Title Page

CryoBurn

A Miles Vorkosigan Novel

Lois McMaster Bujold

Copyright © 2010 by Lois McMaster Bujold

Cover design by Passageway Pictures, Inc.

Books by Lois McMaster Bujold

Books by Lois McMaster Bujold

The Vorkosigan Series

Falling Free

Shards of Honor

Barrayar

The Warrior's Apprentice

"The Mountains of Mourning"

The Vor Game

Cetaganda

Ethan of Athos

"Labyrinth"

"The Borders of Infinity"

Brothers in Arms

Mirror Dance

Memory

Komarr

A Civil Campaign

“Winterfair Gifts”

Diplomatic Immunity

CryoBurn

The Spirit Ring

The Chalion Series

The Curse of Chalion

Paladin of Souls

The Hallowed Hunt

The Sharing Knife Tetralogy

Volume One: Beguilement

Volume Two: Legacy

Volume Three: Passage

Volume Four: Horizon

The Wide Green World Series

The Sharing Knife, Vol. 1: Beguilement

The Sharing Knife, Vol. 2: Legacy

The Sharing Knife, Vol. 3: Passage

The Sharing Knife, Vol. 4: Horizon

CryoBurn

A Miles Vorkosigan Novel

Lois McMaster Bujold

Chapter One

Chapter One

Angels were falling all over the place.

Miles blinked, trying to resolve the golden streaks sleeting through his vision into mere retinal flashes, but they stubbornly persisted as tiny, distinct figures, faces dismayed, mouths round.  He heard their wavering cries like the whistle of fireworks from far off, the echoes buffeted by hillsides.

Ah, terrific.  Auditory hallucinations, too.

Granted the visions seemed more dangerous, in his current addled state.  If he could see things that were not there, it was also quite possible for him to not see things that were there, like stairwells, or broken gaps in this corridor floor.  Or balcony railings, but wouldn't he feel those, pressing against his chest?  Not that he could see anything in this pitch darkness—not even his hands, reaching uncertainly before him.  His heart was beating too fast, rushing in his ears like muffled surf, his dry mouth gasping.  He had to slow down.  He scowled at the tumbling angels, peeved.  If they were going to glow like that, they might at least illuminate his surroundings for him, like little celestial grav-lights, but no.  Nothing so helpful.

He stumbled, and his hand banged against something hollow-sounding—had that bit of wall shifted?  He snatched his arms in, wrapping them around himself, trembling.  I'm just cold, yeah, that's it.  Which had to be from the power of suggestion, since he was sweating.

Hesitantly, he stretched out again and felt along the corridor wall.  He began to move forward more slowly, fingers lightly passing over the faint lines and ripples of drawer edges and handle-locks, rank after rank of them, stacked high beyond his reach.  Behind each drawer-face, a frozen corpse: stiff, silent, waiting in mad hope.  A hundred corpses to every thirty steps or so, thousands more around each corner, hundreds of thousands in this lost labyrinth.  No—millions.

That part, unfortunately, was not a hallucination.