"Not as far as we know. She seems to be under house arrest in her own rooms in the Imperial Residence. Several of the more important hostages have been secluded there."

"I see." She glanced sideways in the dim cabin at Bothari, who did not change expression. She waited for him to ask after Elena, but he said nothing. Droushnakovi stared bleakly into the night, at the mention of Kareen.

Had Kou and Drou made up? They seemed cool, civil, all duty and on duty. But whatever surface apologies had passed, Cordelia sensed no healing in them. The secret adoration and will-to-trust was all gone from the blue eyes that now and then flicked from the control interface to the man in the passenger seat. Drou's glances were merely wary.

Lights glowed ahead on the ground, the spatter of a middle-sized city, and beyond it, the jumbled geometrics of a sprawling military shuttleport. Drou went through code-check after code-check, as they approached. They spiraled down to a pad that lit for them, peopled with armed guards. Their guard-flyers passed on overhead to their own landing zones.

The guards surrounded them as they exited the flyer, and escorted them as fast as Koudelka's pace would permit to a lift tube. They went down, took a slide-walk, and went down again through blast doors. Tanery Base clearly featured a hardened underground command post. Welcome to the bunker. And yet a throat-catching whiff of familiarity shook Cordelia for a terrifying moment of confusion and loss. Beta Colony did a lot better on the interior decorating than these barren corridors, but she might have descended to the utility level of some buried Betan city, safe and cool. . . . I want to go home.

There were three green-uniformed officers, talking in a corridor. One was Aral. He saw her. "Thank you, dismissed, gentlemen," he said in the middle of someone's sentence, then more consciously, "We'll continue this shortly." But they lingered to goggle.

He looked no worse than tired. Her heart ached to look at him, and yet . . . Following you has brought me here. Not to the Barrayar of my hopes, but to the Barrayar of my fears.

With a voiceless "Ha!" he embraced her, hard to him. She hugged him back. This is a good thing. Go away, World. But when she looked up the World was still waiting, in the form of seven watchers all with agendas.

He held her away, and scanned her anxiously up and down. "You look terrible, dear Captain."

At least he was polite enough not to say, You smell terrible. "Nothing a bath won't cure."

"That is not what I meant. Sickbay for you, before anything." He turned to find Sergeant Bothari first in line.

"Sir, I must report in to my lord Count," Bothari said.