They looked at each other. Hugo said, "May we come in?"
"Why?"
Vassily's hands clenched; he rubbed one damp-looking palm on his trouser seam. He had chosen his lieutenant's uniform today. "It's extremely urgent."
Vassily was wearing his nervous, Help-I-Am-In-The-Corrupt-Capital look again. Ekaterin was strongly tempted to shut the door on them both, leaving Vassily to be killed and eaten by whatever cannibals he imagined populated Vorbarr Sultana's alleyways—or drawing rooms. But Hugo added, "Please, Ekaterin. It really is most urgent."
Grudgingly, she gave way, and motioned them into her aunt's parlor.
They did not sit. "Is Nikki here?" Vassily asked at once.
"Yes. Why?"
"I want you to get him ready to travel immediately. I want to get him out of the capital as soon as possible."
"What? " Ekaterin almost shrieked. "Why? Now what lies have you been swallowing down whole? Ihave not seen or spoken with Lord Vorkosigan except for one short visit day before yesterday to tell him I was exiled. And you agreed to that! Hugo is my witness!"
Vassily waved his hands. "It's not that. I have a new and even more disturbing piece of information."
"If it's from the same source, you're a bigger fool than I thought possible, Vassily Vorsoisson."
"I checked it by calling Lord Richars himself. I've learned a lot more about this volatile situation in the last two days. As soon as Richars Vorrutyer is voted into the Countship of the Vorrutyer's District this morning, he intends to lay a murder charge in the Council of Counts against Lord Auditor Vorkosigan for the death of my cousin. At that point, I believe the blood will hit the walls."
Ekaterin's stomach knotted. "Oh, no! The fool . . . !"
Aunt Vorthys, attracted by the raised voices, rounded the corner from the kitchen in time to hear this. Nikki, trailing her, muted his enthusiastic cry of Uncle Hugo! at the sight of the adults' strained faces.
"Why, hello, Hugo," said Aunt Vorthys. She added uncertainly, "And, um . . . Vassily Vorsoisson, yes?" Ekaterin had given her and Nikki only the barest outline of their previous visit; Nikki had been indignant and a little frightened. Aunt Vorthys had endorsed Miles's opinion that it would be best to wait for Uncle Vorthys's return to attempt to adjust the misunderstanding.
Hugo gave her a respectful nod of greeting, and continued heavily, "I have to agree with Ekaterin, but it only supports Vassily's worries. I can't imagine what has possessed Vorrutyer to make such a move while Aral Vorkosigan himself is in town. You'd think he'd at least have the sense wait till the Viceroy returned to Sergyar before attacking his heir."
"Aral Vorkosigan!" cried Ekaterin. "Do you really think Gregor will blithely accept this assault on one of his chosen Voices? Not to mention look forgivingly on someone trying to start a huge public scandal two weeks before his wedding . . . ! Richars isn't a fool, he's mad ." Or acting in some kind of blind panic, but what did Richars have to be panicked about?
"For all I know, he is mad," said Vassily. "He's a Vorrutyer, after all. If this comes down to the sort of internecine street fighting among the high Vor we've seen in the past, no one in the capital is safe. And especially no one they've managed to draw into their orbits. I want to have Nikki well on his way before that vote comes down. The monorail lines could be cut, you know. They were during the Pretendership." He gestured to Aunt Vorthys for confirmation of this fact.
"Well, that's true," she admitted. "But even the open warfare of the Pretendership didn't lay waste to the whole of the capital. The fighting was quite focused, all in all."
"But there was fighting around the University," he flashed back.
"Some, yes."
"Did you see it?" asked Nikki, his interest immediately diverted.
"We only located it so as to go round, dear," she told him.
Vassily added a little grudgingly, "You are welcome to accompany us too, Ekaterin—and you too, of course, Madame Vorthys—or better still, take refuge with your brother." He gestured at Hugo. "It's possible, given that it's widely known you've drawn Lord Vorkosigan's attention, that you could become a target yourself."
"And hasn't it crossed your mind yet that you are being aimed by Miles's enemies at just that target? That you've let yourself be manipulated, used as their tool?" Ekaterin took a deep, calming breath. "Has it occurred to either of you that Richars Vorrutyer may not be voted the Countship? That it could go to Lord Dono instead?"
"That crazy woman?" said Vassily in astonishment. "Impossible!"
"Neither crazy nor a woman," said Ekaterin. "And if he becomes Count Vorrutyer, this entire exercise of yours comes to nothing."
"Not a chance I propose to bet my life—or Nikki's—on, madame," said Vassily stiffly. "If you choose to stay here and bear the risks, well, I shall not argue with you. I have an absolute obligation to protect Nikki, however."
"So do I," said Ekaterin levelly.
"But Mama," said Nikki, clearly trying to unravel this rapid debate, "Lord Vorkosigan didn't murder Da."
Vassily bent slightly, and gave him a pained, sympathetic smile. "But how do you know, Nikki?" he asked gently. "How does anyone know? That's the trouble."
Nikki closed his lips abruptly, and stared uncertainly at Ekaterin. She realized that he didn't know just how private his private interview with the Emperor was supposed to remain—and neither did she.
She had to admit, Vassily's anxiety was contagious. Hugo had clearly taken a fever of it. And while it had been a long time since strife among the Counts had seriously threatened the stability of the Imperium, that wouldn't make you any less dead if you had the bad luck to be caught in a cross-fire before Imperial troops arrived to shut it down. "Vassily, this close to Gregor's wedding, the capital is crawling with Security. Anyone—of any rank—who made the least move toward public disorder at the moment would find himself slapped down so fast he wouldn't know what hit him. Your fears are . . . exaggerated." She'd wanted to say, groundless . But what if Richars did win his Countship, and its concomitant right to lay criminal charges against his new peers in the Council?
Vassily shook his head. "Lord Vorkosigan has made a dangerous enemy."
"Lord Vorkosigan is a dangerous enemy!" She bit her tongue, too late.
Vassily stared at her a moment, shook his head, and turned to Nikki. "Nikki, get your things. I'm taking you away."
Nikki looked at Ekaterin. "Mama?" he said uncertainly.
What was it Miles had said about being ambushed by your habits? Time and again, she'd yielded to Tien's wishes over matters pertaining to Nikki, even when she'd disagreed with him, because he was Nikki's father, because he had a right, but most of all because to force Nikki to choose between his two parents seemed a cruelty little short of ripping him apart. Nikki had always been off-limits as a pawn in their conflicts. That Nikki had been Tien's hostage in the peculiar gender bias of Barrayar's custody laws had been a secondary consideration, though it was a wall she'd felt press against her back more than once.
But dammit, she'd never taken an oath of honor to Vassily Vorsoisson. He didn't hold half of Nikki's heart. What if, instead of player and pawn, she and Nikki were suddenly allies, beleaguered equals? What then was possible?
She folded her arms and said nothing.
Vassily reached for Nikki's hand. Nikki dodged around Ekaterin, and cried, "Mama, I don't have to go, do I? I was supposed to go to Arthur's tonight! I don't want to go with Vassily!" His voice was edged with sharp distress.
Vassily inhaled, and attempted to recover his balance and his dignity. "Madame, control your child!"
She stared at him for a long moment. "Why, Vassily," she said at last, her voice silky, "I thought you were revoking my authority over Nikki. You certainly don't seem to trust my judgment for his safety and well-being. How shall I control him, then?"
Aunt Vorthys, catching the nuance, winced; Hugo, father of three, also got it. She had just given Nikki tacit permission to go to his limit. Bachelor Vassily miss
ed the curve.
Aunt Vorthys began faintly, "Vassily, do you really think this is wise—"
Vassily held out a hand, more sternly. "Nikki. Come along. We must catch the eleven-oh-five train out of North Gate Station!"
Nikki put his hands behind his back, and said valiantly, "No."
Vassily said in a tone of final warning, "If I have to pick you up and carry you, I will!"
Nikki returned breathlessly, "I'll scream. I'll tell everybody you're kidnapping me. I'll tell them you're not my father. And it'll all be true!"
Hugo looked increasingly alarmed. "For God's sake, don't drive the boy into hysterics, Vassily. They can keep it up for hours . And everybody stares at you as if you were the reincarnation of Pierre Le Sanguinaire. Little old ladies come up and threaten you—"
"Like this one," Aunt Vorthys interrupted. "Gentlemen, let me dissuade you—"
The harassed and reddening Vassily made another grab, but Nikki was quicker, dodging around the Professora this time. "I'll tell them you're kidnapping me for `moral purposes' !" he declaimed from behind this ample barrier.
Vassily asked Hugo in a shocked voice, "How does he know about that sort of thing?"
Hugo waved this away. "He probably just heard the phrase. Children repeat things like that, you know."
Vassily clearly didn't. A poor memory, perhaps?
"Nikki, look," said Hugo, in a voice of reason, bending a little to peer at the boy in his refuge behind the seething Professora. "If you don't want to go with Vassily, suppose you come and visit me and Aunt Rosalie, and Edie and the boys, for a little while instead?"
Nikki hesitated. So did Ekaterin. This ploy might have been made to work, with another push, but Vassily took advantage of the momentary distraction to make another grab at Nikki's arm.
"Ha! Got you!"
"Ow! Ow! Ow!" screamed Nikki.
Perhaps it was because Vassily didn't have the trained parental ear that could instantly distinguish between real pain and noise for effect, but when Ekaterin started grimly forward, he flinched back, his grip unconsciously loosening. Nikki broke away, and ran for the hall stairs.
"I'm not going!" Nikki yelled over his shoulder, scrambling up the stairs. "I'm not, I won't! You can't make me. Mama doesn't want me to go!" At the top he whirled to fling frantically back, as Vassily, baited into chasing him, reached the bottom, "You'll be sorry you made my mama unhappy!"
Hugo, ten years older and vastly more experienced, shook his head in exasperation and followed more slowly. Aunt Vorthys, looking very distressed and a little gray, brought up the rear. From above, a door slammed.
Ekaterin arrived, her heart hammering, in the upper hallway as Vassily bent over the door to her uncle's study and rattled the knob.
"Nikki! Open this door! Unlock it at once, do you hear me?" Vassily turned to look beseechingly at Ekaterin. "Do something!"
Ekaterin leaned her back against the opposite wall, folded her arms again, and smiled slowly. "I only know one man who was ever able to talk Nikki out of a locked room. And he isn't here."
"Order him out!"
"If you are indeed insisting on taking custody of him, Vassily, this is your problem," Ekaterin told him coolly. She let The first of many stand implied.
Hugo, stumping breathlessly up the stairs, offered, "Eventually, they do calm down and come out. Sooner if there's no food in there."
"Nikki," said Aunt Vorthys distantly, "knows where the Professor hides his cookies."
Vassily stood up, and stared at the heavy wood and old iron hardware. "We could break it down, I suppose," he said hesitantly.
"Not in my house, Vassily Vorsoisson!" Aunt Vorthys said.
Vassily gestured at Ekaterin. "Fetch me a screwdriver, then!"
She didn't move. "Find it yourself." She didn't add, you blundering nitwit aloud, quite, but it seemed to be understood.
Vassily flushed angrily, but bent again. "What's he doing in there? I hear voices."
Hugo bent too. "He's using the comconsole, I think."
Aunt Vorthys glanced briefly down the hallway toward her bedroom door. From which there was a door to the bath, from which there was another door into the Professor's study. Well, if Aunt Vorthys wasn't going to point out this alternate and unguarded route to the two men now pressing their ears to the door, why should Ekaterin?
"I hear two voices. Who in the world could he be calling on the comconsole?" asked Vassily, in a dismissive tone that didn't invite an answer.
Suddenly, Ekaterin thought she knew. Her breath caught. "Oh," she said faintly, "dear ." Aunt Vorthys stared at her.
For a hysterical moment, Ekaterin considered dashing around and diving through the alternate doors, to shut down the comconsole before it was too late. But the echo of a laughing voice drifted through her mind . . . Let's see what happens.
Yes. Let's.
* * *
One of Boriz Vormoncrief's allied Counts droned on in the Speaker's Circle. Miles wondered how much longer these delaying tactics could continue. Gregor was starting to look mighty bored.
The Emperor's personal Armsman appeared from the little conference chamber, mounted the dais, and murmured something into his master's ear. Gregor looked briefly surprised, returned a few words, and motioned the man off. He made a small gesture to the Lord Guardian of the Speaker's Circle, who trod over to him. Miles tensed, expecting Gregor was about to call a halt to the filibuster and command the voting to begin, but instead the Lord Guardian merely nodded, and returned to his bench. Gregor rose, and ducked through the door behind the dais. The speaking Count glanced aside at this motion, hesitated, then carried on. It might not be significant, Miles told himself; even Emperors had to go to the bathroom now and then.
Miles seized the moment to key his wristcom again. "Pym? What's up with Dono?"
"Just got a confirmation from Vorrutyer House," Pym returned after a moment. "Dono's on his way. Captain Vorpatril is escorting him."
"Only now ?"
"He apparently only arrived home less than an hour ago."
"What was he doing all night?" Surely Dono hadn't picked the night before the vote to go tomcatting with Ivan—on the other hand, maybe he'd wanted to prove something. . . . "Never mind. Just be sure he gets here all right."
"We're on it, m'lord."
Gregor indeed returned in about the amount of time it would have taken him to take a leak. He settled back in his seat without interfering with the Speaker's Circle, but he cast an odd, exasperated, faintly bemused glance in Miles's direction. Miles sat up and stared back, but Gregor gave him no further clue, returning instead to his usual impassive expression that could conceal anything from terminal boredom to fury.
Miles would not give his adversaries the satisfaction of seeing him bite his nails. The Conservatives were going to run out of speakers very soon, unless more of their men arrived. Miles did another head count, or rather, survey of empty desks. The turnout was high today, for this important vote. Vortugalov and his deputy remained absent, as Lady Alys had promised. Also missing, more inexplicably, were Vorhalas, Vorpatril, Vorfolse, and Vormuir. Since three and possibly all four of these were votes secured and counted on by the Conservative faction, this was no loss. He began doodling a winding garland of knives, swords, and small explosions down the other margin of his flimsy, and waited some more.
* * *
" . . . one hundred eighty-nine, one-hundred-ninety, one-hundred ninety-one," Enrique counted, in a tone of great satisfaction.
Kareen paused in her task at the laboratory comconsole, and leaned around the display to watch the Escobaran scientist. Assisted by Martya, he was finishing the final inventory of recovered Vorkosigan liveried butter bugs, simultaneously reintroducing them into their newly cleaned stainless steel hutch propped open on the lab bench.
"Only nine individuals still missing," Enrique went on happily. "Less than five percent attrition; an acceptable loss for an accident of this unfortunate nature, I think. As long as I have
you , my darling."
He turned to Martya, and reached past her to lift the jar containing the queen Vorkosigan butter bug, which had been brought in only last night by Armsman Jankowski's triumphant younger daughter. He tipped the jar and coaxed the bug out onto his waiting palm. The queen had grown some two centimeters longer during the rigors of her escape, according to Enrique's measurements, and now filled his hand and hung out over the sides. He held her up to his face, and made encouraging little kissing noises at her, and stroked her stubby wing carapaces with his fingertip. She clung on tightly with her claws, drawing blood, and hissed back at him.
"They make that noise when they're happy," Enrique informed Martya, in response to her doubtful stare.
"Oh," said Martya.
"Would you like to pet her?" He held out the giant bug invitingly.
"Well . . . why not?" Martya, too, attempted the experiment, and was rewarded by another hiss, as the bug arched her back. Martya smiled crookedly.
Privately, Kareen thought any man whose idea of a good time was to feed, pet, and care for a creature that mainly responded to his worship with hostile noises was going to get along great with Martya. Enrique, after a few more heartening chirps, tipped the queen into the steel hutch to be swarmed over, groomed, cosseted, and fed by her worker-progeny.
Kareen vented a mellow sigh, and returned her attention to deciphering Mark's scrawled notes on the cost-price analysis of their top five proposed food products. Naming them all was going to be a challenge. Mark's ideas tended to the bland, and there was no point in asking Miles, whose embittered suggestions all ran to things like Vomit Vanilla and Cockroach Crunch.
Vorkosigan House was very quiet this morning. Any Armsmen that Miles hadn't borrowed had gone off with the Viceroy and Vicereine to some fancy political breakfast being held in honor of the Empress-to-be. Most of the staff had been granted the morning off. Mark had seized the opportunity—and Ma Kosti, who was becoming their permanent product development consultant—and left to look at a small dairy packaging plant in operation. Tsipis had found a similar packager in Hassadar that was moving to a larger location, and had drawn Mark's attention to their abandoned facility as a possible venue for the pilot plant for bug butter products.
A Civil Campaign b-12 Page 47
