Captain Vorpatril's Alliance (49 page)

“Step One of our program here—the site mapping. Simon bet we couldn’t do it in any way. Undetected by ImpSec, that is, on ImpSec’s doorstep. I bet we could.” He added after a moment’s reflection, “As long as one doesn’t count Simon himself as ImpSec, of course. We won.”

“What did we win?” she asked suspiciously.

“Round Two. Which Simon thinks Star is pursuing as we speak. The Mycoborer, fortunately, still remains outside the realm of his otherwise far-reaching imagination.”

“Oh. So—every round you win buys us another round?”

“Yes. But we only need two. Simon’s thinking three or four.”

Weasels
, that was term Ivan Xav kept using. But which old weasel was the, the weaseliest?

Maybe Simon simply wanted Lady Alys all to himself. Was Ivan Xav’s protracted bachelorhood holding up Simon’s own marriage, the way it had evidently been holding up Lady Alys’s longed-for release from the burning ritual? Maybe he thought he was trading not Tej, but Ivan Xav—to be carried off by Clan Arqua to the Whole as a prize, or what? Would the The Gregor allow that—or applaud it? The emperor had his own sons now—maybe Ivan Xav was reclassified as redundant, an heir in excess of need. An embarrassing leftover, and everyone relieved to have him be shunted out of the way.

Tej didn’t know whether to be distressed or really, really annoyed. With the whole lot of them, Arquan and Barrayaran both.

Dada, watching whatever parade of emotions was passing across her face, said a bit plaintively, “I’d do my best for you, honey, but you have to give your old Dada a clue.”

“If I get one,” she sighed, “I’ll share.”

His belly jumped in a muffled, pained laugh that didn’t make it out his mouth.
Women, eh
, didn’t quite appear as a caption over his head, but it might as well have. She wanted to return,
Men, ugh!

And if it would help Clan Arqua to sell what was already given away, didn’t she have an obligation to allow that much?…Especially as it might get her off the hook for further demands. It wouldn’t make any
practical
difference to her and Ivan Xav—would it?
Damn it, now I’m all confused. Again.
It was hardly a help that Ivan Xav didn’t make her crazy when everyone else around them was doing so good a job.

Star emerged from the door of the engineering firm, looking self-satisfied. She and Dada slid into the back for a short report on her fake tunneling bid. Tej started the groundcar again and pulled into the street.

“Oh, about Ivan Xav,” Tej called over her shoulder. “He was going to ask Admiral Desplains for some personal leave. He hopes to get tomorrow free. To join us.”

“Oh, hell,” said Star. “Rotten timing. Why couldn’t he have waited till next week? What will we do with him?”

“The same drill as with his friend Byerly,” Dada assured her, unmoved. “Not a problem.”

Speak for yourself, Dada.

*
 
*
 
*

Tej did her best to slip away without him, the morning of Ivan’s first day off, but he cornered her in the kitchen.

“Driving again?” he asked amiably, sucking coffee. “What say I go with you?”

“It’ll be boring,” she told him, drinking her own coffee faster. “Who would have thought I’d ever be saying that about Vorbarr Sultana traffic? Live and learn.”

“I’m never bored with you.”

She flashed him a nervous smile. “And there wouldn’t be room.”

“I don’t mind squeezing up.”

He wondered how many rounds she’d go on this hedging, and had a brief insight into Simon’s fascination with the clan, but she gave over the argument and let him follow her down the street to the Arqua hotel. There, he discovered, she’d cannily sited reinforcements, and he somehow, without intending it, found himself assigned to drive another set of Arquas around on an assortment of errands that extended into a lingering lunch. They were joined in this meal by Byerly, trailing Emerald and looking thwarted. As diversions went, Ivan supposed it displayed a certain efficiency.

The polite runaround continued all day in this vein. It was only by chance, miscalculation, and a couple of social lies that Ivan managed to cross paths with his wife in his flat once more, at nearly bedtime. She was dressing—not for bed, which more usually involved undressing—in some casual, sturdy clothes that looked more suitable for a walk in the woods than a night on the town.

“Oh,” she said, looking around in surprise as he came in.

“Hi, beautiful.” He kissed her hello; even her return kiss felt evasive. “What’s up?”

“Just a few more chores for my family. Don’t wait up for me.”

“At this hour? You should be in bed. With me.” He nuzzled her neck; she slipped out of his grasp, which he just managed not to let become a clutch.

“We might not have much longer together on Barrayar. Pidge is having trouble getting the visa extension.”

Good.
Wait, not good. “That doesn’t include you, you know. Lady Vorpatril.”

“Uh…” Her evasiveness was shading into panic, in her eyes. It wasn’t all that amusing.

“Tej,” he sighed. “We need to talk.”

“Next week. Next week would be good for me. I have to go now, or I’ll be late.”

“Not next week. Right now.” He captured her hand—it jerked in his grip, but didn’t jerk away—and led her to sit on the edge of the bed with him.

She offered him only a tight-lipped smile; she, clearly, wasn’t going to start. Up to him, eh.

“Tej. I know a lot more about what’s going on with you and your folks than you think.”

“Oh?” she tried. Leading not conceding.

“In fact, I bet I know something you don’t.”

“How can you know that you know something I don’t when you don’t what I know in the first place? I don’t see how you can. I mean, logically. Or you wouldn’t be asking.”

Simon had recently tricked him into going first with much the same turn of phrase, Ivan was wearily reminded. Or at least the gist of it. “Tej. I know that your family is after a certain Cetagandan bunker dating back to the Occupation, or at least, after something in it. And it’s sitting under that park in front of ImpSec. You mapped it during that dance last weekend.”

She froze for a moment, and then came up with: “Well…so? Simon was watching us.”

“Simon’s onto you.”

“He has an, an understanding with Dada, yes. You might have figured that out.”

“I did, yes. But Simon knows one thing that you—you Arquas—don’t.”

He waited, to by-God
make
her say something. Anything. Her face screwed up in the effort to contain her words, not to mention her curiosity, but lost the fight: “
What?
”

Ivan felt like a lout. No, this wasn’t going to be fun at all. “The bunker was found and emptied decades ago, when ImpSec HQ was first built. The bunker’s still there, yes, but there’s nothing inside. Simon’s setting you all up for a fall.”
The weaselly bastard.

“
No
,” she snapped. And, a tiny doubt creeping into her voice, “Can’t be. Grandmama would have known, and the Baronne.”

“Is so. Empty.”
A trap without bait.

“Isn’t.” Tej could look remarkably mulish, when she set her mind to it.

“Is.”

“
Isn’t
.” Her jaw unset just enough for her to say, “And I can prove it to you.”

“How?”

“I won’t tell you.” She was getting better with
shifty
; maybe it was all the recent practice. “But I’ll make you a deal for it. A…a bet. If that’s more Barrayaran.”

“What kind of a deal? Or bet.”

“If the lab—the bunker is empty, I’ll do what you want.”

Might that include
stay on Barrayar
? Could he twist this into a ploy to make her stay? He just kept that thought from falling straight out of his mouth; he didn’t know if she’d think it was a jewel or a toad. “And if it’s not?”

“If it’s full, then you’ll do what
I
want.” She frowned in reflection. “That seems balanced, doesn’t it?”

“Which would be…what?” Ivan was learning caution around Jacksonians bearing deals.

“Uh…” She’d been caught short, but was thinking fast. “To start with…help carry stuff. You’re big and strong. And, and go on keeping your mouth shut. About everything you see or hear. And no cheating by giving people
hints
. And after that…there might be more.”

“This deal seems to getting a bit open-ended.”

“So what do you care? If you really think the bunker is empty.”

So…should he bet on Simon? Ivan had a lot of trouble fitting
Simon Illyan
and
wrong
into the same sentence, although Aunt Cordelia claimed it was historically possible. And she should know.
Not often
wasn’t, after all, the same thing as
never
.

And he’d just be following Simon’s own example, with that bet. He wondered how well that might work as a defense, later.
Not sanguine
, was that the phrase? Which had something to do with blood. No, this was not a helpful line of thought.

“All right,” Ivan heard his mouth saying. Because Tej wasn’t the only person in this room being driven to insanity by curiosity, it seemed. “It’s a deal.”

He’d rather have sealed it with a kiss, but she offered him a firm Arqua handshake instead.

“Oh,” she said, turning back at the bedroom door. “And bring a pair of slippers.”

*
 
*
 
*

Tej made Ivan Xav park his two-seater a good five blocks from ImpSec Headquarters, just to be sure, which then entailed a long trudge through a cold drizzle. He had grown more and more silent, on the short drive over, as she’d explained about the Mycoborer. But his tone grew irate when she led him to the lower level of the garage—quiet, deserted, and shadowy at this late hour. “Why couldn’t we have parked
here
?”

“Shh,” she hissed back, equally irate. A bulky ground van was sitting directly across from the utility room; evidently Ser Imola had done his part. She tapped gently on the door.

It swung open; Star’s hand shot out to yank her inside. A couple of bright cold lights cast conflicting green shadows. “Tej, you’re late.” Star looked up in consternation at Ivan Xav, shouldering in after her. Her hand went to the stunner holster riding her hip. “Why’d you bring
him
? Are you crazy?”

“He’s going to help. He…volunteered.”
Sort of
.

Ivan Xav stared around the little chamber in deep suspicion, and Tej wondered belatedly if she should have demanded that Vor-name’s-word thing on their deal, or bet, as well. The access well to the Mycoborer tunnel was uncovered; a pulley was set up on a frame above the hole, with ropes descending into the dark.

Star scowled at Ivan Xav, who scowled back. She said, “I’d stun him where he stands, but we can’t let off energy devices.”

“Then why are you even
carrying
that?” asked Tej, gesturing to the stunner.

“Last resorts. Come on. Everyone’s in ahead of us, and I doubt they’ll wait.”

Tej walked around the pulley. “That’s new.”

“Yes, Dada’s idea. He says it’ll speed getting things up the shaft, and make it safer, too. No hand-tractors or grav lifts allowed, either.”

Tej considered their flimsy telescoping ladder, and nodded in relief.

Star stepped back to lock and block the outside door, then said, “All right, everybody in.”

Tej led the way to the ladder. Ivan Xav stopped short at the lip of the hole.

“Wait, we’re going down there?”

“Yes?”

“Underground?”

“Most tunnels are underground. Oh, no, Ivan Xav—I forgot about your claustrophobia thing. Why didn’t you say something? I’m sorry!”

“I do
not
have a claustrophobia thing. I have a
perfectly rational dislike
of being locked up in small, dark, wet spaces by people trying to kill me.”

“So you won’t, like, panic down there?”

“No,” he said curtly.

“Are you sure? Because you could stay up here and help by manning the pulley—I’d count that—”

Ivan Xav growled and swung down the ladder.

Tej followed; Star brought up the rear.

The vestibule was quite a bit larger than when Tej had last seen it. A bench had been added, now piled with assorted Arqua wristcoms, audiofilers, and something she was afraid might be a very illegal plasma arc. Star divested her own wristcom and stunner; Tej followed suit.

“Everything electronic or that has a power cell has to be left here,” whispered Tej. “And our shoes.” A long row of Arqua footgear was piled along one wall. Tej counted the pairs;
everyone
was here for the big moment. She could hardly blame them. Despite everything, her own breath came fast with excitement and anticipation.

Ivan Xav, an unjoyful expression on his face, pulled his slippers one by one from his jacket pockets and let them drop to the floor, which seemed much firmer underfoot than it had the other day; evidently Jet was right about the curing rate for the Mycoborer tubes. After a long hesitation, Ivan Xav pulled off his wristcom and emptied his pockets of forbidden gizmos, including his car and door remotes and that neat military stunner that Tej had first met on Komarr. Tej and Star each picked up a spare cold light from a box at the end of the bench. Ivan Xav followed their example, then, after a narrow glance at Tej, proceeded to stuff his pockets with more.

Tej bit her tongue on any comment. It wouldn’t hurt anything. He could return the unused ones later.

Star handed out hospital masks and plastic gloves all around.

“What the hell?” said Ivan Xav.

“It’s all right,” said Tej. “You just don’t want live Mycoborer stuff to rub on your skin. Or get in your lungs, I guess.”

“And you people turned this crap loose on
my planet
? That is not my definition of
all right
. If it’s that nasty, I’d want a full biotainer suit.”

“Well, this is what Grandmama said to use, and she should know. And we’ve been running in and out of here for days with just this, and nothing’s happened to us.”

Ivan Xav stared at Tej with new alarm, as if he expected to see flesh-eating fungus start spreading all over her skin on the spot. His gaze flicked to Star with equal curiosity, if somewhat less concern.