Brothers in Arms b-8

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  "Not really," said Galeni. "As you know, the trick is getting back in. I think you demonstrated simplest is best. I just walked out the side entrance and took the nearest tubeway. Fortunately, the duty guard had no orders to shoot me."

  "Did you know that in advance?"

  "No."

  "Then Destang knows you left."

  "He will know, certainly."

  "Think you were followed?" Miles glanced involuntarily over his shoulder. He could see the parking lot and aircar below; Elli and the two soldiers had vanished from view, seeking their vantage no doubt.

  "Not immediately. Embassy security," Galeni's teeth flashed in the shadows, "is undermanned at present. I left my wristcomm, and bought cash tokens for the tubeway instead of using my passcard, so they have nothing quick to trace me by."

  They panted to the top; the damp air moved cool against Miles's face, smelling of river slime and sea salt, a faintly decayed estuarial tang. Miles crossed the wide promenade and peered down over the railing at the synthacrete outer face of the dyke. A narrow railed ledge ran along some twenty meters below, vanishing away out of sight to the right along an outcurving bulge in the Barrier. Not part of the public area, it was reached by keyed extension ladders at intervals along the railing, all folded up and locked for the night of course. They could fuss with trying to break open and decode one of the locked ladder controls—time-consuming, and likely to light up the alarm board of some night-shift supervisor in one of the distant watchtowers—or go down the fast way.

  Miles sighed under his breath. Rappelling high over rock-hard surfaces was one of his all-time least-favorite activities. He fished the drop-wire spool from its own little pocket on his Dendarii jacket, attached the gravitic grappler carefully and firmly to the railing, and doublechecked it. At a touch, handles telescoped out from the sides of the spool and released the wide ribbon-harness that always looked horribly flimsy despite its phenomenal tensile strength. Miles threaded it round himself, clipped it tight, hopped over the rail and danced down the wall backwards, not looking down. By the time he reached the bottom his adrenalin was pumping nicely, thank you.

  He sent the spool winding itself back up to Galeni, who repeated Miles's performance. Galeni offered no comment about his feelings about heights as he handed back the device, so neither did Miles. Miles touched the control that released the grappler and rewound and pocketed the spool.

  "We go right," Miles nodded. He drew his holstered stunner. "What did you bring?"

  "I could only get one stunner." Galeni pulled it from his pocket, checked its charge and setting. "And you?"

  "Two. And a few other toys. There are severe limits to what you can carry through shuttleport security."

  "Considering how crowded this place is, I think they're wise," remarked Galeni.

  Stunners in hand, they walked single file along the ledge, Miles first. Sea water swirled and gurgled just below their feet, green-brown transluscence frosted with streaks of foam within the circles of light, silky black beyond. Judging from the discoloration, this walkway was inundated at high tide.

  Miles motioned Galeni to pause, and slipped forward. Just beyond the outcurve the walkway widened to a four-meter circle and dead-ended, the railing arcing around to meet the wall. In the wall was a doorway, a sturdy watertight oval hatch.

  Standing in front of the hatch were Galen and Mark, stunners in their hands. Mark wore black T-shirt and Dendarii grey trousers and boots, minus the pocketed jacket—his own clothes, pilfered, Miles wondered, or duplicates? His nostrils flared as he spotted his grandfather's dagger in its lizard-skin sheath at the clone's waist.

  "A stand-off," remarked Galen conversationally as Miles halted, with a glance at Miles's stunner and his own. "If we all fire at once, it leaves either me or my Miles on his feet, and the game is mine. But if by some miracle you dropped us both, we could not tell you where your oxlike cousin is. He'd die before you could find him. His death has been automated. I need not get back to him to carry it out. Quite the reverse. Your pretty bodyguard may as well join us."

  Galeni stepped around the bend. "Some stand-offs are more curious than others," he said.

  Galen's face flickered from its hard irony, lips parting in a breath of deep dismay, then tightening again even as his hand tightened on his weapon. "You were to bring the woman," he hissed.

  Miles smiled slightly. "She's around. But you said two, and we are two. Now all the interested parties are here. Now what?"

  Galen's eyes shifted, counting weapons, calculating distances, muscle, odds no doubt; Miles was doing the same.

  "The stand-off remains," said Galen. "If you're both stunned you lose; if we're both stunned you lose again. It's absurd."

  "What would you suggest?" asked Miles.

  "I propose we all lay our weapons in the center of the deck. Then we can talk without distraction."

  He's got another one concealed, thought Miles. Same as me. "An interesting proposition. Who puts his down last?"

  Galen's face was a study in unhappy calculation.

  He opened his mouth and closed it again, and shook his head slightly.

  "I too would like to talk without distraction," said Miles carefully. "I propose this schedule. I'll lay mine down first. Then M—the clone. Then yourself. Captain Galeni last."

  "What guarantee . . . ?" Galen glanced sharply at his son. The tension between them was near-sickening, a strange and silent compound of rage, despair, and anguish.

  "He'll give you his word," said Miles. He looked for confirmation to Galeni, who nodded slowly.

  Silence fell for the space of three breaths, then Galen said, "All right."

  Miles stepped forward, knelt, laid his stunner in the center of the deck, stepped back. Mark repeated his performance, staring at him the while. Galen hesitated a long, agonized moment, eyes still full of shifting calculation, then put his weapon down with the others. Galeni followed suit without hesitation. His smile was like a sword-cut. His eyes were unreadable, but for the baseline of dull pain that had lurked in them ever since his father had resurrected himself.

  "Your proposition first, then," Galen said to Miles. "If you have one."

  "Life," said Miles. "I have concealed—in a place only I know of, and if you'd stunned me you'd never have discovered it in time—a cash-credit chit for a hundred thousand Betan dollars—that's half a million Imperial marks, friends—payable to the bearer. I can give it to you, plus a head start, useful information on how to evade Barrayaran security—which is very close behind you, by the way—"

  The clone was looking extremely interested; his eyes had widened when the sum was named, and widened still further at the mention of Barrayaran security.

  "—in exchange for my cousin," Miles took a slight breath, "my brother, and your promise to—retire, and refrain from further plots against the Barrayaran Imperium. Which can only result in useless bloodshed and unnecessary pain to your few surviving relations. The war's over, Ser Galen. It's time for someone else to try something else. A different way, maybe a better way—it could scarcely be a worse way, after all."

  "The revolt," breathed Galen almost to himself, "must not die."

  "Even if everybody in it dies? 'It didn't work, so let's do it some more'? In my line of work they call that military stupidity. I don't know what they call it in civilian life."

  "My older sister once surrendered on a Barrayaran's word," Galen remarked. His face was very cold. "Admiral Vorkosigan too was full of soft and logical persuasion, promising peace."

  "My father's word was betrayed by an underling," said Miles, "who couldn't recognize when the war was over and it was time to quit. He paid for the error with his life, executed for his crime. My father gave you your revenge then. It was all he could give you; he couldn't bring those dead to life. Neither can I. I can only try to prevent more dying."

  Galen smiled sourly. "And you, David. What bribe would you offer me to betray Komarr, to lay alongside your Barrayaran master's money?
"

  Galeni was regarding his fingernails, a peculiar fey smile playing around his lips as he listened. He buffed them briefly on his trouser seam, crossed his arms, blinked. "Grandchildren?"

  Galen seemed taken aback for a bare instant. "You're not even bonded!"

  "I might be, someday. Only if I live, of course."

  "And they would all be good little Imperial subjects," sneered Galen, recovering his initial balance with an effort.

  Galeni shrugged. "Seems to fit in with Vorkosigan's offer of life. I can't give you anything else you want of me."

  "You two are more alike than either of you realize, I think," Miles murmured. "So what's your proposition, Ser Galen? Why have you called us all here?"

  Galen's right hand went to his jacket, then slowed. He smiled, tilted his head as if asking permission, disarmingly. Here comes the second stunner, thought Miles. Coyly, pretending to the last minute that it's not really a weapon. Miles didn't flinch, but an involuntary calculation did flash through his mind as to just how fast he could vault the railing, and how far he could swim underwater holding his breath in a strong surf. Wearing boots. Galeni, cool as ever, didn't move either.

  Even when the weapon Ser Galen abruptly displayed turned out to be a lethal nerve disrupter.

  "Some stand-offs," said Galen, "are more equal than others." His smile tightened to a parody of itself. "Pick up those stunners," he added to the clone, who stooped and gathered them up and stuck them in his belt.

  "Now what are you going to do with that?" said Miles lightly, trying not to let his eye be hypnotized, nor his mind paralyzed, by the silver bell-muzzle. Shiny beads, bells and whistles.

  "Kill you," Galen explained. His eyes flicked to his son, and away, toward and away; he focused on Miles as if to steady his high resolve.

  So why are you still talking instead of firing? Miles didn't speak that thought aloud, lest Galen be struck by its good sense. Keep him talking, he wants to say more, is driven to say more. "Why? I don't see how that will serve Komarr at this late hour, except maybe to relieve your feelings. Mere revenge?"

  "Nothing mere about it. Complete. My Miles will walk out of here as the only one."

  "Oh, come on!" Miles didn't have to call on his acting ability to lend outrage to his tone; it came quite naturally. "You're not still stuck on the bloody substitution plot! Barrayaran Security is all warned, they'll spot you at once now. Can't be done." He glanced at the clone. "You going to let him run you head first into a flash-disposer? You're dead meat the moment you present yourself. It's useless. And it's not necessary."

  The clone looked distinctly uneasy, but jerked up his chin and managed a proud smile. "I'm not going to be Lord Vorkosigan. I'm going to be Admiral Naismith. I did it once, so I know I can. Your Dendarii are going to give us a ride out of here—and a new power base."

  "Ngh!" Miles made a hair-tearing gesture. "D'you think I'd have walked in here if that were even remotely possible? The Dendarii are warned too. Every patrol leader out there—and you'd better believe I have patrols out there—is carrying a med scanner. First order you give, you'll be scanned. If they find leg bone where my synthetics should be, they'll blow your head off. End plot."

  "But my leg bones are synthetics," said the clone in a puzzled tone.

  Miles froze. "What? You told me your bones didn't break—"

  Galen swivelled his head round at the clone. "When did you tell him that . . . ?"

  "They don't," the clone answered Miles. "But after yours were replaced, so were mine. Otherwise the first cursory med scan I got would have given it all away."

  "But you still don't have the pattern of old breaks in your other bones . . . ?"

  "No, but that would take a much closer scan. And once the three are eliminated I should be able to avoid that. I'll study your logs—"

  "The three what?"

  "The three Dendarii who know you are Vorkosigan."

  "Your pretty bodyguard, and the other couple," Galen explained vindictively to Miles's look of horror. "I'm sorry you didn't bring her. Now we shall have to hunt her down."

  Was that a fleeting queasy look on Mark's face? Galen caught it too, and frowned faintly.

  "You still couldn't bring it off," argued Miles. "There are five thousand Dendarii. I know hundreds of them by name, on sight. We've been in combat together. I know things about them their own mothers don't, not in any log. And they've seen me under every kind of stress. You wouldn't even know the right jokes to make. And even if you succeed for a time, become Admiral Naismith as you once planned to become Emperor—where is Mark then? Maybe Mark doesn't want to be a space mercenary. Maybe he wants to be a, a textile designer. Or a doctor—"

  "Oh," breathed the clone, with a glance down his twisted body, "not a doctor …"

  "—or a holovid programmer, or a star pilot, or an engineer. Or very far away from him." Miles jerked his head at Galen; for a moment the clone's eyes filled with a passionate longing, as quickly masked. "How will you ever find out?"

  "It's true," said Galen, looking at the clone through suddenly narrowed eyes, "you must pass for an experienced soldier. And you've never killed."

  The clone shifted uneasily, looking sideways, at his mentor.

  Galen's voice had softened. "You must learn to kill if you expect to survive."

  "No, you don't," Miles put in. "Most people go through their whole lives without killing anybody. False argument."

  The nerve disrupter's aim steadied on Miles. "You talk too much." Galen's eyes fell one last time on his silent, witnessing son, who raised his chin in defiance, then flicked away as if the sight burned. "It's time to go."

  Galen, face hardening decisively, turned to the clone. "Here." He handed him the nerve disrupter. "It's time to complete your education. Shoot them, and let's go."

  "What about Ivan?" asked Captain Galeni softly.

  "I have as little use for Vorkosigan's nephew as I have for his son," said Galen. "They can skip down to hell hand in hand." His head turned to the clone and he added, "Begin!"

  Mark swallowed, and raised the weapon in a two-handed firing stance. "But—what about the credit chit?"

  "There is no credit chit. Can't you spot a lie when you hear it, fool?"

  Miles raised his wrist comm, and spoke distinctly into it. "Elli, do you have all this?"

  "Recorded and transmitted to Captain Thorne in I.Q.," Quinn's voice came back cheerily, thin in the damp air. "D'you want company yet?"

  "Not yet." He let his hand fall, stood straight, met Galen's furious eyes and clenched teeth; "As I said. End plot. Let's discuss alternatives."

  Mark had lowered the nerve disrupter, his face dismayed.

  "Alternatives? Revenge will do!" hissed Galen. "Fire!"

  "But—" said the clone, agitated.

  "As of this moment, you're a free man." Miles spoke low and fast. "He bought and paid for you, but he doesn't own you. But if you loll for him, he'll own you forever. Forever and ever."

  Not necessarily, spoke Galeni's silent quirk of the lips, but he did not interfere with Miles's pitch.

  "You must kill your enemies," snarled Galen.

  Mark's hand and aim sagged, his mouth opening in protest.

  "Now, dammit!" yelled Galen, and made to grab back the nerve disrupter.

  Galeni stepped in front of Miles. Miles scrabbled in his jacket for his second stunner. The nerve disrupter crackled. Miles drew, too late, too goddamn late—Captain Galeni gasped—he's dead for my slowness, my one-last-chance stupidity—face narrowed, mouth open in a silent yell, Miles sprang from behind Galeni and aimed his stunner—

  To see Galen crumple, convulsing, back arching in a bone-cracking twist, face writhing—and slump in death.

  "Kill your enemies," breathed Mark, his face white as paper. "Right. Ah!" he added, raising the weapon again as Miles started forward, "Stop right there!"

  A hiss at Miles's feet—he glanced down to see a thin layer of foam wash past his boots, lose momentum, and rece
de. In a moment, another. The tide was rising over the ledge. The tide was rising—

  "Where's Ivan?" Miles demanded, his hand clenching on his stunner.

  "If you fire that you'll never know," said Mark.

  His eye hurried nervously, from Miles to Galeni, from Galen's body at his feet to the weapon in his own hand, as if they all added up to some impossibly incorrect sum. His breath was shallow and panicky, his knuckles, wrapped around the nerve disrupter, bone-pale. Galeni was standing very, very still, head cocked, looking down at what lay there, or inward; he did not seem to be conscious of the weapon or its wielder at all.

  "Fine," said Miles. "You help us and we'll help you. Take us to Ivan."

  Mark backed toward the wall, not lowering the nerve disrupter. "I don't believe you."

  "Where are you going to run to? You can't go back to the Komarrans. There's a Barrayaran hit squad with murder on its collective mind breathing down your neck. You can't go to the local authorities for protection; you have a body to explain. I'm your only chance."

  Mark looked at the body, at the nerve disrupter, at Miles.

  The soft whirr of a rappel spool unwinding was barely audible over the hiss of the sea foam underfoot. Miles glanced up. Quinn was flying down in one long swoop, like a falcon stooping, weapon in one hand and rappeling spool controlled by the other.

  Mark kicked open the hatch and stumbled backwards into it. "You hunt for Ivan. He's not far. I don't have a body to explain—you do. The murder weapon has your fingerprints on it!" He flung down the nerve disrupter and slammed the hatch closed.

  Miles leapt for the door, fingers scrabbling, but it was already sealed—he came close to snapping some more finger bones. The slide and clank of a locking mechanism designed to defy the force of the sea itself came muffled through the hatch. Miles hissed through his teeth.

  "Should I blow it open?" gasped Quinn, landing.

  "Y—good God, no!" The discoloration on the wall marking high water was a good two meters higher than the top of the hatch. "We might drown London. Try to get it open without damaging it. Captain Galeni!" Miles turned. Galeni had not moved. "You in shock?"