Captain Vorpatril's Alliance

Chapter Seven

Tej had spent days steeling herself for death. This wrenching turn in her affairs left her stomach floating as if she had just jumped over that beckoning balcony, except that this fall didn’t come to an end. She felt weightless, like a drowning woman. The mad captain seemed to have clamped a rescuing arm around her neck and be towing her along, but was it toward some unseen shore, or farther out into deeper waters?

She should have spotted that Ivan Xav was insane before this. Surely there had been clues. But he had, despite it all, seemed so easy-going, so affable, so comfortable—or at least unwilling to be thrust out of his comforts—a welcome rarity, among the people in her life. And then, with no warning, this.

Maddest of all was that his ploy seemed to be working. The Komarran Dome cops neither arrested him, nor seized him to be carried off for some psychiatric observation. Byerly Vorrutyer, introduced as an acquaintance from Vorbarr Sultana and presenting valid identification, blandly testified to the ceremony he had just witnessed, pointing out the circle of groats ground into the carpet as supporting physical evidence. Rish backed him up, if in a slightly choked voice. There followed much frantic consultation of wristcom hololinks on the parts of both the dome cops and the Immigration officers, which apparently returned some very unwelcome answers. Ivan Xav retrieved his now-silent wristcom from the refrigerator and, anxious to get to his military HQ, cut the attendant explanations quite short.

The dome cops were plainly not happy that the discovery of Tej, transmuted from kidnap victim to runaway bride, had spoiled their hoped-for case against the Barrayaran. They retired thwarted and surly, with mutters about subpoenas for material witnesses to be promptly forthcoming, as they were still left with the puzzle of the budget ninjas on their hands. But they couldn’t arrest Tej for being a crime victim. The Immigration people, too, retreated like a force planning a rematch, but the important thing was that it cleared the doorway now, except for a brief argument with the building manager about the damages. Vorpatril, affronted, pointed out he hadn’t created the mess, but impatiently short-circuited the sting by telling the manager to put the repair costs on his rental charges. The two tense Barrayarans then gave Tej and Rish barely time to throw on street clothes and grab their most important possessions—not many left of those by now—before hustling them out the wrecked doorway, down the lift tubes, and through the lobby.

Outside, Vorpatril swung Byerly aside and backed him up into a wall niche behind a tall, potted evergreen. She could hear very little of their rapid, low-voiced exchange over the street noise, but it seemed to involve a lot of jaw-clenching and teeth-baring. Under a flowing headscarf, Rish all but pricked her ears. Tej leaned toward the pair, but only caught Ivan’s Xav’s forceful You owe me, and I’m collecting…and, as he finally eased back and released his unwilling auditor, Go do what you have to do. Byerly was more successful at pitching his voice not to carry, so all Tej had to go on was his body language. She’d never before seen someone swear quite so emphatically in body language. But when they started again toward the bubble-car platform, Byerly hastened off in the opposite direction.

They were about to cross the street when Vorpatril herded her and Rish abruptly into the doorway of a shop not yet open, spinning Tej around to face him—and, she realized, to shield him from view. “What is it?” she whispered, acquiescing to the tactic as soon as she recognized it.

“Service Security,” he muttered into her hair. “A whole patrol. Just came charging out of the bubble-car station—yep, heading for my building, all right. Two enlisteds, a sergeant, and a colonel, hoo boy. Desplains must have dispatched them for me. I wonder if they mean to rescue me, or arrest me?…I think we don’t want to stick around to find out. They can have a nice, long chat with the building manager. He deserves it, and it’ll hold ’em for just long enough, I think. Come on, hurry.”

Vorpatril’s wooden smile and this-is-all-normal posture didn’t slip till he’d bundled them into a bubble car and it was bowling along the route out to the military shuttleport. He slumped in his seat and addressed himself to his wristcom with the caution of a man defusing a bomb. At some return code, he muttered in relief, “Oh, good, he’s got it on voice delay,” and continued more brightly, “Admiral Desplains, Vorpatril here, sir. Sorry about the holdup this morning, but I have the misunderstanding with the Komarrans all straightened out. Nobody’s trying to arrest me anymore”—his lips silently mouthed, I hope—“but I have one more short stop to make at ImpSec Galactic Affairs to settle a few details. I’ll meet you and the Horsemen out at Dock Six. I’ll explain everything else when I get there.” He made to cut the com, but then raised it to his lips and added, “Please don’t leave without me. It’s important.”

He blew out his breath, then entered another code, and made an appointment with someone named Captain Morozov to meet them in a few minutes at some lobby security desk. Tej and Rish looked uneasily at each other.

“That’s your ImpSec person you mentioned who studies Jackson’s Whole?” asked Rish.

“Morozov, yes. Good scout, bit of a boffin, but he’s really interested, you know. I mean, above and beyond what he has to be for his duties as an analyst, which I suppose is what makes him a top boffin. I thought I’d leave you two with him for the day. You can’t go back to my flat—after all that uproar this morning, it’s gotta be smoked.”

“True,” said Rish, reluctantly.

“But however you feel about ImpSec, I can pretty much guarantee that nobody’s rent-a-goons can get at you inside their HQ.”

“But surely this Captain Morozov will want to know things,” said Tej. “What should we tell him?”

Ivan Xav shrugged. “Everything. He’s even cleared to know about By, though I doubt he does—not his department.”

“Even about the—the wedding thing?”

He sighed. “I’ll tell him about that.”

When they exited into the busy bubble-car station out by the shuttleport, Rish said, “I have to pee,” grabbed Tej, and towed her into the ladies’ lavatory. Vorpatril made frustrated gestures of protest, but stopped short of following them inside. They left him standing in the corridor alongside a couple of other males with glazed, waiting expressions.

It didn’t matter; there was only the one door, and no windows, Tej automatically noted as they entered. A woman dealing with a wailing infant, and another attempting to shepherd two hyperactive and not-well-trained toddlers through their ablutions, gave plenty of sound cover and guaranteed that no one was paying them the least attention.

Rish retreated to a corner and turned Tej around, strong blue hands gripping her shoulders. “Talk to me, Tej. You look like someone hit you on the head with a mallet, and you’re just waiting to fall down. You’re scaring me, sweetling.”

“Am I?” Tej blinked. “I sure didn’t see that blow coming. I wonder if he really thinks he married me?”

Rish shifted her head and eyed Tej narrowly, as if checking to see that her pupils were still the same size. “Do you think you really married him?”

“I have no idea. I guess the important thing is that everyone else seems to.” Tej took a deep breath. “And till we find out what all else this Lady Vorpatril business is good for, we’d likely better go along with it.”

Rish pursed her lips, nodded, and stood back, releasing her worried grip. “Point taken.” Her mouth tightened. “So what are we going to tell this Morozov fellow? Think, sweetling, think.”

Tej rubbed her forehead. “I’d be perfectly happy to feed everything we know about those House Prestene bastards to Barrayar, if only I could be sure they weren’t about to become new best friends afterward. Though if the Prestene syndicate is really on the other end of this smuggling scheme, I think the Barrayarans aren’t going to be too well-disposed toward House Cordonah’s new management. I know even Dada and the Baronne took care how they crossed these Imperium crazies. It’s rumored that all of House Ryoval was taken down by a single ImpSec agent, after the old baron pissed Barrayar off somehow.”

Rish whistled. “Really?”

“That’s the tale Star told me, anyway. She got it from someone in House Fell. So I think…” Tej wished she could think. Her brain seemed to have turned to mush. “I think we should tell this Morozov almost everything. Bury him in details, so’s he won’t have either the time or the motivation to move on to the fast-penta.”

“Ah.”

“Our story will be that the syndicate is after you as a flashy prize, and me as a baby enemy they want to strangle in the cradle.” Yes, that had seemed to work for the Byerly person. And besides, it was true. “Hold back only anything about where Amiri is. Anything about Amiri, come to think. And don’t volunteer anything about Star and Pidge. Or Grandmama.”

Rish nodded understanding.

They both made quick dashes for the stalls, returning to the station corridor before Vorpatril overcame his social conditioning and came in looking for them, although, by the glare he cast them, it had been a near thing.

“Crowded?” he inquired.

“Lots of little kids,” Tej said truthfully. “I think they must have eaten straight sugar for breakfast.” That was the best deal, yes. Truth.

Just not all of it.

To Ivan’s relief, Morozov was already waiting at the ImpSec Galactic Affairs reception desk when he guided the two women inside the lobby. Morozov’s eyes widened as Rish turned to face him, but then he managed a boffin-y bow.

“Lapis Lazuli. A visit to ImpSec’s humble quarters by an artist of your caliber is quite an honor.” His lips parted in equal surprise as he took in Tej. “And, if I am not mistaken, one of the Misses Arqua as well! This is excellent, Vorpatril.”

“You’re mistaken,” said Ivan. “Or anyway, behind the times. Captain Morozov, may I present the new Lady Vorpatril.”

Morozov blinked. Three times. And rose to the challenge: “Congratulations to you both. Er…a recent happy event, was this?”

“About”—Ivan glanced at the time on his wristcom, ouch—“an hour ago.” He drew breath. “But it’s all right and tight and legal, we had the groats and the oaths and the witnesses and everything. Which means she is now officially an Imperial Service officer’s dependent. And Rish is her, um, personal assistant. In my employ. Officially.”

“I see. I think…?” Morozov laced his hands together; Ivan wasn’t sure if that lip-biting expression concealed dismay, or unholy glee.

“An officer’s dependent who some very unpleasant people have been trying to kidnap and maybe murder,” Ivan forged on.

That got the analyst’s full attention. “Ah. I see. We can’t have that, can we?”

“Right. So I’m leaving them with you for the day till I can get back downside and deal with, uh, everything. They probably ought to stay in the building. I thought you all could talk.”

“It would be my very great pleasure,” said Morozov, brightening right up. Tej and Rish did not look nearly as thrilled as he did.

“And no damned fast-penta,” Ivan continued. “I think you’d have to ask my husbandly permission anyway, but just in case there’s a question, you don’t have it. My permission, that is.”

Morozov’s brows twitched. “Noted. Er…if I may ask a personal question…does your mother know about this marriage yet?”

“Nobody knows about this marriage yet, but that’ll change soon enough. One thing at a time. I’m due to accompany Desplains upside in, oh God, twenty minutes ago. I hope they’re holding the shuttle.”

Morozov waved an ImpSec salute at him. “Then I shall consider myself detailed to guard the new Lady Vorpatril from all harm until your return, shall I?”

“Please.” Ivan turned away, turned back. “And feed them. They’ll like that. Nobody’s had breakfast yet.” He started off and stopped again. “But not rat bars.”

“I’ll send my clerk to bring up something from the cafeteria. Ladies, will you come with me? I can offer you coffee or tea in my office.” Morozov gestured the uneasy women away down the corridor, and continued in the tone of a town Vor dame, or possibly Byerly Vorrutyer, at the most gossipy: “And I’m dying to hear all about your wedding, Lady Vorpatril! I’m sure this will come as a delightful surprise to all of Captain Vorpatril’s friends…”

Ivan pushed through the doors and ran. He made sure to make it that special bland run that said, I’m late and in a hurry, and not the wild bolt that said, This building I am fleeing is about to explode, because he didn’t want to spread panic. He had enough panic tamped into his head right now to blow up a battalion. This’ll work this’ll work, this had better work…

He found, thanks be, the admiral’s shuttle still waiting in Dock Six. Desplains and all four of the Horsemen were aboard, fuming with impatience. The shuttle was already moving as Ivan flung himself into the seat where the scowling Desplains pointed and snapped his belts closed.

“We’re off to inspect the flagship New Athens, right?” Ivan wheezed.

“So glad you remembered,” said Desplains, drawing a long breath for what promised to be a classic bolt of scouring sarcasm, but Ivan shook his head.

“Change it to the Kanzian.”

Desplains stopped dead in mid-rant-launch. “What?”

“The Kanzian. Tell the shuttle pilot to dock at the Kanzian.”

Desplains sat back, eyes narrowing. “Why?”

“Because hidden somewhere aboard it—or possibly clamped outside of it—are several cargo pods full of equipment, weapons, and supplies stolen from the Sergyar Fleet Orbital Depot. Which their conveyors are no doubt trying frantically to camouflage right now, in anticipation of our scheduled inspection tomorrow.” Ivan nodded to the inspection team chief, leaning over the aisle to hear this. “Forget the rest, that’s what the Horsemen should look for.”

“How do you know this, Vorpatril?” asked Desplains.

“I had a tip-off from an ImpSec agent.”

“ImpSec didn’t tell me.”

“This was one of their left-hand men, the sort the right hands don’t talk to. Frigging weasels. But he’s known to me. The reasons I’ve been late for work the past few days weren’t just personal ones, sir.”

“Are you sure of this?”

“Very.” IhopeIhopeIhope…

“ImpSec.” Desplains sat back, his scowl transmuting to his thinking-frown, scarcely less alarming. “I suppose you would know.”

“I do in this case, sir.” Adding I’d stake my career on it seemed redundant, since he just had. “But you can’t even hint where you got the tip, sir. There are ImpSec agents still on the ground in the matter who are at high risk till they get clear.”

“Hmm…”

There ensued rumbling and grumbling, but the Horsemen were good; they had the new inspection plan roughed out before the shuttle slid into its docking clamps at the Komarr Fleet orbital station. Next to the Kanzian.

Captain Morozov proved a disappointment to Tej, considering ImpSec’s reputation. He wasn’t in the least scary.

By the time he’d ordered in a gratifyingly substantial lunch, the tale of her and Rish’s escape and subsequent odyssey across three systems was almost told. The first not-too-alarmed flight to Fell Station, and then all their false sense of security blown to shocked bits when their bodyguard was shot; the escape to the Hegen Hub, the weeks turned to months of slipping from station to station around the Hub like some sort of lethal shell game—brief, stressed, frightening periods of motion alternated with long, boring, frightening periods of hiding; the bad news catching up with them in agonizingly slow hammer blows; the gradual relaxation of their months downside on the free planet Pol, almost sure they’d shaken pursuit, till it turned up again. The final flight to Komarr, with their every resource of money, identity, and resolution nearly tapped out. She tried to hold back how their identity shifts had worked, but since the fellow promptly guessed nearly every detail, Tej ended up being frank about all that, as well.

Morozov might not be properly intimidating, but he was something better; he understood. Tej discovered, when he volunteered a few inviting anecdotes of his own during the lulls and hesitations, that some years back he had actually been a junior ImpSec field agent in the Whole. They were all out-of-date tales of amusing misadventures, but Tej began to sense that in the gaps lay some adventures that hadn’t been so amusing, nor misses.

“No one is allowed to become an analyst without field experience,” he explained. “They are not at all the same skill-set, but when one is given the task of interpreting field reports, it’s a source of considerable illumination to have once been the fellow writing them.” He seemed quite content with his headquarters job now, though, and perhaps the holovid of the middle-aged woman with children, tucked almost out of sight on his cluttered desk, suggested why.

As they portioned out sandwiches, teas, and assorted deep-fried vegetables and cheeses around the cubicle, Tej, with editorial interjections from Rish, brought the tale up to the moment with a description of her bewildering wedding at dawn.

“I wish I could have been a witness, too,” said Morozov, his eyes crinkling. “That was quite a quixotic impulse on your, er, bridegroom’s part. Well, faint heart ne’er won fair lady, I suppose.”

“I think it was his admiral calling on his wristcom that finally pushed him…” she swallowed the words, over the edge, and substituted, “into his inspiration. When it wouldn’t stop chiming, he finally took it off and threw it into the refrigerator.”

Morozov choked on a bite of sandwich. But, “Really,” was all he said when he got his breath back.

“Is this Admiral Desplains of Ivan Xav’s a, um, very important admiral?”

“Chief of Operations for the entire Imperial Service? You could say so, but it would be a charming understatement.”

“Oh,” said Tej. “So…Ivan Xav’s not just some sort of military clerk?”

“You could say so.” Morozov’s lips twitched. “But it would be a charming understatement.” Morozov finished his last bite, leaned back in his station chair, and tented his fingertips together. “I should likely explain, I served several years of my apprenticeship in Analysis at ImpSec headquarters in Vorbarr Sultana, back when the legendary Chief Illyan was still running the place.”

Illyan’s, at least, was a name Tej dimly remembered hearing on her father’s lips, more than once. Usually accompanied by swearing. She nodded uncertainly.

“Domestic Affairs was never my department, but one cannot serve long in the capital without acquiring some familiarity with the high Vor scene.”

“Did you know Ivan Xav there?”

“No, we never met in person till the affair of his cousin’s clone brought him into my orbit, some time later.”

And why did that have anything to do with Jackson’s Whole? And which cousin? “Am I—are we—likely to meet his cousin? Or his clone?” She hesitated. “Is this the Cousin Miles he keeps talking about? Is he anyone important?”

Morozov squeezed his eyes shut, briefly. Opened them to give her a rather pained look. “Just how much has your new husband told you about himself?”

“Not much. I looked him up.”

“Where?”

“Maybe I’d better show you…”

A few minutes at his comconsole found Tej’s database. “Why ever did you look in a Komarran database for Barrayaran affairs?” Morozov inquired mildly.

“It seemed…as if it would be more reliable…?” Would he take that as an insult?

Morozov looked over Ivan Xav’s entry and sniffed. “Correct but incomplete, and sadly out of date. You shouldn’t have stopped there, m’dear.”

“I ran out of time.”

“Well.” Morozov swung around again. “High Vor family relations tend to be complex, interlaced, and mined. Before you set foot in them, I strongly advise you to study up.”

“Is Ivan Xav high Vor, then? I thought he was just…middling. He acts middling.” Tej was beginning to be peeved about that. Just what kind of a tricky deal had she landed herself in, anyway?

“Oh, yes,” said Morozov, as if that explained anything.

Tej glared at him.

He held up a warding palm and suppressed a smile. “To understand Captain Vorpatril’s peculiar position in the capital, one must travel a bit farther up his family tree. His mother is of good Vor stock, and certainly not to be underrated, but it’s on his father’s side that things become interesting.”

“He said he was an only child. So was his father—or anyway, he didn’t have any siblings listed.”

“Up farther than that. Captain Vorpatril’s father’s mother was Princess Sonia Vorbarra, who, along with her elder sister Olivia, were the daughters of Prince Xav Vorbarra. Who was the younger son in turn of Emperor Dorca Vorbarra, later called Dorca the Just. And the younger half-brother of Emperor Yuri, later called Mad Yuri, but that’s another tale.”

Perhaps more than names out of history texts for the Baronne or Grandmama, but mere distant tales to Tej. Yuri had led the brutal and bloody rebellion against the Occupation on the ground, while his brother Xav had run all over the Nexus gathering off-world support for his forces, not so much for Barrayar, as against Cetaganda. And—um, yes—that was the whole sum of Tej’s knowledge of them. “So…Ivan Xav’s great-grandfather was this really important prince. And his great-great-grandfather was this really important emperor?” She looked suspiciously at Morozov, who had his hand pressed to his mouth, his eyes alight with annoying amusement. “Or is that another charming understatement?”

“It will do for now. To bring it back to the present, Ivan Xav Vorpatril from the hour of his birth has been high on the list of potential heirs-presumptive to the throne of Barrayar should anything untoward, God forbid, happen to Emperor Gregor. Or he was, till Gregor married Laisa Toscane and the boys came along, to many people’s relief.”

“A list? Is it a long list?”

“Not especially, though it still contains several latent opportunities for civil conflict. First on the list has always been—ah, you see, Sonia’s elder sister Olivia married Count Piotr Vorkosigan. Who thus became the sire in turn of Count Aral Vorkosigan, who is the father of Miles Vorkosigan, Ivan’s notable cousin. Lord Auditor Miles Vorkosigan, now. If you linger in Vorbarr Sultana for longer than ten minutes, I can almost guarantee you will meet him. But it’s always been realized by anyone with even half a wit that none of the Vorkosigans would have touched the throne, seeing as how Lord Miles was born so damaged, should it have fallen vacant before Gregor had sired his own heirs. Instead, they would doubtless have swung their considerable weight behind Ivan Vorpatril. And pushed.”

Rish was listening to all this like a blue marble stature. Tej hoped she was tracking the complications better than Tej was. Tej had a hot date with a comconsole soon, there could be no doubt. Homework. Tej hated homework. No choice now.

“The upshot of it all is that Vorpatril has been a potential plot magnet for disaffected political parties all his life, partially shielded by his cousin’s clan, partially protected by his own…I suppose I could describe it as notoriously nonferrous lifestyle. Pressures have eased off for him lately, to a degree.”

“Wouldn’t Ivan Xav’s mother have been anxious to promote him?” asked Rish, clearly puzzled by this maternal lapse. “Or see him promoted, anyway?”

“I gather that Lady Alys has always been much more anxious to protect him from risk. Her only child, you see. Though she is a formidable woman. Had anything untoward ever happened to Gregor, I am sure that—after first seeing those responsible properly hanged with all due ceremony—she would undoubtedly have been drawn into guiding her son in his new duties.”

“I thought she was a secretary,” said Tej faintly. “The database called her some kind of secretary.” She looked at Morozov, looking back at her in wonder. “Charming understatement…?”

“Social Secretary to the Imperial Residence. Official hostess for Emperor Gregor for decades, now first assistant to Empress Laisa. One of the most powerful women in the capital, in her own quiet way. I know Chief Illyan never underestimated her.”

Would Ivan Xav take her to meet his mother, when they arrived in Vorbarr Sultana? And if so, should they perhaps tell her about the divorce before they mentioned the wedding?

While Tej digested the implications, Morozov gathered up the lunch debris and set the tray in the corridor. When he returned, his thoughts had plainly shifted back to his own more immediate duties, for he opened with a chatty, “And how ever did the Baronne come to create you Jewels, Rish? It must have been a fascinating project for her…”

And then it was time to gather what was left of her wits and evade, again, and push Ivan Xav to the back of her mind. Where he loomed like a very indigestible lump indeed.

Just as Ivan had hoped, his arresting lure drew Desplains’s attention entirely off of the erratic personal affairs of his high Vor aide-de-camp for the next several hours, especially after the first cargo pod was found in the process of being stashed under a fake antenna. There followed a fire drill of the most chaotic, Service Security everywhere, surprised perpetrators playing hide and seek all over the ship, the Kanzian’s captain out for blood, livid with outrage and chagrin to discover that he’d missed the criminal scheme taking place under his nose. Ivan faded into the background, documenting and taking notes on the whole circus like the excellent admiral’s assistant he was. At the end of the long day, Admiral Desplains and the Horsemen were being regarded by the Kanzian’s entire crew and most of the orbital station’s personnel as possessing supernatural powers granted by some dark god, and they wouldn’t have been human if they hadn’t enjoyed the effect, at least a little bit.

Desplains was almost mellow as he settled into his shuttle seat for the trip back to downside HQ. His gesture this time for Ivan to take the seat across from him was more of a wave of friendly invitation. The admiral leaned his head back against the seat in a moment of well-earned weariness, but opened his eyes again and regarded his subordinate in some bemusement.

“Good work today, Ivan. You do have your uses.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“And here I thought—never mind. I owe you one.”

Ivan was good. Ivan was Ivan when the admiral was pleased with him, Vorpatril when the mood was neutral, and Captain when Desplains was irritated. This was probably the best opportunity Ivan would get to broach the next subject. Also, given the short duration of the flight, the only opportunity, so. Go. He took a deep breath. “I’m glad you think so, sir. As it happens, I am in need of a somewhat personal favor just at the moment. Not unrelated to this.” His wave around reminded his listener of the Kanzian coup, just bagged.

“Oh?” Desplains knew better than to offer a free pass in advance, but his benign tone and nod invited Ivan to go on.

“I need a permission to get married, and approval for two passages from Komarr to Barrayar for Service dependents.”

Desplains’s eyes flew wide. “Ivan! This is sudden. You never breathed a word—is it some Komarran girl? Nothing wrong with that, of course, quite the fashion these days, but—does your mother know about this?”

“Backdated to yesterday,” Ivan forged on, before the admiral could build up any more elaborate fantasies of secret interplanetary romances in his mind.

Desplains went still. Sat back. Continued in a much cooler tone, “I see. When did these nuptials actually take place, Vorpatril?”

Not Captain yet; Ivan still had turning room. “At dawn this morning, sir. So I suppose a permission dated to today would also do, but there will hardly be time before we land downside.”

“I think you had better begin at the beginning.”

“I intend to, sir.” Ivan marshaled his thoughts, trying to figure out how to put as much of the culpability on Byerly as possible. Traditionally, Ops had no objection to criticizing ImpSec for any screw-up, from minor to monumental. Yes, blame the absent, always a good plan. “The beginning would be three nights ago, when the ImpSec deep cover agent came to my flat and asked for my help—”

It was almost Komarran midnight when Ivan at last made it back to the ImpSec Galactic Affairs building where, the night clerk assured him, Morozov was still in his office, very late, isn’t it, sir? Ivan declined to respond to this invitation to drop tidbits, which disappointed the clerk but did not surprise him.

The door to Morozov’s cubicle was open, spilling light into the corridor and, Ivan was heartened to hear, rather cheerful-sounding voices. He arrived to discover Morozov and his two guests perched variously in the debris, disemboweled food cartons spread all over and deflated soda bulbs piled up, deeply engaged in some sort of game—a brightly colored, if rather tattered, box lay open on the floor, and each player manned a vid board, balanced on their laps. As Ivan walked, or rather, picked his way inside, something beeped and twinkled, Tej hooted, Morozov groaned, and Rish grinned like an evil blue elf.

Tej was the first to look up. She cast him an oddly penetrating glance. “Ivan Xav! You’re back!”

“Sorry it took me so long. I have some guest quarters arranged for us tonight here in the HQ compound, so it’s only a step over to bed. Nothing fancy, but safe. Looks like you got dinner. Uh…” Have you been all right here? seemed to be a question already answered. “What’s the game?”

“Great House,” said Tej. “It’s an old Jacksonian children’s game. I used to play it when I was girl, with my sibs and the Jewels, but they always beat the pants off me, unless I cheated. Though you’re allowed to cheat.”

“Each player starts with a small stake,” Morozov explained, “and the object is to deal with and against each other, till the winner ends up owning the virtual world. It can be played with only two people, barely, but it’s far more interesting with three or more. It’s not often that I get a chance to play it with actual Jacksonians.” He added after a moment, “I’ve lost five rounds straight. I suspect collusion.”

Rish smirked.

“Thank you for staying so late,” Ivan began, but Morozov waved this away.

“It’s been a very enjoyable day, quite a nice break in my routine.” The ImpSec analyst rose with a groan, and stretched. “I concede. You two can wrestle it out for second and first.”

The two women eyed each other, bared teeth, and bent to a flurry of beeps and twinkles. Morozov jerked his head at the doorway, and followed Ivan out. They moved a few steps down the corridor beyond earshot of the cubicle.

“I like your new wife, Captain Vorpatril,” said Morozov.

“Uh, thanks. Only temporary though, you know.”

“So she explained.” Morozov smiled at his shoes.

“Did you get anything useful out of the day? From ImpSec’s viewpoint, that is. From your interrogation.”

“Interrogation? Oh, nothing so crude among friends. Or cultural relatives-in-law. We just had one delightful, riveting conversation after another. You must get her to tell you the full tale of her flight from the Whole—it sounds to have been a ghastly adventure, in all. I quite hope it may have a happier ending than beginning.”

“Er,” said Ivan. “We really haven’t had much chance to talk yet.”

“So I gathered.” Morozov rubbed his neck; his voice took on a more serious tone. “Everything the pair of them told me that I already knew about, checked out well, allowing for point of view and so on. So I have a high degree of confidence in the new information they purveyed. As far as it went.”

Ivan waited for it. Then grew impatient—he was exhausted—and prodded, “But…?”

“Tej began by withholding details about her family, reasonably enough, but just about everything I could want to know and more about the Arqua clan has come out in the last three hours of Great House—very valuable game. Lively, too.”

Who won? Ivan suddenly realized, could be a question with more than one answer.

Morozov slipped from serious to grim. “My considered professional analysis is that the syndicate that seized House Cordonah is going to keep on coming. It’s plain they still fear a counter-coup. They want these women—alive, probably; dead, in a pinch. Each Arqua they can obtain gives them a stronger handle on the out-of-reach remainder. You’d best be prepared.”

“Ah.” Ivan swallowed. He tried to figure out what that meant, then realized he had a top figurer-outer standing right in front of him. Use your resources. “For what, exactly?”

“Small-scale kidnapping teams, most likely. Deploying all sorts of tactics, including deception. Import teams have greater logistical challenges, but are known quantities to their handlers. Local hirelings blend better, and know the ground. Any successful abduction must fall into two halves, seizing the victims—which actually may be the easier part—and their removal beyond the Imperium’s boundaries.”

Somebody kidnaps my wife, and they’ll find the Imperium’s boundaries can stretch a hell of a long way, Ivan found himself thinking with unexpected fierceness. Wait, no. This thing with Tej was only a temporary ploy, not a real marriage. Well, no, it was a real marriage, that is, a legal marriage, that was the whole reason why it had worked. But not permanent. Nothing to be alarmed about there.

Anyway, it was surely allowable to shoot kidnappers regardless of who they were trying to carry off, right?

“I’ll be escorting them both on to Barrayar in little more than a day’s time,” said Ivan. “They should be safe out here at Komarr HQ till then—don’t you think?”

“Commercial or military ship?”

“Admiral Desplains’s jump-pinnace, actually. He was kind enough to assign me some spare berths. Wedding present, he said.”

“That should be exceptionally safe. I imagine it will take their pursuers some time to regroup after the, ah, curve ball you threw this morning. I don’t think that could have been anticipated in anyone’s schemes.”

Including mine.

“Meanwhile,” said Morozov, “I’d think you, as the lady’s new husband, would be as closely placed as humanly possible to find out more, eh?”

Puzzles. I hate puzzles. Ivan liked flow-charts—nice and clear and you could always tell just where you were and what you should do next, everything laid out neatly. No ambiguities. No traps. Why couldn’t life be more like flow charts?

Morozov went on jovially, “After all, a man who can’t persuade his own wife to trust him is a man in trouble in many ways.”

So many ways. Ivan could only nod.