The Vorkosigan Companion (38 page)

Council of Ministers:

Part of the joint council session convened to confirm Aral Vorkosigan's appointment as Regent of Barrayar. The ministers wear robes of black and purple with gold chains of office while in session. (B)

Count:

A hereditary title on Barrayar. Counts serve as a combination of ruler and governor of a district, settling disputes among the citizens and representing their district in the Council of Counts. The title was shortened from the word "accountant," as the first "counts" were created by Varadar Tau, an accomplished bandit, to collect taxes during the Time of Isolation. (All except FF)

Crème de meth:

A thick, sweet, green liquor, roughly 60% pure ethanol, that makes the drinker relaxed yet incredibly alert, and also gives a unique sense of confidence and well-being. Miles first tries it at Beta Colony with Arde Mayhew, who had been using it to stay awake for three days. He describes the taste as a cross between horse piss and honey. It also kills hunger and clears the sinuses, but the hangover afterward is terrible, as Miles discovers later. (WA)

Crew, Rosalie:

A wine shop clerk in London who sues Admiral Naismith for a half million credits after she was terrorized and her shop accidentally burned down by three of the Dendarii Free Mercenaries when their credit was denied. When Mark asks about the lawsuit, Miles suggests countersuing for medical damages, as he threw his back out rescuing her. (BA)

"Crossing, The":

A zero-gee ballet about the quaddies' flight to freedom, composed by Aljean, that is performed on Graf Station while Miles and Ekaterin are there. Normally Garnet Five dances the part of Silver, but with her broken arm, she is resigned to watching her understudy perform the role. (DI)

Croye:

No first name given. A lieutenant in the Barrayaran Embassy Security on Beta Colony, he is one of the security detail assigned to watch over Miles, who fears if Croye finds out he met with Baz Jesek, he'll deport the deserter back to Barrayar for a swift court-martial and execution. (WA)

Cryo-chamber:

A portable, emergency medical unit used to preserve the recently deceased in cryo-stasis for later resuscitation. It enables a medical technician to drain the blood from a body, replacing it with cryogenic preservation fluid. Miles is placed in one when he is killed during the evacuation from the Bharaputra clone facility on Jackson's Whole. (BA)

Cryo-stasis:

Also known as cryo-freezing, it is a process used to save victims of severe injury, including death. The patient's body is drained of all blood, replacing it with a special cryogenic fluid that preserves tissues at a low temperature. The body is then placed in a cryo-chamber and frozen for later revival at a cryo-revival center. These centers clone tissues and grow needed replacement parts, then transplant them into the person before revival.

The quality of preparation, blood draining, and replacement with cryo-fluid is critical. If the preparation is done by a good medical facility, the chance for successful revival is excellent, though not guaranteed. Major trauma, such as damage suffered in combat and poor or hasty preparation of the body, can let ice crystals form in the tissues during the freezing process, causing varying levels of damage. Excess tissue damage may prevent revival or cause permanent impairment. Tissue damage in the brain can be replaced by cloned neural tissues, but memories, skills, and personality are lost. This may give the resurrected person a range of damage from severe mental disability through loss of personality or skills to varying minor degrees of memory loss. Many cryo patients suffer temporary memory loss due to the procedure. The memory may return slowly or there can be a memory cascade as the associative linkages are recovered.

Cryo-freezing is a last-resort procedure. If the patient can be maintained adequately while replacement organs or tissues are grown, then cryofreezing is avoided. Miles undergoes cryo-  stasis after being killed by a needler grenade, and has his heart, lungs, and stomach replaced in the Durona Clinic on Jackson's Whole. (BA, MD)

Crystal Springs:

An area on Athos where Brother Haas lives in a farmer's commune. (EA)

Csurik, Bella:

One of Lem's sisters, she is about to get married. Lem had promised to haul wood for her new cabin on the day Raina was killed. (MM)

Csurik, Dono:

One of Lem's younger brothers, he tried to set Miles's tent on fire after the village celebration, thinking he was in it. After Miles elicits his confession, he leaves the boy's punishment up to the family, even though the attack could have been construed as an assault on the count himself, and therefore treasonous. (MM)

Csurik, Harra:

A tall, lean, blond hill girl with gray eyes, not unattractive, but also not a beauty. She gave birth to a daughter, Raina, with a harelip, who was killed four days later. She accuses her husband of killing the child and walks for four days to Vorkosigan Surleau to seek justice. Her father died in the service as District Militia during the Vordarian Pretendership, and her mother is her only living relative. Once Miles establishes that Harra's mother, Mara Mattulich, killed Raina, he assigns all of her legal rights to Harra, then sends her off to the Hassadar Teacher's College, ensuring a better future for the children of Silvy Vale.

When he visits the village ten years later, she is a teacher at the Silvy Vale school, which is named for her daughter. She moved Raina's grave when the valley the town was located in was going to be flooded for the hydroelectric dam, but left her mother's grave where it was. Her husband Lem and she have a four-year-old boy and a one-year-old girl. During his visit, she advises Miles on how to continue living after enduring what others might think is unendurable shame. (M, MM)

Csurik, Lem:

Harra Csurik's husband, whom she accuses of infanticide. When Miles first meets him, he is twenty years old, a carpenter, and has four brothers and three sisters. He is almost certain it was Mara Mattulich who killed Raina, but does not want to accuse her. Miles interrogates him under fast-penta and confirms his innocence. Afterward, he suggests that Lem go with Harra to Hassadar to gain more experience in carpentry. When Miles visits the village ten years later, he has become Speaker of the Vale. (M, MM)

Csurik, Ma:

No first name given. Lem's mother, she is about fifty years old, little, lean, and work-worn. She has five sons and three daughters. She protests Lem's innocence when she meets Miles at the village celebration. (MM)

Csurik, Raina:

Harra and Lem Csurik's newborn daughter, she was killed by her grandmother, Mara Mattulich, when she was four days old. Her grave was moved, along with the rest of Silvy Vale, before the valley was dammed to create hydroelectric power. The village's two-room school is named after her. (M, MM)

Cultured Furs:

A division of GalacTech Bioengineering, a store where Miles purchased a live fur blanket for Elli. (BA)

Curry:

No first name given. A doctor who works under Doctor Minchenko at the Cay Habitat. He gave Claire drugs to dry up her breast milk and did not inform Minchenko about it. Claire overpowers him when he tries to sterilize her, leaving him sedated and tied up under the sterilization shield. (FF)

D-620 Superjumper:

A large cargo transport ship. When empty it resembles a mutant, mechanical squid. The control room and crew quarters are contained in a pod at the front, with four long, braced arms trailing behind. Two of the arms are normal space thrusters, and the other two are the Necklin field generators. In between the arms is the large space for cargo pods. Leo Graf and the quaddies use a D-620 to escape from GalacTech. Two centuries later, Ekaterin buys Nikolai a model of the ship at Graf Station. (DI, FF)

Daccuto scam:

A shady business deal Mrs. Bianca refers to in which her husband was involved. (DD)

Dag:

No surname given. One of Brother Haas's fellow commune members who chided him for growing his parent beard early. (EA)

Dagger:

A weapon Miles brought to Beta Colony as a memento of his grandfather Piotr. It is a priceless antique on Barrayar, with an unusual watermark on the blade, the Vorkosigan seal inlaid in cloisonné, gold, and jewels on the hilt, and a matching lizard-skin sheath. Almost stolen from Miles by Captain Auson. He recovers it, and uses it to help save Kostolitz and himself in a training simulation at the Imperial Academy. Mark takes it from him when they meet on Earth, but Miles recovers it again and later retires it to his room at Vorkosigan House. (MD, WA)

Dagoola IV Top Security Prison Camp #3:

A Cetagandan prison camp where Miles is interned as part of a mission assigned to the Dendarii Free Mercenary Fleet by Barrayar. It is essentially a holding area encircled by a large force shield that contains latrines and water taps, but nothing else. It has no guards or regulations, and contains 10,214 prisoners. The camp follows the Interstellar Judiciary Commission requirements, but just barely. Each prisoner is implanted with an identification chip that slowly dissolves if they escape the dome, releasing a poison that will kill them in about four hours. Sent to rescue one man, Miles has the Dendarii break in, and saves all but two hundred of the prisoners, most of them lost to a fighter attack that destroyed one of the transport shuttles. (BI)

Dalton Station:

A spaceport where Miles plans to drop off the short-contract personnel the Dendarii Free Mercenary Fleet hired from Tau Verde IV. (WA)

Damnweed:

A pest plant on Barrayar, which Miles sees in a new light in Ekaterin's pretty virtual garden, composed entirely of native flora. (K)

Danio:

No first name given. A private in the Dendarii Free Mercenary Fleet, he is one of the three arrested soldiers involved in the wine shop standoff in London. Mark bails him out of jail while posing as Miles/Admiral Naismith, and the real Miles thinks he may be useful in their assignment infiltrating a hostage-holding pirate group. (BA)

Darkoi:

A province on Barrayar. Its leader, Count Vorlakail, was killed under suspicious circumstances, prompting an investigation. The clerk at Siegling's tries to pass off an inferior swordstick, which he claims is Darkoi craftsmanship, to Cordelia. (B)

Darla:

A quaddie who hides video fiction for the group. (FF)

Darobey:

No first name given. A thin man, he is one of Radnov's spies in the communication section on the
General Vorkraft
. (SH)

Data chip:

A smaller version of the data cube. (All)

Data cube:

An electronic data storage device, similar to the modern flash drive. When the cube is inserted into the proper receptacle on a comconsole, all data contained on it is accessible to the user. It can be secured by encryption programs. (All)

Daum, Carle:

A major in the Felician army, he has dark, almond-shaped eyes, high cheekbones, bright copper hair in tight curls, and coffee-with-cream-colored skin. He hires Miles to smuggle weapons to Felice on Tau Verde IV, and accompanies him on the first run. He calls the Pelians "pelicans," and is killed during one of the ship-to-ship battles over the planet. (WA)

d'Chilian, Vio:

A Cetagandan haut-lady and General Chilian's wife, she has rich, dark chocolate hair, light cinnamon eyes, and vanilla-white skin. Miles and Ivan are invited to an exclusive haut garden party, where Vio is the first haut-lady Ivan sees. She is Ilsum Kety's lover, and is involved in the conspiracy to take the throne. She kills the Ba Lura to move the plan forward. When haut-consort Nadina goes to Kety's ship to order the gene-bank copy returned to the planet, she is captured, and Vio is sent down in her float-chair to impersonate her and capture Ivan. After the plan is foiled, her punishment is to either become a ba servant, which would allow her to live inside the Celestial Garden, as she had desperately wished—although not in the manner she had expected—or commit suicide. (C)

Dea:

No first name given. A lieutenant in the Barrayaran military, he is a surgeon, and the assistant to Prime Minister Aral Vorkosigan's personal doctor. He is frustrated because his superior won't let Dea touch their patient. Competent, if not overly imaginative, he performs the autopsy on Raina Csurik, declaring that she was killed by having her neck broken. He saves Fat Ninny by sewing up his neck wound, and also administers fast-penta to Lem Csurik and Mara Mattulich for their interrogations. (MM)

Deal:

The proper word for a standard business arrangement between two parties on Jackson's Whole. Of near-sacrosanct importance, it is the only thing that the barons hold mostly inviolate. (L, MD)

Death-offering:

A Barrayaran custom to burn an offering for the souls of the deceased; usually friends or relatives, sometimes for enemies so that they do not come back to haunt the offerer. Cordelia burns a lock of her hair at Princess Kareen's funeral. Miles burns a lock of his hair, a lock of Elena Visconti's hair, and a lock of Cordelia's hair for Bothari's death-offering. When Elena brings Mark to Barrayar, she burns a death-offering for her father as well. Miles also burns a death-offering for Piotr consisting of juniper bark, a copy of his officer's commission, and a copy of his three-year Imperial Academy transcripts. Harra Csurik burns one for her daughter as well. (BI, MM, SH, WA)

Deem:

A manager in the Sales and Demonstrations department of House Ryoval, he is a very beautiful, young, albino man with blue eyes. He notifies Baron Ryoval of a mauling accident involving Taura, and later speaks with Miles about selling her before the baron interrupts the call. (L)

Deeva Tau love cults, variant practices of:

A method of lovemaking Miles invents, albeit in name only, to daunt Mark from trying to sleep with Elli Quinn while he's impersonating Miles. (BA)

Degtiar, Lisbet:

The late Cetagandan dowager empress, she was a haut-lady, and the mother of Emperor Fletchir Giaja, Also referred to as the Celestial Lady, she controlled the Star Crèche, and with it the genetic heritage and future of the Empire. Her death brings Miles and Ivan to Cetaganda to pay their respects on behalf of Barrayar. Fearing the stagnation of the Empire, her plan to distribute the haut gene bank to the eight haut-governors on the satrapy planets backfires into a conspiracy to overthrow the sitting Emperor. (C)