Captain Vorpatril's Alliance (43 page)

Tej came over, to inquire rather breathlessly of Simon, but not Ivan, “Did you like the show, sir?”

“Yes. I did. Street theater of the highest order.”

“Complete with audience participation?” Ivan muttered. Wait, right—Simon hadn’t answered his last question. Or his first, for that matter.

“You should take your wife to lunch, Ivan,” Simon suggested genially. He asked Tej to convey his thanks to the Jewels for the show, excused himself, and walked off down the boulevard, just as though he had been some ordinary passer-by who’d stopped to watch the rehearsing dancers.

But Tej, still elusive, claimed chauffeuring duties, and fled in the opposite direction.

Ivan, feeling at default if not fault, sat back on the bench and stared at the blank landscape, trying to imagine how far was
down
.

Chapter Eighteen

Ivan woke the next morning to an empty bed, again, a depopulated flat, and a note on the coffeemaker:
Gone driving. T.
Which was better than no reassurance at all, but wouldn’t,
Love, T.
have been a better closing salutation? Not that he had ever ended any note to Tej with
Love, I.
, so far, but then, he hadn’t ever gone out and left her with just some laconic, uninformative scrawl. She’d come in very late last night, too, after some family thing, and gone straight to sleep, with no talk and scarcely a cuddle.

He buttered his instant breakfast groats, which made him think back to the emergency impromptu wedding on Komarr, and wondered if the gelid grains would taste better with a shot of brandy poured over them instead.
No.
No drinking at dawn, that was a bad sign, not that this was dawn—merely midmorning. He tried Tej’s wristcom, without reply, and was dumped to her message bin.
Dumped
, that wasn’t a good word, either. Nor—memory intruded again, albeit not one of Tej—a good sign. When his would-be-breezy
Hey, Tej, call me. Ivan, your husband, remember?
, produced no response by the time he had shaved and dressed, he steeled himself and walked down the street to the Arqua-occupied hotel.

Shiv himself admitted him when he buzzed the door of their suite. “Ah. Ivan.” He called over his shoulder, “Udine, Tej’s Barrayaran is here.” He gestured Ivan in and to one of the sitting room’s upholstered chairs, and fetched coffee from a credenza; Ivan accepted it gratefully.

The Baronne shut down her comconsole, joined her husband on the small sofa facing Ivan, and cast her provisional son-in-law a cool smile of welcome.

“I just popped in to ask where Tej had gone,” Ivan explained. “She left me a note, but it didn’t say much.”

Udine answered, “She has kindly taken my mother and Amiri out for some touring. I don’t believe they had a set destination.”

Well, all right, that sounded pretty safe and benign, compared to yesterday’s…odd performance. Lady ghem Estif was not wholly alarming, for a haut woman, or ex-haut woman, and Amiri was surely the least Jacksonian of this crew. A doctor, after all, aspiring unworldly researcher to boot. But Ivan was beginning to regret getting Tej all those driving lessons. “Couldn’t you hire a driver?” Wondering if that sounded rude, he added, “I could help you find one.”
Or Captain Raudsepp could, no doubt.

“Perhaps later on,” said Shiv. “But this gave Tej a chance to catch up with her favorite brother.”

“Ah,” said Ivan, unable to argue with that. Dead end. He cast around for another topic. One came up readily. “So, ah…how long are you folks planning to stay on Barrayar, anyway?”

“I expect that will rather depend on Pidge’s success in obtaining our emergency visa extension,” said Udine.

“Oh, yeah,” said Ivan. “How’s that going for you?”

“Moving along,” said Udine. “She thinks it may prove advantageous to hire a local lawyer; she said she’d know by tomorrow or the next day.”

“My, um, mother might be able to put you in touch with a good one,” Ivan suggested. Not that he necessarily
wanted
their stay extended. With one exception.

“Lady Alys has already made that offer,” said Udine brightly. “So helpful, your mother.”

“What will you all do if the extension is—” he started to say,
denied
, but switched on the fly to, “granted? You wouldn’t be planning to stay permanently, would you? Apply for immigration status, take oath as Barrayaran subjects? I should probably warn you, they take oaths pretty seriously around here.”

Udine smiled slightly. “I am aware.”

“It wouldn’t be my first choice,” said Shiv, gem-black eyes narrowing in his dark face in some unreadable emotion, “but if there is one thing my life has taught me, it’s the need to stay flexible. Barrayar is not a place I would ever have gone voluntarily, but I must say I’ve been agreeably surprised by what I’ve seen here. They do say travel broadens the mind. If none of our first-choice plans work out, we may simply have to develop some new…enterprise.” His carved lips drew back in a smile-like expression.

Ivan tried to imagine how a Jacksonian who had
already
once fought his way to the top of a major House defined that last term.
Plus wife, don’t forget
—they did seem to be a team. The only comparison he had was Miles’s Jacksonian-raised and relentlessly entrepreneurial clone-brother Mark, which was…not especially reassuring.

Ivan wondered if it was better to lay his cards right on the table—
Just what are you people after under that park in front of ImpSec?
Or let them assume him oblivious? Presumed obliviousness had served Ivan well many times in the past, after all. Perhaps he should split the difference. Just how close to tapped out
were
the Arquas, anyway? Could he ask Raudsepp? Morozov?

Hell, why not ask Shiv?

He leaned back and tented his hands, remembered where that gesture came from, almost put them down, but then left them up. “So…just how close are you folks to being tapped out, anyway? It’s been a pretty long run for you to get this far.” He just barely stopped his mouth from going on and apologizing for such a rude question, as Udine, at least, was nodding in rare approval.

Shiv’s eye-flick caught it, too. His thick shoulders gave a little shrug. “How much is
enough
depends on what you want to do with it. Venture capital—I believe you planetary agriculturalists would call it
seed corn
, ah, yes, that’s the term—if a man is reduced to consuming his startup stake, he has nothing to hazard for the next round. What do you people call your currency,
marks
—well, Barrayaran marks, Betan dollars, Cetagandan reyuls, doesn’t matter, the principle’s the same. There’s a saying in the Whole: it’s easier to turn one million into two million than it is to turn one into two.”

“The effective break-point for us,” put in Udine, “is
enough
to fund a credible attempt to retake House Cordonah. We are, shall we say, not without hidden resources and potential allies back in the Whole, but not if we arrive appearing to be disarmed, destitute, and desperate.”

“Whether you can climb up to success or are forced down to grubberdom depends on making your break-point,” said Shiv. “Both success and failure are feedback loops, that way. Me, I started as a gutter grubber. I don’t plan on going back down to that gutter again alive.”

Jacksonian determination glinted in Shiv’s eye, reminding Ivan, for a weird moment, of his cousin Miles. People for whom failure was psychologically tantamount to death, yeah.

Ivan had a few clues as to what forces had shaped Miles that way, putative child of privilege though he was. The chief of whom had been named
General Count Piotr Vorkosigan
, though Barrayar’s endemic hostility toward perceived mutations had certainly provided an on-going chorus to that appalling old man, whose every grudging grain of approval had been won by his mutie grandson by an equally appalling achievement, or at least some bone-cracking attempt at it. On Ivan’s personal youthful list of people to avoid, Great-uncle Piotr had been at the top. Not a ploy available to Miles, poor sawed-off sod.

So what had shaped and wound that same tight spring in Shiv? And Udine as well? Ivan wasn’t sure he wanted the tour.

“Isn’t enough to fund a small war also enough to, say, buy a nice tropical island and
retire
?” Ivan couldn’t help asking.

“Not while those Prestene bastards hold two of my children hostage,” said Shiv grimly.

“Not to mention my hair,” said Udine, plucking at her fringe. Shiv caught the nervous hand and kissed it, looking sideways at his wife, and for the first time Ivan wondered,
What else besides the hair?
Yet whatever had been done to her, in the unsavory hands of her enemies, Ivan was pretty sure the hair was going to be the only part ever mentioned aloud.

“Ah. Yeah,” said Ivan. No, it wasn’t just about money; there was blood on the line as well. Ivan understood blood, well enough.

But it did give Ivan a notion as to what the Arquas thought was under that park: enough to fund a small war. Or buy a tropical island, depending on one’s tastes in such things. And these two didn’t look to be going for the drinks with fruit on little sticks.

“But, ah—Tej wouldn’t really need to go back with you for that, would she? Surely it would be
safer
to leave her here on Barrayar.”
With me.

“With you?” said Udine, raising an eyebrow and making Ivan twitch.

“I do, um…like her a lot,” Ivan managed. He wondered if
So does my mother and sort-of-stepfather
would be good to add, or if that would just up the bidding on the deal.

Udine sat back. “So you…
like her
enough to want her to forsake her family and stay with you—but do you
like her
enough to leave your family and go with her?”

Shiv, too, stared narrowly at him at this. “It’s true, he does have that Barrayaran military training. It is unclear how much he also has Barrayaran military experience, however.”

Ivan gulped, unnerved. “I’d be delighted to leave my family and go somewhere with Tej, just not…not Jackson’s Whole. Not my kind of place, y’know.”

“Hm,” said Shiv, opaquely. He eased back in his seat, though Ivan hadn’t noticed him tense.

Ivan said, “Look, I can support a wife here on Barrayar. And I know my home ground. On Jackson’s Whole, I’d be, what…destitute and disarmed. Not to mention out of my depth.”

“As Tej has been, here?” Udine inquired sweetly.

Shiv gave him the eyebrow thing. “A man should know himself, I suppose,” he said. “Me, I’ve been face flat, sucking gutter slime, three times in my life, and had to start again each time from scratch. I’m getting too old to enjoy shoveling that shit anymore, but I can’t say I don’t know
how
.”

This was not, Ivan sensed, a remark in Ivan’s favor, oblique though it sounded.

“I, as well,” murmured Udine, “though only once. I do not mean to let this present contretemps stand as twice.”

“But you left your original family,” Ivan tried. “To go with Shiv. Your new husband. Didn’t you? Anyway, left your planet.”

Udine’s voice went dry. “More evicted than left, in the event. We were fleeing the Barrayaran military conquest of Komarr, at the time.”

“Although that worked out surprisingly well,” Shiv murmured. “In the long run.” That passing hand grip again, on the sofa between them.

Her eyes grew amused, and turned back on Ivan. “Yes, I suppose I should thank you Barrayarans for that. Ejecting me out of my rut.”

“I wasn’t born yet,” Ivan put in, just in case.

Dare he ask them, straight out,
Are you planning to take Tej away?
What if the answer was
Yes, certainly
? Did Tej think she had a vote? Did
they
think Tej had a vote? Or Ivan?

No, Jacksonians didn’t have votes; they had deals. For the first time, Ivan wondered uneasily what he had to offer at the Great House scale of play. His personal wealth, though doubtless impressive to some prole or grubber, would barely tweak their scanners. His blood was more hazard than hope, the main question being how far it would splash in a crunch. And he wasn’t a candidate for conscription into
their
system, as they had hinted, not under any circumstances. Which left—what?

Udine’s gaze strayed to her abandoned comconsole. The suite was awfully quiet, Ivan realized. Where were all the rest of the clan this morning, and what were they doing? “Well, don’t let us keep you, Captain Vorpatril.”

From what?
But Ivan took the hint, and stood. “Right-oh. Thanks for the coffee. If you hear from Tej before I do, ask her to call me, huh?” He tapped his wristcom meaningfully.

“Certainly,” said Udine.

Shiv saw him back to the door. “As it so happens,” he said, eyeing Ivan shrewdly, “we do have a little side deal in progress here on Barrayar. If it is successful, it will certainly aid our departure.”
And if you want to see the back of Clan Arqua, maybe you’d better do your bit to see it is successful, huh?
seemed to hang in the air, implied.

“I sure hope everything works out,” Ivan responded. Shiv merely looked amused at that manifest vagueness.

Ivan retreated down the hotel corridor.

He rather thought he might also see the back of Clan Arqua by just waiting and letting nature, or at least Customs & Immigration, take its course. Deportation, that was the ticket. And he, personally, wouldn’t have to lift a finger. And Tej would not be included in the roundup, because she had, what had Lady ghem Estif called it, umbrella residency as a spouse, all right and tight and no argument there.

If she chose.

Yeah.

It seemed to Ivan that he needed to court his wife. Promptly. In the next, what was it, ten days. If he could catch her in passing, in this spate of Arqua chores.
But how can I court her when no one even gives me a chance to see her?

*
 
*
 
*

Tej parked the rented groundcar and stared dubiously around the dim underground garage. After yesterday’s dance in the park, and some sharp debate over city maps, Pearl had found this place—by the simple method of walking around and looking—under one of the few commercial buildings near ImpSec HQ, which was otherwise mainly ringed by assorted stodgy government offices. This building housed mostly offices as well: attorneys, a satellite communications company, an architectural firm, a terraforming consultant, financial managers of various sorts. The two layers of garage were packed during the day, but relatively clear after hours and on the Barrayaran weekend, which this was.