Captain Vorpatril's Alliance (20 page)

For almost the first time, Ivan saw a glimpse in her of her haut genetic heritage, not only in the scary speed of her acquisition, but the purity of her accent, as she wandered around the ship to find bemused bilingual crewmen to practice upon. Her Komarran accent had certainly fooled him, and presumably the Komarrans as well. No question, she had a keen ear, and he wondered if she possessed perfect pitch, too, like a certain part-ghem Barrayaran he knew.

The off-shifts arranged themselves, though Ivan was beginning to think that even 26.7 hours was too short for a day, or rather, for a night.

The first snake in Ivan’s garden raised its head briefly on the fourth day out. He’d forwarded a memo to Desplains’s comconsole from General Allegre, Chief of ImpSec, marked
Personal, Eyes Only
. A few minutes later, Desplains looked up and remarked mildly, “Ivan—you
have
messaged home with an account of your adventures, have you not?”

“No reason to, sir. I mean, you know all about it. And my mother stopped asking about my girlfriends after I turned thirty.”

“Vorpatril, I decline to get between you and your mother on any of your personal matters.”

“As well you shouldn’t have to, sir.”

And that was, Ivan hoped, the end of that, but a number of hours later—they were, after all, getting closer to Barrayar—he fielded another
Eyes Only
message, from an all-too-familiar address. Though the temptation to make it vanish between his comconsole and Desplains’s was
very strong
, Ivan nobly resisted it, a spasm of virtue that he suspected no one was going to appreciate.

About fifteen minutes later, Desplains remarked, “May I ask why, if Lady Alys Vorpatril wishes to know what is going on in her only son’s life, she applies to me and not to you?”

Ivan blinked. “Experience?”

The silence from across the room took on a curious frigid quality, and Ivan looked up. “Oh. That was one of those, what d’you call it, rhetorical questions, was it, sir?”

“Yes.”

Ivan cleared his throat. “You don’t suppose ImpSec’s been feeding her their reports, do you? That’s bound to be confusing. I mean, look at the stuff they send
us
.”

That last line almost worked. But, alas, not quite. Desplains’s lips tightened. “As she works directly, every day, with General Allegre and his key staff on matters of the emperor’s personal security, and lives with the man who ran ImpSec out of his head for decades before that, and you are her closest living relative, I would think you were in a better position to guess the answer to that question than I am,
Captain
.”

“I’ll, ah”—Ivan swallowed—“I’ll just fire her off a little reassuring note right now, shall I, sir?”

“You do that.”

Ivan hated that dead-level tone. Ugly unnerving thing, it was. Reminded him of his Uncle Aral in a mood.

But a written note, that was the ticket. A vid recording was nothing but an invitation to blather, with no living person in real-time opposite you to give a visual or verbal cue how you were getting on, or when to stop.

Ivan bent to his comconsole, setting the header and the security codes. Medium security would likely do. Enough to shield the message from the eyes of people who didn’t need to know, not enough to make it sound like some sort of emergency.

Dear Mother
.

He sat a moment, while lights blinked at him.

I don’t know what ImpSec’s been telling you, but actually, everything’s all right. I seem to have accidentally gotten married, but it’s only temporary. Don’t change the headings on your cards. I will explain it all to you when we get there.

Love, Ivan
.

He contemplated that for a moment, then went back and cut the middle lines as redundant. If he was going to explain it all when he got there, surely he needn’t explain anything now.

I don’t know what ImpSec’s been telling you, but actually, everything’s all right. I will explain it all to you when we get there.

That looked much better. Now a little short, though. A slow smile turned his lips. He bent and added:
P.S.—Byerly Vorrutyer has the whole story, if you can catch up with him
.

Actually, he didn’t expect By to be back in Vorbarr Sultana till some days after he and Tej and Rish arrived, at the earliest. But what was that tale from Old Earth, about throwing one’s fellow traveler out of the troika to distract the pursuing wolves? Yeah, like that, only more virtual, since Mamere wouldn’t be able to lay her hands on By either. But it
sounded
good.

He sent the message on its way, racing ahead of them at the speed of light.

Chapter Nine

For a capital that had hosted so many wars, both civil and interplanetary, Vorbarr Sultana seemed in remarkably good shape to Tej’s eye. From her readings of Barrayaran history aboard the
JP-9
, she’d half expected to see gutted buildings with blackened timbers still smoking, bomb craters in the streets, and haunted, emaciated people scurrying like rats among the barricades. Instead, it was fully modernized, if not always fully modern, chock-a-block with galactic-standard transportation and architecture, with citizens—no, subjects, she corrected the term—out everywhere, looking busy and well-fed and alarmingly assertive. Terms like
lively
or even
vibrant
rose to Tej’s mind. It was extremely disorienting.

All right, the traffic congestion was appalling. The auto-cab that they’d taken from the military shuttleport took twenty minutes to crawl across what Ivan Xav assured her was a very famous bridge, but it did give her and Rish time to stare up and down the river valley, from the high bluffs crowned with strange archaic castles lit, their guide promised, with pretty colored floodlights at night, to the hillsides crowded with fine houses hogging the views, to the level areas sprouting high-rises, universities, and medical complexes. They pulled up in front of a tall residential building quite close to the center of things, or at least to the military headquarters. The government complexes were closer to the Old Town, nearly lost in the center of the sprawl, but Ivan Xav explained that the historical area was all cleaned up these days, with some quite fine restaurants to be found if one knew how to avoid the backcountry tourists.

The building harboring Ivan Xav’s flat reminded Tej very much of his place in Solstice, but the security was rather better; a human guard manned a reception desk, and Ivan Xav paused to have them scanned and entered as bona fide residents in the electronic database. The vidcams were unobtrusive but maintained a redundant overlap. He then whisked them up a lift tube and down a hallway, pulling out a remote to unlock a sliding, but not airsealed, door. “Home at last,” he announced cheerfully, “and boy, am I glad of it.”

His flat, too, reminded her of the place on Komarr—it lacked the separate entry hall, and the kitchen was bigger, but it boasted a balcony overlooking the street and a bit of the city. Not as high up. The rooms were larger, but they were much more cluttered, seeming closer and warmer somehow despite the stuffy smell of a place not occupied for the better part of a month.

“Ah, good,” Ivan Xav went on, striding to the bedroom and tossing his duffle down on a broad bed. “The cleaning service has been in. We’re all set.”

Having worked for nearly three weeks straight, Ivan Xav was due several days of leave, Admiral Desplains had told Tej upon parting for his own leave and Madame Desplains, who’d been waiting at the shuttleport to pick him up. He trusted Captain Vorpatril would use the time well to organize his affairs, right, Ivan? Ivan Xav had nodded earnestly. Just what that meant, Tej had no idea.

They were here.
Now what?
In her exhaustion and stress on Komarr, she’d scarcely thought past
escape from
.
Escape to
hadn’t even been on her mental horizon.

“Where do I sleep?” Rish inquired, wandering around and looking things over, her expression dubious.

“The sofa folds flat. It’s not too bad.” Ivan Xav stretched mightily and came back into his living room. “There are three people I’d most like to avoid in Vorbarr Sultana—m’mother, Miles, and Gregor, in that order. Well, and Falco, but he’s not so hard to dodge. He may well be up in the District. Though I suppose we’ll have to chase him down in due course. But other than that, what would you two like to do here in the great metropolis?”

Tej looked down at her travel-rumpled garments.
Do?
That implied
Go out
, surely. “We only have these Komarran clothes. Are they all right to wear on Barrayar, or should we find something to help us blend in better?”

Rish extended a slim blue hand and snorted. She then raised her arms and did a slow backbend, kicking over to a handstand and then up to her feet again.

“You know what I mean,” said Tej.

“Yeah, sure,” said Ivan Xav. “M’mother gets her clothes custom designed, but my other gir—I’ve been dragged around to enough other places, I’ll bet I could find you something nice. But Komarran styles are trendy, too—Empress Laisa, you know. Maybe you want to look around and see what you like, first, and then go picking.”

A pleasant chime sounded.

“T’ hell?” said Ivan Xav. “Nobody knows I’m back yet. Not expecting company…” He wandered to his door and carefully checked his security vid. It was far too early, Tej reminded herself, for her pursuers to have regrouped and caught up with her.

“Ah,” muttered Ivan Xav. “Christos. Maybe…maybe we’re not home just yet. Still caught in traffic, yeah.”

“Come on, Lord Ivan, open up,” came a man’s voice, balanced on some cusp between amused and irritated. “I know you’re in there. Or at least check the messages on your wristcom.”

“M’mother’s driver and errand boy,” Ivan Xav told Tej and Rish over his shoulder. “And bodyguard—the man’s a retired commando sergeant. Like my cousin’s armsmen in all but title and oath. I swear he aspires to the role. Came in about four years ago—he didn’t actually dandle me on his knee as a small boy, he just acts like it.” He added reluctantly after a moment, “Good at his job, though.”

Which one?
Tej wondered.

Ivan Xav hit the pad to open the door.

The man looked big, gray-haired, and affable; for a change, his clothing did not resemble a uniform, just a neat shirt with wide sleeves, trousers with baggy cuffs tucked into short boots, and a sleeveless jacket with strange but attractive embroidery. But mostly, he looked big.

He eased around Ivan Xav, spotted Tej and Rish, and said, “Ah,” in a satisfied tone. He came to a species of attention before her. “Good afternoon, Lady Vorpatril, Mademoiselle Lapis Lazuli. I’m Christos, Dowager Lady Vorpatril’s driver. M’lady has charged me to convey you to a private dinner at her flat. And also to convey her earnest invitation for said dinner, should it unaccountably”—he cast a knife-flick of a glance at Ivan Xav—“have become lost somewhere on Lord Ivan’s wristcom.”

“Oh,” said Tej, glaring a plea at Ivan Xav. What was she supposed to do?

“We just got off the shuttle,” Ivan Xav began.

“Yeah, I know.” Christos held up a viewer. “I brought a book for while you clean up. I’m to wait while you get ready. Because she didn’t want me to miss you, if you took yourselves out or whatever.” He smiled thinly, trod into the living room, and helped himself to a chair, settling back for a comfortable read. He added as he keyed it on and found his place, “Dress is casual, she said. Which only means, not formal.”

“Trapped,” Ivan Xav muttered. “Like rats…”

“What now?” Tej whispered to him.

He scratched his head and sighed, as if in defeat. “Well, we’ve all got to eat sometime. And at least the food’ll be first-rate.”

“If we get this over with
now
,” murmured Rish, “we won’t have to sit around anticipating it, you know. It does seem an inevitable meeting.”

Ivan Xav grimaced, but Tej nodded. Even if Ivan Xav’s mother was a horrible harridan in hysterics, as his actions seemed to imply, the news of the impending divorce ought to calm her down. It seemed unlikely that she would pull out a weapon and shoot her son’s new bride over dinner, and besides, that would be redundant. She had only to stake Tej and Rish out where the enemy syndicate could find them, and the problem would be carried out of her ken without her having to lift, or tighten, a finger. Still…poisons? Rish could detect an astonishing number of these, if presented in food or drink. But—redundancy, again. Tej decided she was letting travel weariness and her nerves turn her thoughts just too strange. It would all be made plain soon enough.

A flurry of turns in the bath and dithering over their tiny selection of garb resulted in Rish in black Komarran trousers and top, with a long-sleeved jacket and her head-shawl, Tej similarly attired in shades of cream, a little shabby but easy on her acute color sensitivity, and Ivan Xav in civilian clothes similar to what he’d been wearing the first time they’d met, but pulled clean from his capacious closet and not crumpled and smelly from his duffle. The driver shepherded them out with bland courtesy.

A large groundcar with a separate driver’s compartment awaited them in the basement garage. As Christos handed them into the spacious back passenger compartment and started to close the silvered canopy, Ivan Xav held up a hand and said, “Uh, Christos—will Simon be there, do you know?”

“Of course, Lord Ivan.” The canopy snapped closed, sealing them in.

Ivan Xav sat back with a wince, but for a few minutes Tej and Rish were too busy craning their necks and trying to see the city for Tej to pursue this new mystery. Nearing sunset of what seemed to be a late fall or early winter day, traffic was heavy, but the car was bearing generally upriver and uphill.

Ivan Xav cleared his throat. “I should probably explain Simon,” he began, then stalled out, muttering, “No, there’s no explaining Simon…”

“All right, who is Simon?” said Tej. If they were being flung into this headfirst…“Aren’t you the one who was complaining to Byerly Vorrutyer about inadequate briefings?”

“How do I put this?” Ivan Xav rubbed his forehead. “Simon Illyan was Chief of Imperial Security for upwards of thirty years, from the War of Vordarian’s Pretendership till about four or so years back, when he suffered, um, a sort of stroke. Neurological damage to his memory functions. Retired out on a medical, y’know.”