Brothers in Arms b-8

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  "We're not early," she muttered, "not late, the address is right . . . where are they?"

  He could not very well answer and stay in character. Elli released him, switched the light to her left hand and re-drew her stunner. "You're too tanked to wander far," she decided, as if talking to herself. "I'm going to take a look around."

  One of Miles's eyelids shivered in acknowledgement. Until she finished checking for remote bugs and scanner beams, he had better keep playing Lord Vorkosigan in a convincingly kidnapped state. After a moment's hesitation, she took to the stairs. Taking the light with her, dammit.

  He was still listening to the swift, faint creak of her footsteps overhead when the hand closed over his mouth and the back of his neck was kissed by a stunner on very light power, zero range.

  He convulsed, kicking, trying to shout, trying to bite. His assailant hissed in pain and clutched harder. There were two—his hands were yanked up behind his back, a gag stuffed into his mouth before his teeth could snap closed on the hand that fed him. The gag was permeated with some sweet, penetrating drug; his nostrils flared wildly, but his vocal cords went involuntarily slack. He seemed out of touch with his body, as if it had moved leaving no forwarding address. Then a pale light came up.

  Two large men, one younger, one older, dressed in Earther clothing, shifted in the shadows, faintly blurred. Scanner shields, dammit! And very, very good ones, to beat the Dendarii equipment. Miles spotted the boxes belted to their waists—a tenth the size of the latest thing his people had. Such tiny power packs—they looked new. The Barrayaran embassy was going to have to update its secured areas . . . He went cross-eyed, for a mad moment, trying' to read the maker's mark on them, until he saw the third man.

  Oh, the third. I've lost it, Miles's panicked thought' gyrated. Gone right over the edge. The third man was himself.

  The alter-Miles, neatly turned out in Barrayaran: dress greens, stepped forward to stare long and strangely, hungrily, into his face as he was held up by the two younger men. He began emptying the contents of Miles's pockets into his own. Stunner . . . IDs . . . half a pack of clove breath mints . . . He frowned at the breath mints as if momentarily puzzled, then pocketed them with a shrug. He pointed to Miles's waist.

  Miles's grandfather's dagger had been willed explicitly to him. The 300-year-old blade was still flexible as rubber, sharp as glass. Its jewelled hilt concealed die Vorkosigan seal. They took it from beneath his jacket. The alter-Miles shrugged the sheath-strap over his shoulder and refastened his tunic. Finally, he unhooked the scanner-shield belt from his own waist and slipped it swiftly around Miles.

  The alter-Miles's eyes were hot with an exhilarated terror, as he paused to sweep one last glance over Miles. Miles had seen the look once before, in his own face in the mirrored wall of a tube station.

  No.

  He'd seen it on this one's face in the mirrored wall of a tube station.

  He must have been standing feet away that night, behind Miles at an angle. In the wrong uniform. The green one, at a moment Miles was wearing his Dendarii greys.

  Looks like they managed to get it right this time, though. …

  "Perfect," growled the alter-Miles, freed of the scanner-shield's sonic muffling. "We didn't even have to stun the woman. She'll suspect nothing. Told you this would work." He inhaled, jerked up his chin, .and smiled sardonically at Miles.

  Posturing little martinet, Miles thought poisonously. I'll get you for that.

  Well, I always was my own worst enemy.

  The switch had taken only seconds. They carried Miles through the doorway at the back of the room. With a heroic twitch, he managed to bump his head on the frame, going through.

  "What was that?" Elli's voice called instantly from upstairs.

  "Me," the alter-Miles called back promptly. "I just checked around. There's nobody down here either. This is a wash-out."

  "You think?" Miles heard her cantering down the stairs. "We could wait a while."

  Elli's wristcom chimed. "Elli?" came Ivan's voice thinly. "I just got a funny blip in the scanners a minute ago."

  Miles's heart lurched in hope.

  "Check again." The alter-Miles's voice was cool.

  "Nothing, now."

  "Nothing here either. I'm afraid something's panicked them, and they've aborted. Pull in the perimeter and take me back to the embassy, Commander Quinn.

  "So soon? You sure?"

  "Now, yes. That's an order."

  "You're the boss. Damn," said Elli regretfully "I had my heart set on that hundred thousand Betan dollars."

  Their syncopated footsteps echoed out the hallway and were muted by the closing door. The purr of a groundcar faded in the distance. Darkness, silence scored by breathing.

  They dragged Miles along again, out a back door, through a narrow mews and into the back seat of a groundcar parked in the alley. They sat him up like a mannequin between them, while a third kidnapper drove. Miles's thoughts spun dizzily along the edge of consciousness. Goddamn scanners . . . five-year-old technology from the rim zone, which put it maybe ten years behind Earth's—they'd have to bite the budget bullet and scrap the Dendarii scanner system fleet-wide, now—if he lived to order it. … Scanners, hell. The fault didn't lie in the scanners. Wasn't the formerly-mythical unicorn hunted with mirrors, to fascinate the vainglorious beast while its killers circled for the strike? Must be a virgin around here somewhere. . . .

  This was an ancient district. The tortuous route the groundcar was taking could be either to confuse him or merely the best shortcut local knowledge could supply. After about a quarter hour they dove into an underground parking garage and hissed to a halt. The garage was small, clearly private, with room for only a few vehicles.

  They hauled him to a lift tube and ascended one level to a short hallway. One of the goons pulled off Miles's boots and scanner-shield belt. The stun was starting to wear off. His legs were rubbery, shot with pins and needles, but at least they propped him up. They released his wrists; clumsily, he tried to rub his aching arms. They popped the gag from his mouth. He emitted a wordless croak.

  They unlocked a door in front of him and bundled him into a windowless room. The door closed behind with a click like trap jaws snapping. He staggered and stood, feet spread a little, panting.

  A sealed light fixture in the ceiling illuminated a narrow room furnished only with two hard benches along the walls. To the left a doorframe with the door removed led to a tiny, windowless washroom.

  A man, wearing only green trousers, cream shirt, and socks, lay curled on one of the benches, facing the wall. Stiffly, gingerly, he rolled over and sat up.

  One hand flung up automatically, as if to shield his reddened eyes from some too-bright light; the other pressed the bench to keep him from toppling. Dark hair mussed, a four-day beard stubble. His shirt collar hung open in a V, revealing a throat strangely vulnerable, in contrast to the usual turtle-armored effect of the high, closed Barrayaran tunic collar. His face was furrowed.

  The impeccable Captain Galeni. Rather the worse for wear.

  Chapter Eight

  Galeni squinted at Miles. "Bloody hell," he said in a flattened voice.

  "Same to you," Miles rasped back.

  Galeni sat up straighter, bleary eyes narrowing with suspicion. "Or—is it you?"

  "I don't know." Miles considered this. "Which me were you expecting?" He staggered over to the bench opposite before his knees gave way and sat, his back against the wall, feet not quite reaching the floor. They were both silent for a few minutes, taking in the details of the other.

  "It would be pointless to throw us together in the same room unless it were monitored," said Miles at last.

  For answer Galeni flipped an index finger up toward the light fixture.

  "Ah. Visual too?"

  "Yes."

  Miles bared his teeth and smiled upward.

  Galeni was still regarding him with wary, almost painful uncertainty.

  Miles cleared his thr
oat. There was a bitter tang lingering in his mouth. "I take it you've met my alter-ego?"

  "Yesterday. I think it was yesterday." Galeni glanced at the light.

  His kidnappers had relieved Miles of his own chrono, too. "It's now about one in the morning, of the start of the fifth day since you disappeared from the embassy," Miles supplied, answering Galeni's unspoken question. "Do they leave that light on all the time?"

  "Yes."

  "Ah." Miles fought down a queasy twinge of associative memory. Continuous illumination was a Cetagandan prison technique for inducing temporal disorientation. Admiral Naismith was intimately familiar with it.

  "I saw him for just a few seconds," Miles went on, "when they made the switch." His hand touched the absence of a dagger, massaged the back of his neck. "Do I—really look like that?"

  "I thought it was you. Till the end. He told me he was practicing. Testing."

  "Did he pass?"

  "He was in here for four or five hours."

  Miles winced. "That's bad. That's very bad."

  "I thought so."

  "I see." A sticky silence filled the room. "Well, historian. And how do you tell a forgery from the real thing?"

  Galeni shook his head, then touched his hand to his temple as though he wished he hadn't; blinding headache, apparently. Miles had one too. "I don't believe I know anymore." Galeni added reflectively, "He saluted."

  A dry grin cracked one corner of Miles's mouth. "Of course, there could be just one of me, and all this a ploy to drive you crazy. …"

  "Stop that!" Galeni almost shouted. A ghastly answering smile lit his face for a moment nonetheless.

  Miles glanced up at the light. "Well, whoever I am, you should still be able to tell me who they are. Ah-— I hope it's not the Cetagandans? I would find that just a little too weird for comfort, in light of my . . . duplicate. He's a surgical construct, I trust." Not a clone—please, don't let him be my clone. . . .

  "He said he was a clone," said Galeni. "Of course, at least half of what he said was lies, whoever he was."

  "Oh." Stronger exclamations seemed wholly inadequate.

  "Yes. It made me rather wonder about you. The original you, that is."

  "Ah . . . hem! Yes. I think I know now why I popped out with that . . . that story when the reporter cornered me. I'd seen him once before. In the tubeway, when I was out with Commander Quinn. Eight, ten days ago now. They must have been maneuvering in to make the switch. I thought I was seeing myself in the mirror. But he was wearing the wrong uniform, and they must have aborted."

  Galeni glanced down at his own sleeve. "Didn't you notice?"

  "I had a lot on my mind."

  "You never reported this!"

  "I was on some pain meds. I thought it might be a little hallucination. I was a bit stressed out. By the time I'd got back to the embassy I'd forgotten about it. And besides," he smirked weakly, "I didn't think our working relationship would benefit from planting serious doubts about my sanity."

  Galeni's lips compressed with exasperation, then softened with something like despair. "Perhaps not."

  It alarmed Miles, to see despair in Galeni's face. He babbled on, "Anyway, I was relieved to realize I hadn't suddenly become clairvoyant. I'm afraid my subconscious must be brighter than the rest of my brain. I just didn't get its message." He pointed upward again, "Not Cetagandans?"

  "No." Galeni leaned back against the far wall, stone-faced. "Komarrans."

  "Ah," Miles choked. "A Komarran plot. How . . . fraught."

  Galeni's mouth twisted. "Quite."

  "Well," said Miles thinly, "they haven't killed us yet. There must be some reason to keep us alive."

  Galeni's lips drew back on a deathly grin, his eyes crinkling. "None whatsoever." The words came out in a wheezing chuckle, abruptly cut off. A private joke between Galeni and the light fixture, apparently. "He imagines he has reason," Galeni explained, "but he's very mistaken." The bitter thrust of those words was also directed upward.

  "Well, don't tell them," said Miles through his teeth. He took a deep breath. "Come on, Galeni, spill it. What happened the morning you disappeared from the embassy?"

  Galeni sighed, and seemed to compose himself. "I got a call that morning. From an old . . . Komarran acquaintance. Asking me to meet him."

  "There was no log of a call. Ivan checked your comconsole."

  "I erased it. That was a mistake, though I didn't realize it at the time. But something he'd said led me to think this might be a lead into the mystery of your peculiar orders."

  "So I did convince you my orders had to have been screwed up."

  "Oh, yes. But it was clear that if that were so, my embassy Security had been penetrated, compromised from the inside. It was probably through the courier. But I dared not lay such a charge without adducing objective evidence."

  "The courier, yes," said Miles. "That was my second choice."

  Galeni's brows lifted. "What was your first choice?"

  "You, I'm afraid."

  Galeni's sour smile said it all.

  Miles shrugged in embarrassment. "I figured you'd made off with my eighteen million marks. Except if you had, why hadn't you absconded? And then you absconded."

  "Oh," said Galeni in turn.

  "All the facts fit, then," Miles explained. "I had you pegged as an embezzler, deserter, thief, and all-around Komarran son of a bitch."

  "So what kept you from laying charges to that effect?"

  "Nothing, unfortunately." Miles cleared his throat. "Sorry."

  Galeni's face went faintly green, too dismayed even to get up a convincing glare, though he tried.

  "Too right," said Miles. "If we don't get out of here, your name is going to be mud."

  "All for nothing …" Galeni braced his back to the wall, his head tilting back against it for support, eyes closing as if in pain.

  Miles contemplated the probable political consequences, should he and Galeni disappear now without further trace. Investigators must find his embezzlement theory even more exciting than he had, compounded now by kidnapping, murder, elopement, God knew what. The scandal could be guaranteed to rock the Komarran integration effort to its foundations, perhaps destroy it altogether. Miles glanced across the room at the man his father had chosen to take a chance on. A kind of redemption . . .

  That alone could be enough reason for the Komarran underground to murder them both. But the existence of the—oh God, not a clone!—alter-Miles suggested that this slander upon Galeni's character, courtesy of Miles, was merely a happy bonus from the Komarran viewpoint. He wondered if they'd be properly grateful.

  "So you went to meet this man," Miles prodded. "Without taking a beeper or a backup."

  "Yes."

  "And promptly got yourself kidnapped. And you criticize my Security techniques!"

  "Yes." Galeni's eyes opened. "Well, no. We had lunch first."

  "You sat down to lunch with this guy? Or—was she pretty?" Miles awoke to Galeni's choice of pronoun, back when he'd been addressing edged remarks to the light fixture. No, not a pretty.

  "Hardly. But he did attempt to suborn me."

  "Did he succeed?"

  At Galeni's withering glare, Miles explained, "Making this entire conversation a play for my benefit, y'see."

  Galeni grimaced, half irritation, half wry agreement. Forgeries and originals, truth and lies, how were they to be tested here?

  "I told him to get stuffed." Galeni said this loudly enough that the light fixture couldn't possibly miss it. "I should have realized, in the course of our argument, that he had told me entirely too much about what was really going on to dare let me go. But we exchanged guarantees, I turned my back on him … let sentiment cloud my judgment. He did not. And so I ended up here." Galeni glanced around their narrow cell, "For a little time yet. Until he gets over his surge of sentiment. As he will, eventually." Defiance, glared at the light fixture.

  Miles drew breath cold, cold through his teeth. "Must have been a pretty compe
lling old acquaintance."

  "Oh yes." Galeni closed his eyes again, as if he contemplated escaping Miles, and this whole tangle, by retreating into sleep.

  Galeni's stiff, halting movements hinted of torture. . . . "They been urging you to change your mind? Or interrogating you the old hard way?"

  Galeni's eyes slitted open; he touched the purple splotch under the left one. "No, they have fast-penta for interrogation. No need to get physical. I've been round on it, three, four times. There's not much they don't know about embassy Security by now."

  "Why the contusions, then?"

  "I made a break for it … yesterday, I guess. The three fellows who tackled me look worse, I assure you. They must still be hoping I'll change my mind."

  "Couldn't you have pretended to cooperate at least long enough to get away?" said Miles in exasperation.

  Galeni's eyes snapped truculently. "Never," he hissed. The spasm of rage evaporated with a weary sigh. "I suppose I should have. Too late now."

  Had they scrambled the captain's brains with their drugs? If old cold Galeni had let emotion ambush his reason to that extent, well—it must be a bloody strong emotion. The down-deep deadlies that IQ could do nothing about.

  "I don't suppose they'd buy an offer to cooperate from me," Miles said glumly.

  Galeni's voice returned to its original drawl. "Hardly."

  "Right."

  A few minutes later Miles remarked, "It can't be a clone, y'know."

  "Why not?" said Galeni.

  "Any clone of mine, grown from my body cells, ought to look—well, rather like Ivan. Six feet tall or so and not . . . distorted in his face and spine. With good bones, not these chalk-sticks. Unless," horrid thought, "the medics have been lying to me all my life about my genes."

  "He must have been distorted to match," Galeni offered thoughtfully. "Chemically or surgically or both. No harder to do that to your clone than to any other surgical construct. Maybe easier."