The Vorkosigan Companion (52 page)

Sword Swallower:

The nickname for the first plasma mirror system, invented by Beta Colony, which turns an attacker's energy weapon against the attacking ship. The Escobarans used it to repel the Barrayaran invasion. (SH)

Swordstick:

A personal weapon on Barrayar, it is a hardwood cane that conceals a spring-loaded sword blade. It can be carried only by a member of the Vor class. Cordelia buys one for Koudelka, which Aral allows him to carry as a weapon issued by the Regent. During the mission to rescue Miles in the Imperial Residence, Bothari uses it to decapitate Vordarian. (B)

Sylveth:

No last name given. The blond, lovely daughter of the Lord Mayor of London and his formidable wife, whom Miles escorts to an embassy function. Miles uses Ivan and her to leave the Barrayaran embassy unnoticed to attend to the wine shop incident, and later teases Ivan, who may have bought her lingerie. (BA)

Synergine:

A general stabilizing drug used to counteract a variety of injuries, including shock. Miles suggests it be given to Ivan to counteract the aftereffects of the drug Vio used to paralyze him during the Great Key plot. (All)

Szabo:

No first name given. A white-haired, grim-looking man dressed in a blue and gray uniform, he is the senior armsman for Count Vorrutyer. After Count Pierre's death, and upon hearing Lady Donna's plan to gain control of her brother's district, he gave his personal word to assist her, and escorted her to Beta Colony for the sex-change operation. Although he was escorting Lord Dono on the night of the attempted assault, he was stunned before he could stop the attackers. (CC)

Tabbi:

One of the welding quaddies at Cay Station that Leo trained.

Tabor:

A ghem-lieutenant military attaché of Cetaganda's Earth embassy. A young man. His face is painted yellow and black, befitting his military rank. Miles meets him at the Barrayaran Embassy, and is warned by Duv Galeni that he is spying on them. He is involved in the incident at the Thames Tidal Barrier, ostensibly sent to kill Miles, and is subdued by Duv Galeni, who drops him and his partner off at the Cetagandan embassy, but takes their groundcar. (BA)

Tacti-Go:

A strategy game that has no unexpected variables or random factors, popular with Barrayaran children. Gregor brings a set to play with Miles during his house arrest. Miles, bored with the game by age fourteen, handicaps himself to not insult his Emperor by beating him too quickly. (VG)

Tafas:

No first name given. A Barrayaran crew member on the
General Vorkraft
, he works with Radnov, but ultimately helps Cordelia stop the mutiny. (SH)

Tailor, William:

A commodore in the Betan Expeditionary Force, he introduces Doctor Mehta to Cordelia. (SH)

Tanery Base Shuttleport:

A military shuttleport on Barrayar. During Vordarian's coup attempt, Piotr theorizes Aral will go there to open communications with the Imperial space fleet to try to bring them over to his side. After their stay in the Dendarii Mountains, Cordelia is brought there, as Aral made it his base of operations while he fights Vordarian. (B)

Tangle field:

Used by police for arresting or restraining suspects, it is a   grenade-sized device that can be thrown at a fleeing target. Upon impact, it tangles around the person's limbs, effectively restraining them while also imparting a burning sensation to inhibit further resistance. (VG)

Tarpan, Luca:

The true brains behind the assassination attempt on Ekaterin, he has ties to the House Bharaputra syndicate on Jackson's Whole. He ordered the attempt on her life to sow confusion and cover his escape from Barrayar, leaving Lord Vorbataille as a sacrificial goat. (WG)

Tarski:

No first name given. An officer in the Barrayaran military. Baz Jesek mentions him as an example of someone who was infuriatingly correct all the time. (WA)

Tatya:

One of Ivan's many girlfriends, she brings flowers to his flat in Vorbarr Sultana. (VG)

Tau Ceta V:

One of the Cetagandan satrapy planets. (C)

Tau Ceti:

A star roughly 11.9 light-years away from Earth, it is a common jump point for spaceships on their way to more distant outposts. (SH, M)

Tau Verde IV:

A planet containing the two warring nations of Felice and Pelias. Miles accepts a weapons-smuggling job to pay off Arde Mayhew's debt, and his involvement in ending the war also leads to the creation of the Dendarii Free Mercenaries. (WA)

Taura:

A genetically engineered super-soldier created by Hugh Canaba, she is the only one of her kind. Sixteen years old when Miles first meets her during his first mission to Jackson's Whole, she is eight feet tall and weighs roughly three hundred pounds. She is humanoid, with ivory skin, dark curly hair with burgundy highlights, claws, and fangs. Her face is lupine, with a long jaw, flat nose, light hazel eyes, ridged brows, and high cheekbones. She is very intelligent, with an IQ of 135. Although she is very strong, her metabolism runs very fast, which causes problems with her appetite and energy. Originally known as Nine, as she was the ninth out of ten test subjects. Miles renames her Taura when he rescues her from House Ryoval. She joins the Dendarii Free Mercenary Fleet, whose doctors work on slowing her metabolism. After their first sexual encounter on Jackson's Whole, they have a brief romantic reacquaintance during the escape trip.

Eventually she becomes the sergeant in charge of Green Squad during Mark's raid to free the clone children. She is a sometime, if not constant, lover of Miles before his relationship with Elli Quinn. She is Miles's bodyguard on the trip to Tau Ceti when he heads back to Barrayar. Miles makes Elli promise to let him know when her time is up as they still have not found a way to slow her metabolism any further. He wants to be there when she dies to fulfill the promise he made to her long ago.

During her first visit to Barrayar, she is twenty-six, and has been told for the past four years that each one will be her last. She has gray hairs, but dyes them to match her natural color. She has come to attend Miles's wedding, and is a bit melancholy over the match but approves. When the gift of pearls, supposedly from Elli Quinn, is presented to Ekaterin, Taura sees they appear dirty with her enhanced vision. When Ekaterin becomes sick, she realizes the problem but is afraid Elli will be blamed, not knowing she would never have sent such a murderous gift. Roic catches her trying to borrow the pearls for analysis and convinces her to let Imperial Security do the job, which is fortunate for Ekaterin. She gets to be Ekaterin's Second as her reward, and after the reception is over, she and Roic retire for a private celebration of their own. (L, M, MD, WG)

Teddie:

A quaddie on Cay Habitat who trades shifts with Silver so she could see Claire after Andy was taken from her. (FF)

Teki:

A cousin of Elli Quinn's who works on Kline Station, and who helps her expose one of Colonel Millisor's men. Ethan meets him later, and finds out his helpfulness was not accidental. He gets snatched by Millisor and worked over, but is rescued by Elli when she calls Biocontrol to Millisor's room. When Helda is dismissed for misconduct, he becomes the temporary head of Assimilation Unit B on the station. Through him, Ethan and Terrence Cee find the missing ovarian cultures meant for Athos. (EA)

Tesslev:

No first name given. Piotr Vorkosigan refers to him as the best lieutenant he ever had. The son of a tailor, he fought in the guerrilla campaign against the Cetagandans in the Dendarii Mountains, and was killed in action. (WA)

Thames Tidal Barrier:

Also jokingly known as the King Canute Memorial, it is a huge dike that protects London from the sea. Watchtowers spaced a kilometer apart house engineers and technicians who watch for damage to the massive seawall. Ser Galen locks Ivan in a pumping station access well, to be killed when the high tide comes in, and has Miles and Duv Galeni meet him and Mark in Section Six, among the auxiliary pumping stations. Miles, Duv, and Mark must navigate their way through the section to rescue Ivan and Elli, avoid the Barrayaran and Cetagandan hit squads, and get out alive. (BA)

Thermal mine:

A portable munition that releases a large amount of thermal energy upon detonation. During the clone rescue mission on Jackson's Whole, House Bharaputra guards used a thermal mine to completely destroy a Dendarii combat shuttle's cockpit and kill the pilot. (MD)

Thin Blue Line, The
:

A holovid documentary made on Beta Colony of the Barrayaran invasion of Escobar nineteen years ago, when Aral re-met Cordelia. Named for the blue uniforms of the Betan Expeditionary Force, of which Cordelia was a member during that time. Elena sees it and is very upset at what she terms the "fictions" perpetuated by the Betans. (WA)

3rd Armored All-Terrain Rangers:

A captured Marilacan military unit held in the prison camp on Dagoola IV until being rescued by Miles and the Dendarii Free Mercenary Fleet. (BI)

Third Cetagandan War:

A military action that Aral Vorkosigan participated in while serving as the Regent of Barrayar. (WA)

Thorne, Bel:

A Betan hermaphrodite, it has soft, short brown hair, and a chiseled, beardless face. Formerly a lieutenant in the Oseran Mercenary Fleet, it starts over as a trainee-ensign in the Dendarii Free Mercenary Fleet. It gains a brevet promotion to captain after successfully leading the ore refinery takeover operation at Tau Verde IV.

Four years later, while on picket duty near Vervain, Bel rescues Miles after he is freed by Cavilo to infiltrate the Dendarii. It is instrumental in assisting Miles in retaking the Dendarii from Admiral Oser. It also participates in the prison break on Dagoola IV. During the mission to Jackson's Whole, Bel is attracted to Nicol at first sight, and is furious when Barons Fell and Ryoval discuss selling her, or selling a genetic sample of her. Bel agrees to smuggle Nicol out of Jackson's Whole for one Betan dollar, on Miles's condition that the operation be kept top secret. During the Dendarii's time on Earth, Bel is sent to testify on Private Danio's behalf in London.

When Mark impersonates Miles to launch his mission to Jackson's Whole, it is not fooled, but goes along with his plan because it wants to rescue the clone children too. For its error, Miles makes it resign from the Dendarii, but he suggests it apply to Imperial Security for an undercover position. Bel has had a crush on Miles for a long time, and kisses him passionately before leaving.

Later, Miles learns Bel has become the assistant portmaster at Graf Station, and also the Imperial Security civilian employee/informer on Graf Station. It is considering becoming a permanent civilian and wants Miles to relieve it of its Imperial Security duties. Kidnapped by Ker Dubauer, Bel takes the ba aboard the
Idris
to retrieve genetic samples of the haut-fetuses; then the ba infects Bel with the same biotoxin it used to kill the smugglers. Found by Miles, Bel is cured of the poison at the last minute, leaving permanent injuries. Bel receives a Warrant of the Celestial House from the Cetagandans in acknowledgment of the actions in saving the haut-lords' children. (BA, BI, DI, L, MD, VG)

Time of Isolation:

A period on Barrayar that occurred after the first wave of fifty thousand colonists arrived, only to find that the wormhole they had used to get there had mysteriously closed. Their terraforming project collapsed, and the intervening period degenerated into a time of near-feudalism and violent wars. Approximately seventy-five years before Aral and Cordelia met on Sergyar, the Time of Isolation ended when a new wormhole was discovered and Barrayar rejoined the rest of the galaxy, catching up with the rest of the inhabited planets as quickly as possible. (MM, SH)

Timmons:

No first name given. A customs agent on Beta Colony, he repeatedly catches Bothari trying to smuggle assorted weapons past the security checkpoint. (WA)

Tonkin:

No first name given. A trooper in the Dendarii Free Mercenary Fleet, he participates in the rescue mission on Jackson's Whole, and is with Medic Norwood and Mark when Norwood sends Miles's cryo-chamber to the Durona Group, although he doesn't know what the medic did with Miles's body. Mark uses Tonkin's helmet recorder to figure out what happened to his brother. (MD)

Tony:

Also known as TY-776-424-XG, he is a pink-faced quaddie with tight, blond curls. He is a grade-two welder and joiner, and a permanent resident on the Cay Project Habitat. He is Claire's mate, and Andy's father. He tries to escape Cay Habitat with both of them, but is shot during the attempt, and hospitalized. He is rescued by Ti and Doctor Minchenko. (FF)

Toranira:

A planet that controls the other end of one of the jump points from Vega Station. Sometimes it is Cetaganda's ally and sometimes the Empire's enemy, but is currently upholding the arms embargo imposed on Vega Station by the Cetagandans. Miles's plan had been to smuggle three warships from the Dendarii fleet there, and leave them to pick up three brand-new warships at Illyrica, but Mark has derailed his scheme by stealing the
Ariel
. (MD)

Toscane, Anna:

Laisa's aunt, a sixty-year-old, married, gray-haired heiress whom Ivan must escort to the Komarran delegation welcoming party. She thinks he is a nice young man, and shows him a picture of her seven-year-old granddaughter, on whom she dotes, boring Ivan. (CC)

Toscane, Laisa:

See Vorbarra, Laisa Toscane.

Tractor beam:

A ship-mounted directed-gravity beam that can be used to seize and immobilize vehicles, and pull or push them as necessary. Primarily used as a tool rather than a weapon, but the pilot of a Dendarii combat shuttle uses its tractor beam to slam a pursuing aircar into the ground. (L)

"Tragedy of the Maiden of the Lake":

A Barrayaran legend. When Vorkosigan Surleau was besieged by the forces of Hazelbright, they held out as long as they could, but before the town could fall, the unnamed Maiden of the Lake asked her brother to kill her so she wouldn't suffer abuse at the hands of the invaders. He did so, not knowing that the siege would be lifted the next day by her betrothed, General Count Selig Vorkosigan. Many poems, plays, and songs about the event have been written and performed on Barrayar. Ekaterin ponders the story while being held prisoner by the Komarran engineers. (K)