Kareen's morning commute to work had been short. Last night, she'd claimed her first sleepover at Vorkosigan House. To her secret joy, she and Mark had been treated neither as children nor criminals nor idiots, but with the same respect as any other pair of adults. They'd closed Mark's bedroom door on what was no one's business but their own. Mark had gone off to his tasks whistling this morning—off-key, as he apparently shared his progenitor-brother's total lack of musical talent. Kareen hummed under her breath rather more melodically.
She broke off at a tentative knock on the laboratory doorframe. One of the maidservants stood there, looking worried. In general, Vorkosigan House's service staff avoided the laboratory corridor. Some were afraid of the butter bugs. More were afraid of the teetering stacks of one-liter bug butter tubs, now lining the hallway to over head-height on both sides. All had learned that to venture down here invited being dragged into the laboratory to taste test new bug butter products. This last hazard had certainly cut down on the noise and interruptions. This young lady, as Kareen recalled, shared all three aversions.
"Miss Koudelka, Miss Koudelka . . . Dr. Borgos, you have visitors."
The maid stepped aside to admit two men to the laboratory. One was thin, and the other was . . . big. They both wore travel-rumpled suits in what Kareen recognized from life with Enrique as the Escobaran style. The thin man, youngish-middle-aged or young with middle-aged mannerisms, it was hard to tell, clutched a folder stuffed with flimsies. The big one merely hulked.
The thin man stepped forward, and addressed Enrique. "Are you Dr. Enrique Borgos?"
Enrique perked up at the Escobaran accent, a breath of home no doubt after his long, lonely exile among Barrayarans. "Yes?"
The thin man flung up his free hand in a gesture of rejoicing. "At last!"
Enrique smiled with shy eagerness. "Oh, you have heard of my work? Are you, by chance . . . investors?"
"Hardly." The thin man grinned fiercely. "I am Parole Officer Oscar Gustioz—this is my assistant, Sergeant Muno. Dr. Borgos—" Officer Gustioz placed a formal hand upon Enrique's shoulder, "you are under arrest by order of the Cortes Planetaris de Escobar for fraud, grand theft, failure to appear in court, and forfeiture of posted bond."
"But," sputtered Enrique, "this is Barrayar! You can't arrest me here!"
"Oh, yes I can," said Officer Gustioz grimly. He flopped down the file folder on the lab stool Martya had just vacated, and flipped it open. "I have here, in order, the official arrest order from the Cortes," he began to turn over flimsies, all stamped and creased and scrawled upon, "the preliminary consent for extradition from the Barrayaran Embassy on Escobar, with the three intermediate applications, approved, the final consent from the Imperial Office here in Vorbarr Sultana, the preliminary and final orders from the Vorbarra District Count's office, eighteen separate permissions to transport a prisoner from the Barrayaran Imperial jump-point stations between here and home, and last but not least, the clearance from the Vorbarr Sultana Municipal Guard, signed by Lord Vorbohn himself. It took me over a month to fight my way through all this bureaucratic obstruction, and I am not spending another hour on this benighted world. You may pack one bag, Dr. Borgos."
"But," cried Kareen, "but Mark paid Enrique's bail! We bought him—he's ours now!"
"Forfeiture of bond does not erase criminal charges, Miss," the Escobaran officer informed her stiffly. "It adds to them."
"But—why arrest Enrique and not Mark?" asked Martya, puzzling through all this. She stared down at the stack of flimsies.
"Don't make suggestions," Kareen huffed at her under her breath.
"If you are referring to the dangerous lunatic known as Lord Mark Pierre Vorkosigan, Miss, I tried. Believe me, I tried. I spent a week and a half trying to get the documentation. He carries a Class III Diplomatic Immunity that covers him for nearly everything short of outright murder. In addition, I found I had only to pronounce his last name correctly to produce the most damn-all stone wall obtuseness from every Barrayaran clerk, secretary, embassy officer and bureaucrat I encountered. For a while, I thought I was going mad. At last, I became reconciled to my despair."
"The medications helped, too, I thought, sir," Muno observed amiably. Gustioz glowered at him.
"But you are not escaping me," Gustioz continued to Enrique. "One bag. Now."
"You can't just barge in here and take him away, with no warning or anything!" Kareen protested.
"Do you have any idea the effort and attention I had to expend to assure that he was not warned?" said Gustioz.
"But we need Enrique! He's everything to our new company! He's our entire research and development department. Without Enrique, there will never be any Barrayaran-vegetation-eating butter bugs!"
Without Enrique, they would have no nascent bug butter industry—her shares would be worth nothing. All her summer's work, all Mark's frantic organizational efforts, would be flushed down the drain. No profits—no income—no adult independence—no hot slippery fun sex with Mark—nothing but debts, and dishonor, and a bunch of smug family members all lining up to say I told you so . . . "You can't take him!"
"On the contrary, miss," said Officer Gustioz, gathering up his stack of flimsies, "I can and I will."
"But what will happen to Enrique on Escobar?" asked Martya.
"Trial," said Gustioz in a voice of ghoulish satisfaction, "followed by jail, I devoutly pray. For a long, long time. I hope they append court costs. The comptroller is going to scream when I turn in my travel vouchers. It will be like a vacation, my supervisor said. You'll be back in two weeks, she said. I haven't seen my wife and family in two months . . ."
"But that's utterly wasteful," said Martya indignantly. "Why shut him up in a box on Escobar, when he could be doing humanity some real good here ?" She was calculating the rapidly dwindling value of her shares too, Kareen guessed.
"That is between Dr. Borgos and his irate creditors," Gustioz told her. "I'm just doing my job. Finally."
Enrique looked terribly distressed. "But who will take care of all my poor little girls? You don't understand!"
Gustioz hesitated, and said in a disturbed tone, "There was no reference to any dependents in my orders." He stared in confusion at Kareen and Martya.
Martya said, "How did you get in here, anyway? How did you get past the ImpSec gate guard?"
Gustioz brandished his rumpled folder. "Page by page. It took forty minutes."
"He insisted on checking every one," Sergeant Muno explained.
Martya said urgently to the maid, "Where's Pym?"
"Gone with Lord Vorkosigan, miss."
"Jankowski?"
"Him, too."
"Anyone?"
"All the rest are gone with m'lord and m'lady."
"Damn! What about Roic?"
"He's sleeping, Miss."
"Fetch him down here."
"He won't like being waked up off-duty, miss . . ." the maid said nervously.
"Fetch him!"
Reluctantly, the maid started to drag herself out.
"Muno," said Gustioz, who'd watched this by-play with growing unease, "now." He gestured at Enrique.
"Yes, sir." Muno gripped Enrique by the elbow.
Martya grabbed Enrique's other arm. "No! Wait! You can't take him!"
Gustioz frowned at the retreating maid. "Let's go, Muno."
Muno pulled. Martya pulled back. Enrique cried, "Ow!" Kareen grabbed the first weaponlike object that came to her hand, a metal meter stick, and circled in. Gustioz tucked his folder of flimsies up under his arm and reached to detach Martya.
"Hurry!" Kareen screeched at the maid, and tried to trip Muno by thrusting the meter stick between his knees. The whole mob was circling around the stretching Enrique as the pivot-point, and she succeeded. Muno released Enrique, who fell toward Martya and Gustioz. In a wild attempt to regain his balance, Muno's hand came down hard on the corner of the bug hutch peeping over the lab bench.
The stainless steel box flipped in
to the air. One-hundred-ninety-two astonished brown-and-silver butter bugs were launched in a vast chittering madly fluttering trajectory out over the lab. Since butter bugs had the aerodynamic capacity of tiny bricks, they rained down upon the struggling humans, and crunch-squished underfoot. The hutch clanged to the floor, along with Muno. Gustioz, attempting to shield himself from this unexpected air assault, lost his grip on his folder; colorfully-stamped documents joined butter bugs in fluttering flight. Enrique howled like a man possessed. Muno just screamed, frantically batted bugs off himself, and tried to climb up on the lab stool.
"Now see what you've done!" Kareen yelled at the Escobaran officers. "Vandalism! Assault! Destruction of property! Destruction of a Vor lord's property, on Barrayar itself! Are you in trouble now!"
"Ack!" cried Enrique, trying to stand on tiptoe to reduce the carnage below. "My girls! My poor girls! Watch where you put your feet , you mindless murderers!"
The queen, who due to her weight had had a shorter trajectory, scuttled away under the lab bench.
"What are those horrible things?" yipped Muno, from his perch on the teetering stool.
"Poison bugs," Martya informed him venomously. "New Barrayaran secret weapon. Everywhere they touch you, your flesh will swell up, turn black, and fall off." She made a valiant attempt to introduce a chittering bug down Muno's trousers or collar, but he fended her off.
"They are not!" Enrique denied indignantly, from tiptoe.
Gustioz was down on the floor furiously gathering up flimsies and trying not to touch or be touched by the scattering butter bugs. When he rose, his face was scarlet. "Sergeant!" he bellowed. "Get down from there! Seize the prisoner! We leave at once ."
Muno, overcoming his startlement and a little sheepish to be discovered in high retreat by his comrade, stepped carefully off the stool and grabbed Enrique in a more professional come-along style. He bundled Enrique out the lab door as Gustioz scooped up the last of his flimsies and jammed them back any-which-way into his folder.
"What about my one bag?" wailed Enrique, as Muno began to march him down the hall.
"I will buy you a damned toothbrush at the shuttleport," panted Gustioz, scrambling after. "And a change of underwear. I will buy them from my own pocket. Anything, but out, out!"
Kareen and her sister both hit the door at once, and had to sort themselves out. They stumbled into the corridor as their future biotech fortune was dragged away down it, still protesting that butter bugs were harmless and beneficial symbiotes. "We can't let him get away!" cried Martya.
A stack of bug butter tubs tumbled over on Kareen as she regained her balance, thumping off her head and shoulders and thudding to the floor. "Ow!" She caught a couple of the kilogram-plus cartons, and stared after the retreating men. She zeroed in on the back of Gustioz's head, hoisted a tub in her right hand, and drew back. Martya, fending off cascading tubs from the other wall, stared at her with widening eyes, nodded understanding, and took a similar grip on a missile of her own.
"Ready," gasped Kareen, "Aim—"
CHAPTER NINETEEN
It didn't take ImpSec less than two minutes to arrive at Lord Auditor Vorthys's residence; it took them almost four minutes. Ekaterin, who'd heard the front door open, wondered if it would be considered rude of her to point this out to the stern-featured young captain who mounted the stairs, followed by a husky and humorless-looking sergeant. No matter: Vassily, watched by an increasingly irritated Hugo, was still calling blandishments and imprecations in vain through the locked door. A long silence had fallen in the room beyond.
Both men turned and stared in shock at these new arrivals. "Who did he call ?" muttered Vassily.
The ImpSec officer ignored them both, and turned to give a polite salute to Aunt Vorthys, whose eyes widened only briefly. "Madame Professora Vorthys." He extended his nod to Ekaterin. "Madame Vorsoisson. Please forgive this intrusion. I was informed there was an altercation here. My Imperial master requests and requires me to detain all present."
"I believe I understand, Captain, ah, Sphaleros, isn't it?" said Aunt Vorthys faintly.
"Yes, ma'am." He ducked his head at her, and turned to Hugo and Vassily. "Identify yourselves, please."
Hugo found his voice first. "My name is Hugo Vorvayne. I'm this lady's elder brother." He gestured at Ekaterin.
Vassily came automatically to attention, his gaze riveted to the ImpSec Horus eyes on the captain's collar. "Lieutenant Vassily Vorsoisson. Presently assigned to OrbTrafCon, Fort Kithera River. I am Nikki Vorsoisson's guardian. Captain, I'm very sorry, but I'm afraid you've had some sort of false alarm."
Hugo put in uneasily, "It was very wrong of him, I'm sure, but it was only a nine-year-old boy, sir, who was upset about a domestic matter. Not a real emergency. We'll make him apologize."
"That's not my affair, sir. I have my orders." He turned to the door, pulled a small slip of flimsy from his sleeve, glanced at a hastily scrawled note thereupon, tucked it away, and rapped smartly on the wood. "Master Nikolai Vorsoisson?"
Nikki's voice returned, "Who is it?"
"Ground-Captain Sphaleros, ImpSec. You are requested to accompany me."
The lock scraped; the door swung open. Nikki, looking both triumphant and terrified, stared up at the officer, and down at the lethal weapons holstered at his hip. "Yessir," he croaked.
"Please come this way." He gestured down the stairs; the sergeant stepped aside.
Vassily almost wailed, "Why am I being arrested? I haven't done anything wrong!"
"You are not being arrested, sir," the ground-captain explained patiently. "You are being detained for questioning." He turned to Aunt Vorthys and added, "You , of course, are not detained, ma'am. But my Imperial Master earnestly invites you to accompany your niece."
Aunt Vorthys touched her lips, her eyes alight with curiosity. "I believe I shall, Captain. Thank you."
The captain nodded sharply to the sergeant, who hastened to offer Aunt Vorthys his arm down the stairs. Nikki slipped around Vassily, and grabbed Ekaterin's hand in a painfully tight grip.
"But," said Hugo, "but, but, why ?"
"I was not told why, sir," said the captain, in a tone devoid of either apology or concern. He unbent just enough to add, "You'll have to ask when you get there, I suppose."
Ekaterin and Nikki followed Aunt Vorthys and the sergeant; Hugo and Vassily perforce joined the parade. At the bottom of the stairs Ekaterin glanced down at Nikki's bare feet and yipped, "Shoes! Nikki, where are your shoes?" A brief delay followed while she galloped rapidly around the downstairs and found one under her aunt's comconsole and the other by the kitchen door. Ekaterin clutched them both in her hand as they exited the front door.
A large, unmarked, shiny black aircar sat impressively wedged into a narrow area on the sidewalk, one corner crushing a small bed of marigolds, the other barely missing a sycamore tree. The sergeant helped both ladies and Nikki to seats in the rear compartment, and stood aside to oversee Hugo and Vassily climb in. The captain joined them. The sergeant slid into the front compartment with the driver, and the vehicle lurched abruptly into the air, scattering a few leaves and twigs and bark shreds from the sycamore. The car spun away at high speed at an altitude reserved for emergency vehicles, passing a lot closer to the tops of buildings than Ekaterin was used to flying.
Before Vassily had overcome his hyperventilation enough to even form the question, Where are you taking us? , and just as Ekaterin managed to get Nikki's feet stuffed into his shoes and the catch-strips firmly fastened, they arrived over Vorhartung Castle. The gardens around it were colorful and luxuriant with high summer growth; the river gleamed and burbled in the steep valley below. Counts' banners, indicating the Council was in session, snapped in bright rows on the battlements. Ekaterin found herself searching eagerly over Nikki's head for a brown-and-silver flag. Heavens, there it was, the silver leaf-and-mountain pattern shimmering in the sun. The parking lots and circles were all jammed. Armsmen in half a hundred different District
liveries, brilliant as great birds, sat or leaned chatting among their vehicles. The ImpSec aircar came down neatly in a large, miraculously open space right by a side door.
A familiar middle-aged man in Gregor Vorbarra's own livery stood waiting. A tech waved a security scanner over each of them, even Nikki. With the captain bringing up the rear, the liveried man whisked them through two narrow corridors and past a number of guards whose arms and armor owed nothing to history and everything to technology. He ushered them into a small paneled room containing a holovid-conference table, a comconsole, a coffee machine, and very little else.
The liveried man circled the table, directing the visitors to stand behind chairs: "You, sir, you, sir, you young sir, you ma'am." He held out a chair only for Aunt Vorthys, murmuring, "If you would be pleased to sit, Madame Professora Vorthys." He glanced over his arrangements, nodded satisfaction, and ducked out a smaller door in the other wall.
"Where are we?" Ekaterin whispered to her aunt.
"I've never actually been in this room before, but I believe we are directly behind the Emperor's dais in the Counts' Chamber," she whispered back.
"He said ," Nikki mumbled in a faintly guilty tone, "that this all sounded too complicated for him to sort out over the comconsole."
"Who said that, Nikki?" asked Hugo nervously.
Ekaterin glanced past him as the smaller door opened again. Emperor Gregor, also wearing his own Vorbarra House livery today, stepped through, smiled gravely at her, and nodded at Nikki. "Pray do not get up, Professora," he added in a soft voice, as she made to rise. Vassily and Hugo, both looking utterly pole-axed, came to military attention. He added aside, "Thank you, Captain Sphaleros. You may return to your duty station now."
A Civil Campaign b-12 Page 48
