The Vor Game

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  “What guarantees can you offer up front?"

  “It seems to me that I'm the one who's owed a guarantee, sir. Let us begin with small steps. I won't start a mutiny; you stop trying to thrust me out airlocks. I will join you openly—everyone to know I've arrived—I will make my information available to you.” How thin his “information” seemed, in the breeze of these airy promises. No numbers, no troop movements; all intentions, shifting mental topographies of loyalty, ambition, and betrayal. “We will confer. You may even have an angle I lack. Then we go on from there."

  Oser thinned his lips, bemused, half-persuaded, deeply suspicious.

  “The risk, I would point out,” said Miles, “the personal risk, is more mine than yours."

  “I think—"

  Miles hung suspended on the mercenary's words.

  “I think I'm going to regret this,” Oser sighed.

  * * * *

  The detailed negotiations just to bring the Ariel into dock took another half day. As the initial excitement wore off, Thorne became more thoughtful. As the Ariel actually maneuvered into its clamps, Thorne grew positively meditative.

  “I'm still not exactly sure what's supposed to keep Oser from bringing us in, stunning us, and hanging us at leisure,” Thorne said, buckling on a sidearm. Thorne kept the complaint to an undertone, in care for the tender ears of the escort squad kitting up nearby in the Ariel's shuttle hatch corridor.

  “Curiosity,” said Miles firmly. “All right, stun, fast-penta, and hang, then."

  “If he fast-penta's me, I'll tell him exactly the facts I was going to tell him anyway.” And a few more besides, alas. “And he'll have fewer doubts. So much the better."

  Miles was rescued from further hollow flummery by the clank and hiss of the flex-tubes sealing. Thorne's sergeant undogged the hatch without hesitation, though he was also careful not to stand silhouetted in the aperture, Miles noted.

  “Squad, form up!” the sergeant ordered. His six people checked their stunners. Thorne and the sergeant in addition bore nerve disruptors, a nicely-calculated mix of weapons; stunners to allow for human error, the nerve disruptors to encourage the other side not to risk mistakes. Miles went unarmed. With a mental salute to Cavilo—well, a rude gesture, actually—he'd put his felt slippers back on. Thorne at his side, he took the lead of the little procession and marched through the flex tube into one of the Aslunder military station's almost-finished docking bays.

  True to his word, Oser had a party of witnesses lined up and waiting. The squad of twenty or so bore a mix of weapons almost identical to the Ariel's group. “We're outnumbered,” muttered Thorne.

  “It's all in the mind,” Miles muttered in return. “March like you had an empire at your back.” And don't look over your shoulder, they may be gaining on us. They'd better be gaining on us. “The more people who see me, the better."

  Oser himself stood waiting in parade rest, looking highly dyspeptic. Elena—Elena!— stood at his side, unarmed, face frozen. Her tight-lipped stare at Miles was tense with suspicion, not of his motives, perhaps, but certainly of his methods, Now what foolishness? her eyes asked. Miles gave her the briefest of ironic nods before saluting Oser.

  Reluctantly, Oser returned the military courtesy. “Now—'Admiral'—let us return to the Triumph and get down to business,” he grated.

  “Indeed, yes. But let's have a little tour of this Station on the way, eh? The non-top-secured areas, of course. My last view was so ... rudely cut short, after all. After you, Admiral?"

  Oser gritted his teeth. “Oh, after you, Admiral."

  It became a parade. Miles led them around for a good forty-five minutes, including a march through the cafeteria during the dinner rush with several noisy stops to greet by name the few old Dendarii he recognized, and favor the others with blinding smiles. He left babble in his wake, those in the dark demanding explanation from those in the know.

  An Aslunder work crew was busy tearing out fiberboard paneling, and he paused to compliment them on their labors. Elena seized an opportunity of Oser's distraction to bend down and breathe fiercely in Miles's ear, "Where's Gregor?"

  “Thereby hangs—me, if I fail to get him back,” Miles whispered. “Too complicated, tell you later."

  “Oh, God.” She rolled her eyes.

  When he had, judging from the admiral's darkening complexion, just about reached the limits of Oser's strained tolerance, Miles suffered himself to be led Triumph-ward again. There. Obedient to Cavilo's orders, Miles had made no attempt to contact Barrayar. But if Ungari couldn't find him after this, it was time to fire the man. A prairie bird thrumming out a mad mating dance could scarcely have put on a more conspicuous display.

  Finishing touches on construction were still in progress around the Triumph's docking bay as Miles marched his parade across it. A few Aslunder workers in tan, light blue, and green leaned over to goggle down from catwalks. Military techs in their dark blue uniforms paused in mid-installation to stare, then had to re-sort connections and realign bolts. Miles refrained from smiling and waving, lest Oser's set jaw crack. No more baiting, time to get serious. The thirty or so mercenaries could change from honor guard to prison guard with his next roll of the dice.

  Thorne's tall sergeant, marching beside Miles, gazed around the bay, noting new construction. “The robotic loaders should be fully automated by this time tomorrow,” he noted. “That'll be an improvement—crap!” His hand descended abruptly on Miles's head, shoving him downward. The sergeant half-spun, clawed hand arcing toward his holster, when the crackling blue bolt of a nerve disrupter charge struck him square in the chest at the level Miles's head had been. He spasmed, his breath stopping. The smell of ozone, hot plastic, and blistered meat slapped Miles's nose. Miles kept on diving, hitting the deck, rolling. A second bolt splattered on the deck, its outwashing field stinging like twenty wasps up Miles's outstretched arm. He jerked his hand back.

  As the sergeant's corpse collapsed, Miles grabbed at the man's jacket and jerked himself underneath, burrowing his head and spine under where the meat was thickest, the sergeant's torso. He drew his arms and legs in as tight as he could. Another bolt crackled into the deck nearby, then two struck the body in close succession. Even with the absorbing mass between it was worse than the blow of a shock-stick on high power.

  Miles's ringing ears heard screaming, thumping, yelling, running, chaos. The chirping buzz of stunner fire. A voice. “He's up there! Go get him!” and another voice, high and hoarse. “You spotted him—he's yours. You go get him!” Another bolt hit the decking.

  The weight of the big man, the stench of his fatal injury, pressed into Miles's face. He wished the fellow'd massed another fifty kilos. No wonder Cavilo had been willing to front twenty thousand Betan dollars toward a line on a shield-suit. Of all the loathsome weapons Miles had ever faced, this had to be the most personally terrifying. A head injury that didn't quite kill him, but stole his humanity and left him animal or vegetable was the worst nightmare. His intellect was surely his sole justification for existence. Without it...

  The crackle of a nerve disrupter not aimed his way penetrated his hearing. Miles turned his head to scream, cloth and meat-muffled, “Stunners! Stunners! We want him alive for questioning!” He's yours, you go get him.... He should shove out from under this body and join the fight. But if he was the assassin's special target, and why else pump charges into a corpse ... perhaps he ought to stay right here. He squirmed, trying to draw his hands and legs in tighter.

  The shouting died down; the firing stopped. Someone kneeling beside him tried to roll the sergeant's body off Miles. It took Miles a moment to realize he had to unclutch the dead man's uniform jacket before he could be rescued. He straightened his fingers with difficulty.

  Thorne's face wavered over him, white and breathing open-mouthed, urgent. “Are you all right, Admiral?"

  “I think,” Miles panted.

  “He was aiming at you,” Thorne reported. “Only."

  “I
noticed,” Miles stuttered. “I'm only lightly fried.” Thorne helped him sit up. He was shaking as badly as after the shock-stick beating. He regarded his spasming hands, lowered one to touch the corpse beside him in morbid wonder. Every day of the rest of my life will be your gift. And I don't even know your name. “Your sergeant—what was his name?"

  “Collins."

  “Collins. Thanks."

  “Good man."

  “I saw."

  Oser came up, looking strained. “Admiral Naismith, this was not my doing."

  “Oh?” Miles blinked. “Help me up, Bel.... “That might have been a mistake, Thorne then had to help him keep standing as his muscles twitched. He felt weak, washed-out as a sick man. Elena—where? She had no weapon....

  There she was, with another female mercenary. They were dragging a man in the dark blue uniform of an Aslunder ranker toward Miles and Oser. Each woman held a booted foot; the man's arms trailed nervelessly across the deck. Stunned? Dead? They dropped the feet with a thump beside Miles, with the matter-of-fact air of lionesses delivering prey to their cubs. Miles stared down at a very familiar face indeed. General Metzov. What are you doing here?

  “Do you recognize this man?” Oser asked an Aslunder officer who had hurried up to join them. “Is he one of yours?"

  “I don't know him—” The Aslunder knelt to check for IDs. “He had a valid pass...."

  “He could have had me, and gotten away,” said Elena to Miles, “but he kept firing at you. You were bright to stay put."

  A triumph of wit, or a failure of nerve? “Yes. Quite.” Miles made another attempt to stand on his own, gave up, and leaned on Thorne. “I hope you didn't kill him."

  “Just stunned,” said Elena, holding up the weapon as evidence. Some intelligent person must have tossed it to her when the melee began. “He probably has a broken wrist."

  “Who is he?” asked Oser. Quite sincerely, Miles judged.

  “Why, Admiral,” Miles bared his teeth, “I told you I was going to deliver you more intelligence data than your Section could collect in a month. May I present,” rather like an entree at that—he made a gesture designed to evoke a waiter lifting a domed cover from a silver platter, but which probably looked like another muscle spasm, “General Stanis Metzov. Second-in-command, Randall's Rangers."

  “Since when do senior staff officers undertake field assassinations?"

  “Excuse me, second-in-command as of three days ago. That may have changed. He was up to his stringy neck in Cavilo's schemes. You, I, and he have an appointment with a hypospray."

  Oser stared. “You planned this?"

  “Why do you think I spent the last hour flitting around the Station, if not to smoke him out?” Miles said brightly. He must have been stalking me this whole time. I think I'm going to throw up. Have I just claimed to be brilliant, or incredibly stupid? Oser looked like he was trying to figure out the answer to that same question.

  Miles stared down at Metzov's unconscious form, trying to think. Had Metzov been sent by Cavilo, or was this murder attempt entirely on his own time? If sent by Cavilo—had she planned him to fall alive into her enemies’ hands? If not, was there a backup assassin around here somewhere, and if so was his target Metzov, if Metzov succeeded, or Miles, if Metzov failed? Or both? I need to sit down and draw a flow-chart.

  Medical squads had arrived. “Yes, sickbay,” said Miles faintly. “Till my old friend here wakes up."

  “I'll agree to that,” said Oser, shaking his head in something akin to dismay.

  “Better put a protective as well as holding guard on our prisoner. I'm not sure if he was meant to survive capture."

  “Right,” Oser agreed bemusedly.

  Thorne supporting one arm and Elena the other, Miles staggered home into the Triumph's hatchway.

  * * *

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Miles sat trembling on a bench in a glassed-in cubicle normally used for bio-isolation in the Triumph's sickbay, and watched Elena tie General Metzov to a chair with a tangle-cord. It would have given Miles a smug sense of turn-about, if the interrogation upon which they were about to embark was not so fraught with dangerous complications. Elena was disarmed again. Two stunner-armed men stood guard beyond the soundproof transparent door, glancing in occasionally. It had taken all Miles's eloquence to keep the audience for this initial questioning limited to himself, Oser, and Elena.

  “How hot can this man's information be?” Oser had inquired irritably. “They let him go out in the field."

  “Hot enough that I think you should have a chance to think about it before broadcasting it to a committee,” Miles had argued. “You'll still have the recording."

  Metzov looked sick and silent, tight-mouthed and unresponsive. His right wrist was neatly bandaged. Awakening from stun accounted for the sick; the silence was futile, and everyone knew it. It was a kind of strange courtesy, not to badger him with questions before the fast-penta cut in.

  Now Oser frowned at Miles. “Are you up to this yet?"

  Miles glanced down at his still-shaking hands. “As long as no one asks me to do brain surgery, yes. Proceed. I have reason to suspect that time is of the essence."

  Oser nodded to Elena, who held up a hypospray to calibrate the dose, and pressed it to Metzov's neck. Metzov's eyes shut briefly in despair. After a moment his clenched hands relaxed. The muscles of his face unlocked to sag into a loose, idiotic smile. The transformation was most unpleasant to watch. Without the tension his face looked aged.

  Elena checked Metzov's pulse and pupils. “All right. He's all yours, gentlemen.” She stepped back to lean against the doorframe with folded arms, her expression almost as closed as Metzov's had been.

  Miles opened his hand. “After you, Admiral."

  Oser's mouth twisted. “Thank you. Admiral.” He walked over to stare speculatively into Metzov's face. “General Metzov. Is your name Stanis Metzov?"

  Metzov grinned. “Yeah, that's me."

  “Presently second-in-command, Randall's Rangers?"

  “Yeah."

  “Who sent you to assassinate Admiral Naismith?"

  Metzov's face took on an expression of sunny bewilderment.

  “Who?"

  “Call me Miles,” Miles suggested. “He knows me under a ... pseudonym.” His chance of getting through this interview with his identity undisclosed equalled that of a snowball surviving a worm-hole jump to the center of a sun, but why rush the complications?

  “Who sent you to kill Miles?"

  “Cavie did. Of course. He escaped, you see. I was the only one she could trust ... trust ... the bitch...."

  Miles's brow twitched. “In fact, Cavilo shipped me back here herself,” he informed Oser. “General Metzov was therefore set up. But to what end? My turn, now, I think."

  Oser made the after-you gesture and stepped back. Miles tottered off his bench and into Metzov's line-of-sight. Metzov breathed rage even through the fast-penta euphoria, then grinned vilely.

  Miles decided to start with the question that had driven him most nuts the longest. “Who—what target—was your ground-attack planned to be upon?"

  “Vervain,” said Metzov.

  Even Oser's jaw dropped. The blood thudded in Miles's ears in the stunned silence.

  “Vervain is your employer,” Oser choked.

  “God—God!—finally it adds up!” Miles almost capered; it came out a stagger, which Elena lurched away from the wall to catch. “Yes, yes, yes...."

  “It's insane,” said Oser. “So that's Cavilo's surprise."

  “That's not the end of it, I'll bet. Cavilo's drop forces are bigger than ours by far, but no way are they big enough to take on a fully-settled planet like Vervain on the ground. They can only raid and run."

  “Raid and run, right,” smiled Metzov equably.

  “What was your particular target, then?” asked Miles urgently.

  “Banks ... art museums ... gene banks ... hostages...."

  “That's a pirate raid,” sai
d Oser. “What the hell were you going to do with the loot?"

  “Drop it off on Jackson's Whole, on the way out; they fence it."

  “How did you figure to escape the irate Vervani Navy, then?” asked Miles.

  “Hit them just before the new fleet comes on-line. Cetagandan invasion fleet'll catch ‘em in orbital dock. Sitting targets. Easy."

  The silence this time was utter.

  “That's Cavilo's surprise,” Miles whispered at last. “Yeah. That one's worthy of her."

  “Cetagandan ... invasion?” Oser unconsciously began to chew a fingernail.

  “God, it fits, it fits.” Miles began to pace the cubicle with uneven steps. “What's the only way to take a wormhole jump? From both sides at once. The Vervani aren't Cavilo's employers—the Cetagandans are.” He turned to point at the slack-lipped, nodding general. “And now I see Metzov's place, clear as day."

  “Pirate,” shrugged Oser.

  “No—goat."

  “What?"

  “This man—you apparently don't know—was cashiered from the Barrayaran Imperial Service for brutality."

  Oser blinked. “From the Barrayaran Service? That must have taken some doing."

  Miles bit down a twinge of irritation. “Well, yes. He, ah ... took on the wrong victim. But anyway, don't you see it? The Cetagandan invasion fleet jumps through into Vervani local space on Cavilo's invitation—probably on Cavilo's signal. The Rangers raid, do a fast trash of Vervain. The Cetagandans, out of the kindness of their hearts, ‘rescue’ the planet from the treacherous mercenaries. The Rangers run. Metzov is left behind as goat—just like throwing the guy out of the troika to the wolves,” oops, that wasn't a very Betan metaphor, “to be publicly hung by the Cetagandans to demonstrate their ‘good faith.’ See, this evil Barrayaran harmed you, you need our Imperial protection from the Barrayaran Imperial threat, and here we are.

  “And Cavilo gets paid three times. Once by the Vervani, once by the Cetagandans, and the third time by Jackson's Whole when she fences her loot on the way out. Everybody profits. Except the Vervani, of course.” He paused to catch his breath.