The Vorkosigan Companion (40 page)

Durona, Poppy:

A doctor at the Durona Research Group that works on Miles, she is ten years older than Chrys, with silver-streaked black hair pulled back in a ponytail. Miles evades her during his second escape attempt from the Durona clinic. (MD)

Durona, Raven:

A young man, exact age unspecified, lean with Eurasian features, who is a male clone of Lilly. He is studying to be a doctor, and serves as an intern at the Durona Clinic where Miles is undergoing rehabilitation. (MD)

Durona, Robin:

A slim, ten-year-old Eurasian boy, he is one of Lilly's two cloned servants who help serve tea to guests. (MD)

Durona, Rose:

Lilly Durona's oldest daughter, and her first clone. Her short hair is almost pure white, and she walks with a carved wooden cane. She oversees the rest of the doctors at the Durona Research Group. (MD)

Durona, Rowan:

The doctor in charge of resuscitating Miles after his death on Jackson's Whole, she is a clone of Lilly Durona. She is Eurasian, tall and slim, with golden skin, black hair, brown eyes, and a coolly arched nose, and wears her hair pulled back in a bun. She falls in love with Miles during his revival and physical therapy, and tries to help him escape Baron Ryoval's men. However, she refuses Miles's order to crash the lightflyer to leave a sign before being captured by Baron Bharaputra's security men. She escapes Bharaputra's security by posing as the clone Lilly, and goes for help, but doesn't return in time to free Miles before he is taken to Ryoval's private laboratory. She decides that a long-term relationship with Miles is not to be, and goes with her clone sisters to Escobar. (MD)

Durona, Violet:

A slim, ten-year-old Eurasian girl, one of Lilly's two cloned servants who help serve tea to guests. (MD)

Durrance:

No first name given. He is the captain of shuttle flight B119 that Ti Gulik copilots. (FF)

Duvallier:

No first name given. A Barrayaran major executed for espionage during one of the riots in Solstice on Komarr. (VG)

Duvi:

No first name given. A sergeant in Barrayaran Imperial Security, he is Vorob'yev's aircar driver on Cetaganda, and drives a bit too adventurously for his superior's taste at times. (C)

Dyeb:

No first name given. A master sergeant in the Dendarii Free Mercenary Fleet, he is prejudiced about female recruits, thinking they're soft. Miles thinks enrolling Taura in his training course would change his mind rather quickly. (L)

Electron orbit randomizer:

An obsolete Beta Colony beam weapon. Miles encounters one during his Tau Verde IV campaign. The best defense against it is to rephase the mass shields, which Baz Jesek does as soon as he learns the Pelians still use them. (WA)

Emma:

No surname given. A pregnant quaddie scheduled to have her baby terminated, she hides in the Clubhouse instead. (FF)

Emperor's Birthday:

One of the highlights of the Barrayaran year, it is a time of feasting and celebration. It is also when all of the Counts renew their oath of fealty to the Emperor, and pay him a symbolic tax in the form of a small bag of gold. The Emperor's Birthday is also the beginning of a new fiscal year for Barrayar, the date of which changes every time a new Emperor takes the throne. Cordelia attends Gregor's first celebration, where Count Vordarian tells her of Aral's bisexual past. Mark presents his family's tithe to Gregor at the Emperor's Birthday celebration while on Barrayar, and also meets Kareen Koudelka during the celebration. (B, MD)

Enforcers:

A name Miles gives to a group of chosen men who keep order during the food drops at the prisoner camp on Dagoola IV once he begins organizing the inmates for the upcoming escape. (BI)

Environmental Impact Assessment form:

A bureaucratic form that George Bannerji insists must be completed before he fires on the Cay Habitat ship during the quaddies' escape. (FF)

Equinox:

One of Komarr's domed cities, known for its population of wild cockatoos. (K)

Escobar:

A rich trading planet located in a heavily populated star system, like Tau Ceti and Orient IV. Barrayar tries to conquer it using the survey planet (Sergyar) where Aral and Cordelia met as a staging ground, as a wormhole was discovered near it that leads to Escobar, but they are defeated. The Duronas set up their clinic there after leaving Jackson's Whole. (FF, SH, MD)

Estanis:

No first name given. A deceased Cetagandan ghem-general, the official story claims he committed suicide after his Navy's defeat in the Vervain conflict. The rumor is that his "suicide" consisted of thirty-two stab wounds in the back. (C)

Estelle:

A high-end women's clothing store in Vorbarr Sultana for Vor ladies. Alys meets Taura and Roic there to outfit her for Miles's wedding. (WG)

Esterhazy:

No first name given. An armsman at Vorkosigan Surleau, he is forty years old, and in excellent physical condition. During Vordarian's coup, Piotr chooses him to assist in taking Gregor into hiding. He brings horses for Piotr, Cordelia, and Gregor to ride into the Dendarii Mountains, and also tells Cordelia that Karla Hysopi and Elena Bothari were taken by Vordarian's men. He has a four-year-old son. (B)

Eta Ceta IV:

The homeworld of the Cetagandan Empire. Miles and Ivan travel there to pay respects to the deceased Empress. Its cities are attractive and brightly lit, although Miles thinks they are gaudy when he first sees them. Its citizens' taxes are only half of Barrayar's, but Miles's homeworld keeps up with their rival on a military basis with only a quarter of Eta Ceta IV's natural resources. (C, DI)

Euronews Network:

A vidnews network on Earth. Lise Vallerie is one of its reporters. Miles's daring rescue of the clerk from the burning wine shop, along with his interview as Admiral Naismith, is seen by Duv Galeni, getting him in trouble for going absent without leave from the Barrayaran Embassy. (BA)

Explosive ice-die forming:

A real-world technique used by Leo Graf and the quaddies to make a duplicate vortex mirror that matches an existing mirror. First, an ice mold is made by flowing water onto the good mirror in sub-zero refrigeration. Then a metal blank is explosively formed to the ice mold using explosives, which, in Leo's case, is improvised from gasoline. (FF)

Falcon 9 jump ship:

Nikolai owns a model of this fast courier vessel that Miles rode on during some of his Imperial Security missions. He discusses the ship with the boy during their first conversation. (K)

Fallow Core:

A high-tech fortress on Marilac, it was held against a Cetagandan siege by Colonel Guy Tremont and his men until the base was betrayed to the enemy. The 14th Commandos, among others, were captured and imprisoned at the Dagoola prison camp. (BI)

Farr, Andro:

A good-looking Komarran, he approaches Ekaterin, whom he met at a Winterfair reception for Serifosa terraforming employees, to ask if she knows anything about his missing roommate Marie Trogir, who left all of her personal items and cats behind when she was killed in a test run of the wormhole closer. Ekaterin is unable to help him, and her Uncle Vorthys suggests he contact Security about the matter. (K)

Fast-penta:

A powerful truth drug that renders the subject unable to resist answering questions. Its effects include an overwhelmingly strong feeling of happiness and helpfulness, along with relaxing the body. A subject under fast-penta will answer questions literally, requiring skilled interrogation to elicit the desired information. To ensure security, some couriers, military operatives, and other personnel are given an induced allergy treatment so they will die from anaphylactic shock rather than reveal secret information. It is common to administer a test strip to the subject to determine if a natural or induced allergy exists before using the drug. If allowed, the subject will often babble extraneous information that can be embarrassing, as subjects normally remember the interrogation afterward. Some subjects also drool. Due to these embarrassing effects, most people dread being the subject of a fast-penta interrogation. Once the interrogation is complete, an antidote is usually administered, which neutralizes its effects in a few minutes.

Although fast-penta has no truly harmful side effects, afterward many subjects experience a drug hangover, including headache, dizziness, and muddled thinking. Fast-penta interrogation is sufficiently reliable to be admissible in virtually all courts. A court order or voluntary cooperation is required in most jurisdictions. Miles has an unusual reaction to fast-penta, where he babbles a constant stream of useless information, and can even resist the drug's effects by reciting poetry or lines from a play. (All)

Fat Ninny:

The horse Miles rides to Silvy Vale, a thickset roan gelding that imprinted on him when they were both very young. Not wanting to embarrass himself, Miles decides to call him Chieftain if any of the villagers ask his name. Ninny almost is killed by Mara Mattulich after the celebration, suffering a deep neck cut that Doctor Dea treats. When Mark is on Barrayar, he feeds him sugar at Aral's request, to see if the animal is fooled into thinking he is Miles. The horse isn't fooled, only confused. (MD, MM)

Father Frost:

The mythological being that plays a role in the Winterfair festival on Barrayar, similar to Santa Claus. (MD)

Federstok:

A city on Barrayar where an extremely conservative Vor lord declared himself Emperor after Vidal Vordarian's death, but was defeated in less than thirty hours. (B)

Feelie-dreams:

A form of entertainment, a feelie-dream is a type of prerecorded video that can be played inside a user's mind through a cybernetic implant, in effect putting them into the dream story itself. It can also be used as a weapon, as Anias Ruey discovered hundreds of years earlier. Still manufactured during Miles's time, feelie-dreams are popular among the younger generation of Cetagandans, untitled artists, and the idle rich. (C)

Felice:

A nation on Tau Verde IV, currently at war with the Pelians. Miles's first cargo, weapons disguised as agricultural equipment, is supposed to be delivered there through the blockade. (WA)

Fell Station:

A space station orbiting Jackson's Whole, owned by House Fell. Miles and Bel attend a party there, where they meet Baron Fell, Baron Ryoval, and the quaddie musician Nicol. (L)

Ferrell, Falco:

A pilot officer on the Escobaran Personnel Retrieval and Identification ship, he helps Medtech Sylvia Boni recover bodies after the Barrayar-Escobar war. He thinks she is a deviant when she kisses a corpse good-bye, only to learn the body is that of her deceased daughter. (SH)

Fetaine:

An obsolete mutagenic poison invented as a terror weapon on Barrayar. Normal protective equipment is not enough to handle it, as it has an incredibly high penetration value. It is the cause of the near-mutiny at Laskowski Base by the technicians when they refuse to clean up a spill of the toxin. (VG)

Firka:

No first name given. One of Russo Gupta's smuggler friends, he was the bookkeeper of the group, handling false passports, easing them around regulations, and taking care of nosy officials. He was killed by Ker Dubauer after transporting his cargo of stolen haut-fetuses. Gupta used his identity while on Graf Station to try to kill Dubauer. (DI)

Five, Garnet:

A quaddie on Graf Station, she is slim and long-limbed, with white-blond hair, leaf-green eyes, and high cheekbones. She is the quaddie Ensign Corbeau was with when he didn't respond to the crew summons from the Barrayaran escort. In the scuffle to retrieve him, her arm was broken, inflaming tensions between the quaddies, the Barrayarans, and the Komarrans. She is a premier dancer in the Minchenko Memorial Troupe that performs zero-gee ballet. She was with Bel Thorne when both of them were gassed unconscious by Russo Gupta, and awoke to find herself in a recycling bin. After the mystery is solved, Ekaterin calls her to help convince Ensign Corbeau to accept the diplomatic officer position on Graf Station. (DI)

Five-space math:

The complex higher math field that governs the science of wormhole jumps and technology. Miles has a difficult time with his five-space navigation classes at the Imperial Academy, but he passes them. On Komarr, Barto Radovas was a five-space math engineer, as is Doctor Riva. (K, MM)

Flimsy:

The standard means of conveying a hard copy of written or printed documents, the flimsy is a paper-thin sheet of plastic on which text is printed. Most standard comconsoles have built-in printers to create hard copies of documents. (All)

Flipsider:

A derogatory term for a hermaphrodite. (VG)

Float chair:

A device quaddies use to move about more easily in gravity, it is a small, one-person anti-gravity pod. It doesn't have a place for feet, but handles on the floor where the quaddie rests its lower set of hands, with the controls mounted on a central column. (L, DI)

Force screen:

A generated field of pure energy, impenetrable to all physical attacks, and many energy-based ones. The technology behind it is not explained. They are used for defense of ships, buildings, and persons. A force screen can be conformed to the shape of a building or ship or be spherical. A home version may be powerful enough to kill even large insects, and when a larger life-form comes into contact with it, it envelops it in a golden glow. Vehicle-mounted versions provide shielding from debris and radiation for spaceships moving at high velocity. Chalmys DuBauer traps Carlos Diaz outside of the screen surrounding his property to interrogate him about the feelie-dream he hired Anias Ruey to create. A kilometers-wide force screen over the Cetagandan Emperor's Celestial Gardens requires an entire power plant for its maintenance and provides both military and environmental protection. A spherical force screen over the Marilacan prisoner-of-war camp on Dagoola IV shows above ground as an opalescent dome. Personal defense screens are created by a wire mesh suit that protects against nerve disruptor and stunner attacks, and later a personal plasma mirror shield is created that protects against plasma arc blasts. (All except FF)