Captain Vorpatril's Alliance (53 page)

“We brought plenty of food to keep everyone going all night,” said Pearl glumly. “Too bad it’s all back at the entrance with everything else.”

Em swallowed, and said, “Air…? These walls are pretty tightly sealed.”

Perfectly sealed, as Tej understood it, except for their new door and maybe the old one, filled with rubble.

“The rooms are rather large,” said Amiri, his voice thin with a worry that undercut the actual sense of his words. “And there are two of them.”

“And the tunnel,” said Tej. “And…there might be some oxygen exchange through the surface of the water out there?”

“Works till we have to seal the door on it,” said Pidge. “But there are twelve of us in here breathing.”

Quite a few Arqua gazes swiveled to Imola, still sitting on the floor beside his unconscious hirelings and listening in growing horror.

“Nine would last longer,” said Pearl, tentatively.

“Premature,” growled Dada, “though tempting. Very tempting.”

“Yes, but if we were going to do it at all, sooner is better than later,” argued Pidge, in a tone that attempted to simulate lawyerly reason. Tej was almost glad that she quavered a little.

“Nevertheless,” said the Baronne. Her tone was cool; her gaze calculating; her word mollifying; yet Imola shrank from her more than he had Pidge. No quaver there.

“Those two,” choked Imola, with an abrupt gesture at his snoring followers. “You could have those two.” He contemplated the inert forms, then offered, as if by way of a selling point, “They’d never know…”

“I’ll be sure to mention you said so,” purred Dada, “when they wake up.” He strolled away to look over the contents of the chamber some more; scouting for ideas, Tej suspected, rather than treasure. Dada had never run short of ideas that she knew of; he merely made more.

Ivan Xav looked at Imola and just shook his head. He leaned over and murmured to the man, “Look on the bright side. With all these other constraints, it’s unlikely we’ll have time to work around to the cannibalism.” He bared his teeth in an unfriendly smile.

Imola flinched.

“Still, probably better not to indulge in, um, too much heavy exercise,” Amiri offered. “Just…sit or move quietly.”

“Mm,” said Pearl. She and Pidge moved off to poke, quietly, though a few more boxes. Opening presents seemed a lot less riveting now than it had been at first.

Tej was watching Ivan Xav running his fingers along the side of a bin, lips moving as he estimated the number of papers packed inside, when a sharp scrape, a loud pop, a dull yellow flash of light, and a yelp rising to a screech whipped her head around.

Pearl had pried open the top of some ornately-enameled bottle that she’d unearthed, which had exploded. Whatever liquid it contained had splashed upon her black jacket, dancing with blue and yellow flames. She recoiled, flung the bottle away, and leaped aside.

“Pearl, don’t run,
don’t run
!” Ivan Xav bellowed. Pearl, mouth open and astonished, only had three steps to do just that before Ivan Xav brought her down. “Drop and roll, roll!”

His cry pierced Pearl’s shock; she overcame her flight reflex as he shoved her to the floor and pressed her flat, smothering the acrid conflagration before it could do more than lick her face. Tej jerked toward them, her world gone slow-motion and fast-forward all at once.

Momentarily unwatched, Imola shot to his feet, ripped off the lid from another bin of papers, flung them toward the spreading oil-or-chemical fire, and pelted out the door.

Ivan Xav lurched to his knees and took in this new hazard with eyes sprung wide as Grandmama hastened toward Pearl, sweeping off her coat. The narrow-necked bottle had not broken, but it had spun, trailing the lethal liquid it contained in a flammable spiral. He lunged, grabbed the emptied bin, and upended it hastily over the wobbling bottle, the scribble of oil, and a few fluttering papers that had just reached it. With an ugly flicker, the flames trapped underneath sank and died.

Tej took her second breath. By the time the flush of adrenaline racing through her blood threatened to blow off the top of her head, it was all over.

Ivan Xav, holding the bin down as if it would fight him, shoved himself up, wheezing. He climbed to the top of this new pedestal and stood glaring around the room at the various Arquas, frozen with surprise or hurrying. Grandmama wrapped her coat around Pearl, finishing the job of containment, and a frightened Amiri knelt at her side, checking for damages.

Ivan Xav drew a long breath, and—goodness, he
could
yell. “Could you people
stop
trying to come up with
novel ways to kill me
for just one hour? Or maybe the rest of the night? I would so like that. Just the rest of the night. Just
sit down
. Just
stop doing anything
. Sit down and
wait sensibly
. Earth, water, air, fire—you’re running out of elements, here!”

Amiri looked very impressed by this ringing baritone rant. Grandmama…looked less impressed, if perhaps sympathetic. Rising from Pearl’s side and helping her up, she observed, “In some Old Earth mythologies there was imagined to be a fifth element—metal, as I recall.”

Ivan Xav said through his teeth, “That was a rhetorical remark, not a bloody
suggestion
.” But he stepped down off his podium and his ire into Tej’s frantic clutch, nonetheless. None of the horrific stuff seemed to have splashed onto him, her shaking fingers found. His hand covered hers, closing it to his chest and stilling the shakes. His jaw unclenched, and he buried his face in her hair.

Dada and the Baronne had clambered through the obstacle course of boxes and crates from the other end of the room. The Baronne’s face was gray; Dada’s, more greenish. The Baronne went to Pearl, and Dada to the aperture to stare out angrily into the utter darkness where his enemy had vanished. Ivan Xav and Tej came over to his side.

Dada ground his teeth, muscles jumping in his jaw. “You were down there. Dead end, you said. Should we chase him?” he inquired of Ivan Xav.

“I wouldn’t bother,” said Ivan Xav, mouth almost equally stiff. “Either he’ll come back on his own, in which case we may as well save our breaths, or he’ll drown himself trying to get out. Thus saving the exertion of cutting his throat, or whatever. I’m for damn sure not willing to sacrifice any more oxygen for
his
sake.”

“Well, if he doesn’t come back before we have to put the door up, I vote we don’t go look for him,” growled Amiri. Tej could only nod in dark agreement.

Dada gave Ivan Xav a sideways look. “You were very quick, there. And…correct.”

“Training,” said Ivan Xav shortly. He added after a reluctant moment, “And training accidents. You learn these things. One way or another.”

“I see you do.” Dada gave him a short, approving nod.

“What was that stuff?” Tej asked Grandmama, who had run her gloved fingers across a stray splash on the floor and was now sniffing them in chemical inquiry.

“Scent, at one time, I believe. Now merely stink. I don’t think it was supposed to do that.” She glanced around the room. “Kindly do not open anything more that you cannot identify before I’ve had a chance to check it,” she instructed her descendents.

“Or at all,” grumbled Ivan Xav. “
Humor
me.”

Pidge, eyeing him in a subdued and wary way, sank down on a crate and sat with her hands folded tightly. Pearl, eyeing him more favorably, joined her. She seemed to have suffered only a light sunburn and singed white eyebrows. Pidge put an arm around her, calming her lingering shivers. Tej assisted Ivan Xav in picking up the scattered antique papers, very dry and crackling, and carefully repacking them in their bin. A little inconsistently, he scanned them in covert curiosity as he reordered them.

The chamber grew
really quiet
when everyone stopped talking. Tej was half-tempted to start another argument just to drive back the heavy silence. Instead, she and Ivan Xav followed Grandmama back downstairs, Tej because she hadn’t seen that level yet, Ivan Xav evidently with some notion of sharing his light to improve the general visibility down there, or thinking that one wasn’t enough. Or just to keep an eye out for the next emergency.

“As long as we don’t run short of lights before we run out of air,” he muttered.

“I suppose the ideal would be to have them both run out together,” Tej mused.

“I’d rather have the light last longer.”

Tej decided not to try to argue with the illogic of this. It wasn’t as if they had a choice anyway.

The room below was similar to the one above, except for a few separated office cubicles on one end. Grandmama commenced trying cabinets and former freezers once more.

“Something special you’re looking for, Lady ghem Estif?” Ivan Xav inquired politely. “Can we help?”

She waved away the suggestion. “Just…memories, so far. With which you cannot aid me, I’m afraid, Captain.”

Ivan Xav shifted a few crates into a makeshift sort of sofa; he and Tej sat, and he eased back and put his arm around her. She leaned into him, wondering how many tens-of-millions-worth in anybody’s currency they were sitting on—for that much money, it should have been more comfortable. The old lab was cool, not cold, the steady temperature of deep underground, and not especially clammy, but his warmth was welcome nonetheless. For some reason she was put in mind of their first night back on Komarr, not-quite-cuddling on his couch and watching the vid of the unexpectedly graceful legless dancers in free fall. She’d been more afraid then than she was now. Strange.

“Ah!” said Grandmama from the other side of the room. “Filters!” Clutching her prize, she made her way back up the stairs.

“There’s a help,” Tej said. “At least we’ll have something to drink.”

“But then we’ll have to piss,” said Ivan Xav. “I suppose we can go out in the tunnel. Pretend we’re camping, or on maneuvers.”

“Or we might find some pots in here.”

A smile moved his lips for the first time since the near-fire. “Priceless porcelain vases from the Time-of-Isolation, perhaps? Did they make porcelain back them? Not sure. Or carved jadeite bowls, those were popular once, I think. Worth thousands, now. Hell, maybe some ghem-general collected old Barrayaran Imperial chamber pots. I know they had
those
, seen ’em in the Residence. For all I know, still used by the more conservative Vorish guests.”

A little laugh puffed her lips.

It was quiet for a time. “Now what?” she said after a while, wondering if it would help any to breathe less deeply. Likely not.

“Now what what?” He sounded, if not sleepy, very tired.

She was exhausted, she realized. What time was it? So late it was early, it felt like. Some cusp of night. “What did you do the last time you were stuck in a hole like this? To pass the time?”

“It wasn’t a hole like this. It was a lot darker. And smaller. And wetter. Though air was not an issue. This is practically a palace, by comparison.”

“Still.”

“Well. First there was a lot of screaming. And pounding on the walls. And more screaming.”

“I don’t think that would help, here.”

“It didn’t help there, either. Screaming back at death doesn’t help. Pounding on the walls till your hands bleed…doesn’t help.”

She captured one now, and stroked it till it unclenched, releasing the memory. “What does help?”

“Well, Miles. Eventually. Though I note that he’s on another planet right now. Mind you, he wasn’t
much
help—the first thing he wanted me to do was hide from the bad guys by going back down in that bloody hole.”

“Did you?”

“Well, yes.”

“Why?”

“It…was the right thing to do. At the time. It all worked out, anyway.”

“And then?”

“Huh?”

“You said first. What was next?”

“Oh. When I was still trapped. I actually got, um, a little strange after a while. I tried to sing myself all the old Imperial scout camp songs that I could remember, from when I was a spotty whelp. And then the rude versions. Except I couldn’t remember enough of them, and then I ran out.” He added after a minute, “But then, I was alone.” And after another minute, “Don’t take this the wrong way or anything, but I kinda wish I was alone again. And you…back in our bed, maybe. Sleeping dreamlessly.”

She returned his apologetic hug. “Same to you.”

“Let’s be sensible and wish for both of us there, while we’re wishing. I mean, it’s not like wishes are
rationed
.”

“Good point.” Except…she was glad he wasn’t alone to face this unnerving reminder of what sounded, despite his making light of it, like the most terrifying hours of his younger life. It was not an erotic moment; imminent death by suffocation was a bit of a mood-killer. But it was good to just sit, not going anywhere, cuddling contentedly.

“Tej…” he said, and his voice was oddly uncertain. “There’s a question I’ve been meaning to ask you for a while.”

She blinked into the crowding shadows. “Now would probably be a good time to get it in, yeah.”

He drew a long, long breath. It must be important; they’d both been breathing shallowly, when they’d remembered to. “Tej. Will you stay with me for the rest of my life?”

At the little jump of the laugh in her chest, his encircling arm tightened, heartened and heartening. He’d intended her to laugh, she guessed. Ivan Xav was good at that, it occurred to her. Making light in dark places.

“That…might not be too hard a commitment, I suppose. Right now.”

“Well, it’s not the sort of question a fellow wants to take a chance with, you know.” His voice was rueful.

They were both, she noticed, holding on harder. How much courage had that question taken? More than the first time he’d asked, she suspected. She turned her head to watch his profile, looking out into the shadows of the chamber. “Where would I go? Upstairs?”

“I would follow you to the ends of the bunker,” he promised.

Which kind of was the ends of their universe, currently. Who could promise more?

She, too, drew a long breath, because he was worth it. “Do you know what the third thing was I was going to ask you if I’d won our bet? Which I did do, just pointing that out.”