, but beyond them all was soundless and lightless and apparently deserted. "It'll have to do," said Bothari.
Cordelia wondered what the hell to do next. She knew all about placental transfers and surgical sections now, but for so-called normal births she had only theory to go on. Alys Vorpatril probably had even less grasp of the biology, Drou less still, and Kou was downright useless. "Has anyone here ever actually been in on one of these, before?"
"Not I," muttered Alys. Their looks met in rather too clear an understanding.
"You're not alone," said Cordelia stoutly. Confidence should lead to relaxation, should lead to something. "We'll all help."
Bothari said—oddly reluctantly—"My mother used to do a spot of midwifery. Sometimes she'd drag me along to help. There's not that much to it."
Cordelia controlled her brows. That was the first time she'd heard the sergeant say word one about either of his parents.
The sergeant sighed, clearly realizing from their array of looks that he'd just put himself in charge. "Lend me your jacket, Kou."
Koudelka divested the garment gallantly, and made to wrap it around the shaking Lady Vorpatril. He looked a little more dismayed when the sergeant put his own jacket around Lady Vorpatril's shoulders, then made her lie down on the floor and spread Koudelka's jacket under her hips. She looked less pale, lying down, less like she was about to pass out. But her breath stopped, then she cried out, as her abdominal muscles locked again.
"Stay with me, Lady Vorkosigan," Bothari murmured to Cordelia. For what? Cordelia wondered, then realized why as he knelt and gently pushed up Alys Vorpatril's nightgown. He wants me for a control mechanism. But the killing seemed to have bled off that horrifying wave of lust that had so distorted his face, back in the street. His gaze now was only normally interested. Fortunately, Alys Vorpatril was too self-absorbed to notice that Bothari's attempt at an expression of medical coolness was not wholly successful.
"Baby's head's not showing yet," he reported. "But soon."
Another spasm, and he looked around vaguely and added, "I don't think you'd better scream, Lady Vorpatril. They'll be looking by now."
She nodded understanding, and waved a desperate hand; Drou, catching on, rolled up a bit of cloth into a rag rope, and gave it to her to bite.
And so the tableau hung, for spasm after uterine spasm. Alys looked utterly wrung, crying very quietly, unable to stop her body's repeated attempts to turn itself inside out long enough to catch either breath or balance. The baby's head crowned, dark haired, but seemed unable to go further.
"How long is this supposed to take?" asked Kou, in a voice that tried to sound measured, but came out very worried.
"I think he likes it where he is," said Bothari. "Doesn't want to come out in the cold." This joke actually got through to Alys; her sobbing breath didn't change, but her eyes flashed in a moment of gratitude. Bothari crouched, frowned judiciously, hunkered around to her side, placed a big
hand on her belly, and waited for the next spasm. Then he leaned.
The infant's head popped out, between Lady Vorpatril's bloody thighs, quick as that.
"There," said the sergeant, sounding rather satisfied. Koudelka looked thoroughly impressed.
Cordelia caught the head between her hands, and eased the body out with the next contraction. The baby boy coughed twice, sneezed like a kitten in the awed silence, inhaled, grew pinker, and emitted a nerve-shattering wail. Cordelia nearly dropped him.
Bothari swore at the noise. "Give me your swordstick, Kou."
Lady Vorpatril looked up wildly. "No! Give him back to me, I'll make him be quiet!"
"Wasn't what I had in mind," said Bothari with some dignity. "Though it's an idea," he added as the wails went on. He pulled out the plasma arc and heated the sword briefly, on low power. Sterilizing it, Cordelia realized.
Placenta followed cord on the next contraction, a messy heap on Kou's jacket. She stared with covert fascination at the spent version of the supportive organ that had been of so much concern in her own case. Time. This rescue's taken so much time. What are Miles's chances down to now? Had she just traded her son's life for little Ivan's? Not-so-little Ivan, actually, no wonder he'd given his mother so much trouble. Alys must be blessed with an unusually wide pelvic arch, or she'd never have made it though this nightmare night alive.
After the cord drained white, Bothari cut it with the sterilized blade, and Cordelia self-knotted the rubbery thing as best she could. She mopped off the baby and wrapped him in their spare clean shirt, and handed him at last into Alys's outstretched arms.
Alys looked at the baby and began crying again, muffled sobs. "Padma said . . . I'd have the best doctors. Padma said . . . there'd be no pain. Padma said he'd stay with me . . . damn you, Padma!" She clutched Padma's son to her. In an altered tone of mild surprise, she added, "Ow!" Infant mouth had found her breast, and apparently had a grip like a barracuda.
"Good reflexes," observed Bothari.
Chapter Seventeen
"For God's sake, Bothari, we can't take her in there," hissed Koudelka.
They stood in an alley deep in the maze of the caravanserai. A thick-walled building bulked an unusual three stories high in the cold, wet darkness. High on its stuccoed face, scabrous with peeling paint, yellow light glinted through carved shutters. An oil lamp burned dimly above a wooden door, the only entrance Cordelia could see.
"Can't leave her out here. She needs heat," replied the sergeant. He carried Lady Vorpatril in his arms; she clung to him, wan and shivering. "It's a slow night anyway. Late. They're closing down."
"What is this place?" asked Droushnakovi.
Koudelka cleared his throat. "Back in the Time of Isolation, when this was the center of Vorbarr Sultana, it was a lord's Residence. One of the minor Vorbarra princes, I think. That's why it's built like a fortress. Now it's a . . . sort of inn."
Oh, so this is your whorehouse, Kou, Cordelia managed not to blurt out. Instead she addressed Bothari, "Is it safe? Or is it likely to be stocked with informers like that last place?"
"Safe for a few hours," Bothari judged. "A few hours is all we have anyway." He set Lady Vorpatril down, handing her off to Droushnakovi, and slipped inside after a muffled conversation through the door with some guardian. Cordelia tucked little Ivan more firmly to her, tugging her jacket over him for all the warmth she could share. Fortunately, he had slept quietly through their several-minutes hike from the abandoned building to this place. In a few moments Bothari returned, and motioned them to follow.
They passed through an entryway, almost like a stone tunnel, with narrow slits in the walls and holes every half-meter above. "For defense, in the old days," whispered Koudelka, and Droushnakovi nodded understanding. No arrows or boiling oil awaited them tonight, though. A man as tall as Bothari, but wider, locked the door again behind them.
They came out in a large, dim room that had been converted into some sort of bar/dining room. It was occupied only by two dispirited-looking women in robes and a man snoring with his head on the table. As usual, an extravagant fireplace glowed with coals of wood.
They had a guide, or hostess. A rangy woman beckoned them silently toward the stairs. Fifteen years ago, or even ten years ago, she might have achieved a leggy aquiline look; now she was bony and faded, mis-clad in a gaudy magenta robe with drooping ruffles that seemed to echo her inherent sadness. Bothari swept up Lady Vorpatril and carried her up the steep stairs. Koudelka stared around uneasily, and seemed to brighten slightly upon not finding someone.
The woman led them to a room off an upstairs hallway. "Change the sheets," muttered Bothari, and the woman nodded and vanished. Bothari did not set the exhausted Lady Vorpatril down. The woman returned in a few minutes, and whisked off the bed's rumpled coverings and replaced them with fresh linens. Bothari laid Lady Vorpatril in the bed and backed up. Cordelia tucked the sleeping infant in her arm, and Lady Vorpatril managed a grateful nod.
The—housewoman, Cordelia decided she would think of her—stared with a spark of interest at the baby. "That's a new one. Big boy, eh?" her voice swung to a tentative coo.
"Two weeks old," stated Bothari in a repelling tone.
The woman snorted, hands on hips. "I do my bit of midwifery, Bothari. Two hours, more like."
Bothari shot Cordelia an odd look, almost a flash of fear. The housewoman held up a hand to ward off his frown. "Whatever you say."
"We should let her sleep," said Bothari, "till we're sure she isn't going to bleed."
"Yes, but not alone," said Cordelia. "In case she wakes up disoriented in a strange place." In the range of strange, Cordelia suspected, this place qualified as downright alien for the Vor woman.
"I'll sit with her a while," volunteered Droushnakovi. She glowered suspiciously at the housewoman, who was apparently leaning too near the baby for her taste. Cordelia didn't think Drou was at all fooled by Koudelka's pretense that they had stumbled into some sort of museum. Nor would Lady Vorpatril be, once she'd rested enough to regain her wits.
Droushnakovi plunked down in a shabby padded armchair, wrinkling her nose at its musty smell. The others withdrew from the room. Koudelka went off to find whatever this old building used for a lavatory, and to try and buy them some food. An underlying tang to the air suggested to Cordelia that nothing in the caravanserai was hooked up to the municipal sewerage. No central heating, either. At Bothari's frown, the housewoman made herself scarce.
A sofa, a couple of chairs, and a low table occupied a space at the end of the hall, lit by a red-shaded battery-driven lamp. Wearily, Bothari and Cordelia sat there. With the pressure off for a moment, not fighting the strain, Bothari looked ragged. Cordelia had no idea what she looked like, but she was certain it wasn't her best.
"Do they have whores on Beta Colony?" Bothari asked suddenly.
Cordelia fought mental whiplash. His voice was so tired the question sounded almost casual, except that Bothari never made casual conversation. How much had tonight's violent events disturbed his precarious balance, stressed his peculiar fault lines? "Well . . . we have the L.P.S.T.s," she answered cautiously. "I guess they fill some of the same social functions."
"Ellpee Estees?"
"Licensed Practical Sexuality Therapists. You have to pass the government boards, and get a license. You're required to have at least an associate degree in psychotherapy. Except that all three sexes take up the profession. The hermaphrodites make the most money, they're very popular with the tourists. It's not . . . not a high social status job, but neither are they dregs. I don't think we have dregs on Beta Colony, we sort of stop at the lower middle class. It's like . . ." she paused, struggling for a cultural translation, "sort of like being a hairdresser, on Barrayar. Delivering a personal service to professional standards, with a bit of art and craft."
She'd actually managed to boggle Bothari, surely a first. His brow wrinkled. "Only Betans would think you needed a bleeding university degree. . . . Do women
hire them?"
"Sure. Couples, too. The . . . the teaching element is rather more emphasized, there."
He shook his head, and hesitated. He shot her a sidelong look. "My mother was a whore." His tone was curiously distant. He waited.
"I'd . . . about figured that out."
"Don't know why she didn't abort me. She could have, she did those as well as midwifery. Maybe she was looking to her old age. She used to sell me to her customers."
Cordelia choked. "Now . . . now that would not have been allowed, on Beta Colony."
"I can't remember much about that time. I ran away when I was twelve, when I got big enough to beat up her damned customers. Ran with the gangs, till I was sixteen, passed for eighteen, and lied my way into the Service. Then I was out of here." His palms slid across each other, indicating how slick and fast his escape.
"The Service must have seemed like heaven, in comparison."
"Till I met Vorrutyer." He stared around vaguely. "There were more people around here, back then. It's almost dead here now." His voice went meditative. "There's a great deal of my life I can't remember very well. It's like I'm all . . . patchy. Yet there are some things I want to forget and can't."
She wasn't about to ask, What? But she made an I-am-listening noise, down in her throat.
"Don't know who my father was. Being a bastard here is damn near as bad as being a mutant."
" 'Bastard' is used as a negative description of a personality, but it doesn't really have an objective meaning, in the Betan context. Unlicensed children aren't the same thing, and they're so rare, they're dealt with on a case-by-case basis." Why is he telling me all this? What does he want of me? When he started, he seemed almost fearful; now he looks almost contented. What did I say right? She sighed.
Barrayar Page 27
