Chapter Fifteen
Ivan, only slightly out of breath but considerably out of sleep, entered Admiral Desplain’s outer office to find one of the senior Ops clerks manning his desk. The morning’s first pot of coffee had been made and drunk long ago, he noted from the dark dregs in the bottom of the pot on the credenza and the faint tarry aroma in the air. He checked a desire to scrape out the bottom of the pot with a spoon and eat the residue.
“Ah, Captain Vorpatril,” said the clerk, brightening. “The old man wanted to know as soon as you arrived.” He keyed his intercom. “Sir, Captain Vorpatril is here.”
“Finally,” returned Desplains’s voice. Ivan tried to read the tone, but from three syllables could only ascertain not joyful. “Send him in.”
Ivan trod into his boss’s inner sanctum, to find the admiral had a visitor—an ImpSec captain, Ivan saw by his collar pins and tabs, as the man twisted in his chair to observe him in turn, frowning. Lean but HQ-pale, salt-and-pepper hair that tried but failed to make him look older than the mid-grade middle-aged man he apparently was. Raudsepp, read his nametag. They exchanged the briefest of military courtesies.
Desplains was looking faintly harassed. And, given that the harassment was apparently being delivered by a mere ImpSec captain—bringing the snakes in person?—decidedly irritated. The admiral did not invite Ivan to sit, so Ivan took up a prudent sort-of parade rest and waited. Someone would tell him what was going on shortly; they always did, however little he wanted to know.
Desplains went on, dry-voiced, “Captain Raudsepp has just inquired if, at the time I signed off on your marriage on Komarr, I had known what a curious set of relations young Lady Vorpatril was apparently trailing after her.”
“At the time of our marriage on Komarr, everyone thought Tej was an orphan,” said Ivan, “including Tej. And Rish. They seemed pretty happy to find out this was not the case, last night. And your interest in this is what, Captain Raudsepp?”
“Until last night, I was the Galactic Affairs officer charged with riding herd on your new wife’s alleged bounty-hunter threat. A relatively routine physical security issue that has so far failed to provide much in the way of action, to everyone’s relief. I came in this morning to find my mandate had been unexpectedly upped by a renegade refugee Jacksonian baron and most of his extended family, about which the critical complaint is the unexpectedly part.”
Ah, yes. ImpSec did not like surprises. Too bad; surprises were their job, in Ivan’s view. He wondered if he ought to argue with the renegade tag; how could you tell a renegade Jacksonian baron from any other sort? Refugee, though, yeah, sure. He did put in, “Immediate family, actually. In a sense.”
Raudsepp’s brows tightened. “My heated memo to Galactic Affairs-Komarr crossed in the tightbeam stream with an urgent heads-up from Captain Morozov, warning us of the party’s impending arrival, so it’s good to know that they weren’t entirely asleep out there. If the alert had arrived six hours ahead of the event instead of six hours behind it, it might have helped. Somewhat. And so my routine physical security issue has turned into a completely unassessed political security issue. As I expect my assessment to be requested very soon, it behooves me to make one.”
Ivan tilted his head in acknowledgement of the justice of this, but resisted being drawn into premature sympathy with a brother officer. After all, ImpSec.
Raudsepp narrowed his eyes at Ivan. “Why did you sign them out of Customs & Security?”
“Well, they looked tired,” Ivan offered. “Hours and hours of bureaucrats. On top of jump-lag, you know. The Komarr run is a bitch if you’re jump-sensitive.”
“Have you managed to find out yet why they’re here?”
“They came to pick up Tej and Rish.” Wait, what? Take them away? For the first time, this thought came clear in Ivan’s sleep-deprived mind, triggering an unpleasant flutter of panic in his stomach. Though he supposed he could part with Rish without much of a pang. But what if Tej wanted to go with her? “Check on them, anyway,” he corrected hastily. Dear God. We need to talk. “Parents, after all.”
“Do you have any other observations to report? Anything of danger—or interest—to the Imperium?”
“All they’ve done is land and go to bed.” Ivan stifled a yawn. “Well, and fill out a lot of forms. You have to have received copies of everything from Customs, and a report from your outer-perimeter night fellow—what the devil was his name—Zumboti, that was it. Which means you know about as much as I do, so far.”
“Surely not. You have by far the closest view of the affair, going back the farthest.”
I’m not the only one, Ivan wanted to snap back. In fact, he didn’t even go back the farthest. Talk to your own damn people. What, had By gone off to bed without filing a report, the rat? “In my, what, nine hours of observation, all I’ve seen is some very jump-lagged people glad to find their daughters alive”—that, without doubt, had not been some show for his benefit—“and grateful to be taken to a hotel.” Hang on…By was Domestic Affairs; Raudsepp had named himself Galactic Affairs. Was this another fricking ImpSec right hand not talking to the left screwup, again? Ivan was so used to Byerly by now, he perhaps forgot just how high and restricted a level By worked on, however erratically. Should he direct Raudsepp to Byerly, or not? Maybe it ought to be the other way around. Isn’t trying to cover for By how I got into all this trouble in the first place…?
But Captain Raudsepp was going on. “Looking ahead, then.” He rummaged in his uniform jacket and withdrew a card, which he glanced at and handed to Ivan. “This is my secured comconsole code, by which you may contact me directly at any time. Should you find anything suspicious to report, anything at all, please call me at once.”
Ivan didn’t reach for it. “Uh, you’re asking me to spy on my wife’s family for you?” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a slight wince cross Desplains’s usually impassive features, although in reaction to just what aspect of this he couldn’t guess.
“You did take formal responsibility for them, Captain Vorpatril.”
As a Vor lord. Not as a military officer. Different chain of command. Oh, crap, that sounded just like one of Miles’s arguments, didn’t it. Ivan knew he was on thin ice if he’d started channeling his cousin. Gingerly, he took the card, glanced at it—code only, no other identifying information, right, one of those—and tucked it away in his wallet.
“Although…” Raudsepp hesitated, looking around the admiral’s tidy but resource-crammed office—one whole wall was taken up with Desplains’s professional library, including a few rare volumes going back to the Time of Isolation. “It does occur to me, nearly everything to do with Ops passes through your comconsole, Captain Vorpatril, one way or another. Until this entire situation is clarified, it might be more prudent for you to take some personal leave. Unexceptionable enough, for a family emergency, certainly.”
Ivan’s jaw tightened. So, he noticed, did Desplains’s. “If my loyalty is suddenly that suspect,” he ground out, “that should certainly not be my decision to make, eh?”
Raudsepp’s brow wrinkled. “True enough.” He looked to Desplains.
Desplains looked back and said blandly, “My aide and I will discuss it. Thank you for your concern, Captain Raudsepp, and for your information and your time on this busy morning.”
It was a clear dismissal. Raudsepp must have run out of questions for now, or else he’d decided Ivan really had run out of answers, because he allowed himself to be shifted. The Ops clerk saw him out.
This left Ivan still standing. Studying him, Desplains rubbed his jaw and grimaced. “So, have you become a security risk, Vorpatril?”
“I don’t know, sir,” said Ivan, as honestly as possible. “Nobody tells me anything.”
Desplains snorted. “Well, then, go back to work, at least for the moment.” He waved Ivan out, but then added, “Oh. And call your mother.”
Ivan paused on the threshold. “I suppose I should, at that.” Actually, he’d totally forgotten that little task, in the rush of events.
“I should perhaps say, call your mother back.” The voice could have dehumidified the room; Desplains was giving him That Look.
“Ah. Yes, sir. Right away, sir.” Ivan retreated to the outer office.
He evicted the clerk from his desk, who was glad enough to get back to his own interrupted tasks, settled himself, and tapped in a familiar code. Lady Alys’s face formed over his vidplate all too promptly, which suggested she must have been lying in wait for this.
“Ah, Ivan. Finally,” she said, unconsciously echoing Desplains.
Dammit, he’d been busy. Ivan nodded warily. “Mamere. It’s been quite a night. I guess you’ve heard? Something?”
“Actually, our first word was a copy of Captain Morozov’s memo from Komarr, which he had strongly requested ImpSec Vorbarr Sultana forward to Simon. Happily, General Allegre can recognize need-to-know when he sees it. It came in while we were having breakfast. We had a first-hand update a bit later. Not from you, I must point out.”
From who, then? Ivan wanted to ask, then realized it would be a redundant question. And Byerly had probably also acquired breakfast and bed by now, of both of which Ivan was deprived, and looked to stay that way. “I kind of had my hands full,” Ivan excused himself. “Everyone’s settled now, though. Temporarily.”
“Good. How is Tej taking it? And Rish?”
“Overjoyed. Well, imagine how would you feel, to get your family back from the dead, all unexpected?”
“I don’t actually have to imagine it, Ivan,” she said, giving him a peculiar exasperated-fond look. “And nor do you, come to think.”
Ivan shrugged, embarrassed. “I suppose not. Anyway, there seemed to be a lot of family feeling.” Of several different kinds, in retrospect. An only child all his life, and his closest cousin the same, Ivan had occasionally wondered what it would be like to have a big family. Mamere’s attention would have been more divided, for one thing…
The panic simmering at the back of his brain seeped out. In a suddenly smaller voice, he said, “They, uh…seem to have come here with some idea of picking up Tej and Rish. And taking them away.”
Mamere looked back at him. “And how do you feel about that, Ivan?”
A rather long silence fell, before he managed, “Very strange.”
Lady Alys’s dark brows quirked. “Well, that’s something, I suppose.” She sat up more briskly. “In any case, clearly we must have them to dinner at the earliest possible opportunity. It’s the correct thing to do. And there is so much to catch up on.”
“Uh, they’re all asleep now. Jump-lagged.”
“Then they should be both refreshed and hungry by early this evening. Tonight, then. Very good. I’ll send Christos with the car—you will of course meet them at their hotel and help escort them.”
“Uh, better make that two cars. Or a bus. And isn’t this short notice for you?”
“I’ve put on receptions for hundreds at less notice. My staff is perfectly capable of handling a private family party of fifteen.”
Surreptitiously, Ivan counted on his fingers. “I make it fourteen, isn’t it? Even including Simon and me?”
“Byerly will no doubt wish to squire Rish.”
Thus saving steps for ImpSec, too. Mamere was well aware of every angle. Ivan managed not to choke. “Just…don’t invite Miles. Or let him invite himself.”
On any less-elegant face, that lip-pursing could have been called a retrospective grimace. “I promise you, I am capable of controlling my guest list. Anyway, I believe he’s still on Sergyar. Although I shall miss Ekaterin. Another time.” She waved a hand that was either airy, or threatening, Ivan wasn’t sure which.
Ivan ran beleaguered fingers through his hair. “Yeah, and I came in to the office this morning—late, because of last night—to find some ImpSec captain with a stick up his butt giving my boss a hard time over all this…It’s not helpful, I tell you.” He drew breath. “Galactic Affairs fellow. Who seemed not to be talking this morning to Domestic Affairs, if you know what I mean. It put me in a quandary. Are they all flying blind over there at Cockroach Central, or does Allegre want to keep his angles of view independent, or what? I hate getting sucked into these weasel-traps.”
Simon Illyan leaned into the vid pickup, and advised genially, “Call Guy Allegre and ask, Ivan. If it’s the first, he’ll want to know, and if it’s the second, you need to know. He’ll talk to you. Briefly, mind.” The amused face withdrew out of focal range. The reflective voice drifted back: “Though good for the G.A. man for tackling an admiral, stick or not. It’s the backbone one wants to see in an agent…”
Ivan shuddered. But I don’t want to talk to Allegre.
“Very sensible,” approved Lady Alys. “And I’ll call Tej and Rish. Carry on, dear. I’ll have Christos contact you later with the details for transport.”
She cut the com. Ivan sat a moment, gathering his reserves and wondering when, if ever, he was going to get back to Ops business this morning. And whether any of this could be classified as making personal calls on office time, and if he was somehow going to earn a reprimand for it. He sighed and punched in the next code.
“Ah, Ivan,” said General Allegre, neutrally, when he’d been gated through by the secretary. Guy Allegre passed as a stocky, middle-aged, normal-looking sort of senior officer, with a normal wife—well, she worked at the Imperial Science Institute—and children in about the same age-cohort as Desplains’s youngsters; it took a while knowing him to realize how ferociously bright, and brightly ferocious, he really was. “We may have a place opening up on our fast courier next week—is that request obsolete now, in view of this morning’s news? Last night’s news, I construe, from your point of view.”
“Uh, I think so, sir. It’s all very up-in-the-air right now. But this is related. I seem to find myself dealing with two of your people who aren’t dealing with each other—” Succinctly, as instructed, Ivan described the conundrum with Byerly and Captain Raudsepp.
“Hm, yes,” said Allegre. “I’ll have Raudsepp apprised.” That, and the general’s lack of irritation with Ivan taking up space on his comconsole, was rather a clue that Raudsepp must have been working in the dark re: Byerly. “Good you asked.”
Right. “Simon said I should.” Just in case Ivan needed a little more shielding.
Allegre nodded. “Vorrutyer does good work, on his level. It may actually have been a bit too much good work, lately. Domestic had been thinking of standing him down for a while, but then this came up.”
“How can someone do too much good work?”
“Well, irregulars.” Allegre gave a vague wave, and adroitly changed the subject: “How is Simon, these days?”
What, another family snitch-report? No, that was unfair. Guy Allegre had been Head of Komarran Affairs for some time directly under Illyan, until his promotion into his chief’s abruptly vacated shoes four years back. And he’d come up, as a young officer, entirely in Illyan’s ImpSec. His interest was personal as well as professional.
“His health seems quite good.”
“Glad to hear it. Any new interests? I thought he could use some.” Allegre added diplomatically, “No reflection on your lady mother, of course.”
“Do you two talk much with each other? Consult?”
“As needed. Ex-Chief Illyan has been very properly circumspect about jostling my elbow, bless his wits. No need to send him to Sergyar like your uncle to get him out of the range of other people’s ingrained habits. Although I suppose Simon’s medical situation served much the same function of distancing him from his old command.” Allegre’s eyes narrowed in thought. “I wonder if he’d like to visit Aral? I should suggest it. D’you think your lady mother would be willing to travel? As long as it doesn’t create unhealthy excitement among the conspiracy theorists. Although that could be made useful, too…” Something else on the general’s comconsole desk was signaling for his attention, Ivan guessed by the shifting of his gaze. “Is that all, for now?”
“Yes, sir.” For now.
“Thank you, Captain Vorpatril.” With a move of Allegre’s hand, Ivan was dismissed from his attention and vid plate.
* * *
Tej watched Rish, trailing all the younger Arquas, lead them to the hotel lift tubes for what was billed as a short walking tour of the immediate environs, planned to end up in the hotel bar to await their transportation to Lady Alys’s. She’d really wanted to give the whole family an emergency briefing on Barrayar before they went to dinner—if she would be permitted to get a word in edgewise—but a private talk with Dada and the Baronne and Grandmama would have to do. Rish had promised to fill in the others as best she could.
She touched the door buzzer to the sitting room and was bidden to enter by her mother’s voice. She slipped inside to find the elder Arquas-plus-one gathered around a low holovid table that was at present displaying what looked like a large-scale city map. Grandmama touched a control; a dizzy blur, and the map settled again.
“It’s just not here,” she complained, a querulous note in her usually well-modulated tones.
“They can hardly have moved it,” said Dada reasonably.
“No, they seem to have moved everything else, instead.” Grandmama looked up. “Ah, Tej, good.”
“Were you able to arrange the early pickup for us?” asked the Baronne. “Did you explain that Mother wanted to see a bit of the old city that she used to know?”
“Yes,” said Tej. “Lady Alys said that Christos would be very pleased. Apparently, as part of his training as a driver he had to memorize every street in Vorbarr Sultana, and he doesn’t get to try out the odd bits very often.”
“Local knowledge might help,” said Dada.
“What are you looking for?” Tej settled herself between Dada and the Baronne, and received, unusually, a welcoming hug from each. The Baronne was not normally physically demonstrative, and would probably get over it in a day or two; she must really have feared for Tej, during their uncertain odyssey roundabout from their lost House to Earth to Escobar to here. Tej would have feared for them, too, if only she’d known they were still alive; it was hard to guess which feeling was worse.
“An old Vor mansion that went by the peculiar name of Ladderbeck Close,” said Grandmama, peering once more at the vid display. “At the time of the Ninth Satrapy”—the Cetagandan name for what the Barrayarans dubbed the Cetagandan Occupation—“it was where I worked.”
“Worked?” said Tej, interest caught. As a child, she had taken her grandmother as she appeared, and hardly wondered about her long past life. “I didn’t think ghem generals’ haut wives worked.”
The Baronne’s eyebrows flicked up. “Not in some dire little shop, Tej.” The Baronne had not approved of that ploy, when she’d heard of it.
Grandmama’s fine lips thinned. “You understand, when I was…detached, from the haut, I was already a fully-trained geneticist. I simply missed the cut, and not by very much—but it was always harder for us girls from the outer planets to compete with the haut women from Eta Ceta itself. They always had access to the very latest developments, you know. I was matched with General ghem Estif precisely because he was being assigned to the Ninth Satrapy, and the ongoing Star Crèche program here wanted a reliable laboratory assistant. The prior woman having been killed in some horrible bombing by those dreadful guerillas. She wasn’t even targeted; she just chanced to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Grandmama sniffed disapproval; Tej wasn’t sure if it was of the guerillas, their tactics, or their failure to recognize the significance of their inadvertent victim.
“The Star Crèche had a presence on Barrayar? Did the Barrayarans know?” Ivan Xav had never mentioned such a thing, nor had she run across it in her recent reading. “Whatever were they doing here?”
Grandmama waved a dismissive hand. “Just the obvious—assembling a complete gene survey and library of the human occupants of the planet. Barrayar’s so-called Time of Isolation was a unique natural genetic experiment, not to be wasted. The hoped-for prize of course would be some novel mutation or set of mutations that might be extracted and incorporated into higher gene bases, but alas in twenty years of survey—sadly underfunded and undersupported for the scope of the task, I must say—we only found some novel genetic diseases. Six hundred years was perhaps too short a time for new strengths to develop and be filtered into the population. It’s really too bad the place was rediscovered so soon.”
Some Komarrans thought so, too, Tej was reminded, if for rather different reasons. “And you had a—a what? A laboratory in the old mansion?”
“Under it, to be precise. The building had been some count’s residence in a prior generation, had fallen to lesser family members, and was appropriated by the satrap government. The haut Zaia, our team leader, was not best pleased with it, but it made a suitably discreet entrance to our actual workplace. The laboratory itself was good enough, for its day. Proper biohazard barriers and all.”
Tej hesitated. “If it was just a gene library, why did you need fancy biohazard controls?”
“One never knew,” said Grandmama, vaguely.
Tej tried to process this. It stuck, rather. “Huh?”
“That slack-jawed expression does not become you, Tej,” the Baronne pointed out. “Do keep up; this is important to our future.”
Actually, it all seemed to be about the past, so far. The creakily ancient past, at that. Tej suppressed a sigh and tried to look attentive. She really had to get on to telling them more about Lady Alys before…
“Well, we were dealing with the ghem, dear. The haut Zaia kept her own supplies there as a matter of routine precaution.” Grandmama pursed her lips, and went on, “What we had here in Vorbarr Sultana was only a regional outpost, mind you. Our main facility was that orbital laboratory, the one that was sent to burn up in the atmosphere during the scramble of the withdrawal. I only visited it once, being too junior to be assigned there myself. Much better equipment than we had downside. Such a waste! Although at least we salvaged all the data out of that one.”
“Which brings us,” Dada rumbled, “back to your young man, Tej.”
“What?” Tej managed to close her mouth, this time.
“You’ve had some time to study him. What are his handles?” said Dada.
“Handles?”
“Tej,” said the Baronne impatiently, but Dada waved her down.
“For example,” said Dada, “does he hanker for power? Prestige? Wealth?”
“I don’t know.”
“How can you not know something so basic as that?” said the Baronne.
Tej shrugged. “I gather that his mother is wealthy—she owns the building his flat is in, and hers, and others besides, and I don’t know what-all-else outside of the capital—and he’s an only child. And he has some kind of trust fund from his paternal relatives. And his officer’s pay, which is what he mainly lives on.”
“That’s not quite what I meant,” said Dada. “Many who are rich want more, perhaps for some purpose or obsession.”
And what would Arquas know about that, ha. “I think Ivan Xav cares about comfort more than display. I mean, he keeps up with the expectations of his Vor class, but I don’t think it’s because he’s interested in them so much as…it’s just easier.”
“What about business training? Does he have any? Import, export, trade? Could he, for example, put together a large or complex project?”
“Well, I know he works on military budgets with Admiral Desplains. Those are large and complex projects.”
“Hm.” Dada drummed his fingers on the sofa arm. “You see, despite the unavoidable need for local partners, I’d like to keep this venture in the family if we can. My old contacts here are…less reliable than I’d prefer. And, in some cases, perhaps a bit too old.”
Venture? Tej wasn’t sure she liked the sound of that. His eye, nonetheless, had brightened during this conversation, edging out that scary look of weariness and defeat that he’d had when talking about Eric and the loss of the station, so out of place on his broad, beloved face. “What kind of venture do you have in mind on Barrayar, of all places?”
“A mining deal.” A flash of grin. “Excavating history. Moira thinks we’ve found a rich vein of it. Every family should have a lost gold mine, eh?”
“They were current events to me,” Grandmama objected. “Anyway, the gold is the least of the real value.”
“Potentially,” said the Baronne, in a voice of caution. “Potentially. This is all still such a long shot.”
“Long shot’s better than no shot at all,” sighed Dada. “Which is what we’ll have if the Barrayaran Imperial government finds out about this, so no gossiping about this to anyone who hasn’t already been brought inside, eh, Tej?”
Tej wrinkled her nose. “Do you mean that old underground lab? Who’d want an old gene library? I mean, it’s all got to have spoiled by now.” And what would that smell like?
“Actually, anything that was stored sporulated ought to be fully reconstitutable,” said Grandmama. “And then there was all that tedious trash the ghem generals and their friends insisted on stuffing in at the last. I suppose some of them really believed they would have a chance to get back to it all, someday.”
“Tedious trash…?”
Dada sat back, his grin deepening. “Old records, both Cetagandan and captured Barrayaran. Several art collections, apparently—”
“Mere native objects, for the most part,” put in Grandmama. “Though I do believe there were a few good pieces brought from home.”
“—Ninth Satrapy currency and coin—that’s where the chests of gold come in—”
“The primitives in the Barrayaran backcountry always preferred those awkward gold coins, for some reason,” Grandmama confirmed.
“—and, basically, anything that a select mob of Cetagandan ghem lords in a panic didn’t have room or time to pack and couldn’t bring themselves to abandon,” Dada concluded. “I don’t think even Moira knows what all might be in there.”
“No one did,” Grandmama said. “The haut Zaia was quite upset with the incursion on her space, but really, no one could do anything at that point.”
Tej had started out determined not to be sucked into any more doomed Arqua clan ventures, but she couldn’t help growing a little bug-eyed at this litany. “How do you know…how do you know someone hasn’t found it long before this?”
The Baronne rubbed her hands thoughtfully together, and touched her fingertips to her lips. “Even if smuggled out in secret, some of the known objects ought to have surfaced and left a trail. Some of the records, as well. They haven’t.”
“What—how—how would we get at it? In secret?”
Dada flicked his fingers. “Simplest is best. If the building still exists, buy it. Or possibly rent it. If it’s been knocked down and built over, buy whatever is atop it, and proceed the same at our leisure. I understand the place wasn’t in the best part of the city. If that isn’t feasible, buy or rent an adjacent property and penetrate laterally. As always, fencing the stash is where the profit is made or lost—lost, usually, back when I was a young shipjacker. The best value of any item can only be realized when it is matched to the best customer for it. Which will be best done from some future secure base out of this debatable empire.”
“Fell Station, to start with,” said the Baronne, “if we can present ourselves credibly enough to Baron Fell. Once we attain that leverage point, our options open. And I’ll have Ruby back.”
“Isn’t, um, the historical value greatest when things are excavated and recorded on site?” said Tej, tentatively.
“A sad loss,” the Baronne agreed, “but, in this case, not avoidable.”
“How long have you three been planning this, this lowjacking?”
“Since Earth,” said Dada. “We had reached the nadir of marketing my mother-in-law’s hair, when Moira recalled this place.”
“I hadn’t thought about it in years,” said Grandmama. “Decades, really. But Shiv never did receive a proper wedding gift, when he married Udine. Ghem Estif having wasted the first one on that idiot Komarran he picked out, who wasted it in turn on, oh, so many bad decisions.”
“I came to you in nothing but my skin,” murmured the Baronne, with a fond look at her mate. “And”—she plucked a trifle mournfully at her short fringe—“hair.”
“I remember that,” said her mate, with a fond look back. “Vividly. I had very little more myself, at the time.”
“Your wits, at least.”
“Making this cache into test and wedding gift in one, if Shiv can extract it,” said Grandmama. “Does it occur to you two that you are running your courtship backward?”
“As long as we fit it all in somewhere,” said Dada, sounding amused.
“Your sudden Barrayaran husband,” said the Baronne to Tej, “put several wrinkles in our planning. We had originally intended to arrive here entirely incognito, but your reappearance gave us a second-choice level of plausibility, even as this Vorpatril fellow’s unexpectedly high security profile forced the necessity. I hadn’t wanted to activate our real identities quite so soon. Not till after the war chest was refilled, and we could prepare some richer welcome for our enemies.”
“Flexibility, Udine,” rumbled Dada.
“I admit,” said the Baronne to Tej, “I was quite frantic about Rish and you, when Amiri reported you’d failed to make any timely rendezvous or contact with him. Lily’s roundabout news was the greatest fortune—it made this Barrayar plan seem quite irresistible.”
“If we can extract this treasure,” said Dada, “it will be the saving of our House. The key to everything. It’s been a long time since I wagered so much on a single throw. Though if I’m to revisit the desperation of my youth, I want the body back, too.” He slapped his stomach and grimaced. His wife snorted. Though Dada looked more stimulated than desperate, to Tej’s eye.
“Now all we have to do,” said Grandmama briskly, “is find Ladderbeck Close.”
* * *
Ivan settled his in-laws in the back of Mamere’s big groundcar, and took the rearward-facing seat across from them. The canopy sighed shut. He gripped Tej’s hand briefly, for reassurance. Of some sort. When he’d sped home to his flat to clean up and dress for this command performance, he’d found Tej and Rish had already gone on. No chance to talk then, no chance, really, to talk now, nor for hours yet, probably. At least, shaved and sharp in the dress greens that he seldom wore after-hours, he ought to look a more impressive son-in-law than last night. He hoped.
Christos began The Tour To Please Grandmama with a spin past Vorhartung Castle. Ivan mentioned the military museum, within, for future innocuous entertainment.
“This place, at least, seems to have survived the century intact,” Lady ghem Estif observed, staring out at the archaic battlements. A few bright District flags flew there, snapping in the winter wind, indicating some rump meeting of the Counts in session. “It looks so odd without the laser-wire, though.”
A whispered conference with Christos had concluded that the Imperial Residence was best viewed from a distance, this first trip, which they duly did. Christos managed to wedge the groundcar as close to the restored pedestrian alleys and shops of the old Caravanserai area as it would fit.
“Well, that’s an improvement,” murmured Lady ghem Estif, not sounding too grudging. “This part of town was considered a pestilential death-trap, in my day.”
Ivan decided not to mention being born there, for now. Let someone else tell that story, this round. “The last Barrayaran I knew who’d been alive during the Occupation died, what…” Ivan had to stop and work it out in his head. “Eighteen years ago.” When he’d been barely more than seventeen. Was it really more than half his lifetime ago that his ancient and formidable great-uncle General Piotr had passed to his fathers? Um…yeah, it was.
A drive past the fully modern Ops building drew no special reaction, a little to Ivan’s disappointment, but Lady ghem Estif sat up and peered more avidly as they drew away from the river. The Baronne, seated next to her, and the Baron observed her—pleasure? it was hard to tell, on that reserved face—with interest. “This was close to the edge of town, in the days of the Ninth Satrapy,” she remarked.
“Vorbarr Sultana is built out for a couple dozen kilometers more, now,” Ivan said. “In every direction. You really ought to see some of the recent outer rings, before you go.”
The big groundcar nipped into a rare parking space just opening up, and sighed to a halt. Christos’s jovial voice, which had been supplying sporadic commentary throughout the zigzag tour of the Old Town, came over the intercom from the front compartment.
“Here we are, Lady ghem Estif. I had to research back quite a way to find mention of the old place. The Cetagandans had seized it from an old Vor family that had taken up with the Resistance, and used it as a guest house during the time they held the capital, due to its extensive grounds and gardens, I gather. It was occupied again by one of the opposition factions, leveled during the rump fighting, and seized again by Emperor Yuri. The old Vor family never did get the property back, but I guess they were mostly dead by then. But this is definitely the exact site of Ladderbeck Close.”
All three senior Arquas—well, two Arquas and one ghem Estif—were staring wide-eyed out the side of the canopy, craning their necks.
“What,” said the Baronne in a choked voice, “is that great ugly building?”
At least something in Old Vorbarr Sultana architecture had finally riveted their attention, even if it was one of the most notoriously awful buildings in town. Ivan explained cheerfully, “It’s one of the works of Emperor Yuri Vorbarra’s megalomanic architect, the infamous Lord Dono Vorrutyer. He got up five major structures before he was stopped, they say. Not to be confused with the current count of the same name, by the way. Dono-the-architect was a relative of Byerly’s, too, though not a direct ancestor, no doubt to By’s relief. By can tell you more tales of him over dinner later. That gigantic eyesore is Cockroach Central itself—and it’s called that by people who work there—ImpSec HQ. Barrayaran Imperial Security Headquarters.”
A long silence fell in the back of the groundcar.
“I don’t suppose it’s for sale,” said Tej, in a strange, small voice. “Or rent.”
Ivan laughed. “Back when Simon Illyan ran it, he said he’d sell it for a Betan dollar, if only he could find a Betan with a dollar, and no taste. And if only the Council of Counts would build him a new building, which they wouldn’t. Mamere says he kept a holo of the Investigatif Federale building on Escobar—tall thing, all glass—on the wall of his inner office for a while, the way some men would keep pinups.”
“My, my, my,” said Shiv Arqua.
He kept staring back over his shoulder for a long time, as the groundcar eased into the traffic and pulled away.